Encyclopedia of Sociology Vol

RESPONSE TO WORK: JOB SATISFACTION

Although the wording of definitions for ‘‘job satisfaction’’ has varied dramatically across disciplines and scholars, there is a near consensus on what the concept is. Smith et al. (1969) succinctly define it as the degree to which individuals like their jobs. The common element across definitions like this is the idea of the individual positively responding emotionally or affectively to the job.

The major issues in the study of job satisfaction are (1) What produces job satisfaction? (2) What are the consequences of differing levels of job satisfaction? and (3) Is it a global or unitary concept, or should facets (dimensions) of it be investigated?

Two dominant arguments exist regarding the determinants of job satisfaction. The first is that an individual’s job satisfaction is determined by the dispositions or ‘‘personality’’ traits that an employee brings to the workplace. In simple terms, individuals vary along a continuum from a negative to a positive orientation. These dispositions are reflected in a person’s responses to work conditions as well as to aspects of life such as family satisfaction and more general life satisfaction. The second argument is considered more ‘‘sociological’’ and emphasizes the importance of the work conditions an employee experiences. This approach is closer to a Marxian perspective in that it is the structural conditions of the workplace that make work rewarding or not rewarding; any individual dispositional differences that exist wane in importance in the face of these structural features.

Although sociologists give lip service to the disposition argument, the literature unequivocally documents a stronger interest in identifying the features of work that affect job satisfaction. Within this perspective, however, there is considerable disagreement about which features of work are important. One major debate concerns whether extrinsic (e.g., pay and fringe benefits) or intrinsic (e.g., self-actualization and task variety) features of work are more important. Following a needs framework or arguments from neoclassical economics about economic rationality leads one to argue that the extrinsic features must exist before the intrinsic features become important. In contrast, an expectancy argument would state that any of these features can be important and that it is the fit of what is found in the workplace with what the

individual expects and values that is crucial in determining the satisfaction level. A popular argument that has an expectancy logic associated with it comes from the justice literature. A theme common to all distributive justice theories is that an individual compares his or her actual reward with what is believed to be just or fair. Individuals expect a just reward and are dissatisfied if a reward is unjust. Another frequently used general perspective for understanding the effect of work conditions on job satisfaction is social exchange theory, which also relies on an expectancy logic. As developed initially by Homans (1958) in the study of small groups and extended to the study of organizations by Blau (1964), exchange theory argues that individuals enter social relations in anticipation of rewards or benefits in exchange for their inputsand/or investments in the relationship. Simply put, workers are satisfied with their jobs if the rewards they value and expect are given to them in exchange for their work effort and performance.

It is impossible to summarize here the thousands of studies conducted on the determinants of job satisfaction. Instead, a list of variables that have been found to have some relationship with job satisfaction is provided (the sign indicates the direction of the relationship with regard to satisfaction): variety (+), pay (+), autonomy (+), instrumental communication (+), role conflict (−), role overload (−), work group cohesion (+), work involvement (+), distributive justice (+), promotional opportunities (+), supervisory support (+), task significance (+), and external job opportunities

(−). Spector (1997) provides a more complete account of the determinants and correlates of job satisfaction.

The debate over which work conditions affect job satisfaction continues to direct the research of sociologists, but a more interesting question involves the disposition versus situation debate. Sociologists devote much effort to cataloging and operationalizing the objective structural features of work, and little attention is given to identifying and measuring the dispositional traits of individuals. Evidence, however, continues to mount that individuals exhibit basic dispositional traits (e.g., negative and positive affectivity) that are relatively stable throughout their lifetimes and over different employment situations (Watson and Clark 1984). This research strongly suggests that work-

ers with positive dispositions usually are more satisfied with their jobs regardless of the work conditions, while those with negative dispositions seem not to be satisfied with anything.

Another issue concerns the consequences of job satisfaction. Two outcomes have received the most attention, primarily because of their practical significance to any business enterprise: job performance and withdrawal behavior, which includes absenteeism and voluntary turnover. The satisfaction–performance argument is of long-stand- ing interest and thus has generated considerable empirical data. The hypothesis is that satisfaction is positively and causally related to productivity, and support is provided by meta-analyses showing a positive correlation of .25. In short, satisfied workers perform better, but the relationship is not a strong one. The weakness of this relationship could be due to the difficulties associated with measuring job performance, however.

With regard to the satisfaction–withdrawal relationship, the hypothesis is that the most satisfied employees will be the least often absent and the least likely to quit voluntarily. The meta-analyses for the satisfaction–absenteeism relationship suggest that the relationship is between -.10 and -.15, which is weak at best. The findings for the satisfac- tion–turnover relationship are stronger (meta-analy- sis correlation of -.25), but the conclusion is that job satisfaction serves more of a mediating function. That is, the structural features of work (e.g., promotional opportunities) and employee characteristics (e.g., education) directly affect job satisfaction (and commitment), which in turn affects turnover.

The final issue here is whether job satisfaction is a unitary concept or is a complex of many facets or dimensions. Since a fairly large number of work features are known to affect job satisfaction, it is logical to expect that individuals can be satisfied with some of these but not others. The data support this logic. In particular, there is evidence that for almost any distinct feature of the work situa- tion—pay, autonomy, variety, work group cohesion, feedback—satisfaction scales can be developed that divide into distinct (but related) factors along these dimensions. This poses not only a theoretical problem but also a scale construction problem. As a simple example, a person may be satisfied with the pay but not satisfied with feed-

back about job performance. Combining scores for these two factors will show the person to be neither satisfied nor dissatisfied for the composite scale. In such situations, the rule of thumb is that scales developed to measure various satisfaction dimensions should not be combined. However, global job satisfaction scales—those which ask more generally about liking one’s job—can be used to represent a person’s general affective reaction to a job. Sociologists more often use these global scales and assume that work is experienced and responded to globally.

The facet approach clearly becomes more important in applied research. If an employer wishes to alter the work setting to increase job satisfaction, a global scale will be only somewhat helpful; a scale that captures satisfaction with pay, routinization, communication, and the like, will provide the information necessary to implement specific structural changes. Numerous established measures of job satisfaction, both global and facet-based, exist (see Cook et al. 1981; Price and Mueller 1986; Spector 1997).

RESPONSE TO WORK: WORK

COMMITMENT

Although some concepts, such as Dubin’s (1956) central life interest and Lodahl and Kejner’s (1965) job involvement, go back more than three decades, most of the interest in work commitment has emerged fairly recently, to a large extent during a time when interest in job satisfaction has been diminishing. If employee commitment is defined as the level of attachment to some component or aspect of work, the door is opened to a large number of types of commitment. The most common strategy adopted for understanding various types of commitment is to differentiate between the components and the foci of commitment.

There are numerous potential foci of commitment, with those receiving the most attention being commitment to work, the career, the organization, the job, and the union. It is organizational commitment, however, that has received the most theoretical and empirical attention (Mueller et al. 1992). Considerable interest exists in how workers form and manage their commitments to multiple foci (Hunt and Morgan 1994; Lawler 1992; Wallace 1995). For example, if a worker is strongly committed to his or her career, will this translate

into a similarly strong commitment to his or her employer (organization)? Although some suggest that commitment is a zero-sum phenomenon by which commitment to an employer must decline if commitment to one’s career increases, research consistently shows that most commitments to multiple foci are positively related.

Three components of commitment have received the most attention (Meyer and Allen 1997): affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment. Affective commitment refers to a worker’s emotional attachment to an organization. Organizational and industrial psychologists are given credit for initiating interest in this concept. They argue that commitment intervenes between various features of work and individual characteristics and the outcomes of absenteeism and voluntary turnover. Sociologists (e.g., Lincoln and Kalleberg 1990) tend to see the structural conditions of work as the ultimate causes of affective commitment. The evidence generally is consistent with the claims from both disciplines (Hom and Griffeth 1995; Mueller and Price 1990). Continuance commitment treats a person’s degree of attachment as a function of the costs associated with leaving an organization. In practice, it has been operationalized as the employee’s stated intention to stay (or leave). This form of organizational commitment can be traced back to Becker’s (1960) side-bet theory. Individuals are portrayed as making investments (e.g., seniority, a pension fund, coworkers as friends) when they are employed in a particular organization. These side bets accumulate with tenure and thus become costs associated with taking employment elsewhere. An employee will discontinue employment only when the rewards associated with another job outweigh the accumulated side bets associated with the current one. Although the evidence for the reasoning behind this theory has not been supported, research has consistently shown a relatively strong negative relationship (meta-analysis correlation of -.50) between intent to stay and voluntary turnover. Much of the literature identifies intentions to stay or leave as intervening between affective commitment and turnover. Normative commitment refers to the felt obligation to stay with an employer. Remaining attached to an organization is what one should do even if one is not emotionally attached or has only a limited investment.

Without question, affective organizational commitment has dominated the scholarly interest of those who study organizational commitment. It is strongly positively related to job satisfaction and negatively related to absenteeism and turnover. These relationships indicate the importance of studying and understanding employee commitment not only to address the practical issues confronting human resource managers but also to address classical sociological concerns about the ‘‘glue’’ that holds social groups together.

SOCIAL CONTROL IN THE WORKPLACE

This article began with a description of the workplace as a contested terrain, a social setting in which employer and employee struggle for control. The image that comes from most economists is that monetary rewards are what motivate both employers and employees: Employers want to maximize profits, and workers want high pay for their work. The implication of this for workers is that they will be satisfied and committed if their pay is high, and if it is not, they can quit to take another job. This argument and causal linkage have been challenged both empirically and theoretically in sociology. There are three issues here. First, as was alluded to above, pay is only one of many factors that affect satisfaction and commitment. Second, employers, not workers, historically have had the upper hand in controlling the workplace and establishing the employment relationship. Third, job satisfaction and commitment can and are manipulated by employers to increase productivity and retain employees. There have been several different historical accounts of how this employer control occurs (e.g., Clawson 1980; Edwards 1979; Jacoby 1985; Vallas 1993), but two basic models dominate the literature. They can be differentiated by whether the social control is direct or indirect and by the importance given to worker satisfaction and commitment in the control process.

The historically dominant model of the workplace portrays direct control of workers by the employer. Direct supervisory monitoring, ‘‘machine control,’’ and strictly defined divisions of labor are used to control the behavior of employees. In such instances, job satisfaction and organizational commitment may emerge to increase performance, but they are viewed as secondary to the direct control that is essential to maximizing work-

ers’ productivity. The other model relies much less on direct supervision and control by the production process and instead argues that high-perform- ance employees are controlled indirectly by manipulating work structures that in turn produce satisfied and committed workers. It is the satisfied and committed workers, then, who will be the most productive. Lincoln and Kalleberg (1990) argue for this model (called the ‘‘corporatist’’ model) in their study of U.S. and Japanese workers. Concretely, they find that organizational structures that facilitate participation, integration, individual mobility, and legitimacy result in more satisfied and committed employees. This sociological interest in workplace control has practical implications. The same dichotomy is recognized in human resource management (HRM), where the direct strategy is called the control strategy and the indirect strategy is called the commitment strategy (Arther 1994). Similarly, in education, concern with low achievement scores among U.S. students has resulted in a debate over the organizational design of schools (Rowan 1990). The more direct approach, also called the control strategy, is based on an elaborate system of bureaucratic controls for regulating classroom teaching and standardizing student learning opportunities and outcomes. The more indirect approach, also called the commitment strategy, rejects bureaucratic controls and standards and argues instead for innovative working arrangements that support teachers’ decision making and increase their involvement in the tasks of teaching. The claim for the second approach is that satisfied and committed teachers are critical to improving student performance. Without question, then, worker satisfaction and commitment still constitute a major component in the critical debates about social control in the workplace, worker productivity, and societal outcomes such as student achievement.

GENDER DIFFERENCES

Associated with the increase in sociological interest in gender inequalities over the last three decades has been an increased concern with whether the work orientations of women and men are different. Two questions have received considerable attention. One concerns whether women and men have different work values, and the other refers to what is called the gender job satisfaction paradox.

Research consistently has shown that women are just as satisfied (and often more satisfied) with their jobs as their male counterparts are. This is viewed as a paradox because women’s jobs are on the average ‘‘worse’’ jobs with lower pay, less autonomy, and fewer advancement opportunities. Several arguments have been offered to account for this paradox (Phelan 1994; Mueller and Wallace 1996). Justice-related arguments center on (1) women accepting their lower rewards because of their lower inputs, (2) women being socialized to accept the idea that lower rewards are all they are entitled to, and (3) women being satisfied because they are comparing their rewards to those of other women, who also receive less. The consensus seems to be that the ‘‘other women as referent’’ explanation best explains the paradox. The major competing explanation is that women and men value different aspects of work. This leads directly to the question of gender differences in work values.

Probably the most popular explanation for the gender satisfaction paradox is that men value extrinsic rewards (e.g., pay, benefits, and authority) more than women do, while women value intrinsic rewards (e.g., social support) more than men do. As a consequence, women are not less satisfied when they receive less pay and are promoted less often than are men. Research findings strongly reject this argument, however. Women and men hold essentially the same workplace values (Hodson 1989; Phelan 1994; Mueller and Wallace 1996; Rowe and Snizek 1995; Ross and Mirowski 1995).

These similar workplace values do not mean, however, that men have the same degree of work– family conflict as do women. Research shows that this conflict is greater for women (Glass and Estes 1997). This finding only adds to the paradox: If women have worse jobs and experience more work–family conflict, why are they so satisfied with their jobs?

THE FUTURE

The last two decades in the United States have witnessed considerable change in the workplace. Organizations have downsized, hired more temporary (contingent) workers, and outsourced production tasks to become more flexible in competing in an increasingly global marketplace. In addition, the income gap between the top and

bottom segments of society has grown, labor union membership has declined to an all-time low, and although unemployment continues to be low, job expansion has occurred mainly in the service sector, where many jobs do not have advancement potential. All this suggests that in the future workers can expect to move from employer to employer more often. Also, workers can expect to find that their employers are less concerned with whether employees are satisfied and less interested in gaining a long-term commitment from them. As a consequence, occupational or career commitment may become a more important motivating factor for workers than is organizational commitment or job satisfaction. Without doubt, this changing landscape for the employment relationship will keep sociologists interested in studying and understanding work values, job satisfaction, and commitment.

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1961; Freud 1928; Jung 1938) or the social (e.g., Weber 1963; Durkheim 1965; Wach 1958) dimensions of religion. An Oglala Lakota’s (‘‘Sioux’’ in Algonquian) vision reveals these two interactive aspects of religion.

The Plains Indians in America were noted for their vision quests, and periods of fasting and lifecycle rituals often were associated with those quests. However, the vision of Black Elk, a Lakota shaman, occurred spontaneously when he was 9 years old and was stricken by fever and other physical maladies (Neidardt 1972, pp. 17–39). His vision began with two men dressed in traditional garb but shaped like slanting arrows coming from the sky to get him. As a little cloud descended around him, the young Black Elk rose into the sky and disappeared into a large cloud bank. He saw an expansive white plain across which he was led by a beautiful bay horse. As he looked in the four directions, he saw twelve black horses in the West, twelve white horses in the North, twelve sorrel horses in the East, and twelve buckskin horses in the South. After the arrival of Black Elk, the horses formed into lines and formations to lead him to the ‘‘Grandfathers.’’ As this heavenly equine parade proceeded, horses appeared everywhere, dancing and frolicking and changing into all types of animals, such as buffalo, deer, and wild birds. Ahead lay a large teepee.

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CHARLES W. MUELLER

WORLD RELIGIONS

Religious life throughout the world, regardless of the specific tradition, exhibits both personal-psy- chological and communal-social aspects. Of course, persons within the diverse religious traditions of the world perceive the spiritual dimension of their faith as transcending both the individual psychological and emotional as well as the corporate and social aspects of their faith’s expressions. Nonetheless, two major academic strands of religious studies over the last century have focused primarily on either the psychological (e.g., James

As Black Elk entered the rainbow door of the tepee, he saw six old men sitting in a row. As he stood before the seated figures, he was struck by the fact that the old men reminded him of the ancient hills and stars. The oldest spoke, saying, ‘‘Your grandfathers all over the world are having a council, and they have called you here to teach you.’’ Black Elk later remarked of the speaker, ‘‘His voice was very kind but I shook all over with fear now, for I knew that these were not old men but the Powers of the World and the first was the Power of the West; the second, of the North; the third, of the East; the fourth, of the South; the fifth, of the Sky; the sixth, of the Earth.’’

The spokesman of the elders gave Black Elk six sacred objects. First, he received a wooden cup full of water, symbolizing the water of the sky that has the power to make things green and alive. Second, he was given a bow that had within it the power to destroy. Third, he was given a sacred name, ‘‘Eagle Wing Stretches,’’ which he was to embody in his role as shaman (healer and diviner)

for his tribe. Fourth, he was given an herb of power that would allow him to cleanse and heal those who were sick in body or spirit. Fifth, he was given the sacred pipe, which had as its purposes a strengthening of the collective might of the Lakota tribe and a healing of the divisions among the Lakota, to allow them to live in peace and harmony. Finally, Black Elk received a bright red stick that was the ‘‘center of the nation’s circle’’ or hoop. This stick symbolized a sacred focusing of the Lakota nation and linked the Lakota to their ancestors as well as to those who would follow them.

Black Elk’s vision ended with a flight into a foreboding future in which the Lakota would encounter white-skinned ‘‘bluecoats’’ who would threaten the sacred hoop of the Lakota nation. Many years later, as Black Elk reflected on his vision, he realized that even in the devastating upheaval caused by the wars between his nation and the ‘‘bluecoats,’’ his people had been given the sacred objects and rituals that would allow them to rise above mundane exigencies and to heal the nation and restore the hoop in times of trouble.

The vision of Black Elk makes it clear that what sometimes appear to be perfunctory religious rituals, fantastic myths, or arcane ethical injunctions often have their roots in a deep sense of the contact between human beings and that which they have experienced as a divine power. This article emphasizes the social aspects of world religions, but it is important to keep in mind that the religious experiences codified in the social institutions of the world’s religions are not fully captured by psychological or sociological explanations alone. There has been a tendency in the academic study of religion to interpret religious experiences and behavior by reducing them to psychological or social causes or antecedents. For example, Sigmund Freud (1928) reduces religious experiences to unconscious projections of human needs that he likens to infantile fantasies that rational humans should grow beyond. A contemporary of Freud, Emile Durkheim (1965, p. 466), has a tendency to reduce religions to their social functions: ‘‘If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion.’’

While the pioneering work of Max Weber and Durkheim laid the groundwork for much of contemporary social analysis of religion, comparative

sociologists of religion such as Joachim Wach (1958) have tempered earlier tendencies toward sociological reductionism. Wach sought to understand the nature of religion by examining traditions throughout the world and noting the primary elements they shared. He identified religious experience as the basic and formative element in the rise of religious traditions around the world and then investigated the expression of this experience in thought, action, and community.

Wach said that there is a symbiotic relationship between religion and society. On the one hand, religion influences the form and character of social organizations or relations in the family, clan, or nation as well as develops new social institutions such as the Christian church, the Buddhist sangha, and the ‘‘Lakota nation.’’ On the other hand, social factors shape religious experience, expression, and institutions. For example, in Black Elk’s vision, the role of the warrior in Lakota society is expressed through the two men who come to escort Black Elk into the sky, and in his later mystical venture into the future, Black Elk as Lakota shaman (wichash wakan is one who converses with and transmits the Lakota’s ultimate spiritual power, or Wakan) becomes the ultimate warrior who battles a ‘‘blue man’’ (perhaps representing personified evil or the dreaded ‘‘bluecoats’’). Lakota social conventions that name the natural directions as four (North, South, East, West) are modified by Black Elk’s vision to include Sky and Earth, making six vision directions that influence the number of elders Black Elk encounters in the heavenly teepee and the number of sacred objects he is given. Here the shaman’s vision modifies social conventions even as it creates a social subconvention for other visionaries who also name the directions as six. The objects are conventional implements of Black Elk’s culture that are empowered to serve symbolically as multivocal conveyors of sacred knowledge and wisdom. Finally, Black Elk’s vision can be viewed sociologically as confirming the corporate sacredness (the sacred hoop) of the nation of the Lakota. For example, a Lakota’s vision was powerful and meaningful only to the extent that the tribe accepted it. In this sense one can understand why Durkheim would say that religion, in this case the Lakota’s, is society writ large in the sky.

However, for Wach and for scholars, such as Niman Smart (1969), who follow his lead, the

forms and expressions of religious life are best understood as emanating from religious experience. Smart identifies six dimensions that all religions share: (1) ritual, (2) mythological, (3) doctrinal, (4) ethical, (5) social, and (6) experiential. The author of this article has provided an interpretative framework for understanding the necessary interdependence of these six elements of religious traditions in Two Sacred Worlds: Experience and Structure in the World’s Religions (Shinn 1977). These dimensions of the religious life form the structure of this analysis of the social aspect of world religions.

RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

Building on the insights of William James and Rudolph Otto (1946), more recent scholars such as Wach, Smart, and Mircea Eliade (1959) seek the origin of religion in the religious experience of a founder or religious community. These scholars assert that genuinely religious experiences include an awareness or an immediate experience of an ultimate reality or sacred power, whether a theistic divinity as in the case of the God(s) of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam or a nontheistic transcendental reality as in the case of the Buddhists’ Nirvana or the Hindus’ Brahman/Atman. James suggests that transcendental or mystical experiences are immediate apprehensions of the divine that are marked by ineffability, a noetic quality, transiency, and passivity. From one perspective, ineffability can be understood as the inability of language to relay the emotional and cognitive content of a peak religious experience; it also may be described as a failure of language to capture the divine subject of such an experience, that is, the ultimate reality itself. Nonetheless, religious experiences inevitably are understood as providing new states of knowledge that cannot be grasped fully by the discursive intellect. This noetic dimension of religious experience often is described as the revelation of new knowledge (i.e., illumination) that is provided by religious experiences. In fact, it is precisely an awareness of an encounter with a sacred reality in religious experiences that differentiates these experiences from nonreligious peak experiences (e.g., an aesthetic peak experience of a piece of music). Religious experiences also tend to be marked by brevity (i.e., transiency) and the passivity of the person having the experience. While aesthetic, political, and erotic peak experiences may be characterized by ineffability,

transiency, and passivity, only religious experiences bring with them a consciousness of an encounter with a ‘‘holy other’’ sacred reality.

Whether a founding religious experience is immediate and direct, such as the Buddha’s nontheistic enlightenment experience of Nirvana, or cumulative and indirect, as was the lengthy exodus journey of the Hebrews, religious experiences are, in Wach’s terms, ‘‘the most powerful, comprehensive, shattering, and profound experience’’ of which human beings are capable (1958, p. 35). Wach concludes that a necessary criterion of genuine religious experience ‘‘is that it issues in action. It involves imperative; it is the most powerful source of motivation and action’’ (1958, p. 36). Consequently, religious experiences may be viewed as the wellspring of religion both in the formation of a new religious tradition and in the origin of the faith of the later generations.

Even if one accepts the primacy of religious experience, it is important to note that founding religious experiences are deeply immersed in the social and cultural realities of their time and place. For example, whether immediate and direct or cumulative and indirect, religious experiences inevitably are expressed in the language and concepts of the persons and culture in which they arose. Black Elk’s vision of Wakan in the form of the six Grandfathers clearly reflects the Lakotas’ social and political structure as well as their idealized notions of nation and nature. The Thunder Beings and Grandfathers who are the personifications of Wakan Tanka (‘‘Great Power’’) obviously arise from the natural, linguistic, and social environments of the Lakota. So does the conception of Wakan itself as a pervasive power that permeates animal and human life as well as that of nature. A contemporary Lakota has said, ‘‘All life is Wakan.’’ So also is everything which exhibits power whether in action, as in the winds and drifting clouds, or in passive endurance, as the boulder by the wayside.

Religious experiences occur to persons who have already been socialized. The most obvious social tool is the language used to express even the most profound religious experiences. The ineffable nature of religious experiences requires the use of metaphors or extensions of everyday language, as in the case of Black Elk, and to some extent, the experience itself is shaped by the language in which it is expressed.

Divine names usually are borrowed from the social and linguistic environment of the founder or founding community. For example, the exodus experience of the Hebrew people was interpreted by them as a liberating religious experience fostered by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This God, whose name is given in the Book of Exodus as Yahweh (‘‘I am who I am’’), is also called El Elyon (‘‘God most high’’), El Shaddai (‘‘God of the mountain’’), and Elohim (usually translated as ‘‘God’’). Moses probably borrowed the name ‘‘Yahweh’’ from the Midianites. El Elyon was the high god of Salem (later called Jerusalem) and was worshiped by King Melchizedek. It also is known that the Canaanite high god of the same period was named El and appears in different cultic sites throughout the ancient Near East. Although it is clear that the Hebraic religious texts understand Yahweh and El quite differently than do their known local counterparts, the Hebrew high god embraced the local deity nomenclatures while modifying their meanings.

In a similar fashion, the divinity of the man Jesus is acknowledged in early Christian texts through references to earlier Jewish apocalyptic language and expectations. In the Jewish apocalyptic literature (e.g., I Enoch), the ‘‘Son of Man’’ appears as a righteous judge who will come to earth to signal the beginning of the heavenly kingdom and God’s rule. As an eternal savior, the Son of Man will come to save the righteous followers of God and destroy all those who ignore him. In those linguistic borrowings, however, significant modifications of the original conceptions are made to adjust the titles and expectations to the man Jesus as perceived by his followers. For example, Jesus comes as the Son of Man not primarily as a stern and vengeful judge but as a savior who is himself the sacrifice. This linguistic and conceptual transformation reflects the dependence of language on experience as much as it reveals the social and linguistic dimensions of religious experience.

Similar examples of borrowed—and trans- formed—god names abound in religious literature and history throughout the world. In Saudi Arabia in the sixth century, Mohammed elevated a local polytheistic Meccan god, Allah, to the status of an international deity. In tenth-century Indian Puranic literature, devotees of the god Vishnu promote his avatar, called Krishna, to a supreme

theistic position as the god above all gods. Although the Bhagavata Purana recounts the lilas, or play, of Krishna as though the author were describing historic figure, it is clear to textual scholars that there are two essentially distinct and dynamic story traditions arise from the Brahminical Krishna of Bhagavad Gita fame and from the indigenous cowherd Gopala Krishna associated with the western Indian Abhira tribes.

Although devotees of either Allah or Krishna now perceive their divinity and his name as having been ‘‘from the beginning,’’ there is little doubt that the local social and linguistic environments provided both content and context for the names of the divinities in these two traditions. Perhaps the most radical example of theistic amalgamation is that of the Indian goddess Kali. Described in medieval Indian texts as being synonymous with literally dozens of local and regional goddess names and traditions, Kali is a latecomer to the Indian theistic scene as one who is given the primary attributes of many gods and goddesses. The mythological tale of the birth of Kali reveals an amalgamation process that gave birth to this great goddess now worshiped by millions in India as the ‘‘Supreme Mother.’’ Finally, the concept and expressions of the nontheistic Nirvana experienced by the Buddha were fundamentally shaped by the notion of reincarnation or rebirth and other metaphysical assumptions common to most religious traditions in India in the fifth century B.C.

These examples show that while religious experience of the sacred may be the initiating point of the world’s religious traditions or an individual’s faith, that experience is given shape and substance by the linguistic and social context out of which it arises. It is also true, however, that lifealtering religious experiences such as those described above shape the language and traditions through which they are expressed. This symbiotic relationship occurs in the other dimensions of religious life that are shared by the world’s religions.

MYTH AND RITUAL

Formative religious experiences contain within them impulses to expression (myth) and re-crea- tion (ritual) that later become routinized and then institutionalized. Core myths and rituals, therefore, attempt to convey and re-create the experi-

ence of the founder or religious community. Both myths and rituals rely on symbols whose content must be shared in order for them to have meaning for the religious group that uses them. Symbols have not only shared cognitive meanings but also common emotional significance and value. That is, symbols do not simply convey intellectual understanding but also engender an emotive response. Furthermore, religious symbols are integrative and transforming agents in that they point to realities that have been encountered but are hidden from everyday vision and experience. Paul Ricoeur (1972) says that symbols yield their meaning in enigma, not through literal or direct translation. Symbols, therefore, suggest rather than explicate; they provide ‘‘opaque glimpses’’ of reality rather than definitive pictures. Understood in this fashion, the journey from symbol to myth is a short one for Ricoeur, who takes myth to be a narrative form of the symbol. Put simply, myths are narratives or stories of the sacred and of human encounters with it.

As stories of sacred powers or beings, myths fall into two basic categories: expressive and reflective. Expressive myths are sacred narratives that attempt to relate the founding or codifying religious experiences of a religious tradition, while reflective mythic narratives are composed subsequently to integrate the sacred experience into everyday life. For example, Black Elk’s ‘‘re-telling’’ of his vision experience becomes an expressive myth or sacred narrative for the Oglala Lakota to which they refer again and again in reflective stories of the Thunderbeings or the Grandfathers, wherein the Lakota attempt to extend the lessons of this experience to later problems they encounter. Nearly every extant religious tradition tells and retells its sacred narrative of the founder’s or founders’ encounter with the sacred reality. Black Elk’s vision becomes such a story for the Oglala Lakota.

The story of the exodus of the Hebrews is recounted as a symbolic and founding narrative of God’s liberation for Jewish people of all times. The stories of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus form the core myths of Christians when one understands a myth to mean ‘‘sacred narrative’’ rather than ‘‘untrue story.’’ Likewise, the story of the Buddha’s arduous meditative journey culminating in the attainment of Nirvana inspires religious thought and behavior throughout all Buddhist

lands even today. Similarly, Muhammad’s auditory experience of Allah on Mount Hira, which resulted in his recording of the Qur’an, constitutes the sacred history of millions of Muslims on all the continents. Finally, even though scholars are confident in their judgment that the life of Krishna as told in the tenth-century Bhagavata Purana is really an anthology of stories borrowed from earlier Krishna traditions, these lilas, or ‘‘playful episodes,’’ told as a single life of Krishna have inspired religious experiences, poetry, and rituals that still enliven the lives of millions of Hindus throughout the world. From even this selective set of examples of founding myths, it is clear how deeply they drink from the social, linguistic, and institutional wellsprings of their time and place.

The generative function of core myths is shared by certain rituals that attempt to ‘‘represent’’ in a spatial and physical context the core experience of a religious tradition. From one perspective, core rituals are those that emerge from sacred narratives or myths as their active component. From a second perspective, core rituals represent repetitive, institutionalized behavior and clearly are immersed in the social sphere of religious life. For example, the Christian narrative that relates the Last Supper of Jesus as a sacramental event (e.g., Mark 14:12–26) is physically presented in the early Christian love feast that becomes the Lord’s Supper (Eucharistic ritual or Mass) of later Christian churches.

The work of Victor Turner (1969) in a traditional African religious context provides a vocabulary for the religious and social transactions that take place in core myths and rituals. Turner describes three phases in ritual reenactments that attempt to (1) separate or detach the participant from everyday consciousness and social position,

(2) provide a moment of liminality and communitas of shared experience with participants in rituals, and then (3) reintegrate ritual participants back into everyday life with its social roles and structure. Liminality is the neutral psychological and social state of transition between one’s former social roles and consciousness and the new status one assumes beyond the ritual. Communitas for Turner is a mode of social relationship that is marked by an egalitarianism that is uncommon in the stratified roles and relationships of the everyday world. Consequently, Turner would argue