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History and Presence
Beginning with metaphysical debates in the sixteenth century over the nature of Christ s presence in the host, the distinguished historian and scholar of religion Robert Orsi imagines an alternative to the future of religion that early moderns proclaimed was inevitable.
The question of real presence the Catholic doctrine of the literal, physical, embodied presence of Christ in the host coincided with early modern global conquest and commerce and shaped how Europeans encountered the religions of others. The gods really present, in the Catholic sense, were translated into metaphors and symptoms, and into functions of the social and political. Presence became evidence of superstition, of magical thinking, of the infantile and irrational, the primitive and the savage. "History and Presence" radically confronts this intellectual heritage, proposing instead a model for the study of religion that begins with humans and gods present to each other in the circumstances of everyday life. Orsi then asks what it would mean to write history with the real presence of special beings restored. With reference to Marian apparitions, the cult of the saints, relations with the dead, and other Catholic instances of encounters with the gods really present, Orsi elaborates a theory of presence for the study of both contemporary religion and history.
The unseeing of the gods was a foundational requirement of Western modernity. Orsi urges us to withhold from absence the intellectual and spiritual prestige modernity encourages us to give it, and instead to approach history with the gods fully present."
The question of real presence the Catholic doctrine of the literal, physical, embodied presence of Christ in the host coincided with early modern global conquest and commerce and shaped how Europeans encountered the religions of others. The gods really present, in the Catholic sense, were translated into metaphors and symptoms, and into functions of the social and political. Presence became evidence of superstition, of magical thinking, of the infantile and irrational, the primitive and the savage. "History and Presence" radically confronts this intellectual heritage, proposing instead a model for the study of religion that begins with humans and gods present to each other in the circumstances of everyday life. Orsi then asks what it would mean to write history with the real presence of special beings restored. With reference to Marian apparitions, the cult of the saints, relations with the dead, and other Catholic instances of encounters with the gods really present, Orsi elaborates a theory of presence for the study of both contemporary religion and history.
The unseeing of the gods was a foundational requirement of Western modernity. Orsi urges us to withhold from absence the intellectual and spiritual prestige modernity encourages us to give it, and instead to approach history with the gods fully present."
377 pages, Hardcover
Published March 29, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
December 30, 2015
Whenever a book criticises the totalizing nature of discursive theory, you know you have a winner.
Although this book has a Catholic focus, at the macro level it's a smart monograph on the historiography of religion, a wonderful example of how to write oral history, and a modern take on that perennial favourite of academics: popular cultures of religion. In short (always a danger with academic texts), Orsi argues that we cannot reduce belief in supernatural and divine presences to the product of discursive creation. No, we must instead acknowledge such presences as real - inasmuch as they are real to our historical objects and here they very much are - in order properly to understand religion and its role in history.
Along the way, Orsi specifically addresses some issues within Catholicism, its distinguishing Reformation roots, and how Catholics traditionally understood and understand sin, death, visions, and God. These normally dry topics, often addressed with a skeptical eye, are brought to life through the eyes, words, and beliefs of those people who contributed to the field research behind this book. More than anything I've read before, it takes us into the unmediated mind of believers as it draws a rich, deep, earthy cultural picture of Catholic belief in twentieth-century America.
Although this book has a Catholic focus, at the macro level it's a smart monograph on the historiography of religion, a wonderful example of how to write oral history, and a modern take on that perennial favourite of academics: popular cultures of religion. In short (always a danger with academic texts), Orsi argues that we cannot reduce belief in supernatural and divine presences to the product of discursive creation. No, we must instead acknowledge such presences as real - inasmuch as they are real to our historical objects and here they very much are - in order properly to understand religion and its role in history.
Along the way, Orsi specifically addresses some issues within Catholicism, its distinguishing Reformation roots, and how Catholics traditionally understood and understand sin, death, visions, and God. These normally dry topics, often addressed with a skeptical eye, are brought to life through the eyes, words, and beliefs of those people who contributed to the field research behind this book. More than anything I've read before, it takes us into the unmediated mind of believers as it draws a rich, deep, earthy cultural picture of Catholic belief in twentieth-century America.
July 1, 2024
In one of the most beautifully written history books I've ever read, Orsi convincingly illustrates his case that modernistic paradigm of supernatural absence is inadequate to histographically approach the human story.
Although, as a Protestant I was initially skeptical of how the book placed the blame for the creation of a paradigm of supernatural absence at the feet of the Protestant Reformation, I was ultimately convinced in no small part due to how the differences he described revealed my anti-catholic prejudices.
Although, as a Protestant I was initially skeptical of how the book placed the blame for the creation of a paradigm of supernatural absence at the feet of the Protestant Reformation, I was ultimately convinced in no small part due to how the differences he described revealed my anti-catholic prejudices.
February 18, 2020
“The Gods were not turned back at the borders of the modern.”
June 12, 2016
I greatly enjoyed reading Robert A. Orsi's "History and Presence," even if I was a little underwhelmed by the author's proposals for writing history "as if the gods were present." Orsi begins the book with a discussion of Roman Catholic and Protestant divergence over the understanding of the Eucharist. Catholics insisted that Jesus Christ's "real presence" was contained within the sacrament while the Reformers, especially Ulrich Zwingli, vociferously denied this dogma. This leads Orsi to frame his book in terms of Catholic "presence" and Protestant "absence" (even while admitting this is a very simplistic and potentially inaccurate framework - just think about the vivacity of charismatic Christianity!). Orsi also comments that among Eastern religions, Buddhism can be seen as the Protestantization of Hinduism as its religious practices don't have the same materiality and ritual as Hinduism. Most of this book then follows Orsi's exploration of ways Roman Catholics (and it is specifically Catholics who are the focus of this study) experience that presence, particularly the laity (when the laity declare they have experienced a miracle, the Church hierarchy are more reluctant to immediately agree and pursue procedures to confirm the phenomenon). Orsi is an eloquent writer and he weaves his own personal narrative growing up as a Catholic into his work while also being sympathetic to those he interviews and writes about and paying attention to how factors such as upbringing and the liturgical reforms of Vatican II shaped their lives and spiritual awareness.
Through his discussion and analysis of Catholic devotion and experience as mediated through material means (the Eucharist, holy cards, literature, shrines and sacred ground, priests, etc...) and miraculous encounters/events (especially Marian apparitions), Orsi insists that we must abandon a Humean skepticism that rejects the presence of the gods since the religious devout navigate life as if they DO INTERACT with the supernatural. He discusses a shrine in an American home to which thousands flock to see the images of loved ones in an image of a crucified Christ, the well of holy dirt at Chimayo and other places or media of encounter. Readers are reminded of just how material, fleshy, earthy, Catholicism is, both in its moments of joyous rapture (partaking of the Eucharist) and in its sordid failures (those abused by priests who are interviewed in this book reflect on the link between their sexual abuse and the belief that the priest was "in persona Christi").
To me, this book was more of an ethnography of the Catholic devout in America than a sweeping revision of historiography. Perhaps part of this is because as a Christian I ALREADY believe the gods/supernatural beings are present. I can see this as being an apologetic to a secular, skeptical academy, a way of humanely legitimizing religious experience, but for people who are already believers, I think this more serves to confirm their beliefs. I don't know if I will take my own advice, and I haven't read the book myself, but it would be interesting to read this alongside Tanya Luhrmann's "When God Talks Back" as a Protestant accompaniment to this same experience of encountering the supernatural as Orsi provides in "History and Presence." Orsi helps readers blink off the cataracts of dubiety and disbelief that have encrusted the West to see again how the Catholic devote encounter a still enchanted world.
Through his discussion and analysis of Catholic devotion and experience as mediated through material means (the Eucharist, holy cards, literature, shrines and sacred ground, priests, etc...) and miraculous encounters/events (especially Marian apparitions), Orsi insists that we must abandon a Humean skepticism that rejects the presence of the gods since the religious devout navigate life as if they DO INTERACT with the supernatural. He discusses a shrine in an American home to which thousands flock to see the images of loved ones in an image of a crucified Christ, the well of holy dirt at Chimayo and other places or media of encounter. Readers are reminded of just how material, fleshy, earthy, Catholicism is, both in its moments of joyous rapture (partaking of the Eucharist) and in its sordid failures (those abused by priests who are interviewed in this book reflect on the link between their sexual abuse and the belief that the priest was "in persona Christi").
To me, this book was more of an ethnography of the Catholic devout in America than a sweeping revision of historiography. Perhaps part of this is because as a Christian I ALREADY believe the gods/supernatural beings are present. I can see this as being an apologetic to a secular, skeptical academy, a way of humanely legitimizing religious experience, but for people who are already believers, I think this more serves to confirm their beliefs. I don't know if I will take my own advice, and I haven't read the book myself, but it would be interesting to read this alongside Tanya Luhrmann's "When God Talks Back" as a Protestant accompaniment to this same experience of encountering the supernatural as Orsi provides in "History and Presence." Orsi helps readers blink off the cataracts of dubiety and disbelief that have encrusted the West to see again how the Catholic devote encounter a still enchanted world.
July 21, 2022
i loved it. well organized and worth every word. here are a few passages i especially liked:
“but i’ve also wondered…. whether there is something in the constitution of human life, consciousness, and culture that draws humans to doubt something the more real it is to them. what is not doubted is never known as really real. who cares about such anodyne realities enough to doubt them? so those who do not doubt, who will not allow themselves to doubt, must look elsewhere for the means to make their worlds real for themselves and others, to destruction, violence, and enmity. but the closer humans move to what is real to them, the more their doubts and uncertainties rise.” (212)
“getting into heaven from purgatory was like getting a job in the Chicago political machine; it depended on whom you knew” (171)
“if the presence of the gods in the old Catholic sense is an absolute limit that the contemporary scholars of religion and culture refuse to cross, then they will miss the empirical reality of religion in contemporary affairs and they will fail to understand much of human life.” (252)
“but i’ve also wondered…. whether there is something in the constitution of human life, consciousness, and culture that draws humans to doubt something the more real it is to them. what is not doubted is never known as really real. who cares about such anodyne realities enough to doubt them? so those who do not doubt, who will not allow themselves to doubt, must look elsewhere for the means to make their worlds real for themselves and others, to destruction, violence, and enmity. but the closer humans move to what is real to them, the more their doubts and uncertainties rise.” (212)
“getting into heaven from purgatory was like getting a job in the Chicago political machine; it depended on whom you knew” (171)
“if the presence of the gods in the old Catholic sense is an absolute limit that the contemporary scholars of religion and culture refuse to cross, then they will miss the empirical reality of religion in contemporary affairs and they will fail to understand much of human life.” (252)
January 27, 2025
“As a result, there are people everywhere in the contemporary world who live beyond the range of modern epistemology and historiography, and there are re- ligious practices and imaginaries for which there is no name, other than in the language of diminishment and obsolescence. But this reli- gion has refused to go away. The officials who make the rules to con- strain and contain the gods nonetheless see them, though maybe only as hauntings. There are benefits to this illegibility. To be legible means to be vulnerable to the schemes and demands of various officialdoms, local or foreign, and to all the laws and technologies that have been developed to control the gods and the practices associated with them, from zoning regulations to developmental scales of religious evolution to constitutional safeguards. But whether everyone sees them or not, the gods are there.”
November 26, 2018
Living faith in God is all around us. Living faith in God and gods was present all throughout history. In History and Presence Robert Orsi addresses head-on the fact that gods and other divine beings, while present in human minds, tend to be missing from history. In the reformed theology of Western modernity, history is articulated in a secular way, and the gods are treated as an absence (or packed into metaphors or symbols). Modernity gives this absence ‘’intellectual, ethical, and spiritual prestige’’ (8). Gods are not an integral part of modern critical theory, yet, as Orsi suggests, if the gods were present in the hearts and consciousness of many people throughout history, shouldn’t the gods be treated as a historical presence? Orsi’s main argument is that we need to ‘’let the gods out of their assigned places and ... approach history and religion through a matrix of presence’’ (251). Unless we do that, Orsi argues, we will see not only history and religion in a limited way, but also ‘’the empirical reality of religion in contemporary affairs and ... much of human life’’ (252).
According to Orsi, the denial of presence started with the Protestant Reformation and the Protestant- Catholic debates on real presence. Hudrych Zingli rejected the doctrine of God’s real presence in the consecrated Host, starting the process by which now secularism/absence is considered superior (9). After the late 16th century, Catholicism became the religion of real presence and the lens through which Europeans interpreted other religions. From then on, Catholics believed that Protestants failed to see the holy in the material - which is why, among other things, they could support contraception in the mid-20th century (30) - while Protestants at times believed that Catholics are badly suited for a democratic America (15).
Orsi cites historical and ethnographic research and he seems to have very good ethnographic methods which he described in the introduction. Seven chapters of the book are ethnographic stories of Catholics encountering the supernatural. A narrative without presence cannot explain why survivors of clerical sexual abuse continue to attend mass; why dying Catholics eat holy cards; how a Detroit housewife sees a vision of the Virgin Mary during World War II; how a bratty boy how is hanged becomes a martyr; or how someone sick with cancer can find solace in touching holy dirt. While expunging ‘’superstition’’ from ‘’religion’’ was so crucial to the making of modernity and ‘’modern religion’’ (27), these stories suggest that a secular model does not provide an accurate way of looking at phenomena when the divine can mean so much to everyday people.
Another interesting point Orsi makes is that presence is disruptive in a way that secularism simply is not: ‘’Presence forever exceeds the bounds set for it… presences in grottoes and woods, in waters and oils, and on altars and dressers in the homes of the devour forever slip beyond the reach of official control’’ (29, 30). A state doesn’t need local gods who are really present. A state needs “national deities: (4). The real presence of gods was therefore replaced by theories that could then be manipulated and controlled. While presence and absence go hand-in-hand, Orsi believes ‘’presence is the norm of human existence, including in religion, and absence is an authoritative imposition’’(6). Absence is imposed by those who are ‘’made anxious by presence’’ (8). What is problematic about this is that those for whom gods are a living presence today have no modern vocabulary through which to express and process their experience.
At the end of the epilogue, Orsi calls for multiplicity to have a place in the study of religion: ‘Once the gods return and once their presence is acknowledged, functionalism yields to a messier, less predictable, and perhaps less recognizable past, one that is not bound to a single account of human life or to a single, short period of time or to a single oncology’’ (251). We can only begin to explore with integrity the important questions which religion raises if ‘’presence/absence are freed from the normative modern constructions of them’’ (8). According to Orsi, the world as a whole does not have a secular point of view, and scholars should not pretend it does
QUESTIONS
What I find problematic about Orsi’s point is that throughout history, the God/gods are present to some, but not to others. It’s hard to separate the two. Today too some experience the world as having real presence while others don’t. How do we reconcile these different ways of seeing the world (that exist simultaneously) into one theory?
Does the work Orsi is doing here fall into the category of theology or the category of religious studies? To me, Rudolph Otto is theology, yet there is some overlap in Rudolph Otto’s and Orsi’s points, which somewhat blurs the line between theology and religious studies. Is Orsi an alternative to a secular view in religious studies? Can religious studies hold the space Orsi created for humans living with the supernatural? Does the kind of presence Orsi proposes need to be denied within the field of religious studies?
Finally, to me, as a teacher of mindfulness, mindfulness is endless presence. It is allowing any experience to be present and even a multiplicity of experiences to be present. Mindfulness can hold all beliefs, while also leaving space for doubts of all of them. I wonder if mindlessness is a form of absence. I think in a sense it is. I am interested in what ways local religions are disruptive, as Orsi points out, and if mindfulness could be disruptive in the same way. I am also interested in the ways national religions are conformist - and perhaps mindlessness leads to a similar kind of conformity. It’s an interesting phenomenon. This could perhaps be the beginning of a paper. Thinking back to, among others, Kameron Carter and Emilie Townes, I’m seeing again and again the point in the texts we read that “the categories are simply too rigid”-- mindfulness is another way to think about taking categories apart.
‘’The ... debate among Christian theologians in the sixteenth century about the nature of the divine body in the Host hardened over time into the stark dichotomy between presence and absence, which then became the metric for mapping the religious worlds of the planet’’ (249).
‘’Scholars of religion made an essential contribution to this work of mapping modern religion, translating the abundance of practices associated with people’s relationships with special suprahuman brings really present (in the Catholic sense of presence) into a singular and normative ‘religion’ from which these beings were absent’’ (249).
The gods became ‘’signs and symbols, not embodied presences’’ (250), yet for many the gods were still an embodied presence and have been for ages. According to Orsi, the world as a whole does not have a secular point of view, and scholars should not pretend it does (see beautiful passage in the middle of page 251).
“Orsi constructs a theory of presence for the study of history and contemporary religion.”
Orsi begins with 16th century debates “over the nature of Christ’s presence in the host.” The Zwinglian approach has a significant impact on modern thinking.
Gods need to be given as much attention as one would give to people.
DIDN’T USE
“the study of religion is or ought to be the study of what human beings do to, for, and against the gods really present...and what the gods really present do with, to, for, and against humans” (page 3). According to Orsi, history should treat religion as if religion is “lived.”
Addresses modernity’s stripping the supernatural from the fabric of everyday life.
I find it very interesting that ‘’Catholics maintained that support in the country for birth contraception exemplified Protestantism’s failure to acknowledge the holy in the material’’ (30).
‘’Presence forever exceeds the bounds set for it’’ (29).
______
Orsi’s main argument is that we need to ‘’let the gods out of their assigned places and that we approach history and religion through a matrix of presence’’ (251). Unless we do that, Orsi argues, we will see not only history and religion in a limited way, but also ‘’the empirical reality of religion in contemporary affairs and ... much of human life’’ (252).
‘’The ... debate among Christian theologians in the sixteenth century about the nature of the divine body in the Host hardened over time into the stark dichotomy between presence and absence, which then became the metric for mapping the religious worlds of the planet’’ (249).
‘’Scholars of religion made an essential contribution to this work of mapping modern religion, translating the abundance of practices associated with people’s relationships with special suprahuman brings really present (in the Catholic sense of presence) into a singular and normative ‘religion’ from which these beings were absent’’ (249).
The gods became ‘’signs and symbols, not embodied presences’’ (250), yet for many the gods were still an embodied presence and have been for ages. According to Orsi, the world as a whole does not have a secular point of view, and scholars should not pretend it does (see beautiful passage in the middle of page 251).
Those for whom gods are a living presence today have no vocabulary through which to express their experience ‘’other than in the language of diminishment and obsolescence’’ (250).
In the middle of the book Orsi presents case studies about Catholics encountering the supernatural.
Orsi claims that after the late sixteenth century, Catholicism became the religion of real presence and the lens through which Europeans understood and interpreted other religions.
At the end of the epilogue, Orsi calls for multiplicity to have a place in the study of religion: ‘Once the gods return and once their presence is acknowledged, functionalism yields to a messier, less predictable, and perhaps less recognizable past, one that is not bound to a single account of human life or to a single, short period of time or to a single oncology’’ (251).
_____
‘Modern religion’ began to appear in the Eucharistic debates of the sixteenth century. Reformers who came after Martin Luther (notably Huldrych Zwingli), rejected the real presence of God’s body.
Modern religion rejected the Catholic doctrine of real presence.
‘’The study of religion is or ought to be the study of what human being do to, for, and against the gods really present... and what the gods really present do with, to, for, and against humans’’ (4). Instead the presence of gods was submerged into ‘’symbols, signs, metaphors, functions, and abstractions’’ (4). Orsi argues that the presence of the gods was too disruptive and unpredictable. It needed to be replaced by theories that can then be manipulated and controlled. A state doesn’t need local gods who are really present. A state needs ‘national deities’ (4).
The gods can be agents of conformity and submission in some contexts, but they have also been empowering in others. They have ‘flouted social norms, disrupted political agendas, and disappointed the expectations of the powerful’’ (5). Gods as presence can be a source of power.
Orsi cites historical and ethnographic research and he seems to have very good ethnographic methods which he described in the introduction.
While presence and absence go hand-in-hand, Orsi believes ‘’presence is the norm of human existence, including in religion, and absence is an authoritative imposition’’ (6). Absence is therefore imposed by those who are ‘’made anxious by presence’’ (8).
We can only begin to explore with integrity the important questions which religion raises if ‘’presence/absence are freed from the normative modern constructions of them’’ (8).
_____
‘’Absence may by imposed and enforced by authorities and powers of various sorts that are made anxious by presence’’ (8).
Modernity gives absence ‘’intellectual, ethical, and spiritual prestige’’ (8). Yet we should still approach history and culture with the gods fully present to humans.
Different conceptions of presence became a point of division between Catholics and Protestants, and then evolved into one of the normative categories of modernity. (9)
Unlike Catholics, Protestants deny the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist (13).
About manipulation and politics - ‘’Catholics were even said to not belong in democratic, Protestant America’’ (15).
___
Catholics lived differently with the supernatural.
__
Some key questions are ‘’to what extent is Jesus really present in bread and wine?’’ and ‘’what is the ‘is’ in ‘this is my body’ ‘’? (15-16).
‘’In the sixteenth century, the divisions within Western Christianity deepened and erupted with visceral force’’ (17).
Christians are very divided over the meaning of presence.
___
expunging ‘’superstition’’ from ‘’religion’’ was so crucial to the making of modernity and ‘’modern religion’’ (27).
___
‘’Presence forever exceeds the bounds set for it’’ (29).
Presence in religion is disruptive, in a way that secularism simply is not: ‘’presences in grottoes and woods, in waters and oils, and on altars and dressers in the homes of the devour forever slip beyond the reach of official control’’ (30).
____
I find it very interesting that ‘’Catholics maintained that support in the country for birth contraception exemplified Protestantism’s failure to acknowledge the holy in the material’’ (30).
According to Orsi, the denial of presence started with the Protestant Reformation and the Protestant- Catholic debates on real presence. Hudrych Zingli rejected the doctrine of God’s real presence in the consecrated Host, starting the process by which now secularism/absence is considered superior (9). After the late 16th century, Catholicism became the religion of real presence and the lens through which Europeans interpreted other religions. From then on, Catholics believed that Protestants failed to see the holy in the material - which is why, among other things, they could support contraception in the mid-20th century (30) - while Protestants at times believed that Catholics are badly suited for a democratic America (15).
Orsi cites historical and ethnographic research and he seems to have very good ethnographic methods which he described in the introduction. Seven chapters of the book are ethnographic stories of Catholics encountering the supernatural. A narrative without presence cannot explain why survivors of clerical sexual abuse continue to attend mass; why dying Catholics eat holy cards; how a Detroit housewife sees a vision of the Virgin Mary during World War II; how a bratty boy how is hanged becomes a martyr; or how someone sick with cancer can find solace in touching holy dirt. While expunging ‘’superstition’’ from ‘’religion’’ was so crucial to the making of modernity and ‘’modern religion’’ (27), these stories suggest that a secular model does not provide an accurate way of looking at phenomena when the divine can mean so much to everyday people.
Another interesting point Orsi makes is that presence is disruptive in a way that secularism simply is not: ‘’Presence forever exceeds the bounds set for it… presences in grottoes and woods, in waters and oils, and on altars and dressers in the homes of the devour forever slip beyond the reach of official control’’ (29, 30). A state doesn’t need local gods who are really present. A state needs “national deities: (4). The real presence of gods was therefore replaced by theories that could then be manipulated and controlled. While presence and absence go hand-in-hand, Orsi believes ‘’presence is the norm of human existence, including in religion, and absence is an authoritative imposition’’(6). Absence is imposed by those who are ‘’made anxious by presence’’ (8). What is problematic about this is that those for whom gods are a living presence today have no modern vocabulary through which to express and process their experience.
At the end of the epilogue, Orsi calls for multiplicity to have a place in the study of religion: ‘Once the gods return and once their presence is acknowledged, functionalism yields to a messier, less predictable, and perhaps less recognizable past, one that is not bound to a single account of human life or to a single, short period of time or to a single oncology’’ (251). We can only begin to explore with integrity the important questions which religion raises if ‘’presence/absence are freed from the normative modern constructions of them’’ (8). According to Orsi, the world as a whole does not have a secular point of view, and scholars should not pretend it does
QUESTIONS
What I find problematic about Orsi’s point is that throughout history, the God/gods are present to some, but not to others. It’s hard to separate the two. Today too some experience the world as having real presence while others don’t. How do we reconcile these different ways of seeing the world (that exist simultaneously) into one theory?
Does the work Orsi is doing here fall into the category of theology or the category of religious studies? To me, Rudolph Otto is theology, yet there is some overlap in Rudolph Otto’s and Orsi’s points, which somewhat blurs the line between theology and religious studies. Is Orsi an alternative to a secular view in religious studies? Can religious studies hold the space Orsi created for humans living with the supernatural? Does the kind of presence Orsi proposes need to be denied within the field of religious studies?
Finally, to me, as a teacher of mindfulness, mindfulness is endless presence. It is allowing any experience to be present and even a multiplicity of experiences to be present. Mindfulness can hold all beliefs, while also leaving space for doubts of all of them. I wonder if mindlessness is a form of absence. I think in a sense it is. I am interested in what ways local religions are disruptive, as Orsi points out, and if mindfulness could be disruptive in the same way. I am also interested in the ways national religions are conformist - and perhaps mindlessness leads to a similar kind of conformity. It’s an interesting phenomenon. This could perhaps be the beginning of a paper. Thinking back to, among others, Kameron Carter and Emilie Townes, I’m seeing again and again the point in the texts we read that “the categories are simply too rigid”-- mindfulness is another way to think about taking categories apart.
‘’The ... debate among Christian theologians in the sixteenth century about the nature of the divine body in the Host hardened over time into the stark dichotomy between presence and absence, which then became the metric for mapping the religious worlds of the planet’’ (249).
‘’Scholars of religion made an essential contribution to this work of mapping modern religion, translating the abundance of practices associated with people’s relationships with special suprahuman brings really present (in the Catholic sense of presence) into a singular and normative ‘religion’ from which these beings were absent’’ (249).
The gods became ‘’signs and symbols, not embodied presences’’ (250), yet for many the gods were still an embodied presence and have been for ages. According to Orsi, the world as a whole does not have a secular point of view, and scholars should not pretend it does (see beautiful passage in the middle of page 251).
“Orsi constructs a theory of presence for the study of history and contemporary religion.”
Orsi begins with 16th century debates “over the nature of Christ’s presence in the host.” The Zwinglian approach has a significant impact on modern thinking.
Gods need to be given as much attention as one would give to people.
DIDN’T USE
“the study of religion is or ought to be the study of what human beings do to, for, and against the gods really present...and what the gods really present do with, to, for, and against humans” (page 3). According to Orsi, history should treat religion as if religion is “lived.”
Addresses modernity’s stripping the supernatural from the fabric of everyday life.
I find it very interesting that ‘’Catholics maintained that support in the country for birth contraception exemplified Protestantism’s failure to acknowledge the holy in the material’’ (30).
‘’Presence forever exceeds the bounds set for it’’ (29).
______
Orsi’s main argument is that we need to ‘’let the gods out of their assigned places and that we approach history and religion through a matrix of presence’’ (251). Unless we do that, Orsi argues, we will see not only history and religion in a limited way, but also ‘’the empirical reality of religion in contemporary affairs and ... much of human life’’ (252).
‘’The ... debate among Christian theologians in the sixteenth century about the nature of the divine body in the Host hardened over time into the stark dichotomy between presence and absence, which then became the metric for mapping the religious worlds of the planet’’ (249).
‘’Scholars of religion made an essential contribution to this work of mapping modern religion, translating the abundance of practices associated with people’s relationships with special suprahuman brings really present (in the Catholic sense of presence) into a singular and normative ‘religion’ from which these beings were absent’’ (249).
The gods became ‘’signs and symbols, not embodied presences’’ (250), yet for many the gods were still an embodied presence and have been for ages. According to Orsi, the world as a whole does not have a secular point of view, and scholars should not pretend it does (see beautiful passage in the middle of page 251).
Those for whom gods are a living presence today have no vocabulary through which to express their experience ‘’other than in the language of diminishment and obsolescence’’ (250).
In the middle of the book Orsi presents case studies about Catholics encountering the supernatural.
Orsi claims that after the late sixteenth century, Catholicism became the religion of real presence and the lens through which Europeans understood and interpreted other religions.
At the end of the epilogue, Orsi calls for multiplicity to have a place in the study of religion: ‘Once the gods return and once their presence is acknowledged, functionalism yields to a messier, less predictable, and perhaps less recognizable past, one that is not bound to a single account of human life or to a single, short period of time or to a single oncology’’ (251).
_____
‘Modern religion’ began to appear in the Eucharistic debates of the sixteenth century. Reformers who came after Martin Luther (notably Huldrych Zwingli), rejected the real presence of God’s body.
Modern religion rejected the Catholic doctrine of real presence.
‘’The study of religion is or ought to be the study of what human being do to, for, and against the gods really present... and what the gods really present do with, to, for, and against humans’’ (4). Instead the presence of gods was submerged into ‘’symbols, signs, metaphors, functions, and abstractions’’ (4). Orsi argues that the presence of the gods was too disruptive and unpredictable. It needed to be replaced by theories that can then be manipulated and controlled. A state doesn’t need local gods who are really present. A state needs ‘national deities’ (4).
The gods can be agents of conformity and submission in some contexts, but they have also been empowering in others. They have ‘flouted social norms, disrupted political agendas, and disappointed the expectations of the powerful’’ (5). Gods as presence can be a source of power.
Orsi cites historical and ethnographic research and he seems to have very good ethnographic methods which he described in the introduction.
While presence and absence go hand-in-hand, Orsi believes ‘’presence is the norm of human existence, including in religion, and absence is an authoritative imposition’’ (6). Absence is therefore imposed by those who are ‘’made anxious by presence’’ (8).
We can only begin to explore with integrity the important questions which religion raises if ‘’presence/absence are freed from the normative modern constructions of them’’ (8).
_____
‘’Absence may by imposed and enforced by authorities and powers of various sorts that are made anxious by presence’’ (8).
Modernity gives absence ‘’intellectual, ethical, and spiritual prestige’’ (8). Yet we should still approach history and culture with the gods fully present to humans.
Different conceptions of presence became a point of division between Catholics and Protestants, and then evolved into one of the normative categories of modernity. (9)
Unlike Catholics, Protestants deny the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist (13).
About manipulation and politics - ‘’Catholics were even said to not belong in democratic, Protestant America’’ (15).
___
Catholics lived differently with the supernatural.
__
Some key questions are ‘’to what extent is Jesus really present in bread and wine?’’ and ‘’what is the ‘is’ in ‘this is my body’ ‘’? (15-16).
‘’In the sixteenth century, the divisions within Western Christianity deepened and erupted with visceral force’’ (17).
Christians are very divided over the meaning of presence.
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expunging ‘’superstition’’ from ‘’religion’’ was so crucial to the making of modernity and ‘’modern religion’’ (27).
___
‘’Presence forever exceeds the bounds set for it’’ (29).
Presence in religion is disruptive, in a way that secularism simply is not: ‘’presences in grottoes and woods, in waters and oils, and on altars and dressers in the homes of the devour forever slip beyond the reach of official control’’ (30).
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I find it very interesting that ‘’Catholics maintained that support in the country for birth contraception exemplified Protestantism’s failure to acknowledge the holy in the material’’ (30).
December 8, 2021
I loved this book so much !!!! One of the best academic texts I’ve read in grad school. It speaks achingly beautifully about the reality of the presence of the divine in American Catholic life, for better and worse. Wow. It’s so refreshing to see religious studies scholarship which takes so seriously the true experiences of the religious people it engages with, instead of placing a sociological veneer over experiences to explain them away. Orsi captures the vitality and intimacy of American Catholicism so beautifully, respectfully, and lovingly.
November 16, 2023
Robert Orsi began his journey into analyzing and comparing Catholic ideals from others with an inquisitive spiral into the notion that Catholicism is based on the “really real”, while Protestantism “deals in symbols”(Orsi, 2). This tone remained strong and unwavering throughout the entirety of the book, yet Orsi claimed that it all stemmed from 16th century European debates about the interpretation of the Eucharist. However, Orsi took us on a journey that with intrinsically link this tone with historical actions, events, and implications that forever transformed the world, as we know it. He wedded the notions of European disagreement on the metaphysics of human and divine relationship with the gargantuan explosions of conquest, conversion, imperialism, global restructuring, and colonization. In this manner, Orsi argued that the differences that were had by those who ran amok around the globe, were then reflected in the manner they conquered their subjects, arguing that the world as we know it, wouldn’t have been possible without. For this, Orsi claims that those very debates initiate modern religion, in the terms of studying it, understanding it, and the discourse thereof. Orsi then argued that during the conquering of these remote regions, both religious and political figures sought to absorb and appropriate present gods of the conquered for their own agenda, often through various sub-agendas of those involved. This dichotomy of absence and presence regarding gods is pivotal to Orsi’s underlying theme of symbols versus real. Orsi argued, “The internecine controversy among Christians about the nature of the Eucharist tuned into the theoretical lens for the modern study of religion”(Orsi, 9).
Orsi used actual subjects, events, and places for his research under professional parameters, to provide details into a much needed perspective on the intertwined methodology and psychology that lays at the heart of Catholicism. In an effort to accurately convey how ordinary people come to terms with what they actually believe, Orsi uses an array of real-life subjects as his data. From his own mother to Depression-era novellas, from Times articles to narratives of the conquest-era, Orsi approaches the duality of the debate between Catholicism and all others. For this reason, Orsi presents a call to action for the audience, to discard the notion that we study historiography of religions with their gods absent, but instead approach these histories with the gods present, as the people in them did. From Martin Luther to Zwingli, from The Council of Trent to the Affair of the Placards, and from Joseph Smith to Flannery O’Connor– Orsi presents this same underlying theme at each instance, that presence and absence, debate on the actual meaning of the Eucharist, and the history afterward is all intricately tied together. Through employing this plethora of real-life scenarios and examples, Orsi presents us with an acutal understanding and tangible explanation of the implications of this underlying theme on the actual religious actors experiencing it. This surpasses any sociological overgeneralized reductionist explanation of life under Catholicism in modern times. In turn, Orsi reinforced his argument of incorporating the historical presence of these gods in our studies, instead of reporting them secularly. This emphasizes the human element, which is all too often left out of scholarly discourse on religion, reducing them to actors and broadly attempting to describe them in one fell swoop. His reports of actual people encountering the divine gives life to the human element of Catholicism, while not discounting the implications of the religion, itself. The actual phenomena that these humans experience is often lost in rhetorical discourse about the religious actors. However, Orsi explaned that hisorically, the debate about absence and presence has been fueling a realm of other agendas in conquest politics, but discarding those who are underneath it all.
Overall, I think Orsi is a very bright man, who has something that is all too often lost in religious rhetoric– humanity. However, for this very reason, he may have rendered himself a real disservice to the religious studies crowd. As a historian, he is phenomenal. As a religious scholar, he likely afforded to much consideration to those subjected to the religion, in the first place, as that approach has been often avoided. I commend him for that, but others will not. He ultimately calls for a removal of the secular approach in terms of religious historical research and reporting. However, that can be all too problematic, as we all know. He does so with genuine intent and he doesn’t necessarily advocate for one religion over the other, but his call for discarding the secular lens will present itself as a red flag to some scholars. Overall, we cannot combine two drastically different concepts into one theory, without dismantling all others. Orsi’s view of humans encountering the supernatural was positive, but many might claim it doesn’t have a place in religious studies, history, or even theology. However, Orsi took the road less traveled and offered us a different light with which to examine the absence/presence, real/symbolic, Catholic/others dualities in modern times.
One thing that I found rather admirable about Orsi’s book was his consideration of Marian apparitions. Anyone who consciously looks into Marian apparitions could see the entire argument of Orsi worldwide, in about thirty minutes of entertaining a simple google or social media search. For those of us who have done more than a simple search, we know all too well what Orsi was describing. The potency and increasing instances of Marian apparitions are something all too often left out of religious discourse in the academy, which dilutes the entire absence/presence debate. Often, Marian apparitions signal to a great deal more than just absence or presence. They often signal to unrest regarding class, hierarchy, oppression, and exploitation. However, Orsi made note of this, saying, “How was it that heaven had revealed itself to these unkempt children of poor and troubled families or to these ordinary adults, whose lives in all their mundane, sometimes unsavory details were so well known to everyone”(Orsi, 49). These Marian apparitions, according to Orsi, “...were essential to modern Catholic consciousness”(Orsi, 51). While Orsi did mention Mexico and Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe, I feel like in this particular instance, he could have afforded her more than one paragraph. She is the national figurehead of Mexican consciousness, while also being a great deal more than that. Which leads me to my most important critique of Orsi.
While Orsi worked very hard to implement the absence/presence, real/symbolic, Catholic/Others dichotomies into this book, he left a great deal out about the acutal implications of the conquest of the Americas by the Catholics. For example, and likely the most important one, Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe was the original axis mundi for Tonantzin, the Indigenous goddess of the ancient Mexica, who were conquered by the Catholics. This very symbolism wasn’t mentioned by Orsi, and its likely because he didn’t much entertain the notion of religious syncretism of conquered peoples. While he offered a great deal of mention to the conquest of Catholicism, he really had an Otto tone about him, sacrificing the human element to the idea of phenomena. Yes, Marian apparitions are phenomena that ought to be studied a great deal more. However, the Catholic method followed the Roman method– and that was to absorb Indigenous and tribal gods. Indigenous and tribal people venerated their dead and the Catholic church absorbed them, making them saints and martyrs. Indigenous and tribal people never forfeited their gods. Those gods remained present, but under the guise of whatever narrative the Catholic church presented them with. Orsi made mention of this, but very briefly and really left out the main proponent– Indigenous gods were never forsaken, only worshipped under new pretexts. This absorption of conquered peoples and deities has been Catholic to the very core since its inception.
Overall, Orsi did well presenting the topic and I feel like he has a deserved place in religious studies. However, I’m not so sure if he will be welcomed by all for various reasons. His call for discard of the secular lens and approaching the supernatural in all of its glory is usually frowned upon in sociological circles. He offered humanity within his discourse, which is an admirable concept, but not a real popular one. He examined the human element of religion in all of its historical implications. This is important, and he deserves consideration in the field. Akin to Butler, Deloria, Jones, and Jones— Orsi traced back much of racial, class, and gender classifications to a much earlier time of Christian history. This is monumental in itself and declares Orsi a force to be reckoned with, in terms of religious history in the Americas and the conquest thereof.
Orsi used actual subjects, events, and places for his research under professional parameters, to provide details into a much needed perspective on the intertwined methodology and psychology that lays at the heart of Catholicism. In an effort to accurately convey how ordinary people come to terms with what they actually believe, Orsi uses an array of real-life subjects as his data. From his own mother to Depression-era novellas, from Times articles to narratives of the conquest-era, Orsi approaches the duality of the debate between Catholicism and all others. For this reason, Orsi presents a call to action for the audience, to discard the notion that we study historiography of religions with their gods absent, but instead approach these histories with the gods present, as the people in them did. From Martin Luther to Zwingli, from The Council of Trent to the Affair of the Placards, and from Joseph Smith to Flannery O’Connor– Orsi presents this same underlying theme at each instance, that presence and absence, debate on the actual meaning of the Eucharist, and the history afterward is all intricately tied together. Through employing this plethora of real-life scenarios and examples, Orsi presents us with an acutal understanding and tangible explanation of the implications of this underlying theme on the actual religious actors experiencing it. This surpasses any sociological overgeneralized reductionist explanation of life under Catholicism in modern times. In turn, Orsi reinforced his argument of incorporating the historical presence of these gods in our studies, instead of reporting them secularly. This emphasizes the human element, which is all too often left out of scholarly discourse on religion, reducing them to actors and broadly attempting to describe them in one fell swoop. His reports of actual people encountering the divine gives life to the human element of Catholicism, while not discounting the implications of the religion, itself. The actual phenomena that these humans experience is often lost in rhetorical discourse about the religious actors. However, Orsi explaned that hisorically, the debate about absence and presence has been fueling a realm of other agendas in conquest politics, but discarding those who are underneath it all.
Overall, I think Orsi is a very bright man, who has something that is all too often lost in religious rhetoric– humanity. However, for this very reason, he may have rendered himself a real disservice to the religious studies crowd. As a historian, he is phenomenal. As a religious scholar, he likely afforded to much consideration to those subjected to the religion, in the first place, as that approach has been often avoided. I commend him for that, but others will not. He ultimately calls for a removal of the secular approach in terms of religious historical research and reporting. However, that can be all too problematic, as we all know. He does so with genuine intent and he doesn’t necessarily advocate for one religion over the other, but his call for discarding the secular lens will present itself as a red flag to some scholars. Overall, we cannot combine two drastically different concepts into one theory, without dismantling all others. Orsi’s view of humans encountering the supernatural was positive, but many might claim it doesn’t have a place in religious studies, history, or even theology. However, Orsi took the road less traveled and offered us a different light with which to examine the absence/presence, real/symbolic, Catholic/others dualities in modern times.
One thing that I found rather admirable about Orsi’s book was his consideration of Marian apparitions. Anyone who consciously looks into Marian apparitions could see the entire argument of Orsi worldwide, in about thirty minutes of entertaining a simple google or social media search. For those of us who have done more than a simple search, we know all too well what Orsi was describing. The potency and increasing instances of Marian apparitions are something all too often left out of religious discourse in the academy, which dilutes the entire absence/presence debate. Often, Marian apparitions signal to a great deal more than just absence or presence. They often signal to unrest regarding class, hierarchy, oppression, and exploitation. However, Orsi made note of this, saying, “How was it that heaven had revealed itself to these unkempt children of poor and troubled families or to these ordinary adults, whose lives in all their mundane, sometimes unsavory details were so well known to everyone”(Orsi, 49). These Marian apparitions, according to Orsi, “...were essential to modern Catholic consciousness”(Orsi, 51). While Orsi did mention Mexico and Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe, I feel like in this particular instance, he could have afforded her more than one paragraph. She is the national figurehead of Mexican consciousness, while also being a great deal more than that. Which leads me to my most important critique of Orsi.
While Orsi worked very hard to implement the absence/presence, real/symbolic, Catholic/Others dichotomies into this book, he left a great deal out about the acutal implications of the conquest of the Americas by the Catholics. For example, and likely the most important one, Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe was the original axis mundi for Tonantzin, the Indigenous goddess of the ancient Mexica, who were conquered by the Catholics. This very symbolism wasn’t mentioned by Orsi, and its likely because he didn’t much entertain the notion of religious syncretism of conquered peoples. While he offered a great deal of mention to the conquest of Catholicism, he really had an Otto tone about him, sacrificing the human element to the idea of phenomena. Yes, Marian apparitions are phenomena that ought to be studied a great deal more. However, the Catholic method followed the Roman method– and that was to absorb Indigenous and tribal gods. Indigenous and tribal people venerated their dead and the Catholic church absorbed them, making them saints and martyrs. Indigenous and tribal people never forfeited their gods. Those gods remained present, but under the guise of whatever narrative the Catholic church presented them with. Orsi made mention of this, but very briefly and really left out the main proponent– Indigenous gods were never forsaken, only worshipped under new pretexts. This absorption of conquered peoples and deities has been Catholic to the very core since its inception.
Overall, Orsi did well presenting the topic and I feel like he has a deserved place in religious studies. However, I’m not so sure if he will be welcomed by all for various reasons. His call for discard of the secular lens and approaching the supernatural in all of its glory is usually frowned upon in sociological circles. He offered humanity within his discourse, which is an admirable concept, but not a real popular one. He examined the human element of religion in all of its historical implications. This is important, and he deserves consideration in the field. Akin to Butler, Deloria, Jones, and Jones— Orsi traced back much of racial, class, and gender classifications to a much earlier time of Christian history. This is monumental in itself and declares Orsi a force to be reckoned with, in terms of religious history in the Americas and the conquest thereof.
April 12, 2017
Excellent and insightful, an important call to move beyond the sterile practice of epoche to an active allowance of the possibility of divine presence for believers, even as one maintains some of the space necessary for scholarly work. The chapter on clergy sex abuse was also deeply insightful and much harder to read, precisely because these actions are abundantly evil, as Orsi correctly and perceptively notes. One is never quite sure how Catholic-inflected intellectual contributions will be taken in the contemporary academy, but Orsi makes a strong case for understanding more about the experience of "real presence" among some/many* believers.
*One does wonder whether the book would have been enriched by an exploration of just how pervasive the experience of real presence is among practicing Protestants. While the historical debates framed this as a Catholic perspective and eucharistic controversy still falls along these lines, the lived experience of Protestants also frequently partakes of this phenomenon.
*One does wonder whether the book would have been enriched by an exploration of just how pervasive the experience of real presence is among practicing Protestants. While the historical debates framed this as a Catholic perspective and eucharistic controversy still falls along these lines, the lived experience of Protestants also frequently partakes of this phenomenon.
May 28, 2024
I couldn’t stop thinking about this book after I read it in my religious history seminar class, it totally changed the way I think about writing history as a historian and Christian. I was raised Protestant and learned a lot about Catholicism in this book, though sometimes it was hard to understand without that prior knowledge. The many personal stories in the book made it an interesting read. My main takeaway was that Orsi asks historians to BELIEVE people’s stories of religious experiences at face value, but it was unclear if Orsi would extend this to practitioners of other faiths. Orsi is Catholic, and I appreciated that he was not an apologist about clerical abuse and seemed fairminded. I will be recommending this book to every history major and historian, whether they identify as religious or not.
April 17, 2018
Not a simple book but a necessary one. Orsi makes yet another strong and challenging intervention into the field of religious studies.
March 29, 2023
I found this book utterly fascinating from beginning to end. It is, perhaps, relevant to note that I was once in a grad program for early modern history with a focus in religious history and that I'm a former Catholic who is still fascinated with Catholicism. Still, I don't think one needs to fall into either category to enjoy this book.
Orsi begins with a brief history of the concept of "real presence" in the Catholic Church and how the presence/absence divide between Catholics and Protestants led to bloodshed and modernity and influenced the development of the field of religious studies and assumptions about what kinds of religion are "primitive" and "superstitious" and which are "modern" and "rational." He then gives many case studies from twentieth-century Catholicism about both mundane and extraordinary moments when the "transcendent breaks into time." While there are often psychological, social, and political consequences of these events, Orsi calls for scholars to not jump to psychological and historical explanations for such events but rather to accept that such "abundant events" are real to their participants and that it is belittling to not take them seriously.
I love the way Orsi writes. He discusses theory without excessive jargon in a way that makes it accessible and shows you why it matters. He's also a great storyteller with his case studies--they really put you in the moment and show you the larger theoretical point that he's making. This is the kind of book that makes me regret leaving grad school (very slightly). This book should be required reading for anyone in religious studies/religious history for both its content and its style. For historians in other fields, I think it makes a powerful argument for why religious history matters more broadly.
Orsi begins with a brief history of the concept of "real presence" in the Catholic Church and how the presence/absence divide between Catholics and Protestants led to bloodshed and modernity and influenced the development of the field of religious studies and assumptions about what kinds of religion are "primitive" and "superstitious" and which are "modern" and "rational." He then gives many case studies from twentieth-century Catholicism about both mundane and extraordinary moments when the "transcendent breaks into time." While there are often psychological, social, and political consequences of these events, Orsi calls for scholars to not jump to psychological and historical explanations for such events but rather to accept that such "abundant events" are real to their participants and that it is belittling to not take them seriously.
I love the way Orsi writes. He discusses theory without excessive jargon in a way that makes it accessible and shows you why it matters. He's also a great storyteller with his case studies--they really put you in the moment and show you the larger theoretical point that he's making. This is the kind of book that makes me regret leaving grad school (very slightly). This book should be required reading for anyone in religious studies/religious history for both its content and its style. For historians in other fields, I think it makes a powerful argument for why religious history matters more broadly.
December 30, 2025
Intriguing exploration of a history from below, i.e., focused mainly on individual lives. Here, Orsi pushes against the Humean thesis that history can only deal with natural phenomenon, arguing instead that history ought to and can account for the very real presence of God in the lives of ordinary people. While this presence may not always be overt, it is still there and not to be considered a divine absence, never mind non-existence. Orsi writes from an explicitly Roman Catholic perspective so he brings in supernatural phenomenon, such as apparitions of Mary, that would not sit well with a more Protestant readership (and, one wonders, if Orsi would even grant that God is present with Protestants at all). I gave this book four stars for the trite reason that it didn't meet my expectations as suggested by the title.
April 28, 2023
An a priori premise of real presence has heuristic value for religious scholarship. Orsi’s genealogical contextualisation of his methodology in this regard is insightful as well as helpful. There are crucial limitations to Orsi’s argument, however, that arise from his narrow definition of Catholicism and his normative definition of religion. If Protestantism is a religion of absence, as he claims, then the study of Protestantism is antithetical to a presence-oriented theory of religion. Similarly, modern Catholics in North America who are averse to experiential divine presence cannot be considered “authentic” Catholics.
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March 17, 2022“I am proposing that we let the gods out of their assigned places and that we approach history and religion as a matrix of presence. Once the gods return and once their presence is acknowledged, functionalism yields to a messier, less predictable, and perhaps less recognizable past, one that is not bound to a single account of human life or to a single, short period of time or to a single ontology” (251).
May 5, 2023
Favorite book regarding religious theory that I have read so far. Orsi manages to make extremely complex theory and method digestible through stunning personal anecdotes and the experiences of people who he genuinely took the time to know and understand. Would 1000% recommend to anyone interested in studying religion, particularly Catholicism.
December 8, 2018
Orsi's approach and style is excellent in that he seamlessly weaves together scholarly theoretical concerns with personal matters of faith. The work as a whole is well done, but particularly worth the time is the final chapter, which he devotes to survivors of clergy abuse.
March 3, 2023
Changed the way I think about studying religions
March 9, 2023
Poetic, reflective, at times elegiacal, and always thought-provoking.
December 16, 2023
The first half was great! Really interested in the concept of presence in Catholicism. I thought it kind of lost the thread in the second half/Im not actually interested in Catholicism.
December 31, 2023
Another amazing recommendation from Amer that’s been so incredibly helpful for my thesis.
April 19, 2017
Wow. What an amazing book that encourages historians and scholars to mind the 'presence' of God in their subject's lives instead of assuming the 'absence' of God. That's the premise...and then Orsi leads us through a dazzling series of chapters that swirl from the birth of religious studies to the Reformation to the material culture of Catholic prayer cards to Flannery O'Connor to the Catholic sex abuse scandal of the past decade. When scholars reach a certain age, it seems like they often write the book that they've always wanted to write - even if it is not safe, or fits neatly within the definitions of their discipline. This is that book for Orsi. Highly recommended.
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