There is something tempting about the casual, and sometimes not-so-casual, reflexivity of this time of year. Even if it is indebted just a bit too much to the artifice of a very old Roman calendar, and the curious modern pretense of a new year’s “beginning” in the depths of winter, just after the vernal solstice tilts the northern hemisphere of our stop-start planet back in favor of warmer weather and the promise of an eventual springtime. I will return to that potent image, of a warming planet tilting its northern pole sunward, at the end of this reflection.
There may even be something natural-seeming, to us, in this ritual taking stock—of ourselves, and our world—in such a season, and the attraction to the ritual increases when the calendar tells us that the new year beginning will ring in a new decade, or century, or what have you.
Since I try to introduce an historical perspective in most of my classes, I find myself speaking of decades, and centuries, and millennia, almost as a matter of natural course. And for some reason, I have found it very difficult to stop speaking as if we lived still in the twentieth century. Describing the passage of time in one’s own lifetime a decade at a time requires some creativity and thoughtfulness; marking the appearance of a new decade, or a new century, proves to be far more challenging than remembering to change the year on the checks and Thank You notes I write in January.
This time around, there’s no escaping the fact that our collective feet are now planted firmly in the twenty-first century. And it is worth reflecting on what this dawning perspective (of seeing ourselves as twenty-first century people) implies for the way we think about, and talk about, religion today… as a not-so-new century readies the celebrations for its ten-year-old birthday.
Religion is back...again
The tempting place to begin is with what has almost become a twenty-first century truism: that in this new century, religion was decidedly “back.” Just one year into this new century, religion of a certain sort literally exploded across the brainscape of a wondering and worried world. The September 11 attacks put religion on a front burner everywhere: on television and internet discussions, and even at state universities, where suddenly legislatures did not need to be convinced of the importance of knowing something about other religious traditions from around the world.
But there is something falsifying about this crude historical truism, the one claiming that religion enjoyed a tortured comeback of sorts in the year 2001. If anything, religion had already been “back” for a generation, by then. The really singular date for any contemporary discussion of the resurgence of politicized neo-traditional religion is 1979, not 2001.
It was in 1979 that the Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolutionary movement seized power in Iran.
It was in 1979 that Jerry Falwell formed the Moral Majority in the United States and began lobbying hard, not just for a fundamentalist return to the political arena, but for the neo-conservative agenda of then–candidate Ronald Reagan.
It was in 1979 that John Paul I died unexpectedly after a very brief pontificate, resulting in the equally unexpected elevation of John Paul II to the papacy, the first non-Italian pope to be so elevated since the middle of sixteenth century. John Paul II quickly established himself, again somewhat surprisingly, as a man of unusual charismatic and media talents, but also as a pope with some jarring and nearly reactionary theological attitudes.
It is worth reflecting on the symbolic significance of the fact that all three of these men have since passed on, and that the movements they left behind are currently trying to re-think what they should become one generation later. The times they are a changin’. It was not long before scholars of religion—most notably Bruce Lawrence (in Defenders of God), and Mark Juergensmeyer (in The New Cold War?), both writing in the early 1980s—began theorizing about the emergence of this new, and global, religious phenomenon as an explicitly anti-modern form of religious nationalism and/or religious identity.
If the old-style secularization story (that religion inevitably goes away in the face of Western-style modernity) could not be maintained in the face of these global movements, and if a certain sort of religion seemed to be so indubitably and dramatically “back” in 1979, then the question of what these trends meant for the future could no longer be avoided. Juergensmeyer demonstrated the ways in which such movements offered a coherent and attractive alternative to the reigning paradigms of ethnic or civic nationalism; religious nationalism, in his view, long a staple of resistance against various forms of imperialism, had finally come of age. Lawrence worked comparatively to show how such movements possessed and expressed some surprising similarities across the boundaries of traditional religious confession; fundamentalism was, in his view, a legitimate comparative category that helped name what he viewed as a religious “revolt against the modern age.”
A decade of confusion
I will return to the question of modernity and the various reactions it has spawned, but here I want to notice the way in which each of the movements he seemed to involve a religious reaction against a certain 1960s-style form of the counterculture.
The Protestant case in the United States is especially instructive here. Whereas self-styled “fundamentalists” in 1920 identified themselves as opposed to Darwinian science and Liberal Protestant theology, in the 1970s their target had shifted decisively: feminism, sexual liberation, and secular politics were the new theological and cultural targets du jour. John Paul II’s resolve in undoing a great deal of the Second Vatican Council’s “new openness to the modern world” (another product of the mid-1960s) may be read in similar terms, as may Khomeini’s reaction against many Iranian clerics’ proximity to, and collusion with, the secular reforms of Western-leaning and Western-style political leaders like the Shah. We live in that world still today, and it is in this sense that we did not need the September 11 attacks to learn that a certain form of neotraditional religiosity was alive and well around the world.
What happened in the new century, and what has taken up a great deal of our cultural attention in the past decade, is that certain forms of neo-traditional religion became increasingly violent, very fast. This resurgent religious violence has prompted an aggressive, and often violent, secularist push-back as a form of modernist reaction against religious anti-modernism. It is a pendulum swing I am trying to trace here, and my sense is that it has been swinging for a generation, if not longer.
What is striking, and at least arguably fairly new, is how confused we seem to be these days—about religion, about the secular sphere, and about the future of both as embodying forms of political commitment capable of peaceable coexistence.
Religious Studies gone public
Religion Dispatches, itself a product of this same confused decade, is intended to provide one such place, in which ethically serious and politically engaged persons from a variety of religious and political confessions can reflect on the possibilities of such religious rapprochement.
RD’s own Katie Lofton has observed, with her singular acerbic wit, that Religion Dispatches represents a movement she describes as “Religious Studies gone public”; there is something of great substance, and great moment, in that astute observation.
Tags: 2010, 2012, anti-modern, fundamentalism, modernism, new year, religion, religious studies, violence
The nature of war might have changed on 9/11, but the potential of these wars are nothing compared to what was out there when we were growing up. We lived in an age when all war was seen through the lense of two superpowers with tens of thousands of nukes aimed at each other and at each other's friends. Both sides knew the importance of lanuching first and massive in any new world war, and we grew up thinking world wars came spaced about every 20 years. This was the real possibility of in one day killing much of the world's population, poisioning the entire planet so that most of the others would soon die, and starting a nuclear winter that would kill off almost all of the world's food supply so that the few people who were left would be doomed to a life of killing each other for food. Religion was kind of timid in those days.
Now the problems we are facing are not so frightening, and religion is rearing its ugly head. In America this ugly head is expressed as the alliance of Christianity and the party of the rich. To someone from the 50's and 60's, this is an astonishing development, but it is real, and it is hard to deal with or speak about because America has groomed itself to be blind.
Here's hoping that religion can turn from the crumbling "conservative" edifices of Khomeini, Falwell, and John-Paul towards the conservationist ethic that deals with reality rather then fighting it. But unfortunately, the capacity for delusion and denial is endless, of which religion is the primary example and beneficiary.
Religion is most certainly not back amongst educated people in affluent countries. It is only "back" in the Global South and amongst the lower classes in the US, that is amongst people who haven't fully assimilated Western modernity and those who actively resist it. And this has shaped the character of contemporary religion which is increasingly accommodated to the social conservatism of traditional societies and to the ignorance and stupidity of the lower classes.
This is a crying shame. I LIKE religion and wish there were more of the right kind kicking around. But decent, educated, upper middle class people are now largely secular and becoming more so by the day. And that seems to me a stinking shame.
Religion is only human, and it has to pay the bills. If there is a true religion that is the one that is of God, then that sect doesn't have to worry about money, but all the others have to be what the people providing the money want them to be.
Not so fast. There are some, albeit perhaps small amout of middle and upper class folks who are still very much a religious group that holds to the "liberal" consensus of the post World War II generation. I am one of them, though perhaps I may be considerd and elder statesman of the period. But I know a lot of younger, well education, intellectual people who like and participate in the religion of their choice. My choice is still Christianity, though I worship and reflect on this religion with the crticial eye of the religious liberal.
Found these thoughts fascinating, even shared and linked them on a couple Baptist boards.
In particular some of you including Mr. Ruprecht may want to take a look at bteditor.blogspot.com
For me essay by Miller in Fall 2009 issue of Claremont.org review has stronger take on substance of religion and where America in particular is at this moment.
It's a review of most recent novels of Pulitzer's Robinson.
Would be great if RD invited Ms. Robinson to engage this essay by Ruprecht.
And in the future you may want to have somebody analyze the children of the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention at sbcimpact.net, who on the whole strike me as being more full of grace than their fathers.
he percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 percentage points since 1990, from 86 to 76 percent. At the same time, the number of people willing to describe themselves as atheist or agnostic has increased about fourfold from 1990 to 2009, from 1 million to about 3.6 million.
I'm in complete agreement that religion in America isn't going away. However, I feel there is likely to be a rather major shift in how religion is practiced here. Historically, religion in America has been a very liberal (in the philosophical sense, not the left-right political sense) force in America and in our politics relative to the views commonly held in that day(though I've read sources saying this bypassed the south, not knowing a lot about that region's particular history I can't judge). The trend over the last few decades to a very dogmatic, conservative Christianity has been an aberration that I feel runs contrary to all that is best in American religion. I don't believe that most Americans are really comfortable with a conservative Christianity, we feel that religion should be an essentially progressive force that brings out the best in us and in our liberal philosophy.
Perhaps it's time for a new Great Awakening that will bring our religion back to its proper place as a progressive, forward-thinking moral force that is at the head of the social changes occurring in our country and take us away from a religious perspective that has been trying to reverse rather than embrace social change in America. Somewhere over the past few decades religion in America took a wrong turn, it's time for someone to again place religion in it's proper context as a force that is inclusive rather than divisive and that embraces all that is best about America.
a progressive, forward-thinking moral force that is at the head of the social changes occurring in our country and take us away from a religious perspective that has been trying to reverse rather than embrace social change in America.
Exactly. That is the point that the non-believers have been trying to make. Thanks.
Not all social change is good. What is "good" by the way?
People wasted years thinking communism was good. It murdered millions and couldn't get a potato in and out of the gound, but it was the darling of forward thinkers everywhere.
How about labor unions? They were able to make this a better country for everyone for a short time.
In the coal mines...Yes absolutely. I bet the former employees and families of Eastern and Pan Am might not agree that the unions "were able to make this a better country for everyone."
MY FAMILY would tell you that sending our textile/apparel industry overseas was a labor union travesty. I PERSONALLY witnessed countless executives who told me "if they unionize we shut down, we just won't be able to compete" and they did just that.
Labor unions were a great "CONCEPT" but the reality never lived up to the vision.
So maybe I'm being to precise, but I don't care: communism didn't kill people; people killed people.
I would hope Mr. Ruprecht, Randall Balmer or some such contributor to RD would review
www.differentbookscommonword.com documentary shown on many ABC affiliates across the nation yesterday. Review it within the framework of Ruprecht's assertions in this essay in question.
I found the documentary very well done; and proud to be a member of the Baptist movement represented in the piece; many on camera folks among my acquaintances and friends.
In the clips at the website are one of Muslim Sayyid; strong statement endorsing what is the best about Baptists.
The location at Andover Newton adds particular weight I may share later.
We need to define key terms. There are only three distinct categories of meaning for the word "God." And only one is still coherent in our world.
First, "God" could mean a Fellow. Kneecaps, toes, walking in the garden, talking to people, shouting down from a crack in the sky. For most, God is not a Fellow, not a physical being.
Second, "God" could mean -- not a Fellow, but a Force, or energy. Not just a force in our imaginations, but an empirical force that might be measured with the right scientific instruments. This sort of Force, however, cannot see, hear, care, plan, or love. And why would it "care" about carbon-based life forms? It might purr over electromagnetism, but few would consider that useful or comforting.
Third, the word "God" is one of our most powerful concepts: like Truth, Justice, Goodness, Beauty and Love. This meaning is logically very solid, easily demonstrable, and profoundly important -- for all of these symbolic words. Now “God” is a concept, a symbolic umbrella for all we hold dearest and most essential to our lives.
But while true, this changes everything. For now God-talk is an idiom of expression, a dialect, a way of talking. And today’s question is whether we still think it’s a very GOOD way of talking, in an increasingly pluralistic and secular world. Broadly speaking, it is not. To welcome the many sciences and arts with insights into who we are and how we might live most authentically and compassionately here and now rather than elsewhere and later. Those of us in religion must take the next step: into SECULAR RELIGION, DONE IN ORDINARY LANGUAGE.
Moving the discussion into plain talk empowers and includes even the fiercest critics, both inside and outside “religion”: Karen Armstrong, Bishop Spong, Bishop Holloway, the Dalai Lama, the Jesus Seminar, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris et al. It even includes down-to-earth politicians, as in this excerpt from President Obama’s 2006 “Call to Renewal” address:
"Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. Democracy requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. …accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.Secular Religion in Ordinary Language: it means a concern for living wisely, compassionately here and now rather than elsewhere and later, combined with the learned ability to say what we mean in plain talk that crosses all walls of jargon, for those willing to gather at this cutting edge.
Davidson Loehr (I guess I should include more information. Ph.D. in theology, the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of science, Fellow in the Jesus Seminar, 23 years as a liberal minister, now retired).
As local church funding sources stay either same the same or dwindle, many judicatory heads are asking for more money for more staff, higher salaries and higer benefits. As a retired member of the clergy, I am certainly not adverse to salary increases, as I benefited from many over the years. However, at this time in the history of American liberal Protestantism, it is clear to me that judicatories are simply asking too much from their constituent congregations. Now, in the age of the internet, cellular phones, texting, blogging and twittering, it is possible to strip down some judicatory excesses, or at least keep them at a level pace.
An old teacher said that fundamentalism is clear, direct, mechanical and wrong. He said, “You go argue with them.” I grew tired of them decades ago. However, I know fundamentalists who are more tolerant than mainline, boring Protestants.
I stopped attending my mainline church. The people are usually okay, but I am tired of being labeled “a liberal” because I am not a fundamentalist Christian or a market fundamentalist. I just got tired of it.
When the mainline denominations want to embrace people like men they can. They do not care much for people like me. They like those who love Rick Warren and Franklin Graham. If they want people who like Warren and Graham, they have them. If they want people who admire old Reinhold Niebuhr or Karl Barth or the like, they can open to door to us.
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