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 O rd e r N u m b e r 8727847

T he sociological significance o f th e Taiz£ com m unity as a

religious phenom enon o f our tim e

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Ross, Sally B., Ph.D.
Fordham University, 1987
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Copyright © 1988 by Ross, Sally B . A ll rights reserved.

UMI
300 N. Zeeb Rd.
Ann Arbor, MI 48106

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 THE SOCIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TAIZE COMMUNITY
AS A RELIGIOUS PHENOMENON OF OUR TIME

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BY

SALLY B. ROSS
A.B., HUNTER COLLEGE, ’74
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M.A., COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY TEACHERS COLLEGE, '75
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DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT
OF SOCIOLOGY AT FORDHAM UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK
1987

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t

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©1988

SALLY B . ROSS

All R ights R eserv ed

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c
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter

I. INTRODUCTION .......................................... 1

II. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE................................. 18

III. DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS OF THE TAIZE COMMUNITY............ 89

IV. DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS OF THE DATA-PART ONE............. 134

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V. DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS OF THE DATA-PART TWO............. 182

VI. CONCLUSION............................................. 220

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APPENDIX.................................................... 253

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................... 292

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(
CHAPTER X

INTRODUCTION

The Taize monastic order was founded during World War II by

Roger Schutz with the expressed purpose of achieving sacramental rec-

conciliation with the Bishop of Rome.'*' Taking its name from the Bur­

gundian village where Schutz, a Calvinist minister, settled in 1942,

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the interdenominational Taize Community is unique in the Protestant

tradition because it has invested its theological doctrine with the

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recognition of an additional number of sacraments. It has also added

rituals to its worship services that integrate an individualized in­

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terpretation and use of icons, chants, silent meditation, and body

posture. In this sense Taize's liturgical practices are unusual in

the Reformation tradition.

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The Community specifically combines its liturgical experi­

mentation with an interest in labor and technology. Whether at home

or on local assignment in international urban settlements, the broth­

ers work for wages and assist the industrial poor. Today Taize at­

tracts thousands of visitors, especially the young, to its liturgical

celebrations. These include elements from the Roman, Eastern and

■*"Roger Schutz, Festival (New York: Seabury Press, 1973),

p. 115.

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 2

0 Anglican traditions.

How is this appetite for increased sacramentalism and ritual,

which is suggested by the large number of people who visit Taize, to

be explained in the secular twentieth century? A perusal of Taize*s

doctrines and practices suggests that the Community may, in fact, re­

inforce a sense of social solidarity which is lacking in the modern

world. More specifically, it may be the daily combination of litur­

gical practice and labor which is appealing. This would help to ac­

count for Taize*s increasing attraction to visitors. At the same time,

its theology and rituals may attempt to establish a distinctive iden­

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tity for the Taize Community. These tentative explanations for the

appeal of Taize, as well as the Community's rationale for its beliefs

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and practices, are of sociological interest. It is one of the inten­

tions of this dissertation to explore why this may be so.

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An attempt to sociologically explain the phenomenon of Taize”

is facilitated by identifying the issues and themes that have been the
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concern of contemporary sociologists of religion. Between World War I

and World War II, the dominant figures in the sociology of religion

were resistant to broad theoretical concerns. Since World War II

there has been renewed concern with issues and problems identified by

classical sociological theory in an effort to synthesize pre-war spec­

ulative theorizing and between-war empirical research. ^ O'Dea and

^Gerhard Lenski, "The Sociology of Religion in the United

States," Social Compass 4 (1962): 307-337.

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V Herberg, Gehlen and Bell, Bellah, Luckmann, and Berger, and Mary

Douglas are illustrative of contemporary practices that employ empir­

ical materials when theorizing about religion. They also represent a

particular way of handling empirical information. These sociologists

have specifically been selected for literature review in the disser­

tation because the issues with which they are concerned have helped to

generate the sociological assumptions, as well as the research ques­

tions, which the thesis attempts to explore.

Thomas O'Dea (1966) and Will Herberg (1960) emphasize the

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function of religion in creating social integration.

the social mechanisms that maintain the dominance of group ends be­

fore private interests in a conception of society that views social

O rDea describes

institutions as tending toward equilibrium. Herberg observes that

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religion provides the individual with a specific location, in the midst

of a culturally pluralistic society which lacks its own intrinsic co­

hesion.
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Arnold Gehlen (1980) analyzes the structural transformations

between ancient and modern societies, and concludes that contemporary

social institutions are unstable. He specifically notices that modern

technology has had a radiating effect on culture, rendering the arts

and sciences, for example, more abstract than before. He observes

that, in response to the widespread instability which exists in con­

temporary institutions, alterations in the forms, or structures, of

consciousness have occurred. That is to say, where modern institu­

tions have reduced the objectivity of the social order, human sub-

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V jectivity has necessarily been accented. Emotional reactions are no

longer invested in an external world which is deprived of symbolic

equilibrium. Instead, the individual turns inward upon the self in

an attempt to construct ideological stability. In this milieu, reli­

gion grows in importance as a world view for the masses precisely be­

cause its content is still concrete rather than abstract.

Daniel Bell (1976) analyzes the historical and contemporary

character of man and the pattern of his social relations, and identi­

fies pre-industrial, industrial, and post-industrial work as being the

differentiating principle. He respectively correlates modes of social

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interrelationship with cosmological types in the natural, technologi­

cal, and social world. Three kinds of identities, religion, work, and
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culture, are described by which individuals endeavor to relate them­

selves to these respective milieus. He specifically observes that a

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transformation in consciousness occurs when culture replaces religion

and work as the primary means of attachment by which individuals seek

to relate themselves to their environment. The mechanism is identi­

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fied whereby moral authority for the individual has shifted from the

sacred to the profane. He then analyzes the existential deficiencies

in contemporary religion and culture, and uses these as a basis for

generating an alternative typology of religious forms for the future.

Robert Bellah (1975), Thomas Luckmann (1967) , and Peter Berger

(1969; 1970) develop the view of religion as a cultural system which

provides an interpretative scheme and serves as a meaning function,

both for society at large and for individuals within society. In this

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 5

scheme religion offers ultimate explanations for human life and en­

ables man to comprehend the inexplicable, the extraordinary, and the

tragic. Bellah identifies what he believes is the major problem in

contemporary America, the utilitarian ethic of self-interest as it has

flourished in industrial capitalism and the market economy, and locates

it in the historical mythological tradition of the United States. He

sees the ethic of self-interest as being a problem because the techno­

logical reasoning that often accompanies it has become disengaged from

the larger religious and moral context. It therefore no longer corre­

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sponds to the fundamental principles upon which the country was built.

He proceeds to analyze and interpret cultural meaning, and concludes

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that deistic symbolism exists at the level of civil religion, but

avoids religious content. An individual's private sectarian meaning

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fills in the public civil form. Where Bellah is vague about this proc­

ess, Luckmann and Berger specify the mechanisms leading to the priva­

tization of meaning in contemporary society.

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Luckmann develops the idea that the location of the individual

in society has shifted. To account for this he describes the indirect

relationship that exists between secularization and industrialization,

and analyzes individual religiosity in an historical and institutional

context. He cites one consequence of this historical process as being

institutional segmentation, which results in multiple meanings of ulti­

mate significance. He observes that these subsequently replace the

unifying traditional sacred cosmos and compete for acceptance by the

individual in his private system of ultimate significance. Berger

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 6

C suggests that the legitimation of meanings of ultimate significance

may be understood from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge.

One of the fundamental propositions of this discipline is that the

plausibility of a view of reality depends upon the social support it

receives. Because flawlessness in the plausibility structure is un­

likely, he contends that institutional legitimations maintain the faith

in their provision of explanations and justifications for each detail

of religious life and belief. Hence for him the community of faith

must be understood as a constructed reality. Berger believes, more­

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over, that it is precisely because multiple realities can be con­

structed that religious traditions are becoming increasingly implau­

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sible in the modern world.

Mary Douglas (1973) attempts to construct a theory which ex­

plains alterations in both the formulation and expression of belief

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in terms of variations in social structure. Seeking to develop the

argument that the perception and interpretation of symbols is socially

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determined, she analyzes co-varying relationships among rituals, cos­

mologies, and social structures. As Douglas does so, she moves beyond

the phenomenological argument that the universe is socially constructed

to show what kind of universe this is apt to be when social relations

take a given form.

Contemporary empirical research has stressed the significance

of the emergent social processes for the presence or absence of faith

among churches and denominations (Warner 1961), the impact of dif­

ferent types of religious commitment upon secular institutions

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v (Lenski 1961), and parishioner opinion as this concerns parish func­

tions and functionaries (Fichter 1954). Lenski and Fichter have been

included in the literature review because their respective studies

have contributed to a development of the operational definition for

religiosity that is used in the dissertation. In the same manner,

Warner's research has contributed to the formulation of sociological

themes which the thesis attempts to address.

In what is essentially an archival, participant observation

study of a New England community, Warner investigates and interprets

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the historical and contemporary nature of Christian symbolism in Amer­

ica. The relationship of rites and beliefs to the unity and diver­
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sity of the emergent social processes is discussed, and their influ­

ence upon the transformation of faith among churches and denominations

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is explored. Warner specifically attempts to address the differences

that diachronically and synchronically exist between Protestant and

Catholic symbols, signs, and their meanings.

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The focus of Lenski's cross-sectional survey was designed to

test the effect of religion upon economic, political, and family life

in an urban American community. In this he specifically incorporates

the theoretical formulations of Weber, and goes on to operationally

differentiate between the commitment of individuals to a socio-reli­

gious group, associational versus communal, and their kind of religious

orientation, doctrinal orthodoxy or devotionalism.

The purpose of Fichter's statistical study is to investigate

the nature and degree of parochial solidarity upon urban parishes in

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 8

C America. On the basis of interviews with randomly selected parish­

ioners who have been empirically identified according to institution­

ally determined and personally decided criteria, respectively, baptism

and place of residence, and social participation, Fichter endeavors to

generate a typology of church affiliation categories. Each typology

is then discussed in connection with a parochial problem which is spe­

cific to it.

To conclude our review of literature in the sociology of reli­

gion, attention to research which was implemented by the European soci­

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ologists, Boulard, Mehl, and Houtart, is important because they re­

spectively have analyzed the history, religious ideologies, and eccle­

siastical practices in the region of France where Taize is located.

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They, therefore, help to characterize the social milieu in which the

Community is attempting to achieve reconciliation. Francois Boulard

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(1960) and Roger Mehl (1970), respectively, use an historical and typo­

logical approach to the problem of dechristianization in industrial re­

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gions of France. By means of correlating an indigenous population's

religious habits with diocesan boundaries, Boulard generates a map of

typical canton practices. In doing so he locates the Taize region of

Burgundy in an area which he identifies as being 'mission'. Mehl

analyzes the ideological phenomenon of dechristianization in depth and

establishes guidelines for contrasting Protestant and Catholic reli­

gious practices. In Francois Houtart (1968) we have an investigation

of the relationship of religious practice to social class, and specu­

lation about meaningful ecclesiastical organization in technological

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 9

C society. All of the above theoretical perspectives will be used to

illuminate the significance of Taize as a religious phenomenon of our

time. Where difficulties in the utilization of such disparate theoret­

ical perspectives arise, these will be noted and discussed.

The dissertation is essentially an ethnographic study of the

Taize Community and its visitors. The ethnographic approach was se­

lected because it was the most amenable, among the alternative research

methods that are available to sociology, to a systematic study of the

doctrinal issues which are raised by the thesis. In an attempt to ex­

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plore the desire to reconcile churches which is expressed by the Com­

munity, as well as to address the sociological issues that may under­

lie this raison d'etre, the dissertation specifically focuses upon the

following three areas and interrelated questions:

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1. What is the sociological origin of Taize? What are the mani­

fest as well as the latent characteristics that define the

Community as an ecumenical monastic organization in the modern

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world? What is the structure and content of the Community's

worship and work life? How is labor combined with liturgical

activity and how does its daily practice provide for the in­

clusion of Taize's visitors?

2. What is Taize's official doctrine which guides religious prac­

tice? What are the sociological sources of this doctrine,

what is its sociological appeal, and what are its sociological

implications?

3. To what degree are the visitors' personal beliefs consistent

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 with Taize's doctrine on Christian mythology? If the visitors

do not agree with Taize's formal interpretation of this doc­

trine, what is the nature of their perceptual variation and how

can it be sociologically explained? Finally, how is the expe­

rience of Taize's forms of worship being accepted or rejected

by its visitors, and how successful has the Community been in

transporting its liturgical symbols, by way of its guests, in­

to their home parishes?

The foregoing areas for sociological inquiry have been gener­

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ated by themes that were briefly identified in the literature review.

These themes are analyzed in depth in Chapter Two. The questions them­
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selves have been selected as an appropriate focus for the dissertation

because answers to them will enable us to understand more completely

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why Taize has originated and how itmay continue to function in con­

temporary society. The theoretical issues that may be fueled or re­

solved by responses to them are discussed in the concluding chapter.

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Answers to the first two areas and interrelated questions will

be sought by analyzing the existing body of theological literature that

has been generated by the group's founder, Roger Schutz, and by its

liturgist, Max Thurian. Their doctrinal views have been studied by

an increasing number of commentators to whom the research will also

refer. Descriptive and analytical attention will be directed to the

official Rule of Taize, the evangelical philosophy of labor and sur­

plus value, and its derivative conception of monastic social organi­

zation; the rhythm of daily liturgical life, the content of ritual,

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^ and the theological doctrines by which these actions are rationalized.

In this analysis of the Community's organization and perception of

work, habituation, and worship, Taize's approximation to the religious

forms of the future, respectively noted in the literature by Bell and

Houtart, will be identified. Moreover, the analysis of Taize's inter­

pretation of dogma and myth will specify whether the Community's doc­

trine is characterized by primitivism and neo-dogmatic, simplified

systems of thought, such Gehlen has indicated would be typical of the­

ological doctrines in the modern world. Again, the extent to which the

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re-occurrence of familial imagery has occurred among Taize's ritual

symbols will be examined in order to confirm, or revise, Warner's

finding that Catholic ritual symbols arising out of the primary group
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are beginning to appear in Protestant liturgies. It is in this con­

text important to note that if an attempt is being made by Taize to

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reconcile Christian churches, the official position of the Community

is still to consider itself Protestant.

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Finally, when the analysis of Taize's doctrine is compared to

post-Vatican II catechisms, the degree to which doctrinal reconcil­

iation on the sacraments currently prevails between Taize and Rome can

be established. This is, after all, the expressed ecumenical aim of

Taize. That is to say, if doctrinal reconciliation on the sacraments

now exists between Rome and Taize, the raison d'etre, or manifest

sociological necessity for the existence of the Community, as its

founders have defined it, will have been realized. It is essential

to observe here, however, that the ethnographic description of the

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 12

Taize Community will attempt to explore reasons for the existence of

Taize which are sociologically just as significant as the Community's

professed theological goals.

Answers to the third area and interrelated questions will be

addressed by an in depth oral three-part interview schedule, individ­

ually administered to Taize's visitors. Hence, the content of the re­

search instrument will integrate the results of the above historical

and doctrinal research to which the first two areas of inquiry were

sensitive, in the form of closed and open-ended questions. Closed

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questions will establish overall motifs. Open-ended questions, by way

of a content analysis, will identify themes. Between twenty and thirty

informants will be chosen from the population of visitors during an

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extended trip to the field, an equal number of whom will be male and

female. As far as it is possible to do so, the informants will be

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selected to reflect the plurality of denominations, social classes,

and nationalities that regularly visit Taize. Given the very limited
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size of the cases that will he analyzed, the absence of precise know­

ledge concerning the demographic and religious characteristics of the

Taize guests, as well as the constraints imposed by the need to con­

duct interviews in English, the investigation must inevitably be sub­

ject to an unknown amount of bias.

A preliminary analysis of Taize's liturgical literature has

revealed that the Community officially retains transcendent images

and phrases in its narrative descriptions of Christian symbols to ex­

plain essential theological places such as Heaven and Hell, persons

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 13

^ such as Mary, and things such as the sacraments. Moreover, all of

these mythological places, persons, and things are conceived of as

being objective and external to the individual. Predicated, however,

upon the widely held conviction in the sociological literature, by

Gehlen, Bell, and Berger, that perception in contemporary society has

become subjectivized as well as internalized, it is hypothesized that

the Taize informants will subjectively internalize, rather than objec­

tively externalize, important archetypal symbols. Likewise, it is pre­

sumed that the visitors will have a conception of sin that is connect­

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ed with a focus upon internal, subjective states of mind, rather than

upon external actions.

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It is correlatively assumed that, unlike the official posi­

tion taken by the Community as revealed in the writings of its litur-

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gist, Max Thurian, the Taize visitors will couch their descriptions

of mythological symbols according to immanent, or this-world related,

rather than transcendent, or other-world oriented metaphors and phrases.

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That is to say, the traditional transcendent descriptions of doctrinal

elements which previously have pointed beyond to incarnate, super­

human, and immortal life, will be transformed so that they will be

confined to carnal, mundane, and mortal existence. Finally, it is

believed that 'peak* personal experiences which verify or deny the

belief in these Christian symbols will be identified by the use of

subjective, internal, and immanent terms of reference. Why the in­

formants' conceptions should differ from the Community's official

doctrine on mythological symbols is a variation that is important to

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 14

understand, and this assumption will be thoroughly explored before the

empirical data are analyzed in Chapter Four.

It will be argued that the following eleven categories of in­

formants will vary, according to their degree of immanent/transcend­

ent and internal/external perception: Male versus Female; Ordained

Visitor versus Lay Visitor; Protestant versus Catholic; Married, Di­

vorced, and Widowed versus Single; and age (Under 25, Ages 25-40, and

Over 40). As the aggregate number of informants will be small— bet­

ween twenty and thirty persons— these classifications for comparative

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analysis will be generated from the informants' responses. That is to

say, it is expected that the categories for analysis will conveniently

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emerge from the content of the data. On the strength of previous

sociological findings, in Boulard and Fichter, for example, it seems

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reasonable to assume that differences in the analysis will correlate

with gender, vocation, religious affiliation, and marital statuses.

It seems just as plausible to suppose that perceptions will vary,

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according to the informants' existential experiences early (Under 25),

during the middle (Ages 25-40), and later (Over 40) in the cycle of

life. When a person's religiosity, social class, and social mobility

are considered, it is expected that the degree of internal/immanent

versus external/transcendent direction can be explained. On the one

hand, it is assumed that high religiosity, low social class, and no

social mobility can explain a low degree of interiorization and little

use of immanent metaphors and phrases. On the other hand, it is pos­

ited that low religiosity, high social class, and much social mobility

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 15

can explain high interiorization and much use of immanent metaphors

and phrases.

To sum up the above paragraph and relate what has just been

stated to the third area of inquiry and interrelated questions, var­

ious social status classifications have been selected as a means of

comparing the informants' perceptions of Christian mythology with the

corresponding official doctrine from Taize to which they refer. The

kind and degree of the informants’ religious and social milieus are

explored as one means of explaining a convergence or divergence from

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the formal position on Christian myth that is promulgated by the Com­

munity. Lenski’s as well as Fichter's indices of religiosity have

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been adapted, among the aggregate of components that will be used to

operationally determine religiosity. Low, average, or high religios­

ity will be ascertained by a convergence or divergence of the re­

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spondent's adherence to the requirements and practices of his reli­

gious tradition, his formal religious activities aside from the estab­
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lished Sunday worship, and the degree of influence that his religious

behavior has upon his everyday life. Here, too, the relevance of reli­

gion to the informants' everyday lives presents an opportunity to ver­

ify, or revise, a widely held assumption in the secularization litera­

ture, by Herberg, Luckmann, and Berger, that religion in modern society

has become privatized. Low, middle, or upper social class will be

identified by the kind of trade or occupation the respondent practices,

the informal or formal preparation for it, and the number of years of

formal education achieved. In the case of a student, social class will

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 16

be identified by the social class of his parents. None, average, or

much social mobility will be identified by combining indices which

measure geographical and vertical mobility. More specifically, the

composite index will observe the convergence or divergence in: the

respondent's place(s) of birth and residence, the respondent's and

the respondent's spouse's and/or parents' church or denominational

affiliation, as well as the respondent's and the respondent's spouse's

and/or parents' occupation and educational achievement.

Prevalent motifs and themes will be established within the

eleven classifications of informants identified above and qualita­

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tive in depth analyses of cases will be juxtaposed with one another

according to religiosity, class, and mobility characteristics. These

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cases will also provide additional ethnographic information about the

Taize Community. Thus, specific autobiographical data about individ­

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ual informants will give breadth to shared responses among visitors to

the interview schedule that may have been given for various reasons.

Here, Mehl's qualitative typological distinctions between Protestant

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and Catholic will be observed. Finally, the extent to which the Taize

informants' perceptions converge with or diverge from the Community's

formal pronouncement on doctrine and myth will be identified and the

potential for, or actual diffusion of, Taize's ritual symbols into the

informants' home parishes will be ascertained. At this time any ex­

perience by the informants with organizational and/or liturgical

reconciliation will also be observed, as it is assumed that previous

ecumenical involvement may act as an impetus for transporting elements

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 17

from Taize's pattern of worship into the informants' own churches.

The theoretical origin of the above sociological assump­

tions, and their subsequent development in the formulation of spe­

cific research questions which the thesis attempts to answer, are

discussed in Chapter Two. The hypothesis as well as the operational

definition of key terms are described prior to an analysis of the data

in Chapter Four. Their location in the research instrument is spec­

ified, and the procedures for the classification of variable compo­

nents are also discussed in that chapter. That is to say, precisely

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how aggregates were combined to result in the designations, low,

average, or high religiosity; low, middle, or upper social class; and

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none, average, or much social mobility will be described.

"The Sociological Significance of the Taize Community as a

Religious Phenomenon of Our Time" attempts to be a holistic study.

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The issues that the dissertation will attempt to explore can only be

satisfactorily examined from within an ethnographic approach. The

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research upon which it will be based, therefore, includes not only

cases but also documentary review. The relatively small number of

in depth interviews will be conducted in this wider context in order

to achieve a fuller appreciation of the sociological questions that

the thesis attempts to address. Prior, however, to a discussion and

analysis of these data, we appropriately identify as well as locate

the theoretical origin of the issues with which the dissertation is

primarily concerned. This will be our aim in the following chapter.

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