Deific Figures and Human Bodies: Creating Hierarchies of Difference through the Incarnation of Moral Authority

Abstract

Religious communities have long affirmed the agency of their sacred texts and their God/gods, providing a unique site of study for research on ventriloquizing authority, textual agency, and the power of incorporeal figures like values or principles. This paper uses PraiseMoves, an Evangelical organization selling a “Christian alternative to yoga,” as a case study to develop the concept of deific agency. Deific agency is the agential power of incorporeal projections of moral authority. These projections mediate text-human relationships both in and beyond particular organizational contexts by imbuing visibly-privileged human bodies with moral authority. Deific figures can thus overwhelm textual agency by bonding with visibly-privileged bodies and thereafter organizing perceptions of moral authority in and beyond organizations in ways that disproportionately benefit physically-privileged human beings. This paper concludes by articulating the value of believing bodies for research and suggesting future avenues of inquiry.