Secular "Saints"

It is difficult to overstate the appreciation and reverence that followers show to Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (1891-1956) for his work in improving the lives of people regarded as at the bottom of the caste hierarchy—Dalits or so-called “Untouchables.” Based on a recent year of field research among Ambedkarites in many global locations, exploring what Buddhism and being Buddhist means to them, my presentation focuses on ways in which they memorialize and speak about Ambedkar. While people often rely on religious language to describe this man, they do so in a way that positions him as historically unique and worthy of ultimate respect, without necessarily connoting anything divine or supernatural about him. In this modern, secular, disenchanted use of religious language among his followers, Ambedkar functionally has become a “secular saint” by virtue of his peerless status that seems practically necessary to invoke but nearly impossible to emulate.

This paper explores the relationship between secular saints and political martyrs, and illuminates the various ways by which communities invest death with political significance, consecrate it, and enshrine it in collective memory, where it subsequently resides as a resource for mobilization and identity formation. More particularly, it investigates the way in which a specifically political notion of martyrdom engages with notions of secularity and sainthood, as rival groups lay claim to the sanctified memories of role models of various sorts. A range of historical examples are provided, including King Charles I of England, Bobby Sands and the 1981 Irish hunger strikers, and George Floyd.

This paper explores the career and cultural afterlife of the American stand-up comic Lenny Bruce, who gained notoriety in the 1950s and 1960s for his irreverent satires of organized religion. It will explore how Bruce, despite his comedic irreverence, became hailed as a “prophet,” “evangelist,” “martyr,” and even, in the wake of his untimely death, a “saint.” For his supporters, Bruce embodied a commitment to free expression and authenticity in the face of religious hypocrisy and repression. In the end, the American entertainment industry and the emerging counterculture transformed a controversial comedian into a replacement spiritual authority for a segment of the country increasingly alienated from mainstream institutional religion.

This paper explores the secular hagiographical tradition in early modern China by examining the biographies of Wang Yangming (1472–1529), a Neo-Confucian philosopher who was the most influential “celebrity” of the “School of Mind” during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). While often considered a military leader and secular thinker of the elite, Wang Yangming in fact occupied both the secular and religious spheres. The development of print culture and different religious traditions in the late Ming dynasty resulted in popular biographical texts of various genres featuring Wang, including vernacular stories, illustrated manuals, lineage records, chronicles, plays, and recorded sayings. The author characterizes these texts as “secular Confucian hagiographies” and argues that they served to popularize and elevate Wang as a secular Confucian “saint” admired and idolized by people of different social classes, thus reshaping the history of Neo-Confucianism and popular literature in early modern China.