Preamble: In lecture I have argued that humans use that which is familiar to understand that which is not familiar. Consequently, all human images of other worlds (heaven, hell, purgatory, life after death, etc.) tell us more about ourselves (socially, historically, and psychologically) than they do about what might actually be out there. This assignment is an opportunity for you to test these theoretical contentions by applying them to a concrete case study, the history of Christian views of heaven. You need not agree with my arguments, those of Freud and Durkheim, or even the representations of Christian history by McDannell and Lang but you must engage them in a thoughtful, reflective, and clear manner.

Technical Requirements: Each student is responsible for answering one of the following questions in a detailed but concise essay of approximately three typewritten pages, reviewing a draft of another student's essay using a peer evaluation guide, and engaging in a classroom level discussion of the topics. Each analytical essay should include the following elements. 1) An introductory paragraph stating a central argument or thesis that should concisely answer each key component of the selected question. 2) The body of the essay supporting and developing the central argument in breadth and depth by drawing specific examples from lecture and course reading material. 3) A conclusion summarizing the central argument. 4) A Works Cited page listing each source utilized in the preparation of the essay. Please be sure to review the link to my detailed grading criteria.

Each member of a small group must answer a separate question. Students should bring a draft of their essay to the small group meeting, exchange essays, and read and comment on another student's essay. Timing of meetings may mean that some groups will need to make their exchanges via email or other means. On Monday, July 2 students should turn in the draft with comments and peer evaluation, the name of the commentator, and the final version of the essay. We will spend at least the first hour of class on Monday discussing the essays. To obtain full credit for this week's activity, students need to be sure to join substantively in the discussion.

Essay Questions:
1. Emile Durkheim (1915: 465) contends that the "reality, which mythologies have represented under so many different forms, but which is the universal and eternal objective cause of these sensations sui generis out of which religious experience is made, is society." He argues that at the basis of religion we can find "the real society, such as it is and acts before our very eyes, with the legal and moral organization which it has laboriously fashioned during the course of history" (1915: 467). If Durkheim is right then we would expect Christian views of heaven to fluctuate as the legal and moral standing of various Christian authorities and/or the religious movement changed. Do changes in Christian views of an unfamiliar heaven reflect the familiar legal and moral standing of the religious movement and/or its authorities?

2. Emile Durkheim contends that religious ideas are social in origin and that what people really worship is an image of their own society projected into the heavens. This image of society, he continues, "is not an empirical fact, definite and observable; it is a fancy, a dream with which men have lightened their sufferings, but in which they have never really lived. It is merely an idea which comes to express our more or less obscure aspirations toward the good, the beautiful and the ideal" (Durkheim 1915: 468). If Durkheim is right then we would expect Christian views of heaven to fluctuate along with variations in cultural ideals. Do the changes in Christian images of an unfamiliar heaven reflect familiar variations in "aspirations toward the good, the beautiful and the ideal"?

3. Sigmund Freud (1961: 23-24) contends that human responses to the "painful riddle of death" can be traced to our early childhood development. Our perception of forces beyond our control are rooted in what he calls an "infantile prototype," we use our relationships with our parents as a model for dealing with other forces we cannot control. If Freud is right then we would expect individual Christian's views of heaven to reflect a person's relationships with her/his parents. Do the views of an unfamiliar heaven articulated by Jesus and Augustine reflect familiar relationships with their parents?

4. Sigmund Freud contends that fears of the unknown and methods learned as children to placate adults have given rise to an "illusion" in "white Christian civilization." Christians console themselves with the hope that "death itself is not extinction, is not a return to inorganic lifelessness, but the beginning of a new kind of existence which lies on the path of development to something higher" (1961: 26). Life after death, Freud (1961: 27) explains, "continues life on earth just as the invisible part of the spectrum joins on the visible part [and] brings us all the perfection we may perhaps have missed here." If Freud is right then we would expect changes in Christian views of an heaven to reflect what people longed for or found missing in their lives on earth. Do Christian views of heaven reflect fluctuations in the things that people longed for or found missing in their earthly lives?

5. Michael Taussig revives Karl Marx's theory of commodity fetishism as an analytical tool for approaching the anthropological study of death. In human interactions with commodities we imbue them with a fantastic quality that animates otherwise lifeless things. If Taussig's application of this theory to the study of death is useful then we would expect to see some parallels between human approaches to commodities and our approaches to heaven. Do Christian approaches to heaven operate in a fashion similar to or different from more general human approaches to commodities? If so, how? If not, why not?

6. Avery Gordon criticizes Sigmund Freud for "giving up the ghost." She contends that Freud could not understand ghosts and haunting because he sought to simply dismiss ghosts as illusions. Gordon contends that what is "not there" can only appear as a phantasm and thus treats ghosts as empirical evidence that a haunting is occurring. Exorcism, she contends, must engage rather than dismiss the ghosts. Is Gordon's theoretical perspective potentially useful for the study of Christian views of heaven? If so, how? If not, why not?

7. Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge articulate an economic (or rational choice) theory of religion. They contend that even in religious behavior humans make cost/benefit analysis or at least act as if they do. By treating religious cosmologies as given rather than imaginary they find evidence of cost/benefit analyses in human approaches to the supernatural. If we take the existence of heaven(s) for granted, then do the actions of Christians appear to be rational? If so, how? If not, why not?

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