Exploring the Sacred in Museums – Jim Robinson

Museums have experienced a bit of a shake up recently.  They have moved from primarily promoting wider understanding of cultural and historical heritage to exploring in a more profound way the importance of religious culture and tradition and in particular the idea of ‘the sacred’.

In a recent talk in the British Museum entitled ‘Exploring the sacred in museums’, the historian of religion Karen Armstrong defined sacred as what you would be prepared to die; that most fundamental thing which holds true for both the religious and secular person. As a Trustee of the British Museum and therefore in an ideal position to steer things, Karen Armstrong talks of the need to develop the ‘the science of compassion’. By this she means seeing things from the perspective of the other person, being sensitive to their spirituality or secular standpoint and not trying to impose your own perspective, reaching out to the other when learning about the religious traditions and cultures from across the world. For her, getting to know and understand the past of others, however different culturally that may be, helps us understand ourselves better.

This is at the heart of what many museums are aspiring to do right now. All of this has direct benefits to the RE teacher and Religious Education not only in ‘learning about’ but also ‘learning from’. Understanding through the ‘science of compassion’ means that visitors can link sacred objects from a vast array of cultures and ages to their own present concerns and values, to see their place in all of this and understand that place in a deeper way whether from a religious or secular perspective.

British Museum exhibitions over the last couple of years have been packed with sacred objects, leading some to have spiritual experiences themselves: a concept that seems so unlikely in a museum context. One of the most popular of recent years was the ‘Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead’, which explored the idea of spiritual journeys through this ancient text. The Hajj exhibition contained wall hangings from Ka’aba in Mecca, souvenirs brought back by pilgrims from Hajj and belongings of hajis, those who made the pilgrimage of a lifetime. For Muslim visitors, especially those who had been on Hajj, this meant reliving the spiritual experience and journey.

But are responses to sacred objects in exhibitions like this really ‘religious’? Sometimes ‘emotional’ response might be blurred with what we might think of as a spiritual experience in the presence of a sacred object. But take the example of the ‘Treasures of Heaven: saints, relics and devotion in medieval Europe’ exhibition of 2011, which was packed full of relics and reliquaries many of which were loaned from churches. You will not be surprised that some visitors prayed in front of the exhibits or brought objects to be blessed in the sacred presence, such as the crucifix a young boy brought to take home for future veneration. Other visitors found it possible to re-establish personal links with the lives of the saints represented. Believing in their stories was like a religious experience to them. Karen Armstrong suggests that this exploration of the sacred leads to a sense of ‘wholeness’ or ‘completeness’ and allows us to experience new ‘regions’ within ourselves, allowing ourselves to be changed. In the case of these visitors this was certainly true.

Spiritual or religious experience can include feelings of being relaxed, encouraging contemplation, feeling calm and escaping from the outside world and feeling inspired, particularly for visitors with a religious background. For those with what we may call a secular perspective, it is the stories of the objects and the people who made them that fascinates them and they are more interested in. The British Museum is sensitive to both religious and secular responses and wants to know how visitors might respond to exhibitions and sacred objects. Today its emphasis is on understanding religions rather than comparing them and much less about ‘confuting atheism’ as was the aim in the 18^th c when the museum was founded. Religion and the sacred are acknowledged as being present everywhere in its collections.

All of this change highlights the surge of interest in the role religion plays in museums. It is not just the cultural and historical interest of the objects displayed but also their religious importance. This often spills out to faith groups in the local community who sometimes demand to control ‘their’ objects and for whom museums such as the British Museum lend out on rare occasion sacred objects for worship. The shift from seeing objects mainly for their aesthetic, cultural or historical merits to seeing them also for their religious significance means that those involved in RE and RS can access more information from curators and specialists via online collections, blogs and video clips that often accompany major exhibitions or through books such as ‘The History of the World in 100 Objects’ which contains several sacred objects as seen through the eyes of a wide variety of people, including members of faith communities.

There is now more information out there than ever before to help the visitor learn more and develop the ‘science of compassion’, to understand why there is sometimes a clash of understandings over the sacred and that there can even be ‘sacred secularism’ where sacred values are upheld within a secular worldview.

So what are the key messages here for the RE teacher? I would summarise these as follows:

• Learning about and understanding what people held as sacred in the past can help us understand our own present. This in turn can also combat misunderstandings and widen our appreciation of what sacred means in different contexts and to different people, both religious and secular
• Developing the ‘science of compassion’ means seeing things from the other person’s point of view, letting go of our preconceived ideas. This can lead to a more peaceful and harmonious relationship with others by helping us understand our place in our global community
• Sometimes sacred objects do generate religious or equally emotional responses. It can mean that past memories are revisited or religious beliefs supported as in the case of blessings of relics or prayer in front of a shrine. This needs to be acknowledged as part of any visit to a museum where sacred objects are on display.