Titus: epistle of religious revitalization

Abstract

James D. Miller (138) contends that the Epistle of Titus has "no driving concern, no consistent focus of interest" and appears "like an anthology of traditions, many arranged mechanically together by topic, some simply juxtaposed." The purpose of this study is to ascertain to what extent the Epistle of Titus demonstrates some concise strategy or logical ordering to the materials presented. It is assumed that writers have some overarching purpose in mind in order to decide what should be included or excluded in a manuscript to achieve the intended objective. Thus, this analysis is concerned with the text as text rather than any literary, historical, or other method of interpretation. This analysis suggests that the Epistle of Titus is organized in the same six-phase-sequence that is found in thousands of case studies of "revitalization movements" around the world.

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The processes of disintegration and reorganization are an integral part of all societies--the warp and woof of cultural continuity. Cultural values, beliefs, and symbols change with the passing of time. Change produces stress and distortion, and if unchecked, may lead to cultural extinction. All societies must, therefore, continually adapt to survive. Alfred North Whitehead warns:

   The art of free society consists in the maintenance of the symbolic code,
   and secondly, in the fearlessness of revision.... Those societies which
   cannot combine reverence to their symbols with freedom of revision must
   ultimately decay [Bennis & Slater: 70].

Behavioral scientists have long noted the process of social change whereby societies experience "successful innovation of whole cultural systems." Wallace (1956: 264-65) classifies this kind of change under the general rubric of a "revitalization movement" and defines it as "a deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture." This concept implies that at some previous time, people found their culture to be meaningful, believable, and satiable. But over a period of time the growing gap between old social expectations and new social behavior, between old cultural values and new ones, and between local autonomy and foreign domination frequently increase cultural distortions. Unresolved, this type of confusion and disorganization may contribute to ethnic extinction.

Wallace identifies five common stages through which all revitalization movements must pass to reverse this trend. One, the revitalization process begins with a "steady state" characterized by social conformity, acceptance of a common set of values, the fulfillment of individual needs, and the resolution of social conflicts. Eventually, internal changes brought about by social, economic, or technological innovations, and external forces, frequently result in increased social competition and ethnic conflicts giving rise to increased social disruptions and decreased levels of individual satisfaction with their present system contributing to a second stage--referred to as a "period of increased individual stress."

If the internal social mechanisms fail to reduce this increasing level of anxiety, then members will experience rising levels of stress, causing the revitalization movement to evolve into a third stage, called "the period of cultural distortion." This third stage is characterized by disillusionment, apathy, cultural deterioration, decreased birth rates, increased death rates, and internal factionalism. Fortunately, during such distressful periods of social unrest some individual frequently emerges with a creative cultural plan for resolving the social malaise, introducing a fourth stage of dynamic change designated as "the period of revitalization" (Wallace 1956: 268-70). Successful social adaptation and institutionalization of the revitalization plan produces a new steady state that culminates in an ongoing spiral of continuity and change as societies adapt to innovations.

Revitalization movements generally occur during periods of increased social conflict and change caused by colonialism and urbanization that give rise to increased confrontation between competing groups. That is, these first-hand interactions between dominant urban or colonial societies with subordinate peasant and tribal societies frequently produce a clash of values that contributes to intolerable levels of individual and social stress. Quinn (21) depicts the first century CE social milieu as an era of conflicting social and cultural forces, such as class conflicts, ethnic competition, sexual discrimination, apostolic teachings, Jewish influences, and "the ambient Hellenistic and Roman culture from which they all came." Literally thousands of examples of revitalization movements exist in the ethnographic literature (Barrett; Hiebert: 388; Tollefson 1976; Wallace 1972).

Thus cultural revitalization is one adaptive social response whereby the past and present values, customs, and beliefs--which produce dissonance arising from the distortions that exist between them--are analyzed and recombined into a new synthesis, a new mazeway, or a new Gestalt. Wallace (1956: 270-75) describes six phases that occur in this fourth stage of revitalization movements. In the first phase of religious revitalization, the "mazeway reformation" phase, a visionary experiences a radical change in personality, assumes a new role in society, devises a new plan for reorganizing society and proposes a new order that promises new meaning and purpose for living. In the second, "communication," phase, the visionary successfully transmits the mental blueprint for social and cultural change to other members in the society.