Mohamed Elzarka

POL3062: Beyond Belief

Prof. Jenkins
October 6, 2014
Response Paper to Lincoln, J.Z. Smith and Lynch v. Donnelly
This weeks readings focused on the idea of puzzlement and the role it plays in defining
religion. In an earlier week, we read an article written by Bruce Lincoln from the University of
Chicago which discussed the difficulty with which researchers have previously tried to define
what constitutes a religion. Lincoln explained that for a long while, the academic understanding
of religion was that of a symbol-heavy, individual-based system which established common
sentiments in a group of people in a supposedly unique way. This definitionas proposed by
Clifford Geetzeventually fell out of favor as others criticized the heavy preference that the
definition had for Protestantism as opposed to other religions like Catholicism and Islam which
are very much based on embodied practice, discipline, and community (Lincoln 1). The author
of some of these criticisms, Talal Asad, also argued that religion is a term which cannot have any
concrete definition. In his eyes, religion is not a discrete object which can be identified in
contradistinction to other [objects] and is thus undefinable. Historian JZ Smith finds this lack of
a definition of religion preposterous as mentioned in his article God Save this Honorable
Court. Yet, if we look to employ some of the argumentative and interpretative ideas that he
encourages every college classroom to promote in Puzzlement, we may find that religion
might indeed be undefinable.
In his piece Puzzlement, Smith specifically discusses how puzzlement and wonder at
an engaging and sometimes difficult to understand universe are the causes of philosophy and the

reasons that men first began to philosophize. I could not agree more with Smiths statement. It is
because we are curious and because we do not understand that we seek out knowledge.
Inherently, the things that we dont know are the things that we search for, for there is no reason
to search for that which is already found. By being puzzled, we set ourselves up for discovery,
for developing a new understanding of the world around us. Along the same lines, it is also
extremely important to consider the point that Smith makes about argumentation and the ability
to create new interpretations of the world. For those who have heard and understand alternative
and often conflictinginterpretations of the same concept, the puzzlement lies in where to
combine the two, where to draw distinctions between them, and ultimately which elements of
each to incorporate into a new understanding. In this sense, each individual has an individual and
personal understanding of the world, because every person hears different perspectives on a
multitude of issues and decides how to form their own understandings on these issues in
completely different ways based on their past experiences.
With that in mind, I would argue that it is impossible to develop a definition for religion,
even in an academic sense. As Smith puts it, the great power of man over animals is his ability to
reason and argue, to move from the understanding of words to the understanding of the
relationships between words, the world around us, and human imagination. Insofar as that is true,
no mans definition of a word will fall in perfect alignment with the definition that another man
may provide, as each man will have had different experiences that guide his understanding of the
word and will have formulated different interpretations of the word as a natural part of
maturation. In a simple thought experiment, if I asked a group of people to draw a plant, each
person would have a different image drawn on their paperranging from a palm tree to a water
lily or even from a rose to a redwood. These plants would all share similar characteristics, just as

many definitions do, but they could never be the same. This is also true with the definition of
religion. If I asked the same group of people to define religion instead of drawing a plant, every
single definition would differif these individuals could even muster up a definition at all. That
is because each person will have experienced religion in a different way. For a Protestant like
Geetz, religion will have a strong emphasis on symbols and the individuals connection with
God, as this is the type of religion that he has grown up knowing. Yet, his definition is not
concrete or inclusive of all religions because he has not experienced all religions in as complete
and formative a way as he has Protestantism. Thus, there is no way for him to develop a
complete and unbiased definition of what constitutes a religion or a religious act.
In much the same way, it is extremely difficult to develop a concrete definition of religion
in governmental affairs. This can be most clearly seen with the circuitous definitions of religion
that Smith highlights in the Internal Revenue Services instructions for filing Schedule SE forms.
But this can also be seen in the court case highlighted this week. In Lynch v. Donnelly, the court
ruled that a nativity scene in a Rhode Island citys Christmas Display did not violate the
Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because the scene wasnt inherently religious.
Now on face value, this seems ridiculous. How can a scene depicting the events of an extremely
religious Christian holiday have no tie to religion? The Courts ruling, however, is defensible.
Because there is no universal way to define what constitutes religion and what does not, the only
way we may determine if an act results in excessive government entanglement in religion is by
relying on the definitions of religion provided by the people of the town or area in question. As is
argued in the majority opinion, the crche was displayed in the town for over 40 years without
any problems. As a result, it seems that for those who called the Rhode Island town home, the
display did not have so important a religious role that it merited inspection as an Establishment

Clause issue. Based on their experiences, each member of the town formulated their own
definition of what a religious act might look like, and the crche did not fall within the
parameters that the majority had set out as encompassing such an act. Therefore we can see that
even without a concrete and universal definition of religion that Smith argues for, a functional
understanding of what constitutes religion or religious acts can still be applied to the justice
system based on the individual understandings we all develop of religion.