Religious Theory Article by Mikal Radford PDF

RELIGION AS SUBJECT BY MIKAL RADFORD INTRODUCTION For most of us religion was one of those three topics—the others being politics and sex—that our parents cautioned against adopting as part of any casual conversation. Perhaps the idea was to avoid heated disput...

RELIGION AS SUBJECT BY MIKAL RADFORD INTRODUCTION For most of us religion was one of those three topics—the others being politics and sex—that our parents cautioned against adopting as part of any casual conversation. Perhaps the idea was to avoid heated disputes and the loss of friends. What this ‘cautionary tale’ has meant, however, is that the discussion of one’s own religion or religious belief is very often relegated to either a myopic study of religion held in the privacy of one’s own church, mosque, or temple, or at best, a branch of learning undertaken by small, underfunded departments in our colleges and universities. As a result much of the public discourse of the past few decades has tended to think of religion in terms of something in opposition to modernity — some quaint, antiquated curiosity that predates the Western “modernist experiment.” In short, religion has often been treated as a cultural fossil, an antiquity that was to be replaced by science, economics, and modern statecraft. The events surrounding 11 September 2001 have dramatically changed the timbre of that conversation. This writing starts from the premise that to fail to understand the context, meaning and ethos underlying the religions of the world is to fail to understand ourselves as we have developed, and continue to develop, both culturally and historically. In this context, the study of religion and religious belief provides three important components to the understanding of human diversity. The first is a lens into the great heritage of human civilization, or what Ninian Smart calls “humankind’s various experiments in living.”1 It can be argued, for example, that in order to understand the present context of capitalism or globalization, one should have more than a passing familiarity with the rise of the Protestant Reformation during that great period of “human experimentation” known as the European Renaissance. Max Weber was the first to state, more than a century ago, that to understand the “spirit” that underlies modern capitalism one must know the relationship between the religious radicalism of Calvinism and its interrelated concepts of Divine Providence, asceticism, and salvation. This background would enable contemporary culture to understand the West’s march toward a capitalistic system with its cultic focus on “individualistic economic salvation.”2  Secondly, to understand the world’s religions within their own cultural contexts and that of the Canadian multicultural mosaic gives us an opportunity for a new discourse that attempts to understand the meanings and values of the plural cultures both of the world and of those who come to Canada. For example, a question one might want to ask, how is one to understand the passions surrounding current events in the Middle East and Central Asia, if one does not know something about the rise of Islam, and its cultural relationship to both Judaism and Christianity? More locally, how is one to understand why a young Muslim woman, born and raised in a primarily secular country such as Canada, would happily choose to wear the hijab? Why would a young Jain born into a North American culture so committed to a meat-based diet be so enthusiastic to advance the principles of vegetarianism? To understand these questions we must first understand the cultural contexts and associated sacred meaning underpinning their choices. Thirdly, the study of world religions and their particular ethos gives us all the opportunity to individually reflect, shape, and articulate our own unique vision of reality. That is, in order to be adept in our own judgments about the range of philosophical and ethical choices in modern life, we need a comparative perspective. COMING TO TERMS WITH RELIGION In the Lecture Hall: So What Is Religion? Picture a small, darkened seminar room in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The theme of the seminar is “Religion and Meaning, and the Meaning of Religion.” As the keynote speaker approaches the podium, the stage is bathed in an delicate white light from the data projector. Block letters, filling the screen, pose the following question: “SO WHAT IS RELIGION?” Over the speaker system of the hall, the audience of religion students, academics, and the curious are treated to a rendition of the popular R.E.M. song, “Losing my Religion.” As the song fades, the speaker approaches the microphone and asks, “Interesting song? So, who knows what the title refers to?” An awkward moment of silence, then a single hand from the back of the room. “Give it a shot,” urges the speaker. “The song is referring to an old saying,” states a young woman who, judging by her eloquent inflection, is from the southern regions of the United States, “when someone loses their religion, it means they are losing their footing in the world. They are losing their mind, their grip on reality.” “Well done,” responds the speaker. “So how, exactly, would you define the religion that the singer of our song appears to have lost?” An anonymous voice from the darkened room: “I think they’ve lost his connection with God. It is like they have lost his bond with the transcendent, that thing that is bigger than you and me.” “Could be,” responds the speaker. “Any other suggestions?” “Perhaps the person is feeling disoriented in the world. Maybe they’ve lost their sense of community, and their identity in that community. Perhaps his community is that thing that ‘is bigger than you and me,’ and he feels overwhelmed.” “Again, an excellent answer. Perhaps we should spend some time answering the question, ‘What is religion?’ and then maybe we’ll have a better idea of what it is that the singer, Michael Stipe, might be losing. Today I want to start our discussion with the following definitions.” The speaker offers a second slide, and reads to the audience: Durkheim’s primary thrust in his sociological definition of religion is that “the idea of religion is inseparable from the idea of Church, it conveys the notion that religion must be eminently a collective thing.”3 The speaker pipes in, “Perhaps this reflects what Michael Stipe has lost in his song—that somehow he has lost his sense of relationship to the collective community? After all, he appears to be all alone while under the spotlight. That somehow losing one’s religion represents incredible loneliness.” After a short moment for audience reflection, the third slide appears on the screen: According to Weber, the most elementary forms of behaviour motivated by religious or magical factors are oriented to this world. “That is, ‘may go well with thee … and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth’ (Deut. 4:40) expresses the reason for the performance of actions enjoined by religion or magic…. Thus, religious or magical behaviour or thinking must not be set apart from the range of everyday purposive conduct, particularly since even the ends of the religious and magical actions are predominantly economic.4 Followed by the fourth slide: Max Müller states that “Religion is an effort to conceive the inconceivable and to express the inexpressible, an aspiration toward the infinite.” There’s an audible murmur in the crowd as the fifth slide is put on the screen: According to Clifford Geertz, “A religion is (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men [sic] by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.” 5 After a short pause, the speaker asks his audience, “So, are we satisfied with these definitions of religion? What is right with them, or what’s wrong with them?” A voice from the front row of the seminar theatre says, “Well, from a positive standpoint these definitions certainly appear to do their best to put all religions into a ‘nutshell’; they appear to make the definition clear, concise, and to the point.” Another interjects, “I have a problem with that. As I see it, these definitions try to essentialize religion, to reduce all religious belief to some single common ‘essence’ or solitary universal definition. As I see it, by trying to search for the ‘essence’ of religion, we end up with a definition that in many ways is much too vague, too incomplete.” “Can you provide an example of what you mean?” asks the speaker. “Well, for one thing, I consider myself very spiritual, but I don’t belong to a particular church or religious community, and I certainly don’t believe in some supreme transcendent being or the ‘infinite’ as your Müller slide tries to tell us. Instead, I follow what my grandmother and mother taught me. I find my spiritual connection with nature. I still view myself as being a religious person, but if I had to have a ‘church’ I would have to say it is being in the presence of nature.” The speaker concludes, “Obviously we’re going to have to have another look at defining religion.” Attempting a Definition of Religion Although many of us cannot provide a definitive answer as to why we think the following, most agree that Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, Confucianism, Shinto, and the tribal belief systems around the world are part of a category we call “world religions.” But that raises a question: So what makes a religion a religion? Is it a system or institution concerned only with metaphysical speculation? If this is the case, we might have a problem with including Confucianism in our list of world religions, especially in view of its early philosophical emphasis on social obligation, social hierarchy, and societal harmony rather than religious conjecture and metaphysical speculation. We might have similar problems with the metaphysical atheism of Buddhism and Jainism – their belief in no-God. It is certainly a nuance that has to be taken into consideration. From such public discussions as shown in the section above, it is clearly very difficult to come up with “one essential statement” that is true of, and defines, all religions. Taking Müller’s attempt for a moment, he states that all religions are “aspirations towards the infinite.” Although on the surface this seems a good starting point, it does present us with our first problem. To what “infinite” is Müller specifically referring? Is it some transcendent, Supreme Being such as the “Creator God” we have in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions, a Godhead with which one can have a personal relationship? Or is he referring to some impersonal “Ultimate Reality” similar to the principle of Brahma as described in the mediaeval and contemporary religious texts of Hinduism? Or perhaps the tao and chi of early Taoism, in which there is something akin to “the Force” described in the film Star Wars, which permeates the universe, but is devoid of personality traits? Coming to Terms with the Infinite Certainly if we were to interpret Müller’s definition, at least from one perspective, and apply it to the Jain and Buddhist traditions, we would run into some difficulties. In both these religious traditions, the concept of a transcendent God, an infinite Supreme Being, or some form of an Ultimate Reality that creates, and ultimately “judges” the universe, is absent. At best, if one did have to express an “ultimate concern” within these traditions, one would have to say that the primary focus is on the principles underpinning karma—that is, action-as-cause-and-effect. In a karma-based tradition there is no Supreme Being judging the actions of the individual. Instead, karma is the accumulated sum of all actions in which one has participated, and the subsequent results of those actions that “bear fruit” in some future existence. It is the individual, therefore, who is solely responsible for his or her own future experiences (both metaphysical and physical), not some external divine entity. Therefore, if we define religion as something that must have a “Godhead,” one has to ask: Are Jainism and Buddhism religions, or are they simply an interesting worldview that ignores metaphysical speculation and its concerns over a relationship with an “infinite Being”? Information Box General Categories of World Religions Although most introductory texts suggest there are eight major ‘world religions’ and a few major philosophies, the reality is there are more than six thousand distinct religions in the world today, each with their own rituals, practices and distinct belief systems. Yet despite these seemingly overwhelming numbers it is possible to categorize these world religions and philosophies into a few core categories. Philosophical View on View on Human Understanding of Core Values Category Reality Nature Truth Empiricist (the There is no Human beings are Truth exists only as Morals tend to belief that there is an metaphysical the product of an existential or be viewed as empirical universe. both chance and empirical preferences explanation for all Reality is seen the “natural experience. Truth that usually things) Atheism as purely process” of is only that which manifest as Existentialism empirical, and is evolution. We are can be proved socially useful Agnosticism (open based solely on products of our primarily through behaviours. to possibility of a the “laws of biology. the five senses (a Morals are god or Ultimate nature.” There is posteriori). subject to Reality) no such thing as change, and a soul or spirit, the “laws of or afterlife. nature,” including evolution. Pantheistic (the Emphasis tends Ultimately human Truth is beyond all In the belief that every to be on the beings are to rational description pantheistic existing entity is, in metaphysical as recognize that and empirical traditions reality, only one the primary they are truly one experience. It can awareness of Being; all other component of with the only be the true nature forms of reality are existence. The “Ultimate experienced when of the either modes, or physical realm Reality,” in unity universe is the appearances, of this is often viewed ultimate Ultimate Reality. as an illusion or Hinduism Taoism deception from and therefore are with the “oneness” moral Buddhism Jainism the true nature spiritual and of the universal “goodness.” New Age of reality (e.g., eternal. The idea principle, or Failing to maya in of an individual “Ultimate Reality.” understand Hinduism). The self is the “great In the case of the essential metaphysical illusion” to be Buddhism and unity of all realm such as conquered. Jainism the things is the Brahman in universal principle “illusion” or Hinduism, or is the law of “evil” that the tao in karma. must be Taoism, is conquered. eternal and impersonal. In general terms, every-thing is part of the Godhead, and the God-head is a part of everything and everyone. Theistic (the belief God is both an Humankind is the The true nature of Moral values in the existence and eternal and a unique creation of the Godhead is are those put continuance of the personal entity God. Therefore, known primarily forth by “the universe is owed to who created a human beings are through revelation Absolute one supreme Being.) finite, material individuals that (personal Moral Judaism Christianity world that has are spiritual and experience, sacred Being”— Islam Sikhism both a biological beings texts, etc.), the five God. beginning and who have a senses, and rational an end. Reality personal thought. is viewed as relationship with both material their creator. and spiritual. Spiritism (the Although there Human beings Truth about the Moral belief that the dead may be an are just one of natural world is values take communicate with initial “creator the many discovered the form of the living) and being,” the creatures through the taboos, Polytheistic (the universe is brought about shaman figure, which are belief in many populated by by the gods and who has visions things that deities, usually many spirit- goddesses. telling him what irritate or male and female) beings who Often in tribal the gods and anger Thousands of folk govern and are traditions, the demons are doing various religions Many the cause of all group or clan and how they spirits. new religious “natural will have a feel. These movements events.” special taboos are relationship different with one god or from the goddess, or idea of spirit guardian “good and (either for evil” protection of the because it is clan or to just as administer important to punishment). avoid irritating evil spirits as it is good ones. Religious Reality is seen Human identity is Truths are mental Values are Postmodernism (a as a “social exclusively a constructs that are part of our philosophical construction” product of social meaningful only to social strategy that that must be setting. The idea individuals within a paradigms as attempts to interpreted that people are particular cultural well. destabilize through our autonomous and paradigm. They do Tolerance, monolithic language and free is a myth; not apply to other freedom of modernist concepts cultural they are a product paradigms. Truth is expression, such as identity, “paradigm.” of society. relative to one’s inclusion, and historical progress, culture. refusal to epistemic certainty, claim to have and the univocity of the answers meaning) are the only universal values.  We would run into a similar problem if we were to suggest that a religion, by its very nature, must believe in the existence of an immortal entity identified as the soul. Interestingly, the idea that something of each individual existing beyond death is very old, or at least the archaeological evidence appears to demonstrate that our earliest ancestor provided great care to their deceased some 200 000 years ago. And though we do not have a definition of what these ancestors believed existed after death, we do know they felt that something of the individual existed beyond the grave, and that the grave objects they place alongside the deceased were to be used in some ‘other-world’. So, if the existence of something akin to a soul or spirit was a prerequisite to our definition of religion, many of the ancient tribal and indigenous traditions would certainly qualify. And if we continue with this as our operating definition, certainly the Judaic, Christian, and Muslim traditions would all qualify, though they appear to have a different understanding about the nature of the soul. But despite these differences, there is also a commonality in the various traditions—they all maintain every individual has a soul, and that in some way this soul will be judged in the afterlife. That is, every soul is a uniquely individual component of personality that will be either punished or rewarded in the “afterlife” according to that individual’s actions in this world. In most cases this judgment is final and eternal. Here, however, is where we run into problems with our definition. Though the Jains believe in an entity called the soul (jiva), in contrast to the traditional Judeo-Christian and Muslim definitions of soul, or the soul as ancestor spirit as described by many of the folk traditions around the world, both the Jains and many of the Hindu sects do not understand this entity to have any individual personality associated with it. In point of fact, the Jains would view those characteristics defined as personality more in keeping with those components that are the direct result of karma. The Jains understand personality to be karmic material that acts much like a ship’s anchor holding the boat firmly to the ocean floor. It is karma that keeps the soul in bondage and away from liberation (moksha). Personality, therefore, is all those attachments and desires that manifest themselves within the material universe as either a human being, a god, a hell-being, an animal, or a plant, and holds the “pure soul” within the eternal cycles of reincarnation (samsara). Personality is one of the components of samsara (cycles of reincarnation) from which one should free one’s self to gain liberation. Information Box World Religions by Population The following table includes both officially recognized organized religions that primarily adhere to a single orthodoxy of belief and those less formal in their social structure, religious hierarchy, or singular orthodoxy of belief. It is also interesting to note that most of these traditions have varying degrees of representation among the Canadian population. Unfortunately it is difficult to get exact percentages of population from Statistics Canada, as many fall under “Other” in the categories; however, a cursory glance at the telephone directory of any large urban centre or similar resources (e.g., the Multifaith Council of Canada) provides insight into the number of different religions and sects represented in Canada. World Religions by Population, 2006 (averaging of various sources) Christianity 2 billion Roman Catholicism 1.1 billion Protestantism 360 million Eastern Orthodoxy 220 million Anglican 84 million Other Christians 280 million Islam 1.3 billion Sunni 940 million Shiite 120 million Hinduism 900 million Secular/nonreligious/agnostic/atheist 1 billion Buddhism 376 million Mahayana 185 million Theravada 124 million Chinese traditional religionsa 394 million Indigenous/folk religionsb 285 million African traditional and religions that trace roots to African origins 95 millionc Sikhism 25 million Spiritismd 14 million Judaism 14 million Bahá’í Faith 6.8 million Jainism 5.3 million Shinto 4.4 million Cao Daie 3 million Tenrikyof 2.4 million Zoroastrianism 2 million Neopaganism 1.1 million Unitarian Universalism 800 000 Rastafarianismg 700 000 Scientology 550 000 a Not a single organized religion; includes all Chinese religions that contain elements of Taoism, Confucianism, and traditional indigenous folk religions. b Includes world folk traditions and Shamanism and Paganism. c Not a single organized religion; includes several traditions such as Yoruba, and Santeria, and Vodoun. d Not a single organized religion; includes a variety of belief systems. e A universal faith with the principle that all religions have the same divine origin, which is God, or Allah, or the Tao, or the Nothingness, and the same ethic based on love and justice, and are just different manifestations of one single truth. f A modern eastern religion based in concepts of the Japanese Shinto and Buddhist traditions. g Primarily an Ethiopian-based religion; prominent within the Jamaican community.  The Buddhists, on the other hand, would agree with the Jain philosophical position of moksha—that one must become free (nirvana) from the cycles of reincarnation (birth, death, and rebirth)—but would counter the Jain position by stating that according to the Buddhist tradition there is no such object, being, or eternal entity that one could call a soul. The Buddhist expression for what transmigrates from lifetime to lifetime is anatman or non-soul, and they go to great lengths in their sacred texts to say what this entity is not – soul is one of these. Would we be willing to say at this juncture that Jainism is a religion because it believes in an entity called “soul,” but Buddhism is not because it does not believe in such an entity? To most modern scholars the answer would be inclusive: of course, both are religions. “Big R” and “Little r” Religion Before attempting to provide a descriptive template for religion, two more issues should be addressed. The first concerns those people who feel they are deeply religious, and yet do not participate within the framework of a formal religious movement or organization. In many cases, they belong to a group that is often marginalized outside the traditional mainstream religions (some may characterize these entities as “religious cults”). Many members of the Wiccan community across Canada, for example, have often stated to me in interviews that they do not recognize the imposed hierarchies of mainstream religions, nor do they accept the concepts of “the Infinite” or “the Transcendent” as used in the traditional senses. Instead, they often view “the Ultimate” in terms of both unity with the forces of nature and a unifying relationship they have with other members of their coven or local communities. For them, religion is not some essentialized doctrine or dogma, nor is it the hierarchical structure often associated with mainstream religious organizations; rather, it is an individual, internalized experience in relationship to an external spiritual and material world. Secondly, it is apparent that when people talk about their religion, they do so in two different modes. On the one hand, there is what I like to term “big R” religion—the type of religion one often reads about in introductory texts about religion and developed by either the religious specialist or academic. Then there is “little r” religion, which often refers to the area of study anthropologists describe as “that part of religion that becomes messy.” This is the religion that is often passed from grandmother, to mother, to daughter, or from grandfather, to father, to son. “Little r” religion, then, is that religious practice that occurs on the ground—to coin an anthropological term—or in the home of an individual family unit. It is the traditional practices of our families, and not that which was conveyed by some religious specialist, academic, or religious institution. It is the type of religious practice that tends to be impossible to essentialize, because every family has a different practice or custom. Religion as Builder of Worlds In the opening pages of his text The Sacred Canopy, Peter Berger states, “every human society is an enterprise of world-building… [and] religion occupies a distinctive place in this enterprise.”6 Extending the social theories of such notables as Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber, Berger contends that the phenomenal world, and how that world is perceived, understood, and acted upon by human beings is actually a dialectical process that constantly “creates” and “re- creates” the world through a procedure of externalization, objectivation, and internalization. Berger defines these terms in the following passage: Externalization is the ongoing outpouring of human being into the world, both in the physical and the mental activity of men. Objectivation is the attainment by the products of this activity (again both physical and mental) of a reality that confronts its original producers as a facticity external to and other than themselves. Internalization is the reappropriation by men of this same reality, transforming it once again from structures of the objective world into structures of the subjective consciousness. It is through externalization that society is a human product. It is through objectivation that society becomes a reality sui generis. It is through internalization that man is a product of society.7 To try to put these definitions into context, externalization occurs when human perceptions and understanding of the universe become externally manifest as representations in both the things that we make (objects, tools, art, music, institutions, culture, etc.) and the things we do with those “products” within the public sphere. In short, human beings project meaning into the empty vastness of the universe by creating both a material and institutional culture that reflects that meaning.  In turn these products of the human cultural project become the primary objects (objectivation) of our attention. That is, we begin to interact with the representations we have created as if they were the universe itself. Interaction with, and the subsequent internalization of, these objects begins to change us. For example, consider the institution of marriage. The roles of husband or wife are objectively defined by the existing culture to represent models for individual conduct within a particular culture. As Berger states, By playing these roles, the individual comes to represent the institutional objectivities in a way that is apprehended, by himself and by others, as detached from the “mere” accidents of his individual existence…. Society assigns to the individual not only a set of roles but a designated identity…. Internalization is … the reabsorption into consciousness of the objectivated world in such a way that the structures of this world [culture] come to determine the subjective structures of consciousness itself.8 From this perspective, culture is a project meant to bring order to a universe that may appear to the individual as both chaotic and sometimes meaningless. Religion as our Response to the Meaningless On the surface, religion-as-dialectic-process appears to be both culturally stabilizing and self- contained. Indeed, if the individual finds resonance with these social roles and cultural institutions, he or she freely identifies with and participates within the “social project,” as opposed to feeling society is forcing one to participate in a given role. This stable social environment is what Berger calls the nomos. There is a problem, however, and this begins with the realization that the “dialectic” is actually a process, rather than an end. In other words, human culture is a project that is never “finished”—culture is inherently in a constant state of flux. Social environments change, in large part, because the “institutional programs are sabotaged by individuals with conflicting interests,” or the “original” meaning underpinning the socially constructed world is simply forgotten from one generation to the next. Reaction to this change by the social collective, and the subsequent reabsorption of a newly reconstructed vision by both the individual and the consciousness of the social collective, can create “new worlds” of meaning and understanding, but it also gives rise to the identification of the primary human predicament—culture is inherently volatile, unpredictable, and unstable. Religion, therefore, can be seen as the ultimate response to this predicament. In order to protect the individual, and ultimately society, from the breakdown of the existing social order, myths, rituals, and orthodoxy are established to help merge the internalized, humanly constructed nomos with that which is perceived to have been divinely constructed. In other words, to convince the social collective that society and its roles and institutions are not simply the construction of human beings that are prone to “human error,” religion is used to sacralize the existing social order—to make it sacred, to set it apart as something divinely constructed, and therefore something both eternal and immortal. In this sense religion is “world maintaining.”9 Religion as Destroyer of Worlds There is, however, another side to religion. To use a cliché, religion is very much a two-sided coin. One side reveals religion as the ultimate response to the volatility of the cultural project. Religion is used to make sacred the cultural project, provide its members with social stability, and, in turn, provide the universe with meaning. But what happens when the cultural project begins to alienate its own participants? What happens when members of a culture discover that, instead of meaning and constancy, their sense of the universe and the state of the culture is actually in a condition of chaos and disintegration? To a large extent, history has provided the answer; it has shown us the other side of the coin, so to speak. In contrast to religion being an enterprise that is “world building and world maintaining,” it can also be the very organism that overthrows an existing social order. While religion can be initiated by an existing social order to maintain its way of life through claims that it was modelled after the diktat of some divine source, it can also challenge the very nature of this premise. It can pull back the veil of society’s religious mystery, the sacred canopy protecting its cultural institutions from assault, and reveal that the status quo is nothing but a human construct, a project neither immortal, nor divinely inspired, nor immune to critical errors. Religion can also be the very mechanism of challenge and change to the social order with a new “divine message” or diktat (we see this example in the many incarnations of fundamentalism around the world, including the United States and Canada). Religion as Cultic Project Throughout history, there are many examples of religion being the catalyst for social change: the Buddha (Buddhism) and Mahavira (Jainism) challenging the social and metaphysical hierarchies developed within the South Asian Vedic, particularly the Vedic culture of sacrifice to the gods and goddesses; Jesus of Nazareth testing the priestly order within the Jerusalem Temple culture; Mohammed casting out the pagan idols contained within the Ka’ba and reinstituting monotheism in the Arabian peninsula (and beyond); St. Francis questioning the Christian monastic orders in Europe that were accumulating wealth; Confucius addressing the chaos of the Warring States period in China; and in many ways, the religio-cultic political figures of Lenin, Mao, Castro, and Che in their struggle against the excesses described within Weber’s model of Protestant theology and its new morality for entrepreneurial capitalist behaviour. Although we don’t often think in terms of these new religious movements as being cults, these examples are in fact religio-cultic responses to a preexisting cultural order that has either marginalized or alienated (anomie) individuals within their midst. In response, the cult is born. That is, to paraphrase both Lorne Dawson and Steven Tipton, the reason for an individual or group’s conversion to an alternative cultural paradigm is that people experience “ethical contradictions of unusual intensity” in the present cultural project, and therefore will gravitate to a new paradigm that provides a coherent solution.10 Within this as our operating paradigm, cults can be considered both beneficial and harmful. To the existing cultural order, any cult presents a challenge to their power and the ideals of the status quo. On the other hand, for those on the margins of society, the cult—whether it pays homage to a divine being, a charismatic leader, a cultural object or institution, or, in more modern times, an abstract ideal—can provide an alternative cultural project to restore both order and meaning to their lives. Religion and Fundamentalism Have you heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly, “I seek God! I seek God!” As many of those who do not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter…. “Whither is God,” he cried. “I shall tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are murderers…. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him…. —Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882), section 126. Nietzsche made one of the most controversial declarations about the state of the modern humanist movement when he proclaimed that modernism’s greatest accomplishment was to have finally “killed” God. This God, according to Nietzsche, was created and used as an instrument of social oppression, a cultural tool to redirect society’s attention away from the potential freedoms of this world, and to point it toward some escapist otherworld located in heaven (or hell). Much like Karl Marx, Nietzsche viewed religion as an anathema that oppressed the “masses,” an illusion created by the social order to maintain social obedience among “the herd,” and to curtail the full exploration of individual freedom. To kill off God was to clear the path to the experience of true freedom for the individual (even if that freedom includes the freedom to feel pain as well as joy). Information Box Cults and the Danger Signs In many ways, the definition of “cult” has become so blurred it has lost any significant meaning. As shown above, cults can be the early form of life-affirming cultural movements whose intent is to replace social disintegration and anomie with order and meaning. In this sense, cults can be liberating, but they can also be a tool to oppress their members. Below are some of the cautionary danger signs of such cults. Charismatic Leadership Most cults tend to be led by a charismatic leader, who is usually male. In many cases the leader has been married, but he or she tends to become “single” in conjunction with the growth of the cult. The leader dominates the membership, closely controlling them physically, sexually, and emotionally. The individual personalities of cult members are subsumed by that of the charismatic leader. Apocalyptic Beliefs One warning sign is that the leader focuses heavily on the impending end of the world, often involving a great battle (e.g., images of Armageddon). Another sign is that the leader advocates suicide in order for the group to be transported to “another world” to escape the coming world devastation (e.g., the Solar Temple cult in Canada; the Heaven’s Gate group). Members are expected to play a major, leadership role at and after the “end time.” Social Encapsulation Most cults tend to be small religious groups, and not an established denomination (although some may be “breakaway” groups). Most of the members, especially the “core members,” live in communities isolated either physically or psychologically from the rest of society. Non-members are often demonized and considered “the enemy.” There is often the sense within the cult that they are being closely monitored by the social authorities, and that these authorities are attempting to persecute the cult. Both information and contacts from outside the cult are severely curtailed. Other Warning Signs In accordance with the social encapsulation process, many recent cults have been known to prepare defensive compounds and assemble a vast array of weapons and poisons (e.g., People’s Temple, Branch Davidians, Solar Temple, Aum Shinrikyo, Heaven’s Gate). Theologically many cults appear to be associated with a familiar religious tradition, but they often have some unique deviation from it. They often stress this as “the new Revelation” with a focus on end-time prophecies. Important note: Though they may exhibit some of the characteristics listed above, some cult communities may not be considered dangerous. For example: Some of the factors may not be practised to such an intense degree, or may be absent altogether. For example, some groups may have a charismatic leader, and promote an “end times” theology, but not present a danger or advocate violence to either the “outsider” community or its own members. Some cults may “advocate” hatred toward the “outsiders” or minority groups (e.g., homosexuals, ethnic groups, or those with a particular political affiliation), but not call for direct or immediate violence against them. The  problem, of course, is that they may impel others associated with the cult to take action. Some religious groups, although not a threat to the larger society, may risk the health of their own members. For example, groups such as the Jehovah’s Witness recommend that their members refuse blood transfusion, and members of the Christian Science Church ask that their members refuse all medical help, and seek healing through prayer. Also, issues surrounding the treatment of children and corporal punishment have been raised in recent years. The problem of secularizing the social order—and this concept was never really developed by Nietzsche and some of the other existentialists—was that it took away the sacred canopy of society. On a surface reading, “killing God” was seen as an opportunity to be truly free, an opportunity to break the yoke of an outdated social construct that no longer provided meaning and order to the world. But for those who valued the role of the sacred canopy, its removal exposed secular society as a “Godless society” with a “Godless morality”; a society constructed by human beings alone, very much prone to the “evils” of human error. For this group “killing God” meant killing a divine order and, more importantly, a disintegration of its divine morality. One response to the failures of the modernist state—viewed as a morally bankrupt political system—was the rise of religious fundamentalism during the 19th, the 20th, and now, the 21st centuries. In North America this renewed religio-cultural project tends to be associated with a wide spectrum of traditional evangelical (both Protestant and Catholic) and Christian fundamentalisms, many of which are associated with the political conservative right-wing of both American and Canadian politics. Interestingly, this development in North America has come in response to what has been perceived as the steady decline in the influence of the more traditional religious denominations, and the increase of the control of the public sphere by the modernist state. In Quebec, for example, the “Quiet Revolution” took place during the 1960s with the election of the Liberal Party. The result of this election was that the church no longer held sway over education, social services, and health care (Newfoundland was to follow this path a bit later)—the curé in Quebec was replaced by the modernist state. In Ontario we see a similar “revolution.” The traditional domination of Anglo-Protestantism, particularly in the urban centres such as Toronto, was quickly losing its grip as it found itself adapting to the federal government’s policy of multiculturalism (1971). For many, religious conservatism was losing out to the “revolutionary” ideals of social liberalism. Fundamentalism in the World These movements are not confined, however, to either Europe or North America. On an international level we see the rise of fundamentalist forms of Hinduism in South Asia, new religions in China, evangelical movements in South Korea, the Orthodox church in both the former Soviet Union and its subject states, and various fundamentalist factions of Islam throughout the world—most a response to the corruption, social chaos, and meaninglessness created by the human secularization of the cultural project. In other words, the fundamentalist perceives the modernist ideal of the secular nation-state as a system of failed states—a system that is morally bankrupt because of the secularization project. In response then, religion and its “sacred canopy” is very much reentering the global cultural discourse. And to some extent, understanding this trend, however distasteful we may view the extremist outcome produced by these sentiments, may provide some insight into the events leading up to events surrounding “9/11.” When I first heard this joke about thirty years ago, I didn’t realize the importance of the statement: “God is dead—Nietzsche / Nietzsche is dead—God.” In the light of recent events around the world, I wonder if this statement of humour has even more relevance today, as it raises the important question: How is the modernist cultural project to deal with religious groups that understand God to be, despite Nietzsche’s claim, very much alive and meaningfully guiding their lives? One response might be Canada’s Multiculturalism Act, an act meant to provide equality to all religious points of view, yet ensuring no domination by one group over another. Information Box Canada’s Solution—The Multiculturalism Act of 1985 Using the material excerpted from the Act quoted below, choose one of the following areas of discussion: With an eye to the Multiculturalism Act, discuss or write your views on the best way to integrate religion with the secular. Is Canada’s multicultural policy a good solution to issues of religious conflict? Why or why not? Canada was the first country in the world to actually legislate multiculturalism. Should all countries in the world follow Canada’s lead? Why or why not? Should students/citizens be given provision/locations in the public arena in which to conduct prayers or religious services? From the Multiculturalism Act: An Act for the preservation and enhancement of multiculturalism in Canada [1988, c. 31, assented to 21st July, 1988] Preamble WHEREAS the Constitution of Canada provides that every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and benefit of the law without discrimination and that everyone has the freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief, opinion, expression, peaceful assembly and association and guarantees those rights and freedoms equally to male and female persons; AND WHEREAS the Constitution of Canada recognizes the importance of preserving and enhancing the multicultural heritage of Canadians; AND WHEREAS Canada is a party to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which Convention recognizes that all human beings are equal before the law and are entitled to  equal protection of the law against any discrimination and against any incitement to discrimination, and to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Covenant provides that persons belonging to ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities shall not be denied the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion or to use their own language; AND WHEREAS the Government of Canada recognizes the diversity of Canadians as regards race, national or ethnic origin, colour and religion as a fundamental characteristic of Canadian society and is committed to a policy of multiculturalism designed to preserve and enhance the multicultural heritage of Canadians while working to achieve the equality of all Canadians in the economic, social, cultural and political life of Canada;….