Myth and Ritual Explained

The grounding (foundational) story of a religion is known as a “myth”. With the grounding story in place (for example, the cosmic Christ), rituals then reinforce and proclaim it.

The myth explains the ritual, and the ritual enacts the story: actions are performed, or calendar dates marked, because the gods did this, or because the savior figure first performed it.

By reenacting the events of a myth, rituals connect members of a group to the defining moments of the movement, and so give meaning to time. By looking at the myths and rituals of a particular group within their broader context, the group’s story and practice are both seen to draw from and set up worldviews that can either reinforce the prevailing culture or set up alternatives to it.

Common Ritual Practices 

Public sacrifice was the most visible ritual performed in ancient times for what we today call both “religious” and social/civic purposes. Individuals also engaged in private rituals that both reflected their beliefs and sought to influence transcendent powers.

Ritualized dietary behaviors are common in religions cross-culturally. The same is true of calendars that divide time into sacred and profane.

For many, the performance of ritual provides a means of making the profane sacred, of connecting to the divine, of securing blessings, transformation and protection, and of reinforcing group membership. A ritualized performance can, of course, turn from a meaningful action into an obsession or a rote behavior.

The New Testament: Methods and Meanings
Warren Carter and Amy-Jill Levine
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Warren Carter

Warren Carter is professor of New Testament at Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, Texas. Carter specializes in the Gospel of Matthew, as well as the Greek New Testament in general.

Carter has a Ph.D. (New Testament), from Princeton Theological Seminary, and a B.D., Th.M., from Melbourne College of Divinity, Australia. He was born was in New Zealand.

Carter is an ordained United Methodist Elder.

Books written by Warren Carter include:

• Matthew: Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist 
• Seven Events That Shaped the New Testament World
• The New Testament: Methods and Meanings, co-written with Amy-Jill Levine
• The Roman Empire and the New Testament: An Essential Guide 
• What Does Revelation Reveal?: Unlocking the Mystery

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Amy-Jill Levine
born 1956

Amy-Jill Levine is E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, Department of Religious Studies, and Graduate Department of Religion.

Levine is a self-described “Yankee Jewish feminist who teaches in a predominantly Protestant divinity school in the buckle of the Bible Belt.” She also “combines historical-critical rigor, literary-critical sensitivity, and a frequent dash of humor with a commitment to eliminating antisemitic, sexist, and homophobic theologies.”

Levine is a member of an Orthodox Jewish synagogue.

Books written by Amy-Jill Levine include:

• Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi
• The Historical Jesus in Context (Princeton Readings in Religion), editor
• The Jewish Annotated New Testament, editor
• The Meaning of the Bible: What the Jewish Scriptures and Christian Old Testament Can Teach Us
• The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus
• The New Testament: Methods and Meanings, co-written with Warren Carter

The Liberation of Mysticism

Mysticism aims to deconstruct the classical metaphysical contrasts (the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal, the sensual and the purely spiritual, and so on) and bring realism to an end, with an effect that is as if God and the self have been melted together.

The result is usually described as a dissolving of the soul, with an extraordinary effect of religious liberation and happiness, a kind of intellectual orgasm described by some as “union with God” or the “spiritual marriage” but which others describe as “atheism” and wish to see punished.

Mysticism Dismantles Doctrines of God 

Mystical figures such as Spinoza among the Jews, al-Hallaj among the Muslims, and Meister Eckhart among the Christians, have accordingly been punished by their co-religionists. Punished because mysticism gives the game away – it dismantles God for God’s sake.

The mystics, those few who truly wish to attain religious happiness, will continue to discover that the way to it is by dismantling, dissolving away the realistic doctrines of both God and the self, so that the two can be melted together. Admittedly the spiritual marriage is a deadly heresy, but it is also eternal happiness.

Union Through Dissolution 

In the end everything we most deeply longed for coincides with, and turns out to be the same as, everything we most feared. All the great distinctions and oppositions out of which we built our ideas of God, the world, and the self are undone. The dissolution of God, and our attainment of perfect union with God, are one and the same thing.

After God: The Future Of Religion
Don Cupitt

Background on Don Cupitt