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A Rumor of Angels : Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural

A Rumor of Angels : Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural

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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An intellectual, moderate view of religion
Review: A sociological look at religion in the 20th century, the process of secularization and its affects on religion, as well as it's philosophical and theological implications of it. The title of the second chapter sums up this book: "Relativizing the Relativizers." In other words, if Marx and Freuerbach turned Hegel on his head, here's an effort to do the same in turn to them. In other words, it deals with the issue of whether religion is a human projection. "Yes," says Berger, "But that doesn't necessarily invalidate it," he continues.

This is not some "God-is-dead" theological exercise, nor is it liberal, secular theology a la Harvey Cox's "The Secular City." It does provide sociology's point of view on religion from a sociologist who is himself a believer. It takes seriously the threat posed to traditional dogma that sociology so forcefully poses, concedes its weaknesses, and yet doesn't conceded the fallacy and futility of religious belief.

All this leads up to a pluralistic view of religion: fundamentalists and literalists beware.

Surprisingly, the best part of the book is when Berger switches hats and becomes a bit of a philosopher of religion. While he doesn't call them "proofs," he does provide in the second half of the book "signals" that the divine exists.

This is one of my favorite books, and it has withstood the test of multiple reads through the years.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Signals of Transcendence
Review: Perhaps one of the reasons that this little book is only a minor classic is its title: "A Rumor of Angels." The book is not about angels or the disembodiment of humans. Neither is it a study of rumor networks or gossip. Nor should the book be taken whimsically or trivially as if it had something to do with fairy tales, ghost stories, or apparitions. Concerned that his earlier book - The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion - "could be read as a treatise on atheism," in 1969 Berger wrote a Rumor of Angels as a sequel and antidote.

Berger explains how worldviews are built up and maintained by conversation and what he calls "plausibility structures." Without such social support structures one's knowledge of the world can be seen as deviant or even pathological. Berger tells us that there is an allegation in modern secular society that conversation about religion has shifted from a dialogue to a monologue. The process of secularization is alleged to have reduced the transcendent dimension of life to the status of an unconfirmed "rumor." Berger traces these rumors to their source and calls our attention to five "signals of transcendence" embedded into the fabric of society that indicate a transcendent dimension: order, hope, play, humor and damnation. These five signals aren't like the mystical symbol systems of the Christian Trinity (God, son, spirit), or of Marxism (thesis, antithesis, synthesis), or psychoanalysis (id, ego, superego), or of democracy (executive, judicial, legislative).

Without a social order life becomes meaningless, homeless, and loveless, even malevolent. The propensity to hope in the face of suffering and death is another example of the transcendent. Play is a signal of transcendence from the grimness of life's realities and the "iron cage" of large impersonal bureaucratic organizations. Humor laughs at the discrepancy between what "is" and "ought" to be, and the comic discrepancy between tiny men living in a massive cosmos. A sense that some acts are damnable even though we can't escape the relativities of the world implies a transcendent moral order. These five signals are not logical or philosophical proofs for God or angels or religious belief, but Berger tells us they are signposts of transcendence that can only be seen and accepted on the basis of faith. As Berger puts it in one of his later writings, "God plays a game of hide and seek with mankind and leaves more than a few hints where he may be hiding" (A Far Glory, 1992).

I have found these five arguments for the persistence of the transcendent to be more intriguing and credible than any theological or philosophical arguments for God. The nonbeliever will find the numerous references in the Christian bible to angels and demons as a considerable stumbling block to religious faith. But Berger points out a sociological truism: belief and non-belief is socially located. Intellectuals often regard beliefs in such things as miracles or divine messengers as figurative and literary devices and look down on people who believe them; while the masses often believe in them or at least talk about such things. Honest belief in a supernatural dimension isn't a matter of intelligence or social class. What accounts for the difference is one's worldview.

By definition a rumor is considered to be a message that lost its original meaning; that ended up distorted as it was passed along the rumor grapevine. Berger, the sociologist par excellence, removes the distortions and traces the rumors to their source and believes they reveal the true human condition. Berger often writes very "heady" topics in a wry, witty, and almost comic manner. He is such a believer in the comic dimension as a signal of transcendence that he later wrote a whole book on the subject of humor ("Redeeming Laughter, 1997). So it is fitting to end this book review with one of Berger's inimitable jokes that may best describe his book A Rumor of Angels: "when a joke-teller tells you that he is no longer joking - don't believe him."

Also recommended:
Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, 1967.
Peter L. Berger, Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human Experience, 1997.
Peter S. Williams, The Case for Angels, 2002.
Peter L. Berger, A Far Glory: The Quest for Faith in an Age of Credibility, 1992.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Signals of Transcendence
Review: Perhaps one of the reasons that this little book is only a minor classic is its title: "A Rumor of Angels." The book is not about angels or the disembodiment of humans. Neither is it a study of rumor networks or gossip. Nor should the book be taken whimsically or trivially as if it had something to do with fairy tales, ghost stories, or apparitions. Concerned that his earlier book - The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion - "could be read as a treatise on atheism," in 1969 Berger wrote a Rumor of Angels as a sequel and antidote.

Berger explains how worldviews are built up and maintained by conversation and what he calls "plausibility structures." Without such social support structures one's knowledge of the world can be seen as deviant or even pathological. Berger tells us that there is an allegation in modern secular society that conversation about religion has shifted from a dialogue to a monologue. The process of secularization is alleged to have reduced the transcendent dimension of life to the status of an unconfirmed "rumor." Berger traces these rumors to their source and calls our attention to five "signals of transcendence" embedded into the fabric of society that indicate a transcendent dimension: order, hope, play, humor and damnation. These five signals aren't like the mystical symbol systems of the Christian Trinity (God, son, spirit), or of Marxism (thesis, antithesis, synthesis), or psychoanalysis (id, ego, superego), or of democracy (executive, judicial, legislative).

Without a social order life becomes meaningless, homeless, and loveless, even malevolent. The propensity to hope in the face of suffering and death is another example of the transcendent. Play is a signal of transcendence from the grimness of life's realities and the "iron cage" of large impersonal bureaucratic organizations. Humor laughs at the discrepancy between what "is" and "ought" to be, and the comic discrepancy between tiny men living in a massive cosmos. A sense that some acts are damnable even though we can't escape the relativities of the world implies a transcendent moral order. These five signals are not logical or philosophical proofs for God or angels or religious belief, but Berger tells us they are signposts of transcendence that can only be seen and accepted on the basis of faith. As Berger puts it in one of his later writings, "God plays a game of hide and seek with mankind and leaves more than a few hints where he may be hiding" (A Far Glory, 1992).

I have found these five arguments for the persistence of the transcendent to be more intriguing and credible than any theological or philosophical arguments for God. The nonbeliever will find the numerous references in the Christian bible to angels and demons as a considerable stumbling block to religious faith. But Berger points out a sociological truism: belief and non-belief is socially located. Intellectuals often regard beliefs in such things as miracles or divine messengers as figurative and literary devices and look down on people who believe them; while the masses often believe in them or at least talk about such things. Honest belief in a supernatural dimension isn't a matter of intelligence or social class. What accounts for the difference is one's worldview.

By definition a rumor is considered to be a message that lost its original meaning; that ended up distorted as it was passed along the rumor grapevine. Berger, the sociologist par excellence, removes the distortions and traces the rumors to their source and believes they reveal the true human condition. Berger often writes very "heady" topics in a wry, witty, and almost comic manner. He is such a believer in the comic dimension as a signal of transcendence that he later wrote a whole book on the subject of humor ("Redeeming Laughter, 1997). So it is fitting to end this book review with one of Berger's inimitable jokes that may best describe his book A Rumor of Angels: "when a joke-teller tells you that he is no longer joking - don't believe him."

Also recommended:
Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, 1967.
Peter L. Berger, Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human Experience, 1997.
Peter S. Williams, The Case for Angels, 2002.
Peter L. Berger, A Far Glory: The Quest for Faith in an Age of Credibility, 1992.


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