220 Nancy T. Ammerman
Weber’s (1925/1978) terms, when does “charismatic” authority trump “rational-legal”
or “traditional” rules? A variety of students of religious ritual have attempted to assess
the ability of ecstatic experiences to alter the narratives participants take with them into
the more mundane world.^22 Others have noted that religious experience has its own
ordered “flow” (Neitz and Spickard 1990). A deeper understanding of religious identi-
ties would surely take up the question of these tensions between everyday order and
transcendent chaos. How is that everyday order maintained, and when are glimpses of
transcendence allowed to intrude?^23 While religious organizations are primary sites for
locating religious narratives, they are by no means passive repositories.
RELIGIOUS NARRATIVES BEYOND RELIGIOUS BOUNDARIES
A given autobiographical narrative may contain plot lines derived from numerous re-
ligious organizational contexts and from both structured traditions and emergent ex-
perience. But it is important to look for religiously oriented narratives in other social
contexts, as well. There are enormous numbers of opportunities for encounters with
transcendence and equally pervasive religious plot lines available in contexts as var-
ied as mass media, small study groups, voluntary social service activity, even corporate
retreats.^24 Popular music, television programs, and movies often use religious images
and stories, both borrowing from existing traditions and inventing new ones. Incor-
porated into the telling of stories about love and life, writers and artists invoke sacred
actors and images.
In addition, myriad religious sources beyond official institutions supply us with
signals by which we can recognize religious coparticipants. So-called New Age prac-
tices make their way through a loose network of bookstores and conventions, movies
and Internet sites. But New Age is only one small stream within the eclectic flow of
religious products and experiences present in every corner of late modern culture. Far
more pervasive – but also largely outside the bounds of traditional congregations and
denominations – are the narratives supplied by conservative Christian preachers, fam-
ily advisors, clothing manufacturers, event producers, broadcasters, politicians, and
missionaries. But, within every religious tradition, entrepreneurs in the cultural mar-
ketplace offer prescriptions and exhortation on how to live out a properly religious life.
These extrainstitutional religious producers are often just that –producersof goods
and services that create a material world that supports and expresses the narratives of
those who inhabit it. Whether it is a New Age t-shirt or a Conservative Christian coffee
mug, clothing and props are used to signal religious identities to whatever community
or potential community may observe them. In mass culture, jewelry and bumper stick-
ers can tell a story that signals the membership of some and the exclusion of others.^25
(^22) See, for example, Alexander (1991), Neitz (2000), McRoberts (Chapter 28, this volume), and
Nelson (1997) for recent analyses of the way religious experience constructs reality.
(^23) Berger’s more recent musings on these subjects can be found inA Far Glory: The Quest for Faith
in an Age of Credulity(1992).
(^24) On mass media, see Hoover (1997); on small groups, see Wuthnow (1994); on volunteering,
Wuthnow (1991); and on religion in business, Nash (1994).
(^25) Maffesoli (1995), Soeffner (1997), and others have paid attention to “punk” bodily displays,
but few have noted the way Christian clothing and jewelry functions analogously to create an
implied community of evangelicals within public spaces. An exception is McDannell (1995).
Read and Bartkowski (2000) pay attention to the role of clothing for Muslim women.