The Difference Between History and Religion

February 18, 2008

My comments on the academy are often shaped by my sense of how I feel things should be, and not how it actually is. I am an academic idealist who has an easier time thinking out a perfect academic Republic than suggesting small changes to what is present here and now.

History could be defined as the study of the nation state. As one moves backwards to study periods not dominated by the nation state, history departments begin to hemorrhage.. and their work is assumed by classicists or the interdisciplinary soup that is medieval studies. If one were to brainstorm the events and persons that are squarely the subject matter of a history department, the listings would tend to be things like the French Revolution, the Civil War, the partition of the Middle East after World War I. When historians work on periods that precede the establishment of the nation state, there will often be a focus on matters of interest mostly to nation states (democracy in Athens, taxes after the Arab Conquest, the story behind what became a "national epic").

The nation state is not simply a global institution, but also a social group with which individuals identify themselves. How well America or Ghana does in the Olympics brings on a level of pride in their citizens. In a large part of the world national identity is the strongest form of personal identity. Plenty of people consider themselves Americans above anything else.. and their Christianity has become a part of their nationality. So when we talk about the study of history we are talking about the study of the period of time in which nation states became the dominant form of cognitively organizing the world.

Religion could then be seen as an earlier form of history.. since it too is the study of an identity category. In this case identity is not based on territorial boundaries, but on commitments to a certain set of symbols and confessions. Christianity and Islam both legitimize forms of identity that were able to break down the more constricting local identities of tribe or ethnic group.. and I imagine the same thing could be said about any international religion. Although it is now difficult to imagine, there have been periods in which religious identity trumped other forms of identity. The power of a religious identity lies in its appeal to another world (a concept that can turn conduct on its head) and its ability to create binding symbols. The work of a scholar in religion is to trace this alternative form of identity.. which at one time was the main game in town.. and now is a sideshow for the machinations of nation states.