When Prophecy Fails and Faith Persists- Theoretical Overview.pdf
(
138 KB
)
Pobierz
60161428 UNPDF
Nova Religio
When Prophecy Fails and Faith Persists:
A Theoretical Overview
_____________________________
Lorne L. Dawson
ABSTRACT: Almost everyone in the sociology of religion is familiar
with the classic 1956 study by Festinger et al. of how religious groups
respond to the failure of their prophetic pronouncements. Far fewer
are aware of the many other studies of a similar nature completed over
the last thirty years on an array of other new religious movements. There
are intriguing variations in the observations and conclusions advanced
by many of these studies, as well as some surprising commonalities.
This paper offers a systematic overview of these variations and
commonalities with an eye to developing a more comprehensive and
critical perspective on this complex issue. An analysis is provided of the
adaptive strategies of groups faced with a failure of prophecy and the
conditions affecting the nature and relative success of these strategies.
In the end, it is argued, the discussion would benefit from a conceptual
reorientation away from the specifics of the theory of cognitive
dissonance, as formulated by Festinger et al., to a broader focus on the
generic processes of dissonance management in various religious and
social groups.
Riecken, and Stanley Schachter offer us an account of one very
small occult group, dubbed the Seekers, whose leader, Mrs.
Marion Keech, predicted the destruction of much of the United States
by a great flood.
1
Her loyal followers were to be rescued from this
apocalypse by aliens aboard flying saucers who were communicating with
her by telepathy. Several dates for the end were foretold by Mrs. Keech,
but each passed uneventfully. Contrary to common sense, though, the
group did not abandon its beliefs and disband even in the face of stark
disconfirmation of these prophecies. Rather, a faithful core persisted and
redoubled its efforts to convince others of the veracity of their ideas. From
the study of this one group, Festinger and his colleagues developed the
theory of cognitive dissonance: when people with strongly held beliefs are
confronted by evidence clearly at odds with their beliefs, they will seek to
resolve the discomfort caused by the discrepancy by convincing others to
support their views rather than abandoning their commitments. They will
60
I
n the classic study
When Prophecy Fails
, Leon Festinger, Henry W.
Dawson: When Prophecy Fails and Faith Persists
seek some means of reestablishing cognitive consonance without sacrificing
their religious convictions. With experimental confirmation, this theory
has gone on to become a mainstay of social psychology, and in the sociology
of religion there is something like an implicit consensus in support of this
view as well. But does the record show that the response of the Seekers is
consonant with that of other religious groups in the thrall of prophecy?
The thesis of
When Prophecy Fails
has not been examined as systematically
as might be desired. Casting doubt on the methodology of the original
study, several critics have argued that the findings are probably skewed by
some “experimenter’s effect.” As Anthony van Fossen, Rodney Stark, and
William Sims Bainbridge point out, it is difficult to put much faith in the
evidence of Festinger et al. when so many of Mrs. Keech’s small band of
followers were actually social scientists engaged in covert participant
observation.
2
Methodological concerns aside, however, the comparative
study of the insights of Festinger et al. has proceeded, seizing
opportunistically on those moments when scholars of religion have become
aware of groups making religious prophecies about specific events. This
has happened more often than might be imagined. I have found seventeen
additional studies that examine at least twelve different religious groups
(see Table 1), excluding studies of cargo cults in non-Western and
preliterate societies.
3
It is not hard to think, moreover, of some other fairly
conspicuous instances that could be investigated as well (e.g., the Church
Universal and Triumphant).
4
The results of these studies are mixed, but
on the whole the record shows that Festinger et al. were right to predict
that many groups will survive the failure of prophecy. Why they survive is
another matter. The reasons are much more complicated than
When
Prophecy Fails
implies.
The entire literature on the failure of prophecy is vitiated by a certain
ambiguity. For some scholars the issue at stake is quite specifically whether
groups whose prophecies have failed try to convert others to their beliefs
to resolve their dissonance. For others the focal point is more broadly how
groups whose prophecies have failed simply survive by whatever means.
These foci are related yet distinct. A review of the literature reveals a drift
to the broader focus, one that I think is both understandable and
appropriate. The broader focus calls attention to some of the other complex
group dynamics that are equally responsible, in varying circumstances, for
the persistence of faith in the face of apparent failure.
To date, the studies of groups who have made prophecies that failed
have uncovered at least five different patterns of response:
5
(a) some groups survive and begin to proselytize;
6
(b) some groups survive and continue to proselytize;
7
(c) some groups survive but their proselytizing declines;
8
(d) some groups survive but they do not proselytize;
9
(e) and some groups neither survive nor proselytize.
10
61
Nova Religio
GROUP STUDIED: STUDIED BY:
SURVIVAL OF
FAILURE OF
PROPHECY
Seekers
Festinger et al.
(1956)
Yes, for a time
Church of the True
Word
Hardyck and
Braden (1962)
Yes, quite well
Ichigen no Miya
Takaaki (1979)
Yes, barely
Baha'is under the
Provision of the
Covenant
Balch et al. (1983)
and Balch et al.
(1997)
Yes, but with
difficulties
Millerites
Melton (1985)
Yes, for a time
Universal Link
Melton (1985)
Yes, for a time
Jehovah's Witnesses
Zygmunt (1970)
Wilson (1978)
Singelenberg
(1988)
Yes, quite well
Rouxists
van Fossen (1988)
Yes, quite well
Mission de l'Esprit
Saint
Palmer and Finn
(1992)
No
Institute of Applied
Metaphysics
Palmer and Finn
(1992)
Yes, quite well
Lubavitch Hasidim
Shaffir (1993, 1994,
1995)
Dein (1997)
Yes, quite well
Unarians
Tumminia (1998)
Yes, fairly well
Chen Tao
Wright (1998)
Yes, but weakened
TABLE 1
62
Dawson: When Prophecy Fails and Faith Persists
Logically a sixth category could be added: some groups begin to
proselytize but do not survive. I can think of no case in the literature,
however, that matches this possibility. Moreover, there is the ambiguity
of cases like the Solar Temple and Heaven’s Gate. They neither survived
nor proselytized. But can we say that their prophecies failed?
11
So what can we glean from the scholarly record so far? We can identify
and document an array of adaptational strategies used by these groups
in the face of the disconfirmation of their prophecies. We can also
delineate a number of conditions that influence which strategies are
used and what their effects might be. Some of these conditions are
related to the social context of coping with a prophetic failure, while
others refer to the larger doctrinal context of the prophecies. Some of
these conditions can be derived directly from the observations made of
specific groups, while others are still rather conjectural and have yet to
be investigated properly. These developments are summarized in the
next two sections of this paper (see Table 2). With these insights in
Adaptational Strategies
Influencing Conditions
(1) proselytization
(1) level of in-group social
support
(2) rationalization
-spiritualization
-test of faith
-human error
-blaming others
(2) decisive leadership
(3) reaffirmation
(3) scope and
sophistication of
ideology
(4) vagueness of the
prophecy
(5) presence of ritual
framing
(6) organizational factors
TABLE 2
63
Nova Religio
place, I will question whether the study of instances of prophetic failure
has been skewed in objectionable ways by implicitly referring to the
interpretive framework of cognitive dissonance, thereby implying
marked deviance. In many instances prophetic failures may not be as
unusual or disturbing as thought.
12
Thus the study of such failures might
be situated better within an analysis of the ongoing management of
dissonance within all religions.
13
In fact the most economical framework
might be the analysis of the generic processes of dissonance
management in social groups and institutions in general.
14
THE ADAPTATIONAL STRATEGIES
OF PROPHETIC MOVEMENTS
It is not my intention to provide a natural history of the social
scientific study of the religious responses to prophetic disconfirmations.
One can read the literature in chronological order to acquire such a
perspective. The objective here is a distillation of the theoretical
dividends paid by the diverse empirical studies undertaken so far.
Zygmunt provided the last theoretical overview of the issue in 1972,
and most of the best case studies have been written since.
15
An examination of the literature soon reveals that proselytizing,
whether newly begun or simply intensified, is only one of several possible
adaptational strategies employed by religions coping with prophetic
disconfirmation. As the itemization of response patterns provided above
indicates, only a minority of groups studied (four of thirteen) sought
to convert others to compensate for their disappointment. This was
most clearly true of the UFO cult examined by Festinger et al., the
Lubavitch Hasidim examined by Shaffir and by Dein, and, to a lesser
extent, the Unarians examined by Tumminia, and the Millerites. In
most cases this proselytizing was used in conjunction with other
strategies. So, strictly speaking, the “law” of cognitive dissonance in the
case of prophetic failures as formulated by Festinger et al. is incorrect,
or, at any rate, it is framed too narrowly. In the literature at least two
additional adaptational strategies—rationalization and reaffirmation—
have been identified.
The rationalization of seeming failure is an adaptational strategy
emphasized by Zygmunt in his early theoretical overview of this issue.
16
But, as J. Gordon Melton quite correctly comments, “the denial of failure
is not just another option, but the common mode of adaptation of
millennial groups following the failure of a prophecy.”
17
The record of
case studies examined here supports this contention. It is successful
rationalization, and not proselytization, that is the most important factor
64
Plik z chomika:
Watchtower-files
Inne pliki z tego folderu:
Witness_Mag_Oct_1975.pdf
(789 KB)
Why_Jehovah's_Witnesses_Grow_So_Rapidly.pdf
(179 KB)
Why the Jehovah’s Witnesses Grow so Rapidly - RODNEY STARK & LAURENCE R. IANNACCONE.pdf
(509 KB)
Why Jehovah's Witnesses Have Mental Problems.pdf
(177 KB)
Why I reject the 'helping hand' of Millennial dawn (1915).pdf
(12248 KB)
Inne foldery tego chomika:
Dorothea Brande - Obudź się i zacznij żyć!
Multimedia
Opracowania - język polski
Playlisty
Publikacje organizacji Watchtower
Zgłoś jeśli
naruszono regulamin