As the “first book-length study of religious schisms as a general phenomenon,” Sacred Schisms: How Religions Divide opens ambitiously. In the introduction, editors James R. Lewis and Sarah M. Lewis write, “We anticipate this will become an important collection—one to which all future scholars writing on schisms will refer” (xi). Reaching beyond religious studies to contribute to social science as a whole, the following pages do indeed secure this volume a central position in scholarship.
Framing the entire volume, a theoretical overview essay forms Part I of Sacred Schisms. Sociologists Roger Finke and Christopher P. Scheitle review predominant sociological theories of schism in light of recent scholarship and religious activity. Their concise twenty-five-page essay better prepares readers to approach the following essays by highlighting leading theoretical approaches to schism. Finke and Scheitle’s contribution to the collection encourages readers to make deeper connections between individual instances of schism, turning seeming religious disarray into sociological data. Even standing alone, this essay would be a welcome addition to any course involving groups splitting, spawning, or negotiating succession.
Yet, the even beyond Part I, the introductory essay continues to pervade the entire volume. By referencing the work of Finke and Scheitle and drawing upon the same body of theory, individual contributors to Sacred Schisms make the work greater than the sum of its parts. Although their subject matter is quite diverse, the case study essays making up the bulk of the volume convey theoretical coherence.
Part II takes a step back to offer a “Survey of Schisms in Selected Traditions.” Three articles give overviews of schisms in Islam, Buddhism, and Japanese new religious movements. By focusing on the forest rather than the trees, these essays illustrate how theories of schism can be applied on a broad chronological and geographical scale. The authors apply various analyses, conveniently summarized in the introduction, to schism in these religious traditions. The juxtaposition of broad analyses of different theological and cultural systems works well to prompt the reader to further thought.
Parts III, IV, and V balance Part II by presenting smaller-scale case studies of schism. Part III addresses schism within Christian traditions. Quite interestingly, the traditions addressed delve deeper into Christianity than the Reformation schisms one might have expected to see treated here. Rather, contributors analyze schisms among early twentieth-century Jehovah’s Witnesses, challenges to charismatic authority in the Unificationist Movement, and “Persecution and Schismogenesis: How Penitential Crisis Over Mass Apostasy Facilitated the Triumph of Catholic Christianity in the Roman Empire.”
Part IV treats schisms within Western esoteric traditions. Succession again assumes a central role in the article on the Church Universal and Triumphant. Colin Campbell’s notion of the “cultic milieu” features prominently in essays on the theosophical movement and schisms in modern Satanism. The final contribution in this section positions “Schism as Midwife” to explain the role of schism in creating an internally diverse contemporary Pagan community.
Part V addresses schism in selected non-Western/postcolonial religious traditions. Postcolonialism features most prominently in the final essay on Afro-Christianity and Rastafari. The other two articles in this section – “Succession, Religious Switching, and Schism in the Hare Krishna Movement” and “Schisms Within Hindu Guru Groups: the Transcendental Meditation Movement in North America,” analyze issues of charisma, authority, and succession.
The wide variety of religious traditions addressed in Sacred Schisms supports the editors’ goal of systematic theoretical analysis of schism. Many of the religious traditions addressed in the volume are New Religious Movements, while some more-commonly studied religions are absent. But this volume makes no pretense of offering an encyclopedic survey of religious schism. Rather, the editors and contributors have created a volume that advances the theoretical analysis of schism. Sacred Schisms: How Religions Divide raises the bar in religious scholarship while also providing broadly applicable theory of interest to social science as a whole.
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[Review length: 634 words • Review posted on January 22, 2011]