Actor-Network Theory ...heavy stuff!

I am not only studying theology in my degree, but also Sociology. I have a paper to write about the symbol of the Cross, and it's sociological relatedness. After some background reading, I chose to analyse it with Actor-Network Theory (ANT). I find this particular way of thinking particularly interesting, as it sheds some light on the nature of the religious expereinces I was once accustomed to experiencing. All comments, criticisms and insights welcome. Here is a little excerpt of what I've got so far:

"Actor-Network Theory (ANT) provides a productive method of analysis when considering what factors may have contributed to such a position (Here I am referring to the efficacy of the symbol of the Cross within religious experience). In the ANT approach, the symbol of the Cross, a material object or actor, can be seen as part of a network which includes immaterial ideas or actors. ANT not only considers all humans and objects as actors, or agents, but also the ideas and/or beliefs held by people. This stream of sociological investigation is called material-semiotics, and, as implied, it places human and non-human entities, such as ideas or objects, on an equal footing concerning causality.

The symbol of the Cross is a source of religious energy to many millions of people worldwide, providing hope, a moral centre, and transcendance. However, as any individual who has ever had such experiences will testify, they are never identical. On no two occasions of meditation upon the symbol of the Cross, will the religious person come away with the same experience. This can lead some to the conclusion that the organic nature of their experiences are a reflection of the 'work of God‘, or an experience of the 'Holy Spirit‘. Rather, and according to ANT, because the experience is mediated by many factors, both material and semiotic, it will be different every time. Or in other words, the experience of meditation is different each time because the symbol of the Cross is just one actor juxtaposed in a 'precarious process‘, called a network, with very many other actors. Oftentimes this process masquerades as 'ordered‘, objective or immutable. This is however only an illusion and in fact the effect or power, of the Cross, as percieved by the religious participant is under constant stress and struggle, and so it is experienced differently each time. Therefore, the symbol of the Cross is not considered a 'primitive cause‘, but an 'interactional effect‘ (Law, 1992: 7), the product of the interaction of multiple actors in a network.

The order produced by the Cross, as Law says, is better understood as a verb, rather than a noun (1992: 5), as a 'happening', something that is open to change, as opposed to being immutable: 'Structure is not free-standing, like scaffolding on a building-site, but a site of struggle, a relational effect that recursively generates and reproduces itself'. (Law, 1992: 5)"