A Close Examination Of Martin's 'Secular communion: so much trouble in the world'

Secular communion: so much trouble in the world

Professor J R Martin, 

Department of Linguistics, University of Sydney

Abstract:

In this paper I will take stock of work on bonding developed in Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) studies of the coupling of attitude and ideation and the generative role of these couplings in negotiating community, taking into account recent work on the technicalisation and iconisation of feeling (as axitech and bondicon respectively) – by way of exploring how much progress we are making in the development of SFL as a genuinely social theory of language.

I write this as an elder aghast at the ways in which belongings of particular kinds draw on ‘e/vilification’ to cultivate fear and hate and thereby engender a ‘licence to kill’ which trumps values which we might otherwise share as basic human rights.

To begin I will develop the discussion in relation to sport, where the consequences of iconising the inside and outside of a community are somewhat less severe. By the end of the paper I hope that the implications of the analysis for the sorry state of our partisan world will be clear and that we can begin to think about strategies for defusing some of the ferocious identity madness currently displacing the more charitable humanity we so desperately need to foster, home and away.

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Secular Communion in the Church of Feeling: A Critique of J.R. Martin’s ‘So Much Trouble in the World’

Abstract Commentary

Martin’s abstract for an upcoming Zoom seminar of ASFLA’s Special Interest Group on Peace, Compassion and Empathy continues a familiar rhetorical and theoretical pattern: affective moralism wrapped in metaphorical mysticism. Under the title Secular Communion, Martin casts himself in the role of an “elder” aghast at a world consumed by hate and fear, invoking a sermonistic register that typifies his late style. The analysis of bonding, iconisation, and affect is framed not as a critical inquiry but as a form of lamentation. This shift is not incidental: it marks the consolidation of what we might now call a theology of affect.

Martin’s invocation of icons, elders, communion, and lamentation is not an eccentric outgrowth of a theoretical paper—it is, in this context, a genre-appropriate sermon. The homiletic mode is not incidental; it is structurally aligned with the setting and thematics of the event. What is presented here is not analysis masquerading as liturgy—it is liturgy mistaken for analysis.

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From Social Semiotics to Affective Soteriology

Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) has traditionally treated language as a social semiotic: a resource for construing meaning shaped by context. Martin’s earlier work contributed to that tradition. However, his more recent output signals a departure: language is no longer primarily a meaning-making resource but a site of emotional salvation. His “bonding” framework is not offered merely as an analytical tool but as a redemptive project.

The rhetoric of this abstract, and the broader work it gestures toward, reflects this transformation. The scholar is now a moral witness. The analytic categories of affiliation and attitudinal coupling become technologies of empathy. Community becomes communion; the analyst becomes priest.

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Iconisation and the New Idolatry

The elevation of bondicons—images or tokens of shared emotion and identity—further exemplifies this shift. These are not mere cultural artefacts to be analysed for their symbolic function. Rather, they are treated as affective anchors: emotionally loaded signifiers that bind people into imagined unities.

In this theology of affect, icons are not explained—they are venerated. Their discursive function is subordinated to their evocative power. And once icons are sacred, questioning them becomes heresy. The analytical stance collapses into devotional solidarity.

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Affect as Moral Epistemology

At the heart of this reorientation lies a deeper epistemological claim: that affect is not just a dimension of meaning but a privileged access point to moral truth. Feelings are no longer expressions to be analysed; they are epistemic credentials.

Martin’s claim to speak “as an elder” is significant. Age, lived experience, and affective investment become the warrant for theoretical authority. The critic is recast as an ethical guide. Dissent is not just disagreement—it is a failure of empathy.

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The Price of Salvation: Analytical Coherence

This theology of affect comes at a cost. It sacrifices analytical clarity for moral fervour. Once bonding is sanctified, affiliation is treated not as a discursive construction but as a site of moral struggle. The metafunctions, once a robust framework for analysing meaning, are repurposed as vessels of ethical feeling.

• Stratification blurs as affect is treated as a force that transcends strata.

• Instantiation becomes sacramental: the felt becomes the real.

• Metaphors proliferate unchecked—iconisation, communion, axitech, bondicon—none systematically theorised, all deployed for their rhetorical charge.

This metaphorical opportunism is not a bug but a feature of Martin’s current mode. The metaphors are not mapped to the system but borrowed from other discourses—religion, psychoanalysis, nationalism—for their affective resonance.

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Conclusion: A Hall of Mirrors

Martin’s paper reflects a broader trend within the Sydney School: the elevation of affect to an organising principle of theory itself. But while affect is unquestionably central to social meaning, its deification has consequences. It short-circuits critique, displaces analysis, and replaces argument with liturgy.

The result is a kind of hermeneutic recursion: a theory that looks only into its own reflection, explaining feeling with feeling, community with community, and icons with more icons. What began as a semiotic theory of language risks becoming a sentimental theology of belonging.

Martin once helped build a tradition committed to rigorous, critical analysis of language in its social context. But in Secular Communion, he invites us to trade that tradition for an altar of icons and a catechism of care.

This is not a theory of language. It is a homily for the faithful.