Memory processes are not the only force driving religious institu-
tions. The market for religious services also imposes particular con-
straints. The most important imperative for a religious guild is to
make its own services stable and distinctive. Now imagistic practices
challenge the stability of the services. Revelation, trance and other
forms of enthusiastic ritual are all difficult to codify and control,
which is why they are viewed by religious institutions with consider-
able suspicion. Also, such rituals offer great scope for enterprising
individuals to set up their own particular cult in competition with the
guild. Finally, the services of the guild are made stable and distinctive
by the systematic use of written manuals and codified messages. But [285]
what makes the guild's brand recognizable—an intrinsically positive
effect—also makes its rituals entirely predictable.
This, then, is the real tragedy of the theologian: not just that peo-
ple, because they have real minds rather than literal memories, will
always be theologically incorrect, will always add to the message and
distort it, but also that the only way to make the message immune to
such adulteration renders it tedious, thereby fueling imagistic dissent
and threatening the position of the theologian's guild.
COMMON GODS CREATE A COMMUNITY
(OR DO THEY?)Why is it that some people find it perfectly all right—indeed,
morally compelling—to exclude or kill other people because they are
not members of the "true" religion, or do not follow it in the "right"
way? Religion, or so it seems, creates a community. It seems to go
without saying that holding the same concepts and norms as other
Christians, for instance, does make people members of a group, with
the expectation of a degree of solidarity with other group members
and a general distrust toward nonmembers. People describe them-
selves as "members" of this or that religious group, with important
and often tragic consequences for their interaction with other
groups. This, it would seem, is not only found in places where reli-
gious guilds provide an explicit description of what "the" religion is
about and explicit criteria for membership. Even in groups without
literate guilds, it would seem that communal sacrifice to the ances-
tors or joint participation in various other rituals enhances the cohe-
siveness of the group.
WHYDOCTRINES,EXCLUSION AND VIOLENCE?