the social construction of a religious prophecy

The Social Construction of a Religious Prophecy

Gordon Shepherd, University of Central Arkamas

Based on interviews and participant observation, this paper presents a narrative account of the reactions of people in a small, Arkansas community to the religious claims of prophecy and divine mission made by an individual who temporarily comes to reside in the community. Public interpretation and evaluation of the prophecy is conducted informally through the rumor construction process. Naturalistic interpretations of fraud or delusion are mostly suspended as supernatural interpretations by community members become ascendent. People are eventually forced to rationalize their reactions when events fail to materialize in the manner originally prophesied. The unfolding of events is viewed from a sociology of knowledge perspective and treated as a case study of the social construction of reality.

Berger and Luckmann (1967) argue that the principal task of the sociology of knowledge is not the history of ideas (or intellectual history) as conventionally understood but the analysis of common sense knowledge required by different communities in order for their members to participate in the social routines of everyday life. For most people the reality of their everyday lives is an un- questioned premise from which they are seldom detached. Individuals are deeply involved in daily social routines and relationships, based on shared meanings and expectations, that constitute the paramount reference points of their being. Berger and Luckmann’s thesis is that the reality of everyday life is socially constructed through a dialectical process featuring three intri- cately related but analytically distinctive elements which they call: externalization (the collective, self-conscious responses of people to their physical and social environments); objectivation (the institutionalization of human activity into congealed patterns of custom, tradition, and law); and internalization (the process of socialization in which knowledge about the institutional arrangements and role requirements of a society is incorporated into the subjective consciousness and behavior of its members).

Berger and Luckmann’s approach has the virtue of emphasizing the importance of both social structure and social process in social life. It is an attempt to integrate structural theories in sociology with interactionist theories. It may be argued, however, that they have devoted relatively more attention in their work to elaborating the mechanisms associated with objectivation and internalization (e.g., systems of social control, legitimation, plausibility

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structures, identity formation) than those associated with externalization; that they specify more clearly the ways in which social orders are maintained than how they are created or changed in social interaction. It is precisely the latter processes of externalization that have become a favored topic for many interactionist theorists, especially when dealing with social behavior in more or less ambiguous situations which lack clearly defined institutional guidelines. In such situations people cannot take for granted their roles or the roles of others. Behavior is less predictable, more problematic. New meanings and shared understandings must be negotiated and constructed in social interaction. The greater the degree of ambiguity the greater the need to negotiate a new definition of the situation. This is entirely consistent with Berger and Luckmann’s analysis. They simply do not spell out in any detail the types of ambiguous situations in which people may have to act and the ways in which they collectively respond in such situations.

One way in which people collectively respond to ambiguous situations is through the construction of rumors. Following Shibutani’s (1966, 1968) analysis, the rumor process in everyday life should not be conceived as the cumu- lative distortion of a report as it is transmitted from one individual to another but as a form of collective problem solving and communication that emerges in situations that have been inadequately defined. “Rumor is something that is composed in social interaction. Persons deprived of authoritative news speculate about what is happening. They piece together what information they have. Observations are interpreted in the light of what is taken for granted, and the definition that eventually prevails is the one that appears most plausible” (Shibutani, 1968: 578).

“Furthermore,” Shibutani goes on to say, “some of the ways in which popular beliefs develop are disclosed. Those who believe that rational conduct always rests on verified knowledge can acquire a more realistic view of the premises underlying our daily rounds. Since rumor is a form of group problem solving, it is also of importance to students of social change. Far from being pathological, rumor is an integral part of the social process, an impor- tant aspect of the continuing efforts of men to cope with the vicissitudes of life’ ’ (Shibutani, 1968:580).

In what follows I will examine, in the context of a rural Arkansas town, a set of novel religious claims and community responses to them as a case study in the social construction of reality. Questions concerning the ultimate validity of the claims will, of course, be bracketed and not considered in this paper. The principal concern will be with the rumor construction that emerged as members of the community attempted to interpret the significance of the claims and define their attitudes toward them.

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The Setting

Bradford, Arkansas (with a population of just under 1,000) is one of a series of small towns in central and northeastern Arkansas that grew up in the nineteenth century along what was then the Cairo and Fulton Railroad con- necting St. Louis and Little Rock (now the Missouri-Pacific line). Situated in White County, Bradford, like most towns in the region, is a relatively homog- enous community. The prevailing value system is rural and religious; the racial composition of Bradford is almost entirely white. Churches in Bradford include the Baptist (several different congregations), United Methodist, Church of Christ, Assembly of God, and Church of God. Due primarily to religious influence, White County is dry, and community residents with a taste for beer, wine, or distilled spirits must travel to neighboring counties to make their purchases.

In late August, 1981, Charles Edward Harris arrived in Bradford to visit with relatives and, as he maintained, to carry out the word of God. Among other things, Harris got permission from the county to clean and paint a local bridge that spans Departee Creek just outside of Bradford. The bridge is known by local residents as the “Lake Bridge” and was built in the first or second decade of the century. The one-lane bridge is a timber and steel construction divided into two quadrilateral segments, with each segment consist- ing of four truss beam panels. The span is 50 to 75 meters with a height of ten to twelve meters.

Harris spent months working on the bridge. He hand-scraped decades of rust off the entire superstructure with a wire brush and painted a series of black squares with white crosses on every girder of the bridge. Their curiosity aroused as to what this young stranger was up to, farmers and local community residents who used the bridge would stop to question Harris. Harris would then inform them of his mission. He claimed that God had called him to Bradford and given him a vision. By his own labor he was to cleanse the bridge of its corruption, and when he had prepared the bridge, he was to paint it in accordance with the instructions of the Lord. When the bridge was finally refurbished in its new coat of paint, the water beneath it would turn to ice and the people would be summoned to the river to stand on the ice and hear the word of God. The appointed date for this marvelous manifestation of God’s power was, according to Harris, December 13.

My initial knowledge of events in Bradford came in late November through a student whose mother lived in the community. I became sufficiently interested in the development and outcome of the story to make several trips to Bradford for informal interviews with Harris and town residents.


Interview with a Self-Proclaimed Visionary

Harris was a young man, twenty-one or twenty-two years of age. Else- where in this paper I will describe his appearance and manner. Here I will simply summarize the basic content of my interview with him.

Harris explained that his parents were originally from Arkansas but that they had moved around the country when he was young and that he had spent most of his youth growing up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He had been exposed to a religious upbringing in various Pentecostal churches and had also associated with the Baptist Church and the Church of Christ. His parents divorced when he was fifteen, and he returned with his father to Arkansas where he graduated from high school at a place called Bald Knob, not far from Bradford. As with many youth, he went through a period of religious turmoil and doubt, of struggle with his faith and the temptations of the world. He wanted to do right but was torn by material desires that interfered with what he perceived as his spiritual duties. His ineffectual attempt to resolve this conflict led him at first to sever his religious affiliations. He left the state and returned to New Mexico to escape the pressure of concerned friends and family in Arkansas.

In Albuquerque he found work as an assistant manager in a retail store, indulged his craving for a new car and a motorcycle and became romantically involved with a girl. He avoided making any entrapping religious commit- ments and tried to enjoy the rewards of his newly acquired freedom, but his conscience continued to torment him. He didn’t feel right about his life and agonized that God was displeased.

It was then that the voices came to him, he said, urging him to cease squandering his soul and return to a holy life of service: “Leave the job you have now and come to work for me,” admonished the word of God to Harris. At the same time, other voices assailed his ears. According to Harris, the devil had intervened with renewed intensity in a struggle to deter him from regaining his spiritual compass.

Both God and the devil had literally spoken to him? Yes, affirmed Harris, as plainly as we conversed with one another. How could he tell the difference? Harris patiently explained that God’s voice was soothing and comforting, that the devil spoke in harsh and angry tones. God urged obedience; the devil urged disobedience.

Regrettably, Harris’ resolve for righteousness was weak and like Jonah of old he resisted God’s will and tried to hide. But as did Jonah he discovered that God would not be denied. His roommate wrecked his car, and then he lost his job. He could not continue his motorcycle payments and lost that too. Shortly thereafter, his girlfriend left him, no longer interested in an unemployed

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youth without means of transportation. He was bereft of all the material things he had coveted. God had made him realize, he said, the worthlessness of such possessions. Thoroughly chastened and humbled, he was at last ready to surrender himself into the comforting hands of the Lord.

Even though he considered himself to be unworthy and unprepared, God had chosen him to do his work and Harris was now committed to obey. According to Harris, the Lord spoke to him again and instructed him to return to Arkansas, seek out his relatives in Bradford, and await further en- lightenment.

He had been in Bradford several days before he went out to the bridge with his cousin. Harris told me that as they stood there surveying the lake, a taxicab slowly crossed over the bridge and stopped beside them. Harris glanced in the window, and lo, sitting on the passenger’s side, was the devil! Lucifer, the Fallen Angel himself, had appeared in a final attempt to thwart the work of God. But this time Harris was fortified in his faith and rebuked the devil, commanding him to leave the bridge.

What does a person say when rebuking the devil? Harris rose to his feet and gave a vivid demonstration: “In the name ofJEESUS,” he exclaimed in a penetrating voice, “I command you to depart!’’

As the taxicab drove away and the spirit of darkness dissolved, Harris looked up into the heavens and received his vision of the bridge. He saw the bridge as it was to be, cleansed and covered with the crosses of Christ, whose blood he was to plead before the people. He looked down at the water beneath the bridge and saw that it had turned to ice. He knew then what God wished him to do. He would paint the bridge and testify. People would come to listen and when the bridge was completely rechristened they would assemble on the ice and be warmed by the Holy Spirit. The bridge would become a holy place, like a church or temple, where Satan could not pass; a hallowed place of worship consecrated with the anointing oil of his brush. According to Harris, the painted black squares stood for the sins of the world; the white crosses super- imposed on the black represented the atoning love of Jesus who overcame the world.

Harris anticipated the doubts and apprehension that many would have about stepping out onto the lake: They would fear for their safety and not trust the ice to support their weight. After all, had not even Simon Peter begun to sink beneath the waves as his faith faltered? To dispel these fears and buoy the peoples’ faith, Harris had made arrangements with a man in town to drive his truck on the ice to demonstrate its holding capacity. Furthermore, Harris was concerned about the comfort of those who would gather and therefore planned to order folding chairs from Little Rock to be set up on the ice for people to sit on.


Folding chairs to be delivered all the way from Little Rock? How many chairs did he plan to order? Eight to nine hundred was Harris’ self-assured reply.

Harris realized that what he was saying might sound a little crazy, but he was obliged to report the truth, he said. He could not deny the reality of his own experiences. He believed that God had entrusted him with a calling he must fulfill. All the skepticism in the world could not change that. His conviction was not unlike that of Paul defending his vision before King Agrippa, like Joan of Arc steadfast at the stake. Harris’ apparent reasonableness in relating his fantastic story, his capacity to entertain the perspectives of others while calmly defending his own point of view were disarming.

Why had December 13th been chosen as the Bradford Pentecost? Had this been specified in his vision at the bridge?

Actually, no. The designation of a specific day had only become problematic as people questioned him and began to press him for a date to judge the accuracy of his prophecy. It was not, of course, his decision, he reminded me. He had to await a sign from God. And then it came to him. One evening as he prayed his mind was suddenly illuminated and he could see in beautiful cursive writing a date appear before his eyes: December 13. He immediately went to the calendar and circled the day-a Sunday, the Lord’s day, appointed by the finger of God.

Wasn’t December 13th a little early in the season to realistically expect ice on the lake?

Yes, he knew that. He hadn’t consulted the Farmer’s Almanac in order to pick the most likely day for a freeze. It was the will of the Lord. He pointed out that December 13th would be a convincing testimony of God’s power.

But what if things didn’t work out the way he expected? What if the bridge wasn’t finished in time? What if the lake didn’t freeze? What would he do? Had he never considered these possibilities?

No. These were not questions that concerned him in the least. He had supreme faith in God. God had shown him the way, his will would be ac- complished. The bridge would be completed and the lake would freeze as he had said. There was, he concluded, simply no point in contemplating alterna- tive outcomes.

He could not say exactly what message he was to give the people gathered on the ice, but he wasn’t worried about that either. He was assured that God would put words in his mouth and give him the necessary inspiration with which to convey them when the time was right. His unhurried confidence and refusal to panic as time dwindled to the appointed day were impressive.

What would he do after the prophecy was fulfilled and he had broadcast his inspired message at the lake on December 13th? Would he remain in

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Bradford? Would he seek disciples to organize into a religious movement? Did he expect to become the founder of a new church?

These were not his intentions. Given the account of his spectacular religious experiences, his ultimate ambition seemed quite modest. Harris did not see himself as a religious dissenter with a revolutionary program in the grandiose manner of Mohammed, John Calvin, or Joseph Smith of the Mor- mons. His hero was Jimmy Swaggart. He simply aspired to become a travel- ing evangelist who would canvass the country for Christ, converting souls in the tradition of Swaggart, Oral Roberts, and Billy Graham. This was the work to which he was convinced he had been called, and his efforts in Bradford would become the inaugural episodes in an evangelistic ministry for the Lord.

Patterns of Rumor Development

From the outset the chief question of interest for my study was the nature of community response to Harris and his claims. What fraction of the community was interested enough in his activities to form a judgment, and what form did that judgment take?

I soon discovered that few, if any individuals in Bradford did not know of Harris or of his work at the bridge, of his professed vision and claim of divine guidance. Many had seen and talked to Harris personally; others had merely seen the results of Harris’ efforts at the bridge or heard accounts from family members, neighbors, and acquaintances. In a small town like Bradford it was difficult to avoid becoming involved in public speculation about Harris. What patterns of speculation developed in this case?

As Shibutani (1966) shows, different patterns of rumor development are a function of different types of situations. How ambiguous is the situation? How great is the demand for news or information necessary in order for people to cope? How great is the level of collective concern or excitement shared by individuals in the situation? Do they confront a perceived matter of extreme urgency or a relatively trivial break in social routine? If the latter, collective excitement will be relatively mild and rumor construction occurs through well established informal networks in which participants know and trust one another. If the former, collective excitement becomes intense, the established grapevine network for news and gossip breaks down, and rumor spreads through spontaneously formed channels in which individuals ex- change information with whomever they come into contact. Using Shibu- tani’s terminology, rumors which are shaped in established informal networks are called deliberative rumors, while those which emerge in spontaneous channels are called extemporaneous rumors. Of the two types, deliberative rumors are by far the most common. In this pattern rumor development is subject to informal social control. The reliability and accuracy of sources are


weighed. Participants have their reputations to uphold, and they maintain their critical abilities. Available evidence and pertinent items of information are pieced together, discussed, and deliberated. Whatever collective interpretations emerge to define the situation are usually consistent with prevailing cultural definitions and are therefore those which seem most plausible to members of the community. In contrast, extemporaneous rumor construction involves little personal accountability for accuracy or verification. The urgency of a situation may make people desperate, much more suggestible and less critical in their acceptance of information than is ordinarily the case, more prone to grasp at straws and entertain any hypothesis that might clarify their circumstances and indicate a way for them to act.

Clearly conditions in Bradford were not of the kind typically associated with extemporaneous or uncontrolled rumor development. A stranger had appeared; a novel element was injected into the community’s daily round of life which created considerable interest but not great anxiety or panic. The stranger made fabulous claims about his activities and purpose, but there was no immediate crisis that compelled action, no reason beyond the stranger’s own assertions to think that people’s essential welfare was at stake. Initial concern was stimulated by sheer curiosity. Collective excitement was relatively mild and involvement in gossip and rumor construction concerning the por- tents of Harris’ presence in town followed a deliberative pattern through established networks of family, friends, and acquaintances.

As Shibutani (1968:599) points out, “when demand for accurate information is not urgent, reports are often labeled as rumors and passed on for entertainment by those who do not believe them.” While a certain amount of this sort of pranksterism occurred in Bradford, the majority of people in town did develop some degree of real interest in the story of the bridge and tried to make. some legitimate sense out of what was happening, especially as time drew nearer to the date which Harris had predicted for the freeze.

What kinds of interpretation of Harris and his work were tested in the rumor construction process? What view appeared to gain the greatest credence and why? Three major speculative theories or interpretations of Harris com- peted with one another for acceptance in Bradford: (1) He was deluded, insane. (2) He was a fraud, a con artist. (3) He was sincere, genuinely inspired of God.

The Insanity Thesis

The perception that Harris suffered from hallucinations and delusions, that he was “crazy,” was immediately assumed by most of my students and university colleagues to whom I related accounts of the Bradford incident as it was in the process of unfolding. The content of Harris’ professions alone

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seemed quite enough to sustain that conclusion. But in Bradford, belief that Harris was crazy did not become a consensus view.

Among those whom I interviewed, the closest I came to finding someone willing to dismiss Harris without reservation as being deluded was an old man who lived next door to Harris’ aunt. Harris, he told me, was “a fanatic on the Bible.” With apparent glee he described how he had threatened to run over Harris on the bridge one day with his truck if he didn’t get out of the way. “He [Harris] claimed he was talking to the Lord but he was just making a fool of hisself,” the old man explained.

But most people were more sympathetic. Many admitted that when they first heard of Harris they thought he was “just some nut down here,” but gradually they began to doubt the validity of that conclusion. Harris didn’t look crazy, they said. He didn’t talk or act crazy. In fact, he seemed quite sensible and rational.

What is a crazy person supposed to look like or act like? How is insanity supposed to manifest itself and, most importantly for this paper, what are the common sense ways in which people arrive at these judgments?

Whatever else insanity involves it is behavior that is in systematic or chronic violation of conventional rules; it is a form of social deviance. Accord- ing to Scheff (1966, 1974), people are labeled as mentally ill when they per- sistently violate what he calls the “residual rules” of a group or community. Residual rules consist of a wide variety of norms that are frequently taken for granted in interaction and go unarticulated until they are violated. They represent many of the shared assumptions underlying people’s sense of reality in everyday life. Residual rules are common sense understandings concerning such things as the appropriate appearance, manner, decorum, poise, expres- sive control, tact, and decency required of different types of individuals in different situations. Residual rules are, in fact, commonly violated in everyday life. Their violation may be concealed, go undetected, or be ignored if the violation is not too flagrant or persistent. When violations are detected or made public, however, the rule breaker is expected to display embarrassment or shame and engage in face-saving techniques which, if honored by others, function to smooth things over and return the situation to normal (cf. Gar- finkel, 1956; Goffman, 1959, 1961, 1967; Gross and Stone, 1964; Scott and Lyman, 1968). Such actions indicate the individual’s subscription to a shared reality. On the other hand, people who flagrantly and repeatedly violate residual rules in a wide variety of social situations, particularly if they fail to indicate appropriate awareness of their offensiveness through displays of shame or embarrassment, are likely to be perceived as unbalanced, as being out of touch with reality.

Scheff points out that socially inappropriate behaviors associated with


insanity are culturally stereotyped and typically function as a kind of negative model, i.e., most people learn to avoid acting in ways that are stereotypically insane.

Harris’ appearance and manner were not consistent with stereotyped perceptions of insanity. He was young and handsome with dark hair, light colored eyes and a trim, athletic build (he occasionally lifted weights). More importantly he was neat and well groomed. His everyday dress was modest yet contemporary for his age group (jeans, Nike athletic shoes, sweaters, etc.). He took obvious pride in his appearance. He was not wild looking, slovenly, or oblivious to current fashion. In short he didn’t look crazy in any obvious or stereotyped way.

His demeanor was similarly modest and polite. He was soft-spoken, earnest, and self-assured. He had no formal education beyond high school but was nonetheless articulate in a simple, forthright way. His role-taking skills showed no obvious signs of impairment, and he was able to empathize with people’s initial incredulity toward his story while presenting and justifying his claims in a calm, coherent way.

Harris kept his Bible with him while working at the bridge and took time to read from it or quote scriptural passages if people wanted to talk religion, but he didn’t harangue or force himself on anyone in the raving manner of a stereotypical lunatic. He didn’t ramble or jump erratically from topic to topic in his conversation without sustaining an argument. He listened carefully to people’s questions and responded to them directly. Within the framework of biblical belief he made logical arguments to support his claims. Could people believe the Bible was true, he asked rhetorically, and not believe that God revealed his will to individuals in personal ways, that he called them to his service and gave them tasks to perform? If this was the case, what was so un- reasonable about believing that it could happen in modern times?

In my interviews with him, Harris showed considerable skill at using verbal disclaimers in his conversation to disarm anticipated objections to his story (cf. Hewitt and Stokes, 1975). Thus he would occasionally preface his remarks by saying things like “I know this will sound weird or crazy, and in a way I’m glad of it because it helps keep me humble,” or “you won’t believe this . . . well you might believe it.”

In other words, in presenting himself and his claims to the community, Harris’ appearance and manner were in keeping with the residual rules of his society that define normal behavior. The substance of what he had to say might have seemed bizarre but the way in which he conveyed it was not.

These do not, of course, qualify as clinical judgments. They are common sense judgments fashioned by people trying to make sense of a novel situation that confronts them in their own experience. We may hypothesize that those

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who contributed most in the rumor construction process to the rejection of the insanity thesis were those people in Bradford who had, in fact, met and personally conversed with Harris.

The Fmud Thesis

If the insanity thesis seemed implausible to the community because of Harris’ interaction skills, one might easily entertain the view that these same skills could be put to good use for the purpose of deception and fraud. The cynical imposter is defined by Goffman (1959: 18) as one who “has no belief in his own act and no ultimate concern with the beliefs of his audience.” The con artist is able to make a living by deliberately and successfully misrepre- senting himself and his intentions to others. The southern region of the United States has not been spared from such practices on a wide scale, especially in the field of religious hucksterism, and, as a rule, people are typically on their guard against the possibility of this type of contrivance. As Goffman (1959) and others (Ekman and Friesen, 1973) argue, most people are more skilled at detecting false performances than they are at performing them. The successful con artist must be a highly skilled actor. Though considered in many informal conversations about Harris over time, the fraud thesis never gained widespread support in Bradford.

The problem with the fraud thesis was that Harris didn’t seem to want anything from people. He asked for their faith but not for their money. He made it his personal principle, as he put it, “not to take any monetary offer- ings.” This was not only true at the bridge, but also whenever he preached at revivals or Sunday services as a guest speaker. Similarly, Harris’ grandmother maintained that Harris occasionally did chores and odd jobs for some of her neighbors but wouldn’t take any money for his work, saying that he only did it because he thought they needed the help.

If Harris was a fraud, what was his scam? He eschewed money-making activities. If what he sought was chiefly the attention of others-notoriety and influence-he was skilled at masking such motives. The thought of organizing a church or attracting a personal following in Bradford seemed foreign to Harris when I posed the question of what he wanted to accomplish. He did not “preach himself,” he said, he “preached only the Lord. I’m not trying to make a name for myself. I’m trying to lift up the name of Jesus.” Whether this was true or not, Harris rarely tried to promote himself or his activities in town or actively seek out individuals to proselytize. For the most part people came to him at the bridge. If someone expressed curiosity Harris would engage him in conversation. If not he simply went about his work. In a sense, Harris relied on the channels of gossip and rumor construction to spread the word of his mission.


People maintained a certain amount of skepticism in their evaluations of Harris’ motives, but there was never any plausible evidence to be inferred from his behavior that he was cynically engaged in some type of calculated, self-serving deception of the community.

The Sincerity Thsis

Goffman (1959: 18) defines sincere individuals as those who “believe in the impression fostered by their own performance.” Since the individual’s ultimate belief in self is beyond the scrutiny of outside observers, what counts in social interaction is the individual’s ability to portray sincerity. At this Harris was quite successful.

By the time I went to Bradford to question people they had had several months to form and deliberate their impressions of Harris. Most people I talked to seemed willing to concede Harris’ sincerity. As one man put it, “most people I know, and that includes me, ain’t willing to commit themselves one way or the other. But one thing’s for sure: that boy’s sincere.”

In part it was people’s attempt to discover evidence of fraud in Harris’ performance, and their failure to do so, that led to belief in his sincerity. Harris’ ability to project an attitude of modesty strengthened the impression of his sincerity. For example, when I asked Harris why he thought he had been favored by God to receive visions and divine instructions he disavowed any special qualities that made him superior to others. “Anybody is capable of having religious experiences like mine,” he said, “if they are willing to sacrifice, renounce worldly things, and be an ‘oddball’ in the eyes of the world.”

Just because people were willing to concede that Harris was sincere didn’t mean they were necessarily willing to take him seriously. He could be sincere and yet deluded at the same time. The problem with this interpreta-’ tion, as indicated previously, was that Harris’ everyday manner and appearance provided little support for common sense judgments of mental illness. Thus the reality of the situation was ambiguous. People were not entirely sure what to think. To better understand their ambivalence we must turn attention to another crucial factor: the religious plausibility structure of the community itself.

Plausibility structures are based on social networks that generate and sustain meaning systems for their members. A common meaning system pro- vides people with mutually intelligible ways to interpret situations and events. Individuals affirm their sense of reality through regular interaction with others who share their beliefs. The plausibility of these beliefs is reinforced by the community. For outsiders their beliefs may seem perplexing or absurd, but for insiders, shared beliefs assume the character of objective reality; their

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validity comes to be taken for granted by members of a community, especially as they are imposed on a new generation through the process of socialization. In Berger and Luckmann’s (1967) approach, plausibility structures demonstrate how closely related are the processes of objectivation and internalization in maintaining social order. In another work, Berger (1969) shows how religious systems, especially in traditional communities or societies, have his- torically been relatively effective in performing these functions. While there are a number of different churches in Bradford representing the usual de- nominational differences in theology and institutional practice, it is essentially a Bible believing, fundamentalist protestant community. Perhaps the one thing that contributed most to many people’s willingness to take Harris seriously (or at least to their reluctance to casually dismiss him) was the fact that he spoke the language of the community, the language of the Bible, the language of Christian fundamentalism. Though his assertions were clearly unusual, they were still within the boundaries of his own cultural tradition, a tradition in which evangelical preachers often claim to be called by God and moved upon by the spirit. In the words of one woman I interviewed, “Preach- ers, a lot of ’em, will say God called ’em to preach.” She went on to tell me about the pastor of her childhood church who, like Harris, originally resisted God’s call. The man’s wife suddenly died, which he took as a sign of divine displeasure with his obstinacy, and subsequently he broke down and sur- rendered his service “to the will of the Lord.”

Harris was most persuasive to the residents of Bradford when he sup- ported his claims with scriptural passages or drew biblical analogies. People made frequent reference in their conversations with me to the story of Noah and the flood and to scoffers in the Bible who disbelieved the Lord’s prophets to their ultimate sorrow. Some saw parallels between Harris’ labor at Departee Creek and John the Baptist preaching repentance at the River Jordan.

Harris made effective use of religious symbolism and imagery. The crosses he painted on the bridge in stark black and white had a potentially powerful appeal to a believing Christian community. It helped dramatize the typical fundamentalist belief in a dualistic world in which the forces of good and evil are engaged in universal struggle: God versus the devil-themes which Harris emphasized as the key elements in his own biographical account.

Finally, the thrust of Harris’ preaching provoked many people’s Christian millenarian beliefs. A common version of Harris’ claims was that he had prophesied the Lord would appear at the bridge on the day the lake froze over. Though Harris emphatically denied this to me, the rumor was given credence by an article in a local newspaper, and it was widely circulated that Harris had associated his mission with the second coming of Christ.

It was only within the framework of a particular religious orientation


shared by most members of the community that Harris’ claims could have any plausibility. Harris didn’t seem particularly outlandish to most people in Bradford once they got to know him. He started to make a certain amount of sense when he reiterated religious themes they had been taught and believed all their lives. Such beliefs did not, of course, cause people to become un- critically converted to Harris’ preaching, but they did produce the admission that Harris might possibly be inspired of God as he claimed. To the extent that this possibility was conceded, it meant that Harris was being taken seriously. The emerging attitude of possibility, nourished by conversational exchanges and Sunday school gossip, was consistent with the plausibility structure of the community.

It may be hypothesized that those in Bradford who took Harris most seriously were individuals with charismatic or Pentecostal dispositions and affiliations. (Ideally, this hypothesis could have been tested through systematic survey techniques. Unfortunately my methods were constrained by the rush of circumstances to be rather haphazard.) At any rate, several individuals expressed to me their implicit faith that Harris was called of God and that the lake would freeze as he had said. The majority of people with whom I talked, however, were considerably more cautious. In the context of community religious beliefs and speculation concerning Harris’ mental stability and sincerity, the prevailing view was quite pragmatic. “Let’s wait and see what happens,” was the comment I most frequently heard. Willingness to believe Harris hinged on whether or not the lake froze over as prophesied. One of the more intriguing rumors that contributed to increased interest in the prophecy was that a prominent merchant in town had promised that if the freeze occurred he would see to it that carpet was delivered to the bridge and laid out on the ice to enhance the comfort of those who assembled to hear Harris preach.

The designation of a specific date by Harris for the freeze and the fulfill- ment of his mission had given focus to things: it was bold; it demonstrated Harris’ sincerity and confidence; it increased the intensity of speculation as time began to run out; and most of all it made it possible for people to suspend their ultimate judgment until the outcome of a simple test. People were able to hedge their bets. They could speculate without having to risk their community status and reputation by prematurely committing themselves (cf. Becker, 1960). If the lake did not freeze, everyone could say that he or she had never really taken Harris seriously.

Clergy Reactions and the Problem of Charisma

A public issue involving religious questions is, willy-nilly, one in which the views of the clergy should contribute significantly to the controversy. The clergy are particularly involved when the effectiveness or legitimacy of estab-

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lished churches are called into question. Harris did not criticize the churches directly, but he did claim in the manner of an Old Testament prophet that God had sent him to lift up the people, call them to repentance, strengthen their faith, and prompt them to abandon their worldly ways. The authority that Harris claimed for his actions was charismatic, not institutional. To the extent that people were willing to take Harris’ preaching seriously it represented a potential challenge to the Bradford clergy; it implied that the established churches might not be adequately meeting people’s spiritual needs, that they were not providing adequate moral guidance.

If a sufficiently large number of people willingly respond to the vision of a charismatic claimant, then “charisma” becomes a disruptive and potentially innovative force that challenges existing routines. As Shils (1968:387) points out: “Routine actions are not simply repetitive actions, they are uninspired actions in which immediately prospective gratifications and the demands of immediate situations and of obligations to those close at hand play a greater part than does the link with transcendent things. . . . Such uninspired actions maintain social structures, and they also change them through numerous minor adjustments. They do not impel drastic changes. Charismatic persons, and those who are responsive to charismatic persons, aspire to larger transfor- mations. They seek to break the structures of routine actions.”

Shils goes on to say that “the custodians of the routine spheres of social life show both their apprehension of the disruptive nature of intense and con- centrated charisma and their appreciation of a virtue requiring acknowledge- ment. Nonetheless . . . reinforcement of the barriers against a free movement of charismatic persons is carried on by the custodians of routine order” (Shils, 1968:388).

Thus, while most religious traditions are based on certain charismatic elements which they profess to value, the institutional problem is to contain the expression of charisma within the framework of an organizational structure (Weber, 1947; O’Dea, 1961; Shepherd and Shepherd, 1984). The tension between charismatic impulses and institutional routines is a prime example of the dialectical relationship between the social change potential of externalization processes and the order maintaining functions of objectivation and socialization in the social construction of reality.

I was unable to contact all of the clergy in Bradford but I did succeed in talking with the leaders of three different churches about their reactions to Charles Harris. Predictably I did not discover enthusiastic support for Harris. Two of the three pastors felt compelled (with varying urgency) to try and dissuade members of their congregations from becoming involved, while the third demonstrated a cautious willingness to accommodate Harris if events validated his claims (cf. Pruss, 1976).


The most vehemently opposed to Harris was the minister of the Bradford Church of God. He emphasized that the Bible warned against pretenders, “false prophets,” who would come as wolves in sheep’s clothing to deceive the elect. In his view, Harris was not a con artist in the ordinary sense but must be of the devil. The scriptures prophesied Jesus; they didn’t say anything about Harris, he concluded triumphantly. The signs of the times might indicate that the day of judgment was near, but there was not a word in sacred writ about a holy bridge. Members of this pastor’s flock were warned to avoid the temptations of Satan by staying away from the bridge.

The minister of the United Methodist Church preached a sermon in which he cautioned members of his congregation not to be swept up in false enthusiasm for purported revelations from God or be deceived by visionary claims of miracles in Bradford. Yet when I talked with him he confessed a certain apprehension and ambivalence. Rumors about Harris and the bridge had been weighing on his mind. What if Harris was telling the truth? It was possible, he admitted. He confided that one couldn’t believe the Bible was the word of God and insist that it was not possible for the Lord to test people’s faith through direct revelation. He himself had experienced a “call” to the ministry, a deeply felt conviction that God had personally chosen him to do his work. Nonetheless, in his role as pastor of the church he would continue to dissuade people from believing in Harris.

In contrast, the minister of the Assembly of God (a pentecostal denomi- nation) seemed quite calm about the whole thing. He patiently explained to me that people in his religious faith accepted the reality of miracles and spiritual gifts. They believed that God communicated as much with people today as in biblical times, that he conveyed his will through visions and would in- spire prophetic utterances. But he also pointed out that their beliefs made the members of his church vulnerable from time to time to impostors whose objec- tives were fraud or mockery, rather than spiritual upliftment. He advised his congregation to follow a course of caution and patience. They didn’t want to be guilty of “throwing the baby out with the bath water.’’ The Lord would ultimately reveal the truth, he concluded. If the lake froze over as predicted, he himself would lead the members of his church to the bridge.

In one way or the other the Bradford clergy contributed significantly to the community process of negotiating and constructing a plausible conception of Harris and his activity. Their status as religious authorities gave them considerable influence over those who looked to them for guidance. None of the clergy that I talked to responded confidently with naturalistic explanations of Harris’ behavior; none dismissed Harris as being obviously crazy or a swindler. Perhaps their major contribution to the discussion was to reinforce people’s inclination to form a religious or supernatural interpretation of

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events. Even the view that Harris was an agent of the devil was, of course, consistent with the assumptions of the latter approach for making sense of the situation.

Day of Prophecy

In the classic case study of a prophecy that failed, Festinger and associates (1956) tested hypotheses about commitment and cognitive dissonance. Cogni- tive dissonance is produced for individuals when there is a contradiction between beliefs and actions or events. People are motivated, it is theorized, to reduce dissonance by bringing their beliefs into line with their action or vice versa. Once individuals have become committed to a particular line of belief and action, however, it is not easy for them to alter their course, even if sub- sequent events appear to discredit them. Instead, committed individuals are motivated to rationalize their activities in order to preserve or strengthen the commitment investments they have already made. In the Festinger study, members of a flying saucer cult developed elaborate rationalizations and actively began trying to proselytize the support of new recruits to their cause ajkr events disconfirmed their predictions of the end of the world.

In the Bradford case, however, Harris was not the leader of a group. There was nothing for people to join or become members of. There were no group commitment mechanisms requiring sacrifice or investment (cf. Kanter, 1972). Harris was apparently committed to his task, but he saw himself as a messenger and evangelist, not as an organizer of people’s resources. Still, his credibility and influence hinged on the outcome of a prediction.

December 13th, Harris’ day of prophecy, dawned bright and clear, a chilly day, but not cold enough to freeze the Bradford Lake. The overnight low was 32 degrees and the temperature during the day climbed into the 40s . Ironically, two years later in December the lake was frozen. An unprecedented cold spell came early to the region, bringing temperatures to White County as low as seventeen degrees below zero on Christmas Day. Harris had the mis- fortune to prophesy in the wrong year.

One is entitled to speculate about what might have happened had the freeze coincidentally occurred the year Harris made his prediction. It would undoubtedly have stimulated tremendous excitement. Extemporaneous rumors about all manner of miracles would quite conceivably have replaced the more deliberative pattern of rumor construction described in this paper. Perhaps a major religious revival would have ensued in White County. As it was, people could now chuckle and privately wonder why they had ever bothered to take Harris seriously at all.

What did Harris do on the day of his prophecy? His professed faith had been so inflexible, his public pronouncements so insistent and candid. He had

THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF A RELIGIOUS PROPHECY 41 1

not left himself a way out. The humiliation was bound to be overwhelming. One woman who sympathized with Harris was worried that, pressured beyond his ability to cope, Harris might do something drastic, that he might try to commit suicide. When she located Harris early Sunday morning at the bridge, however, he seemed to have himself well under control. He was dis- appointed, but not frantic or disconsolate. He was understandably a little perplexed, but he had not lost his faith. He did not rail or renounce God for abandoning him. He was simply trying to make sense out of what had happened, trying to better understand God’s intentions.

Then and there the woman became convinced that “Harris was not a fraud or a nut.” In fact, under the circumstances, he appeared to be demon- strating admirable rationality. Harris never imagined that he would be em- powered to snap his fingers and cause water to turn to ice. He had expected the weather to get cold. And he knew that it would take several days of very cold weather for the lake to freeze. When this didn’t happen, Harris had had the presence of mind to phone Little Rock and cancel his deposit on the folding chairs.

According to Harris, he returned to the bridge later that day after going to church with some friends in Bradford. He had spent the entire service in a constant flood of tears. But, he said, they were “tears of joy, not sorrow.” God once more had “laid his hand upon my heart,” given Harris comfort, and bid him back to the bridge to finish his work.

People had been making intermittent trips to the lake all day. When Harris finally showed up, a small crowd of cars began to accumulate at the foot of the bridge. Several informants estimated that as many or more than one hundred people came to the bridge that afternoon to witness Harris’ performance.

Harris scaled a truss beam and stood swaying in the cold wind on top of the bridge to face his audience. He had changed his clothes and was now dressed in a pink polyester suit (actually, it was a white suit with thin red stripes, but it looked pink). Harris was unafraid. God, he believed, would hold him up and keep him from falling from his narrow perch as he paced back and forth atop the bridge. People stayed in their cars and rolled down the windows to listen. The only heckler was a teenager who kept riding back and forth over the bridge on a motorcycle as Harris preached.

What sort of public confessions does a man make when events discredit his promises? Harris could have left town to avoid answering for his apparent failure. Instead, he felt compelled to offer his account of events in an effort to salvage himself and his mission (cf. Scott and Lyman, 1968). First and foremost, Harris wanted to reassure the people that God lived, that God did not make mistakes. He did not wish to be the cause of people losing their

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faith, he emphasized. T o the contrary, he wanted to convince them of God’s love and mercy.

Did anyone doubt that God had the power to make the Bradford Lake freeze that day if he had so desired? Harris asked rhetorically. Of course not. On that matter they all agreed. That it had not frozen could mean only one thing: it was not God’s will. Then what was God’s will and why had Harris been directed to prophesy a freeze? Harris had been struggling with this question all day, and now he knew the answer.

It had been his will, not God’s that the lake freeze, he concluded. He was young and inexperienced. He was human. His zeal to be an instrument in God’s hands had become a form of self pride that made him insensitive to the true meaning of his vision. He had been too literal in his interpretation. He had misunderstood God’s desire and consequently had been humbled once again. This, he said, was essential for his spiritual growth. To serve God required a constant bending of one’s own will to the divine purpose.

He now understood that his vision was not to be taken literally. The ice was a symbol: it represented the people of Bradford. It stood for the hardness of their spirits and the coldness of their hearts. People professed commitment to their religion, Harris chastised, but they didn’t live it. They had become indifferent to the requirements of God’s word. They hadn’t come to the bridge to worship; they had only come to see a miracle, to see if the water would freeze. Harris could see now that his revelation had simply meant that his task was to penetrate the complacency of the community and melt people’s hearts with the doctrine of Christ crucified for their sins.

The bridge itself could now be understood as a rich metaphor for drama- tizing the gulf between the Kingdom of Heaven and the carnal world of human life. People were separated from God by their sins, cut off from his healing influence by their pride and selfishness. But, preached Harris, this gulf could be overcome through the Son of God. Christ was the bridge. His way was the straight and narrow way to safety. The bridge was built on his suffering for humanity, the crosses of his death and the mystery of his resurrection. The bridge was cleansed and those who traveled its path would also be cleansed and purified. They would be protected from the muddy depths of evil and corruption that surrounded the bridge. All that was required was a simple, abiding faith in the strength of the bridge and a willingness not to stray from the ciirection it set. It was the only way to the other side.

Hmris’ sermons that day were not blustery or extravagant. His tone was upbeat and optimistic. His themes were for people to love God, have faith in Christ, get their lives in order, raise their kids right, and follow the Lord’s commandments.

Some people accepted Harris’ reinterpretation of his vision on the spot


and rejoiced in the message he imparted. Many, especially those who did not come to the bridge, said they never believed him in the first place. Others remained unsure. But almost everyone I interviewed agreed that what he preached was true enough. It was just the way he had gone about it, making immoderate claims and predicting a miracle that never happened, that divided people’s opinions.

Ascertaining the outcome or consequences of rumor construction in particular cases does not always lead to clear-cut conclusions about the ultimate resolution of the rumors. As Shibutani (1966) notes, emergent definitions or rumors may often be tested in action. If the test fails, the interpretation is rejected; if the test succeeds, the interpretation is believed to be true, provided there are no other reasons for doubt. If, however, the situation remains ambiguous after extensive attempts at interpretation, then one view may seem as plausible as another and different rumors may persist indefinitely as they are fashioned into legend and folklore.

In the Bradford case the failure of Departee Creek to freeze as predicted would seen to constitute a decisive test. And for many it was. However, Harris’ ability to creatively respond to the credibility crisis that ensued was also impressive. He succeeded in creating new doubts in the minds of some and conviction in the minds of others. In retrospect, Harris was far from having been an unqualified failure. He painted the bridge, attracted people’s interest, drew an audience at the designated time and place, and preached a sermon-all events that he had predicted from the beginning. True, not as many people came as he had counted on and the denouement of his vision was not quite as spectacular as some had hoped for, but that didn’t mean Harris failed to have a significant impact on the consciousness of the community. He had succeeded in stimulating an atmosphere of religious anticipation in Brad- ford. He made people think about their values and priorities, about their religious convictions. Perhaps he had even “melted” the hearts of some. At least one man who had been embittered and irreligious for years experienced a religious awakening after his exposure to Harris. Others were similarly moved.

If Harris went on to become an evangelist as he planned, his spiritual autobiography would undoubtedly commence with the story of the “miracle of the bridge” where he was first called of God, as he believed, and his faith put to the test. Conceivably it could become an account that future believers would elaborate, share, and eventually incorporate as an essential part of their own religious faith. Of such experiences and claims are typically constructed the myths of religious movements, myths that become objectified and internal- ized in the ongoing social construction of reality.

414 GORDON SHEPHERD

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the social construction of a religious prophecy

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