I’ve been thinking about the implications of public perception on the question of what constitutes the character of any religious organization.
<>Let me define the scope of the question. I’m not contemplating instances where the outside group and the religious organization have completely conflicting definitions. For instance the outside group may perceive the notion of outlawing interest (money) as a foolish notion, while the religious organization perceives that as a wise notion. So the outside group may consider the religious organization as foolish, while the religion proffers that it is not. In this case both sides have differing definitions of what foolish is.<>The cases to which I’m contemplating are where both the outside and religious group has the same (or extremely similar) definitions of a concept. In these cases what are the implications when the religion proffers that is or supports concept X, but the outside group perceives the religion as not supporting or being concept X? An example of this might be obedience to law. A religion proffers that is supports obeying local laws, but the outside group thinks the religion does not support its members obeying local laws.<>
There are three scenarios that can bring this about. (There are probably more but I lack the vision to see them.) 1) The outside group is mistaken in its perception of the members of the religious group 2) the outside group is correct in its perception of the religious group and the religion is merely proffering to be concept X 3) the outside group is correct in its perception of the members of the religious group, and it is the members that are mistaken about how they are achieving concept X. <>
I find scenario 2 uninteresting as the religious group is merely trying to look like they support X. As such scenario 2 doesn’t yield anything of interest because the outside group knows the religion is not X, the religious group knows they are not X (nor do they really want to be X). So the overall impact of what the outside groups perception of the religion is nothing for in this scenario the religion is simply not X. (I know this opens up a whole can of worms, because what if the outside group perceives that the religion is X, and the religion merely proffers that it isn’t X, does that make them X? This goes to the heart of my question, but still I need to work through this.) <>
Scenario 1 is not very interesting. In this instance it seems that the outside group is merely making perceptions from a bad base or inadequate information. I find this to be the most common scenario. A prime example of this would be a very vocal minority of a religion creating a perception in the public that would not be held if the public met any other members of the religion (who happen to be the overwhelming majority). In other words the perception has little impact to the religion’s character, as the perception is a bad one. <>
On to the scenario that I’ve been contemplating. (I know, I spent more words talking about what I’m not talking about than what I do want to talk about.) Let me clarify what I mean by “correct in its perception” in scenario 3. By that phrase I mean the outside group has a good bases for there opinion. In this instance outside group has met and interacted with a good amount of the members of a religion, or has other demographic evidence to base their perceptions on. Another point of clarification; by the phrase “mistaken about how they are achieving concept X” I mean the religion’s members as a majority think they are X and/or the religion has a doctrine supporting X. An example of this would be if a religion had a doctrine of friendliness and most of the members of the religion thought that they were friendly. <>
Well why is this scenario so interesting you may ask? There are certain concepts that are by their very nature dependant on what other’s think of you. Friendliness comes to mind. You can think you are friendly all you want but if everyone thinks you are not friendly then you are not friendly. Funniness is another example. Then there are other concepts that are sort of dependant what others think. <>
One of these concepts is bigotry. An example of this was the policy of the LDS faith (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) regarding African American’s. It was once held that African American’s could not hold the priesthood in the LDS faith. (This policy has long been done away with. The LDS faith is truly an accepting religion today, it has mission programs that serve in all contents and the policy of excluding African American’s from the priesthood was abolished by official church proclamation.) Without the priesthood a male member of the LDS faith could not complete all the commandments given to them. Additionally many of the benefits proffered by the LDS faith were impossible to obtain without the priesthood. The priesthood serves as a cornerstone by which (in the LDS faith) families are to be raised and cared for. Now let me apply this example. Suppose that a member of the LDS faith (this example takes place as if the LDS faith still has the policy of excluding African Americans from the priesthood) says to a non-member, “Hey why don’t you join the LDS faith.” The non-member replies, “I’d love to but I don’t want to join a faith that has bigotry as one of its principles.” I know what you are thinking; hey the religious group and the outside group have differing definitions of bigotry at this point if the member proffers that the LDS faith isn’t about bigotry. But this is only if the member supports that discriminating against African American’s isn’t bigotry. <>
So this is the dilemma; suppose the member thinks that the doctrine of the LDS faith doesn’t support the exclusion. Additionally the member doesn’t support the exclusion. The member thinks that all those that supports the exclusions are wrong. So how does the member with a strait face hold the position and tell the non-member that the LDS faith isn’t about bigotry in spite of the fact the vast majority of the member’s support bigotry? What does the member say? Do they say, “Hey that’s not what this church stands for; despite the fact most members of the church hold that belief and act on it. There is no support in the doctrine.” And even if the said faith LDS or otherwise has a doctrine opposing a particular action can it be said that that religion opposes that action if the vast majority of that religion supports that action? Is it enough for a faith to simply have a doctrine to which a minority prescribes to for it to be considered a characteristic of that faith.?
There are a lot more issues that stem for this but I feel that I’ve wrote enough on this for tonight.
