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DOI: 10.1177/00219347124404492012 43: 620 originally published online 23 April 2012Journal of Black Studies

Celucien L. JosephThe Religious Philosophy of Jean Price-Mars

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1Tarrant County College, Fort Worth, TX, USA

Corresponding Author:Celucien L. Joseph, Tarrant County College, 6513 Melwood St., Apt. 2122, Fort Worth, TX76112Email: [email protected]

The ReligiousPhilosophy of JeanPrice-Mars

Celucien L. Joseph 1

Abstract Jean Price-Mars was a towering figure in the discipline of Africana studies anda passionate proponent of the revalorization of African retentions in the Black diaspora, especially on Haitian soil. Scholars have identified him as the Franco-phone counterpart of W. E. B. Du Bois for his activism, scholarly rigor, leader-ship efficiency, and efforts in the rehabilitation of the Black race. In Haitianthought, he is regarded as the most important Haitian intellectual in the 20thcentury, having exercised an enduring intellectual influence on the generationof the American occupation in Haiti (1915-1934) and the postoccupation cul-ture from the 1930s to 1970s. While students of Haitian studies and schol-ars of religion have praised him for his scientific study of the Vodou faith andhis intelligent argument for the viability of Vodou as religion, few critics haveanalyzed the complexity of his religious imagination and ideas. The goal of thisessay is to analyze Price-Marss engagements with religion beyond the religionof Vodou. Particularly, it will focus on his philosophy of religion and his thoughton the nature of belief. The author contends that Price-Marss support of cul-tural relativism theory had shaped his view on religious mtissage and religiousdiversity. The author draws primarily from the religious rhetoric of So Spoke theUncleand his other works. The author argues to view Price-Mars as a postmod-ernist religious thinker and a religious syncretist. This essay will show what andhow Price-Mars contributed to the disciplines of religion, religious pluralism,and cultural studies and his promotion of religious tolerance.

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Keywordsculture, Haiti, Jean Price-Mars, religious diversity, religious pluralism, Vodou

Jean Price-Mars was a transdisciplinary scholar, boundary crosser, and cross-cultural theorist. In an unorthodox way, he had brought into conversationvarious disciplines, including anthropology, ethnography, sociology, history,religion, philosophy, race and ethnic studies, and literature to analyze andreevaluate African traditions and popular beliefs in Haiti, which resulted inthe trilogy La Vocation de llite (1919), Ainsi parla lOncle: Essaidethnographie (1928), andUne tape de lvolution hatienne (1929).1 Price-Marss discourse on religion is distinguished by its emphasis on Black and African religiosity and spirituality, as attested by his critics. For example,Grarde Magloire-Danton (2005) writes that Price-Mars contributes to amajor epistemic change in regard to Afro-Christian and African-derived belief systems by placing Vodou . . . in the same category of thought as mono-theistic belief systems (p. 169). While Price-Mars had given a sympatheticapproach to the Vodou religion, he was a religious pluralist in his approach tofaith and religious sensibility. I am contending that he was not committed toany religion or theological creed. The goal of this essay is to justify thisclaim. The general objective is to provide a clearer understanding on thedevelopment of Price-Marss religious thought and to study his engagementswith faith. In this piece, I will address two major issues involving Price-Marss religious sensibilities and ideas. First, I examine Price-Marss phi-losophy of religion; second, I explore his thought on the nature of belief.

Jean Price-Mars was a towering figure and a passionate proponent of therevalorization of African retentions in the Black diaspora, especially on

Haitian soil. Scholars have identified him as the Francophone counterpart of W. E. B. Du Bois for his activism, scholarly rigor, leadership efficiency, andefforts in the rehabilitation of the Black race. In Haitian thought, he is regardedas the most important Haitian intellectual in the 20th century, having exercisedan enduring intellectual influence on the generation of the American occupa-tion in Haiti (1915-1934) and the postoccupation culture from the 1930s to1970s. He is especially known for launching a cultural nationalism and ananti-imperial movement against the brutal American military forces in Haiti;his work was instrumental in the process of fostering national unity amongHaitians of all social classes and against their American oppressor and in the process of embracing Afro-Haitian popular religious culture.

While students of Haiti and scholars of religion have praised him for hisscientific study of the Vodou faith and his judicious argument for the viability

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622 Journal of Black Studies 43(6)

of Vodou as religion, few critics have analyzed the complexity of his reli-gious imagination and ideas.2 This essay challenges current scholarship onPrice-Marss perspective on religion. It puts forth the idea that Price-Marssengagements with religion must be examined beyond the realm of Vodou,and his perspective on faith should be understood in light of his acceptance of the theory of cultural relativism. Price-Marss rejection of cultural absolutismhad influenced his philosophy of religion. He had successfully embraced areligious worldview that could be called religiousmtissage and religious pluralism. In my analysis of his thought, I will draw primarily from the reli-gious rhetoric of So Spoke the Uncle and his other works. I argue to viewPrice-Mars as a postmodernist religious thinker and a religious syncretist.Briefly, by the phrase postmodernist religious thinker, I contend that Price-Mars rejected all claims to absolute or universal truth, including moral, reli-gious, and cultural. What did he say about the religious sentiments of theHaitian people? What did he observe about the intersection of religion andculture? This piece seeks to shed some light on these critical issues. I hope tofill in these intellectual gaps in Price-Marss scholarship. This essay willshow what and how Price-Mars contributed to the field of religion, religious pluralism, and cultural studies and his promotion of religious tolerance. First,I consider his thought on or philosophy of religion.

Price-Marss Philosophy of ReligionJean Price-Mars was born on October 15, 1876, in Grande-Rivire du Nordin Haiti, and died on March 1, 1969. His father, Jean Elomont Mars, was adevout Protestant; his mother, Fortuna Michel Domingue, who died in asmall pox epidemic when Price-Mars was only 6 years old, adhered to the

Catholic faith.3

Price-Mars was reared in both the Catholic and Protestanttraditions. At the prestigious Lyce Ption in Port-au-Prince, he furthered hissecondary education; there, he identified himself as Protestant, obtained permission to attend Baptist services at the weekends, and explored the cityat will during the week (Shannon, 1997, p. 16). Price-Mars biographer Jacques Carmeleau Antoine (1981) states that though he sought andobtained permission to attend Baptist services, he spent more time roamingabout the city than in Church (pp. 24-25). His attitude toward religion wascold, and he was caught in the throes of an inner conflict (Antoine, 1981, p. 25). After receiving his baccalaureate in July 1895 from the Lyce, heimmediately began medical training at the National School of Medicine. In1899, he received a scholarship from the Haitian government to continue hismedical studies in Paris at the Facult de medicine. He later received his



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doctor of medicine degree in Haiti. The heavy intellectual atmosphere of theFrench capital gave Price-Mars ample stimulation (Largey, 2006, p. 44). InParis, Price-Mars pursued other interests in the social sciences and humani-ties at Sorbonne, the Collge de France, and equally at the Muse duTrocadro and the Museum of Natural History (Magloire-Danton, 2005, p.162). Price-Mars had read widely in the European modern thought and wasschooled in anthropology, ethnography, sociology, and the racialist discourseof Western intellectuals.4

After his mothers death, the young Price-Mars was confined by his griev-ing father to the care of his maternal grandmother, Marie Elizabeth P. Godart.As Price-Mars reports, his grandmother had hoped to make him a

model of virtue. . . . She believed that it was necessary to impart to himat home a taste for work and respect for honor, to enable him to dis-cover by himself only intellectual discipline, but also the principles of a noble, proud life through character development and extensiveknowledge. (Antoine, 1981, p. 20)

Godart had inculcated these values in the young, including religious instruc-tion and the respect for all expressions of faith.From an early age until the time for personal decision, Price-Mars hadexercised great interests in the biblical teachings of his Protestant father andwas committed to the Catholic sensibility of his grandmother. Antoine notesthat the religious dichotomy around him was tempered by the conciliatoryspirit demonstrated by his father and grandmother, an important asset thatwould contribute eventually to his vision of religious tolerance (Antoine,1981, p. 20). Price-Mars himself reports that his parents had

agreed that the child should follow his grandmothers religion[Catholicism] until reaching the age to decide for himself. He wastaught to honor with esteem and respect all sincere manifestations of piety. Probably, it was this liberal conception of the most serious prob-lem in human life that later made him tend . . . toward compromise andconciliation. (Price-Mars, 1934, p. 5; also see Antoine, 1981, pp. 20-1)

The key terms in this declaration underscoring Price-Marss early religiousattitude arecompromise andconciliation , which had facilitated an opening tohis development of religious pluralism and acceptance of all faiths. Nonetheless, Emile Paultre (1966), Price-Marss first biographer, reports thatPrice-Mars had experienced a crisis of faith in his adolescent years that had



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deepened his religious curiosity (pp. 30-31). Price-Mars had attempted tosolve this dilemma by subscribing to a postmodernist orientation to belief.For him, no religion could claim to be the custodian or depository of truth;the predicament of religion lies in its inability to satisfactorily meet individ-ual aspirations and human needs and solve the problem of pain (Paultre,1966, pp. 30-33).

The clearest manifestation of Price-Marss religious views is expressed inhis epoch-making and controversial work, Ainsi parla lOncle (1928), onHaitian popular culture and the religious sentiments of the Haitian masses.He describes his objective in this statement: This entire book is an endeavor to integrate the integration of popular Haitian thought into the discipline of traditional ethnography (Price-Mars, 1983, p. 7). Price-Mars also articulatesthatlOncle aims at the restoration of the value of Haitian folklore in the eyesof the people. While the book had achieved its purpose and great scholarlyreviews both in Haiti and abroad, many critics have failed to examine Price-Marss major arguments for the legitimacy of other religions, such asBuddhism. They have stopped at his religious thinking about the Afro-HaitianVodou spirituality.

Historian Catts Pressoir (1928), after a critical review of lOncle , con-cludes that Price-Mars had effectively articulated the problem of civilizationin Haiti and the greater problem of interaction between barbarous and civi-lized races. Yet, in his evaluation of Price-Marss religious ideas, he con-cluded that Price-Mars was a Christian moralist (Pressoir, 1928, p. 70).Pressoir is unclear about this religious label describing Price-Mars religiousaffections; he had failed to describe what constitutes a Christian moralist.Contrary to this positionas I have thus demonstrated in the preceding paragraphsI am arguing that Price-Mars was not an adherent to any reli-

gious system, nor had he embraced any theological creed. He was open to allreligious expressions or beliefs; and as his arguments inlOncle substantiate,he was interested in interfaith dialogue. In fact, in his well-known debatewith the French priest and theologian Joseph Foisset in 1945 on the subject of his book, Price-Mars affirmed his commitment to no-religion. Foisset, whohad misread Price-Mars and misconstrued the central tenets of the book, believed that it was unacceptable for Price-Mars to compare the Vodou faithand Christianity because the gaps between the two religions are too profound.In response, Price asserted, I dont do apologetics. I defended neither dog-mas nor doctrines ( Je ne fais pas dapologtique. Je ne defendais ni dog-mes ni doctrines ) (Toussaint, 2009, p. 391).

Moreover, In his preface toVodou, je me souviens: Essai a book thatseeks dialogue between Vodou and ChristianityJean Fils-Aim (2007) had



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limited Price-Marss religious vision to the defense of the Afro-HaitianVodou: En 1928, dans son clbre Ainsi parla loncle, le docteur Jean

Price-Mars, sur le plan sociologique, campe le Vodou comme la religion des Noirs, aussi digne que le christianisme, religion des Blancs (In 1928, inhis famous work So Spoke the Uncle , Doctor Jean Price-Mars, on the socio-logical level, presents Vodou, the religion of Blacks, worthy as Christianity,the religion of Whites) (p. iii). According to this author, Price-Mars had presented Vodou, the Black religion, as equally important to Christianity,the White religion. Augustin had erred for articulating a false dichotomyof religion based on racial categories that Price-Mars never supported. WhilePrice-Mars had advanced that Vodou is originated from the Dahomean-Benin region of Africaa geographical location, not a racial referencehehad not explicitly stated anywhere that Vodou is inherently a Black faith.5 And there is no evidence to suggest a similar perspective on Christianity asthe religion of White people. In several of his lectures, he had bluntly dis-missed this form of racial essentialism as applied to racial groups and reli-gion, and correspondingly, he had refuted constructed racial categories andthe idea of race.6

Almost in a similar rhetoric, theologian Jean Cassus (2007), in a recentwork, Elments de la Thologie Haitienne , has wrongly interpreted Price-Marss religious position that Le Vaudou serait la vraie religion du peuplehaitien (The Vodou would be the true religion of the Haitian people) (p.90). First, to make such a claim is to propose that Price-Mars was a religiousexclusivist. Second, to articulate such a position is to aver religious absolut-ism, which denies Price-Marss religious pluralism. It is true that Price-Marshad posited that Vodou is largely practiced by the majority of Haitian peas-ants, but he had not made the claim of Vodou as the only religion in Haiti,

nor had he excluded other religious expressions in the everyday experience of the Haitian people.7 In acknowledgment of the religious diversity and cultureof the Haitian people, Price-Mars made the following statement: All Haitiansare Christian, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman. In the large cities and morerarely in the country, there are also some followers of reformed religions Baptists, Adventists, Methodists, Wesleyanswho form an active andZealous minority (Price-Mars, 1983, p. 103).

I also observe a misunderstanding of Price-Mars in the theological work of Jean Fils-Aim (2007), who asserts that Price-Mars had presented himself as le dfenseur du vodou . He writes that in Ainsi parla lOncle , Price-Mars sest fait le dfenseur du vodou quil prsent comme le ciment de la culturehaitienne (has presented himself as The Defender of Vodou and shownthe religion as the cement of Haitian culture) (Fils-Aim, 2007, p. 32).8



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p. 264). In respect to the Haitian society, Price-Mars (1959a) posited thatHaiti had developed a distinctive culture that is neither African nor French but an adulterated syncretic blending of African and European civilizations.He writes,

De cette alchimie sociale dcoula une culture originale qui ne fut niafricaine, ni franaise, mais une harmonieuse synthse de lune et lautre dont lvolution sest poursuivie et se poursuit sous nos yeuxdepuis cent cinquante ans de gestation dans les Amriques (Price-Mars, 1959a, p. 107).(From this social alchemy derives an original culture that was neither African, nor French, but a harmonious synthesis of both whose devel-opment continued and has continued under our eyes for 150 years of gestation in the Americas.)

As Stephen Howe (1999) has commented on Price-Marss reflection about thegradual development of Haitian culture or society, even in lauding Africancivilizational achievements, he wrote of Haiti as the new social form which isslowly emerging from the confusion of mores, belies, and custom (p. 84).

Through the theory of cultural dynamism, Price-Mars was able to applythose ideas in a scientific way to a comparative study of religion. First, heexplained how the religiousmtissage occurred in the context of HaitianVodou and Catholicism. As he studied the syncretic nature of the Vodou reli-gion and Haitian Catholic Christianity, he explained that Vodou has assimi-lated much of Catholic theology; it is also continuous with African religioustraditions. Continuity and change are cultural processes in every society andwill endure whether or not they are studied by scholars (as cited in

Desmangles, 1992, pp. 11-12). First, Price-Mars (1956a) noted that the Afro-Haitian faith is a symbiosis and a process of religiousmtissage betweenAfrican animism and Western Catholic Christianity. Second, he explained theconstitutive elements of the two religious expressions, the Vodou faith andthe Catholic tradition in the context of the Haitian culture:

En vrit, ce catholicisme est fort enchevtr. Il est lexpression decroyances ou se trouvent mles, en des rapports indfinissables, leslments fondamentaux de la religion vaudouesqueculte desanctres et des gnieset les principes dogmatiques de lconomiecatholique . (Price-Mars, 1956a, p. 86)[It is true this Catholicism is tangled up with its context. It is theexpression of beliefs within which all are mixed in indefensible con-



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nections with the basic elements of the Vodoo religionthe cult of ancestors and of the genuisesand the dogmatic principles of Catholicism.]

Accordingly, Vodou and Catholicism are connected through the sharedritual of ancestral veneration (or the veneration of the saints) and a commontheological worldview. While this may not be true in every theological aspect,Price-Mars pursued his observations by establishing historical links and theinterweaving dynamics between the two religions:

Un long travail, un travail sculaire de syncrtisme a assur une com- pntration des deux religions dans lme populaire au point que le voduhatien en se dlestant de la mtaphysique dahomenne dont il drive aimprgn le christianisme catholique dapports nouveau que reprouve la

puret de la doctrine .[A long work, a secular work of syncretism ensured a reciprocal penetra-tion of the two religions in the popular soul to the degree that the HaitianVodou yields its Dahomean metaphysique of which it derives; it hasimmersed itself into Catholic Christianity to form new linkages whichreject the purity of doctrine.]

At this point, he highlighted two important factors: the process of religioussyscretismwhich also occurs between culturesand the work of reciprocal penetration, which had helped create new linkages. One can draw several points from his observation. First, religiousmtissage rejects theologicalabsolutism, or what Price-Mars had phrased the purity of doctrine. Second,this phenomenonal process is also an attack on absolute religious claims (of

truth) and religious absolutism. Third, therefore, religious syncretism by vir-tue of interpenetration, and reciprocity between religions denies the supre-mancy of one religion. Substantially, Price-Mars (1983) held that whatever may be the milieu in which two or more religions exist side by side, it isinevitable that they will pervade each other and react upon each other indepe-dently of the desire of men, adding that this phenomenon occurs especiallyin the course when the State interferes to protect one religion at the expenseof the others (p. 166).

Furthermore, Price-Mars (1956a) strenghtened his thesis by offering numer-ous examples on the common spiritual practices and shared sybols betweenCatholicism and the Vodou faith.10 It is from this angle he could comment onthe shared religious vision in popular consciousness between the adherents of both religions. He insisted that they perceive no contradictions within:



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Si tout cela aboutit en fin de compte une certaine similitude de pense,il nest pas tonnant que la conscience populaire ait laborelidentification des deux religions au point que le vodou hatien nest

plus du tout lanimisme banal que le premier venu peut aisment dtecter chez tout primitif, en mme temps que notre catholicisme

populaire ne ressemble pas du tout la religion dogmatique codifie par des conciles et enseigne par lEglise . (p. 87)11[If the final analysis leads to a certain similarity of thought, it is notsurprising that the popular conscience worked out in such a way that itidentifies itself with the two religions so that the Haitian Voodoo is nolonger the banal animism than the first (religion) that one can easilydetect in all primitive religions; and, at the same time our popular Catholicism does not resemble at all the dogmatic religion codified bythe councils and taught by the Church.]

Considering the implications of these observations for contemporary dis-cussions on interfaith dialogue, cultural studies, morality, or ethics, Price-Mars could insist that no ones race, culture, or civilization has the monopolyand that no ones religion is the ultimate source of truth and provides or inter- prets the decisive meaning to life. He pronounced that quil nexiste pas devrit absolue ou objective. Auncun chercheur na le monopole de la vrit (There is no absolute truth or objective. No researcher has a monopoly onthe truth).12As a consequence, one ought to consider that Price-Marss rela-tivism (or its implication) stresses that

all truth claims can be true only with respect to the particular assump-tions and contexts from which they derive. All philosophical claims are

relativized by the limitations of the specific historical, cultural, andcognitive contexts out of which these claims are constructed. (Dorrien,1995, p. 17)

Also, it is only logical to presume that Price-Mars would contend for theimperative of religious diversity, religious inclusivism, and ultimately, reli-gious tolerance. Religious diversity is overwhelmingly crucial in the processof effecting a democratic order; in the same line of thought, religious inclu-sivism, which entails religious tolerance, provides an opportunity for peopleof all faith to benefit from the freedom of worship without fear of threats andreligious discrimination. Putting these various ideas in practice could poten-tially contribute to the development of human freedom and personal and col-lective self-expression, create an atmosphere of peace between religions, and



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urge adherents of all religions to cooperate by transcending their religiousdifferences.

In addition, one could also speak of religious postmodernism and locatePrice-Marss religious thought within this very concept. By calling Price-Mars a postmodernist religious thinker, one is suggesting that he believed inthe unity and oneness of humanity and the possibility for individuals to createcommon values and shared beliefs through variegated religious experiences,what John Dewey (1934) calls a common faith. A postmodernist vision of religion, life, and human dynamics supports the idea of cross-cultural rela-tionship and interfaith dialogue. It seeks to persuade people to strive for the best interest of humanity and of all religions in their appreciation of diversityand differences. Religious postmodernism also appreciates the spiritualunity among the plurality of religious faiths (Harris, 1989, p. 5). Price-Mars(1983) describes this worldview with great clarity in the following paragraph:

Religious beliefs are not just the exaltation of sentiment which makesus test our dependence on cosmic forces and, brought to its highestexpression, influences us toward universal communion through love,confidence, and prayer; they have in the highest degree the social vir-tue of bringing us together in community, of strengthening the bondsthat tie the people of the same country together, and beyond the fron-tiers, peoples, different races, and finally significant portions of humanity for the greatest flowering of the common faith which ani-mates them. (p. 43)

Price-Mars articulates a comparative and pluralistic view to religions and

cultures. Such a rational inclination is communicated through various impliedconcepts (i.e., religious pluralism, religious syncretism, religious postmod-ernism, etc.) that I identify in and as his overall religious thinking.13 Theseobservable expressions or ideologies dethrone metaphysical absolutism andcultural totalitarianism with value relativism and metaphysical pluralism andinsist on imperatives of tolerance, reciprocity, and parity as conditions for the possibility of the peaceful coexistence of cultures and religions (Harris,1989, p. 5). What did Price-Mars then say about the nature of religion and thenature of belief? To this subject I shall now focus my attention.

Price-Marss Discourse on the Nature of Belief By undertaking a comparative approach to religion, Price-Mars inSo Spokethe Uncle deploys the Durkheimian theory of religion to studying the nature



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of popular beliefs in Haitian society expressed through religion. He studiescomparatively general dispositions, modes of expressions, and representa-tions in various religious systems: the theistic and atheistic traditions, theAbrahamaic faiths, African animism, and Asian religions (Price-Mars, 1983, pp. 83-172). In the second chapter ( Les croyances populaires ; Popular Beliefs) of the book, he begins with a philosophical conversation about thenature and significance of religious beliefs. By popular beliefs, first, Price-Mars situates religion within the sphere of the community of adherents or believers. Second, the expression conveys the sum total of the psychological phenomena in which modalities of popular beliefs in the collective sensemay burst out in manifestations of trust and piety (Price-Mars, 1983, p.135).Price-Mars puts forward that religion might lead to self-confidence and a com-mitment to spiritual development. While he is affirming conflict of belief inand of religion, he is suggesting that beliefs in the religious sense might revealthe uncertainties from which no human creature can escape in the presence of enigmas which beset us from birth to the grave (Price-Mars, 1983, p. 135).Here, he is presenting religion as a possible source of epistemology in thehuman experience, but it does not explain everything in the world. Yet, religionmight be a dreadful event to encounter; as Price-Mars (1934) writes elsewhere,it is really the most serious problem in human life (p. 5).If religion could create both fear and self-assurance, then it is an unwavering phenomenon. One must intervene by noting that religion is neither good nor bad. It could be used as a tool in the accomplishment of both things. As PhilZucherman (2000) observes, as a social construction and a human projection,religion encapsulates both the wonders and the warts of humanity and has the potential to exemplify one, the other, or both (p. 9). Price-Mars remarks thatreligious beliefs might express the uncertainty of human experience and the

ambiguity of life itself. Being described in this way, evidently the crisis of reli-gious indecision is an epistemological problem as well as a theological one. Inother words, in the thought of John Dewey, beliefs that comprise religion canno longer lay claim to absolute certainty, and so leaves individuals withoutcertain answers to questions about lifes ultimate meaning (Rogers, 2008, p.110). The statement by Dewey does not necessarily suggest that religion ismeaningless or has nothing to offer to life. Price-Mars would have consentedthat religion does contribute or add to life meaning and that

religion not only can help but may also be essential to constructingworthwhile livesbut only if our understanding of what religion is,how it works, and what sorts of purposes it serves are reworked toreflect the limits of human finitude. (Kahn, 2009, p. 25)



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For instance, he believes that slave religion paved the way to the HaitianRevolution and identified itself with the dream of slave emancipation inSaint-Domingue in the night of the general revolt in 1791. He sees Black spirituality, with its liberating potential, as having contributed to the socialtransformation and reversal of the colonial order of slavery at Saint-Domingue(Price-Mars, 1983, pp. 46-47). As he affirms in this statement, their ancestral beliefs became the leaven of the revolt against odious oppression (Price-Mars, 1983, p. 107).

He continues the discussion by asserting that beliefs are the most appar-ent and most representative expression of folk-lore disseminated throughoral traditions and the everyday experiences of the individual and the collec-tive masses (Price-Mars, 1983, p. 34). He recommends that beliefs should bestudied in their actual manifestations, in their recent or distant origins. Thegoal is twofold: to unravel them from the symbolism in which they are devel-oped and to compare them to other states of consciousness as felt by other peoples (Price-Mars, 1983, p. 34). In short, modalities of popular beliefsought to be analyzed carefully in their origins, their evolution, and their actual practices with scientific rigor.

Price-Mars proceeds by affirming and discussing the mysterious nature of religious beliefs. There are times, he asserts, when beliefs can be unexpres-sive due to legal restrictions (or the pressures of the law) and human sur-roundings, which would eventually lead to (collective) resistance to theoppressive power(s) (Price-Mars, 1983, p. 49). It is within these complexsituations or life conditions that the opening for persistence of beliefs arises.He elucidates on this psychological state in the following words:

But we are well aware of the resilient power of which any belief is

capable that is supported by the whole mass of time-honored senti-ment. It plunges its roots into the unfathomable depths of the subcon-scious all the more tenaciously as it is constrained to dissimulate itself.(Price-Mars, 1983, p. 49)

In the course of his discourse on the nature of belief, Price-Mars articu-lates that religious modalities in the form of prayers, meditations, homilies,songs, dances, and so on might be perceived as

the essence of various representations in the minds which cling tooclose to the state of nature to accept mans most magnificent proof of nobility, this curiosity by which we are overcome in the face of the



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unknown and perhaps the unknowable which floods our universe.(Price-Mars, 1983, p. 49)

For Price-Mars, religion seems to be a natural stage in the development of thehuman mind; hence he presupposes that all individuals are capable of imagin-ing some form of religion by whatever name one might call it.14 He locates beliefs in the sphere of the human intellect; he contends that it is possible for the mind to capture various religious expressions and forms. Religion, as heobserves, is a curious phenomenon because of the unstable nature it consti-tutes. It confronts humans with the life mysteries, even the unknown. Price-Mars distinguishes religion from popular beliefs. He posits that any religioustradition is subservient to popular beliefs, which might result in a cult andtraditions. While he reports that general beliefs are rested upon authenticacts of faith, religion is then contingent upon this performance of mentaldisposition (Price-Mars, 1983, p. 35). That is, religious spirituality and prac-tices and rituals are manifestations of actual beliefs embodied in acts of faith;they lead to the adherence of a religion. It is at this junction he identifies popular beliefs as religious sentiments and phenomena to the practice and performance of religion. So, for Price-Mars, religion is many things: (a) con-crete beliefs, (b) acts of faith, and (c) phenomenal sentiments.Like Emile Durkheim (1995) inThe Elementary Forms of Religious

Life , Price-Mars dismisses the fundamental notion of religion as the theessential bond which links the divinity with man (Price-Mars, 1983, p. 36;cf. Durkheim, 1995, pp. 21-23). In this way, he dismisses Schleiermacherscharacterization of religious experience as the feeling of absolute depen-dence and rejects the view that the central element in religious life is theconsciousness of ones self as absolutely dependent (Rowe, 1993, p. 55).

As Durkheim remarks, religion can be defined only in terms of featuresthat are found whenever religion is found (as cited in Rowe, 1993, p. 22).Price-Mars (1983) further finds problematic another conception of religionas solely the symbol of an attachment of man to a being or to some spiri-tual beings upon whom he depends (p. 37). First, in the course of critiqu-ing this position, Price-Mars suggests that such a perception of religionmay apply only to highly evolved religions, such as the Abrahamaic tradi-tions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Second, the idea would excludeatheistic religions, such as Buddhism and other expressions that do notinvolve mans dependence upon a God or the supernatural intervention inhuman affairs. As a consequence, he proposes a definition of religion that iswide enough to incorporate all kinds of beliefstheistic and atheistic,Abrahamaic and non-Abrahamic faithsand, as he insists, one that is



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broad enough to satisfy completely the exigencies of the most complexreligions while at the same time including the simple terms of the mostelementary forms of religious phenomena and sentiments (Price-Mars,1983, p. 36).15 It is good to note here, as Jonathon S. Kahn (2009) states,even without a metaphysically robust God, we humans still find ourselveswanting to make the world live up to a heavenly ideal (p. 34). Evidently,our religious imperatives might direct us to the conclusion that we belongto something greater than ourselves; the sense of moral justice and the need,when justice fails or human pain increases, for well-being and consolationin a world suffused with suffering and brutishness might compel us todesire or call upon supernatural assistance (Kahn, 2009, p. 34). Price-Marsinsists on the incapacity of religion or any system of morality to respondadequately to lifes greatest questions and to deal satisfactorily with theuncertainties of life and human needs. The questions he poses below revealthere is a crisis of faith or belief:

Do we not find ourselvesmany of us at leasthelpless and appre-hensive each time that certain phenomena go beyond the limit of our actual knowledge? What is the purpose of life, its origin and its end?Have we not mediated painfully on these eternal questions for a longas there have been men who thought? And on whom shall we rely tofind an explanation of these problems that is worthy of our intellectual pride? (Price-Mars, 1983, p. 85)

Assuredly, Price-Mars doubts the supernatural response to these provoca-tive questions or problems. He, however, does not rebuke those who seek divine help, when he pronounces,

Those who take refuge in a prudent wisdom find that most of thesequestions border on the extreme limit of our investigations and of our ability to understandat the unknowable of things, while others, thegreat majority of men, believe in the omnipresence of a superior being,master of all things in this world and director of its harmony. (Price-Mars, 1983, p. 85)

For Price-Mars, religion is workable without God or within the paradigmof an atheistic vision of life. Contrary to Rudolf Ottos (1958) theistic defini-tion of religious experience, that the phenomenon of religious experiencemight be construed as an experience in which one senses the immediate presence of the divine (as cited in Rowe, 1993, p. 57), Price-Mars proposes



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that religious experience is a relationship to the sacrednot necessarily God.As I will show below, the sacred is varied in Price-Mars logic. The Price-Marsian perspective is more revealing when he asks rhetorically, Are therenot great religions in existence in which the idea of gods and spirits is absentor at least plays only a secondary and inconspicuous role? (Price-Mars,1983, p. 36). He names the obvious: This is the case in Buddhism notably. . .an ethic without god and atheism without nature . . . It does not recognize anygod on whom man depends, and its doctrine is completely atheistic (Price-Mars, 1983, p. 36). In this vein, it is thus feasible to answer lifes religiousdemand, in the Jamesian logic, for meaning even when one can no longer accept God or clearly discern the divine blueprint underpinning reality(James, 1959, pp. 39-61; Kahn, 2009, p. 34).

Price-Marss appeal to Buddhism as a religion without god and his men-tioning of the four propositions, the noble truths of Buddhism, is an attemptto reorient our religious consciousness to religious inclusivism and pluralismand to authenticate the least advanced faiths, including the so-called primi-tive religions and those of African traditions, which he pursues in chapter 5(African Animism) of So Spoke the Uncle (Price-Mars, 1983, pp. 83-101).16 He presents Buddhism as a religion that went from the simple to the complexform. In the first paragraph that follows, he summarizes the values of Buddhism (i.e., abstinence, compassion, humility, love, sacrifice, holiness,etc.) that are common to all religions:

If on the other hand, man finds in the contemplation of abstinence, inthe practice of charity, in humility, and in external sacrifice, the oppor-tunity of achieving a state of holiness and blessedness which frees himfrom the miseries and the disabilities of the flesh without even calling

upon external intervention, then Buddhism in its beginning has givenus the proof of a religion without god. (Price-Mars, 1983, p. 38)

In the second paragraph, below, he reiterates his argument for the viabilityof Buddhism as a religion without a god. Still, he is emphasizing his former contention that religion does not need a god (or gods or spirits) to be calledso and claim religiosity:

We have wished simply to stress that if a great religion like Buddhismcould arise and live during a certain time in its original purity accord-ing to an entirely secular concept, then the definition of religion givenabove, that is, to understand it as a bond between divinity and man,would exclude Buddhism form the realm of religion and thus bring



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about a paradoxical conclusion. So we will eliminate the acceptance of religion as the symbol of an attachment of man to a being or to somespiritual beings upon whom he depends, because this is more charac-teristic of those religions that are already highly evolved. (Price-Mars,1983, p. 37)

Accordingly, Buddhism, as other religions, for Price-Mars has met therequirements of a religion because it is potentially capable of coping withwhat Durkheim (1995) has phrased the necessities of existence. It offerswisdom to deal with the absurdity of life. In sum, religion is a manifestationof human activity, is instructive, expresses man, and can help one understand better the human nature and nature of belief (Durkheim, 1995, p. 22). In thesame line of thought, Price-Mars proceeds to defend the authenticity of Vodou as a religion on the basis of these articulated antecedents of religiosity.That is, Vodou is neither superstition nor black magic as traditionally per-ceived. Like Buddhism, he contends that Vodou as a religious worldview hassatisfied all the demands, requirements, constructed notions, and ideals of religion.17 It has its own theology, orders time and space, and possesses itsown ethic (Magloire-Danton, 2005, p. 169).

As seen in preceding discussions, Price-Mars was not attempting to supporta particular religion; rather, he was promoting religious tolerance, the freedomof religion, and the freedom of all faiths to coexist. Furthermore, following theDurkheim school of thought on religion, Price-Mars establishes that

all the known religious beliefs, whether simple or complex, have auniversal characteristic: they assume a classification of real or idealthings which men have introduced as to opposite types, designated

generally by the clear-cut terms of the profane and of the sacred.(Price-Mars, 1983, p. 37)

The two general characteristics that all religions share in common include thereal and ideal things and the profane and the sacred. Certainly, another perceivably shared feature of all that is religious, as Price-Mars acknowledges,is the phenomenon of the supernatural or God. By the supernatural or thetranscendence, he does not necessarily mean the monotheistic God of theAbrahamaic religious backgrounds. Second, he distinguishes two domains or spheresthe realm of the profane and the realm of the sacredas consti-tutive aspects of all that is religious. He writes that the sacred and the profaneform two distinct categories, with the difference residing in the absolutelyopposite character of one from the other (Price-Mars, 1983, p. 38). He



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Joseph 637

reckons that this bond is especially expressed in the relationship between asingular spiritual being or superior beings and the human subject; the dynamic,however, might be typified by either fear or hope, as the adherent performs hisor her religious duty, worships, and interacts with the superior being. At this point, one might be curious to learn about what the nature of the sacred and the profane is then and their composition. With clarity and precision, Price-Marsfollows Durkheims consideration on the issue, as he comments,

The division of the world into two domains, the one including all that issacred, the other all that is profane, is the distinctive trait of religiousthought; the beliefs, the myths, the dogmas, the legends are either repre-sentations or systems of representations which express the nature of things, the virtues and the powers which are attributed to them, their his-tory, and their affinity to one another and with secular things, the virtuesand the powers which are attributed to them, their history, and their affin-ity to one another and with secular things. (Price-Mars, 1983, p. 37)18

Therefore, the sacred may liberally include ideas, concepts, things, or sub- jects or might be conceived as both the material and immaterial that embody popular cultural forms and representations. He judges indiscriminately thatby sacred things we do not mean just personal beings that we that we callgods or spirits, and a crag, a tree, a spring, a pebble, a piece of wood, a house,in fact anything, can be sacred (Price-Mars, 1983, p. 37). Sacred thingsmight also incorporate words, utterances, or formulas spoken from the lips of a consecrated individual; in the same way, gestures and movements can belabeled as such, as they are performed by the designated or special person(Price-Mars, 1983, pp. 37-38). For Price-Mars, as his biographer Magdaline

Shannon (1997) clarifies,religious sentiment, when stripped of its enriching symbolism, wasreduced ineluctably to a mass of rules that had to be observed in order to obtain present or future happiness, whether such happiness wasderived from within oneself or from one or more spiritual beings whowatched over one. (pp. 67-68)

In conclusion, Price-Marss philosophy of religion and his discourse on thenature of belief are inclusive in orientation; they are generous enough to affirmand integrate all faiths, all religious manifestations, and spirituality: theisticand nontheistic, Christian and non-Christian traditions. The implications of Price-Marss religious thought for contemporary dialogue on religion and



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ethics are critical. First, he challenges us to do more constructive ecumenicaland interfaith dialogues in order to arrive at an intercultural understanding of religion and the varieties of religious experiences. In this regard, he has calledfor us also to support religious diversity in our society. Second, Price-Marss perspective on religious morality interrogates contemporary rigid views onreligious ethics. Particularly, he has invited students of religion to consider asoft view of morality that rejects absolute claims of truth for relative truthand moral absolutism for moral relativism. As he himself declares in thisstatement, the Church knows well that she does not have a monopoly of miracles in the category of celebrated, unexpected, and inexplicable recover-ies (Price-Mars, 1983, p. 163). Third, his liberal mind would not allow himto view human dynamics and beliefs expressed through varieties of religiousdiscourses from one singular lens and to judge them from one criterion of values. Finally, Price-Marss philosophy of religion and reflections on thenature of belief might be summarized in his clarion call for an inclusive toler-ance of all faiths and a liberal standpoint on ethics. This is unmistakable in hisreasoning in the closing paragraph below:

In fact, if we were less willing to consider our moralityas the moral-ity, we should see that primitive societies are restrained by a verynarrow code of constraints and obligations, all of a religious originwhich, by their extensive application, dominate the private and publiclife and express in the clearest fashion that these societies have moral-ity. (Price-Mars, 1983, p. 40)

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,

authorship, and/or publication of this article.Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publica-tion of this article.

Notes

1. His other major writings on history, biography, race, Black emancipation, theHaitian Revolution, Haitian culture, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic includethe following: Formation ethnique, folkore et culture du peuple hatien (1939);Contribution hatienne la lutte des Amriques pour les liberts humaines (1942); La Rpublique dHati et la Rpublique Dominicaine (Vol. 1) (1953);

De Saint Domingue Hati: Essai sur la culture, les arts et la littrature



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(Vol. 2) (1959b);Silhouettes de ngres et de ngrophiles (1960); and Joseph Antnor Firmin (1978).

2. To read about Price-Marss general contributions to the Haitian society and Black global history, see Price-Mars (1956b). This book pays tribute to Jean Price-Mars on the occasion of his 80th birthday written by 60 authors. Some of theinfluential figures contributing to this text include W. E. B. Du Bois, Leopold S.Senghor, James Leyburn, Fernando Ortiz, Gabriel Debien, Roger Bastide,Dantes Bellegarde, Ernst Trouillot, Lesli Manigat, and Jean Fouchard. Recently,25 scholars have discussed the importance of Ainsi parla lOncle and the legacyof Jean Price-Mars in Haiti and abroad, which resulted in Ainsi parla lOncle

suivi Revisiter lOncle (Price-Mars, 2009). Michael Largey (2006) has docu-mented the significance of Price-Mars in Haitis ethnological movement and theinspired peasant music culture and his contributions in fostering Haitian nation-alist consciousness in the 20th century. Hnock Trouillot (1956) has written oneof the most insightful evaluations of Price-Marss thought and his intellectualinfluence on Haitian life.

3. There are only two biographies in the English language about Jean Price-Mars:those by Jacques Carmeleau Antoine (1981) andMagdaline W. Shannon(1956) . Emile Paultre wrote the first and award-winning (Prix de lAlliance

Franaise) biography in French in 1933 while Price-Mars was still living. Helater complemented his work (Paultre, 1966), 3 years before Price-Marss deathin 1969.

4. In La Vocation de llite , Price-Mars (1919) recounts his encounter with the emi-nent French sociologist and anthropologist Gustave Le Bon, whose work Lois

pyschologiques dvolution des peuples Price-Mars had read while he was study-ing in Paris. Le Bons text divided the various races according to their psycho-logical tendencies and characteristics. The book also supports the theory of racial

inequality and inferiority and champions European racial ingenuity. Price-Mars,in his famous debate with Le Bon, challenges his view on race and the inherentmoral aptitude of Europeans.

5. See especially his rebuttals to W. B. Seabook, who in his Magic Island hadequated Vodou to Haitian sensationalism, exoticism, and racial savagery (Price-Mars, 1929, pp. 109-132).

6. See especially his 1906 lecture, Le Prjug des races (Price-Mars, 1919, pp. 165-187), as well as his lecture De lEsthtique dans les races in the samevolume (Price-Mars, 1919, pp. 191-209).

7. See his affirmation of the religious diversity of the Haitian people (Price-Mars,1956a, pp. 85-91).

8. Alfred Mtraux (1958) correctly reasons that Price-Mars revient le mritedavoir rendu le vaudou respectable et mme sympathique lopinion publie



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hatienne en exorcisant le fantme quil tait devenue (deserves credit for making Vodou respectable and even sympathetic to the Haitian public opinion inexorcising the ghost that it had become) (p. 16).

9. For further details, see Price-Mars (1983, pp. 35-54).10. See his exhaustive comparisons and lists inSo Spoke the Uncle (Price-Mars,

1983, pp. 116-172.11. Desmangles (1992) writes, Vodous close association with Catholicism could

have created theological fusion, the two religious systems represented in the mindsof their adherents two disparate objects juxtaposed to one another (p. 11).

12. Hrold Toussaint (2009) in an article, Ethnologie et Thologie en Hati, quotedPrice-Mars (2009, p. 392).

13. Literature on the subject of religious pluralism, religious syncretism, religious postmodernism, and the intersection of religion, culture, and cultural theoriesare voluminous. I recommend the following works: John Hick (1989), Netland(1991), De Vries (1999), Cox (2009), and Adams (1993).

14. Antenor Firmin (2002), Price-Marss intellectual ancestor, made a similar argu-ment (p. 354).

15. At this point, Price-Mars is echoing Durkheims (1995) religious description:

We will incorporate all the religious systems we can know, past as well as present, the most primitive and simple as well as the most modern andrefined, for we have no right to exclude some so as to keep only certain oth-ers, and no logical method of doing so. (p. 22)

It is also good to point out that at the time of Price-Marss writing in the 1920s,religious scholars had classified world religions hierarchically: the advancedor highly evolved religions and the least advanced or undeveloped religions.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam would be placed in the first category; Africananimistic religions and those of the Asian continent would be classified in thesecond category. The term primitive religion was also used for the second groupof religions.

16. On page 37, in his discussion of the tenets of Buddhism, Price-Mars (1983)writes,

The first considers the existence of pain as bound to the perpetual flow of matter; the second shows desire as the cause of unhappiness; the third makesthe suppression of desire the only means of suppressing unhappiness; thefourth enumerates the three stages through which one must pass in order toattain this suppression: they are justice, mediation, and finally wisdom bring-ing full possession of the doctrine. Having traversed these three stages, one



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arrives at the end of the road, at deliverance, at salvation through Nirvana.For further research on Buddhism, the reader is advised to consult the follow-ing studies: Suzuki (1944), Hanh (1999), and Das (1998).

17. Price-Mars (1983) articulates three unrefutable arguments for the faith of Haitian peasants:

Voodoo is a religion because all its adherents believe in the existence of spiritual beings who lieve anywhere in the universe in close intimacy withhumans whose activity they dominate.

Voodoo is a religion because the cult appertaining to its gods requires ahierachical priestly body, a society of the faithful, temples, altars, ceremo-nies, and finally a whole oral tradition which has certainly not come down tous unaltered, but thanks to which the essential elements of this worship have been transmitted.

Vodoo is a religion because, amid the confusion of legends and the cor-ruption of fables, we can discern a theology, a system of representationthanks to which our African ancestors have, primitively, account for natural phenomena and which lies dormantly at the base of the anarchical beliefsupon which the hybrid Catholicism of our popular masses rests. (p. 39).

In addition, I must also point out that the struggle for religious freedom andrights is still a national crisis in Haiti. In some parts in the country, adherents of the Vodou religion known as Vodouizan are still under persecution for their faith. For example, the anti-Vodou sentiment since the January 12, 2010, earth-quake had substantially escalated. Vodou is still perceived by many as a trou- bling faith. For example, some 40 Vodou priests and priestesses have been killed by radical religious fanatics in Haiti who were convinced that Vodou was theultimate cause of the devastation of the Haitian capital (Port-au-Prince) and the

loss of countless lives (an estimation of 300,000 deaths and the displacementof 1.5 million people). In the United States, a few days after the earthquake,David Brooks (2010), in an article inThe New York Times , attributed the earth-quake phenomenon to the Vodou religion, suggesting that Haiti suffered from acomplex web of progress-resistant cultural influences, including the voodooreligion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile(p. 2). A month later, Lawrence Harrison (2010), a former U.S. Agency for Inter-national Development official in Haiti, in an article that appeared in the pagesof theWall Street Journal also attributed the disastrous earthquake and Haitisunderdevelopment to the Vodou faith, pronouncing that Haiti had defied alldevelopment prescriptions because of its Vodou culture, which he interpreted asa national curse. Harrison declared, Because Haitis culture is powerfully influ-enced by its religion, voodoo. Voodoo is one of numerous spirit-based religions



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common to Africa. It is without ethical content. Its followers believe that their destinies are controlled by hundreds of capricious spirits (p. 1). How wouldthen Price-Mars have responded to both (modern) national and foreign negativeattitudes toward the Vodou religion?Being a fervent proponent of religious freedom and rights, Price-Mars wouldhave rebuked the widespread anti-Vodou sentiments both nationally and inter-nationally and condemned those who had attributed the Haitian earthquake andthe countrys underdevelopment to the Vodou religion. Haitis infrastructure is beyond the religious issue; it is a combination and the cause of the institution of slavery, Western colonization, Euro-American exploitation and (mis-)use of theHaitian people, Euro-American hegemony in the country, and Haitis politicianscontinuous exploitation of their own people. Price-Mars would have broughtthese critical issues to national and international attention. Particularly, he wouldhave called for national dialogue about the state of religious rights, freedom, andtolerance in Haiti, including the constitutional right of the Vodou religion to existas any other faith and Vodouizan to exercise their deservingly religious rights.Finally, he would have correctly interpreted the January 12 phenomenon as anatural disaster and condemned the religious violence in Haiti.

18. Also in mile Durkheim and Kenneth Thompson (1998, p. 109).

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Bio

Celucien L. Joseph is an adjunct Professor of French in Tarrant County College. Heis the author of the forthcoming book, Religious Metissage: The Religious

Imagination of Jean Price-Mars (Wipf & Stock, 2013).

Journal of Black Studies 2012 Joseph 620 45

Documents

Transcript of Journal of Black Studies 2012 Joseph 620 45