Brehm Center

2008-2011
Principal Investigator, William Dyrness

Building on the earlier Brehm Center research funded by the Luce Foundation, we propose to study the use of art and visual elements in public and private prayer in a sample of Muslim and Buddhist congregations in Southern California. Five congregations will be selected from each of these traditions and researchers will interview six lay people and two leaders from each congregation.   The purpose of the study is to determine the role that art, images and other visual elements play in the practices of these traditions and to understand how different background beliefs influence these practices.  Having previously studied Christian and Jewish congregations, this will enable us to broaden our comparative study of worship and the visual in Southern California congregations and give the research wider significance for interfaith conversations and relationships.

The study of worship within the Christian tradition has experienced a revival within the last decade.  This study has been broadened to include research on how worship practices have been influenced by the surrounding culture, especially its growing visual and aesthetic character.  Most influential in this research is the work of Robert Wuthnow published as All In Sync (University of California Press, 2004), and also that of David Morgan, The Sacred Gaze: Visual Culture in Theory and Practice (University of California Press, 2005).  Both of these works have not only shown the significance of art and aesthetics in the spirituality and worship of people, but also the way these are integrated into peoples’ religious practices. Morgan’s important study broadens the conversation to include other religious traditions.

Given its dynamic multi-cultural and multi-religious character, Southern California is an excellent site for a study of this kind.  The previous research on Christian and Jewish congregations was significant in showing that particular “religious imaginaries” (Charles Taylor) are embodied in practices that relate to the use of visual in corporate prayers.  In spite of the inevitable exchange and mutual learning that takes place in Los Angeles, it is nevertheless the case that religious traditions continue to form their worshipers in particular ways, and that this formation is most clearly evident in attitudes and practices relating to the visual. The larger question that this new initiative raises is how traditions outside the dominant western Judeo-Christian tradition employ art and the visual, and how, in turn, these reflect their unique “social and religious imaginary”.  Recognizing these differences and the possible similarities may help encourage greater mutual understanding. Indeed, it may suggest new ways in which inter-religious dialogue can more profitably proceed.

Timeline and Activities

Winter 2008

• Develop plan and select congregations to study.
• Gather a group of consultants from Muslim and Buddhist traditions to advise researchers in developing the protocol and selecting the people to be interviewed. 

Spring, Summer, and Fall 2008

• Organize a fall symposium, which will mark the formal beginning of the research. This will be planned to determine the current understandings of the visual in Muslim and Buddhist settings. Responses from Catholic and Protestant researchers may help in formulating questions and eventual points of comparison and contrast.
• Select and train researchers (as much as possible from within the traditions to be studied) and launch the interview process.

Winter 2009

• Complete the interview and transcription process.
• Do initial compilation of results in coordination with consultants.
• Organize a conference for fall 2009 or Spring 2010 on “Visual Reverence in Southern California Religious Congregations”, which will disseminate the research findings and include addresses from representatives of the various traditions studied.
• Publish an illustrated book and articles that would extend the findings to a larger academic audience (2011).