Religious/Spiritual Ritual and Intersubjective Responsiveness

This chapter continues the project of earlier chapters by showing how the non-social features of the finite province of ritual support social relationships within and outside ritual, and it demonstrates how ritual music can support such relationships. The chapter discusses how play and ritual converge and differ from each other—a topic widely discussed in anthropological literature. Limiting itself specifically to the Abrahamic religions, with their personalist God and following the philosophy of religion of Max Scheler, the chapter construes bodily movements, sensible significations, and appresentative chains as constitutive of communication between a personal God and the religious community and among those within the community. The non-social features of ritual deepen these multiple social interactions and even promote responsiveness to and responsibility for those outside the community and excluded from it. The waiting for a revelation, which a personal, not-to-be coerced God is free to give or not, a God who alone occupies the absolute sphere of value, can instill a respect for all persons that is able to offset, to a degree, the violence towards others that religious and cultural imperialism can promote. This chapter illuminates how the religious ritual province can contribute to the resilience and responsiveness to others, which this book claims are central themes for Schutz.