Review of Warren S. Goldstein (ed.),Marx, Critical Theory and Religion: A Critique of Rational Choice

Abstract

It is always instructive to see how the Bible is treated in other disciplines apart from the small corner of biblical studies. In this collection edited by Warren Goldstein, the discipline in question is sociology, especially the sociology of religion. Volume six in the Brill series, ‘Studies in Critical Social Sciences’, it offers a range of essays linked together by two main features: a commitment to developing the critical theory of the Frankfurt School (or, more properly, the Institut fur Sozialforschung) for the study of religion and a challenge to the ‘rational choice’ approach to the study of religion that has swamped the sociology of religion in the last decade or so. Indeed, the ‘critical theory of religion’ is the means of challenging the champions of rational choice. This is the context in which we find the essays that deal specifically with the Bible: three essays out of twelve (those by Horkheimer, Goldstein and Lunskow). Even though I will make some critical comments about these essays, it is refreshing to see biblical matters as part of a wider debate. Before I do engage with the essays directly, there are two prior questions. First, what is ‘rational choice’ theory? Coming out of mathematics and then moving through economics and politics to religion, its basic position is that in a given situation human beings will make a choice based on a cost benefit assessment of the risk involved. Invariably, goes the assumption, we will weigh up the benefits over against the costs and make our choice accordingly. Applied to religion, it means that human beings will opt for the religion that provides, on balance, greater returns. For example, as Rodney Stark has argued, the success of early Christianity was due to the stress on strong commitment, resurrection, life in heaven and community. This more than compensated for the risk of martyrdom and persecution. Indeed, in regard to critics like Rodney Stark, one of the useful features of this volume was to position and critique such rational choice theorists within their own discipline. Stark turns out to be an ideologue who pushes rational choice theory in all eras, whether it is comparing ‘free-market’ Christianity in the USA (favourably) over against ‘state monopoly’ Christianity of Scandinavia (unfavourably), or in assessing the appeal of fundaBOOK REVIEW