Global Religion: A PDF Overview

17 Global religion It is often difficult to separate strictly religious phenomena from other similar types of belief...

17 Global religion It is often difficult to separate strictly religious phenomena from other similar types of belief and behaviour. Rites, public ceremonials, superstitions, magic (and its subcategories of ‘black magic’ and sorcery) and myth are all closely associated with religion. For sociologists, the key issue is not whether religion is ‘true’ or ‘false’, but why it is manifested in all societies, what meanings are invested in it, and what social functions it provides. Other pertinent questions that a sociologist might ask include: Are particular religious convictions associated with special forms of conduct in the secular world? (A question that Weber, for example, posed was whether there was a link between Protestantism and capitalism.) Is there a long-term growth in secularization, or does the apparent revival of religiosity refute this thesis? Is Islam in general a threat to ‘Western civilization’? And why have Islamic jihadists turned to terrorism to express their fervent beliefs? In this chapter we examine all these themes but we also review what sociologists have contrib- uted to the study of religion. Moreover, we continue the discussion of terrorism initiated in Chapter 11, this time concentrating on Islam. eaRly sociologists and Religion: comte and maRx Copyright © 2012. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. All rights reserved. Historically, some sociologists were impatient with religious ideas and practices, seeing them as part of a pre-Enlightenment culture that would fade with the establishment of a secular rational culture. Auguste Comte (1883) reasoned that human thought passed through three historical stages. The first was a theological stage, seen in primitive and early society. The second was a metaphysical stage found in medieval society, while a third positive stage was seen in modern (for Comte this was the nineteenth-century) society. Animism gave way to monotheism, which, in turn, would give way to scientific, rational thinking based on logical presuppositions, experiment and evidence. In this way of thinking, religion could be seen as an irrational diversion or a residual survival of an outdated mode of seeing the world. For Karl Marx, religion was similarly consigned to the category of ‘false consciousness’ and ‘ideology’. He drew his major insight from the German materialist philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach (1957), who argued in The Essence of Christianity that God is the exterior projec- tion of human beings’ interior nature. God did not invent human beings, Feuerbach argued, rather, they invented God. It is always dangerous for a sociologist to overinterpret the force of personal circumstances in influencing a thinker’s views. But it is interesting to note that while there were a number of rabbis among Marx’s ancestors, Marx’s father, a progressive- 301 Cohen, Robin, and Paul Kennedy. Global Sociology, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/soton-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4763683. Created from soton-ebooks on 2024-11-21 12:48:05.  302 part 3 e x p e r i e n c e s minded lawyer, changed his name from Hershel to Heinrich and converted to Lutherism. Subsequent to this embrace of Christianity, Heinrich’s clients grew in number. But Karl Marx did not see his father’s choice as opportunistic or hypocritical but simply as highly rational and Feuerbach’s arguments as self-evident. Compared with his writing on capitalism, Marx wrote very little on religion. However, he appreciated that poor, subordinated people turned to religion for solace. In 1844 he wrote: Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. (quoted in Bocock and Thompson 1985: 11) In this quote Marx demonstrates more empathy with the need for religious expression than is usually ascribed to him. Moreover, when he observed that ‘religion is the opium of the people’, he did not mean that religion caused euphoria, but rather that it dulled the pain of existence (Aldridge 2000: 62). a pause to ReFlect What are the best ways to assess religiosity? Sociologists have sometimes used attendance at a place of worship as one measure, but does this adequately capture the intensity of belief or conviction? How can sociologists assess the functions of religion? Is it possible to have high levels of spirituality and moral cohesion without organized religion or even a belief in a divinity? Comte also drew back from his secular conclusions in later work and sought to construct what we might nowadays see as a social movement in support of ‘religious humanism’, seeing the need to weld the ‘warm’ force of social cohesion that religion provided to his ‘cold’ quest for scientific understanding. Nonetheless, Comte’s was the first voice in sociology that deci- sively opposed religion to science. This turned into a much wider debate after the publication in 1859 of Charles Darwin’s book On The Origin of Species. Darwin’s work challenged those who believed in the literal truth of the biblical account, in Genesis, of how humankind emerged. His account of natural selection was based on the variations in plant, animal, bird, insect and fish life, which he recorded through his international voyages and careful botanical studies. Darwin’s prodigious powers of observation and analysis still fail to impress today’s ‘fundamentalists’ and ‘creationists’ who continue to believe in the literal truth of the Bible. The angry debates that have accompanied this opposition between religion and science have Copyright © 2012. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. All rights reserved. not diminished in 150 years. As sociologists, we should recognize our limitations; we cannot provide major breakthroughs in the contestations between science and religion. Instead, we turn to more overtly sociological questions. undeRstanding Religious expRession: Ritual, totem and taboo Religion manifests itself in all societies. Usually, even determined efforts to suppress religion either fail or states are eventually compelled to accept compromises. For example, following the victory of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1917, around 90% of the Russian Orthodox churches were closed or destroyed in the period to 1939 (Ramet 2005: ix). More- over, bishops and priests were executed and religious instruction in schools was banned. Yet, even Stalin turned to the Orthodox Church in the Second World War in an attempt to arouse national patriotism against the Nazi invasion. When state communism ended (around 1989), Cohen, Robin, and Paul Kennedy. Global Sociology, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/soton-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4763683. Created from soton-ebooks on 2024-11-21 12:48:05.  chapter 17 g l o b a l r e l i g i o n 303 the old Orthodox churches were openly reinstated in Russia and in the countries that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union. They quickly reverted to their former conservative, anti-liberal and anti-Western orientations, with each Orthodox Church identifying with its own nation-state as the Russian federation fractured into a number of independent states and ethno-national ideologies (Agadjanian and Roudometof 2005: 10–11). To understand the pervasive quality of religion, we need to examine the phenomenon itself. We should not narrowly conflate ‘religion’ with a church, mosque, synagogue, temple or gurdwara. These are merely the places where religion is expressed, institutionalized or imbibed with doctrine. Increasing numbers of people are claiming to be religious or spiritual, but they do not necessarily attend places of worship or pay allegiance to particular faiths. Doctrine is the elaborated theology or system of ideas that scholars and religious thinkers have developed, often after centuries of discussions and arguments about sacred texts. For example, the Torah, the holy book of the Jewish religion, contains nearly 80,000 words, but the Babylonian Talmud – the extended commentary on the Torah – took 2,000 rabbis 1,200 years to complete and is more than 2.5 million words in length. To appreciate some of the deeper structures of religion, which are features of all societies irrespective of the concrete forms or doctrines their religions manifest, it is helpful to examine their rituals, totems and taboos. Echoing Marx, this prompts many to explain religiosity through the argument that humans – with their doubts, insecurities and bewilderment at the inexplica- ble – need ‘something’ to give them comfort, calm their fears and address their anxieties. rItuals Rituals occur in the moments when collective expressions of thanks, forgiveness, celebration or dedication are made. The naming of a newborn infant, the coming of age of a young man or woman, marriage, death, a funeral, military victory, the planting or harvesting of crops, the appearance or cessation of rain, lighting, earthquakes or volcanic activity – all these have been the objects of simple or elaborated rituals. Because these events are sometimes terrify- ing, or gratifying and often joyful, they are invested ‘with the reverence and awe that charac- terize religious behaviour’ (Chinoy 1967: 353). Of course, religions often appropriate rituals from elsewhere and absorb them into their doctrine and practice. The harvest festival, © ROBIN COHEN for example, which Christian churches all over Europe observe in September, is clearly a pre-Christian pagan ritual in cele- bration of the annual harvest. The ‘corn dolly’, in which the corn spirit was supposed to live or be reborn and which was kept Copyright © 2012. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. All rights reserved. until the following spring to ensure a good harvest, is another example of the appropri- ation of a non-Christian symbol into reli- gious practice. FIGURE 17.1 A Candomblé religious statuette for sale in a Brazilian market Candomblé is a syncretic religion combining Catholicism and West African religious traditions, white and black saints and gods being blended in a complex doctrine. There are about 2 million adherents, mainly based in Brazil, but also other South American countries. Cohen, Robin, and Paul Kennedy. Global Sociology, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/soton-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4763683. Created from soton-ebooks on 2024-11-21 12:48:05.  304 part 3 e x p e r i e n c e s TOTEM totEm An object, animal, fish or natural The idea of a totem is more contested. As with ritual, early ethnogra- phenomenon endowed with phers working among Melanesian and Polynesian islanders, Australian supernatural qualities. Aborigines and Native Americans noticed that these indigenous people often treated animals (sometimes domesticated, sometimes dangerous), plants, fish and even natural phenomena (rocky crags, ice, water) with a high degree of defer- ence. They did not see them as divine; rather they saw the totems as both protecting the group and differentiating it from its enemies. For this reason, they either did not eat the flesh of totem animals or, if they did, only during elaborate ceremonies. We should not, however, confuse this ‘marker’ or symbolic function of the totem with the deeper ties of sociality, habit, ritual and kinship that bind groups together. In fact, the French social anthropologist Lévi-Strauss (1963) questioned whether the role assigned to totemism was exaggerated, for it is easy to mistake symbol for substance. For example, few Americans actually believe that the names of fearsome animals they assign to more than one-third of their US sports teams really are grizzlies, hornets, tigers, bulls, panthers, bears, longhorns or coyotes, but nonetheless they serve as symbols of group identification and provide figurative threats to the opposing teams. Totemism thrives in contemporary society in the guise of amulets, charms and tokens. One good example, which arrived in the USA through African Americans, is the belief in the potency of rabbit feet. Ten million are sold each year in the USA where – as in other countries – they are associated with luck, quick-wittedness, the warding off of evil spirits, fertility and good fortune (Desai 2004). In short, we should under- stand totems from an interpretive perspective and not literally (see Chapter 1 on Weber’s interpretative sociology). TABOO taBoo A social practice that is forbidden, Unlike a totem which refers to an object or animal, a taboo refers to a inaccessible or off limits. social practice that is socially prohibited. Key examples are the food prohibitions of many faiths. Pork and shellfish are outlawed by religious Jews; Muslims share the notion that pork is unclean and add a fierce condemnation of alcohol in nearly all its forms (but see below). Like the Jews, Mormons forbid shellfish; like the Muslims, they reject alcohol (to which they add other stimulants like tea and coffee). Catho- lics, by contrast, drink wine and ingest a wafer to symbolize the blood and flesh of Christ. Jews, Christians and Muslims all eat beef, which orthodox Hindus rebuff, treating the cow instead as sacred, a totem. That some taboos are shared while others differ markedly between faiths suggests that their significance for adherents lies in the meanings they ascribe to the act of rejection and even perhaps to the discipline required for self-abnegation. We should not, Copyright © 2012. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. All rights reserved. as Comte did, suppose that these prohibitions are a rational, instrumental response to premodern conditions where refrigeration was unavailable and rotting pork harboured dangerous diseases. Today, Jews and Muslims observe others eating breakfasts of bacon and eggs without harming anything but their cholesterol level. Yet, they often retain their taboo not for reasons of health but because it has acquired a spiritual and religious significance or acts as a marker of ethnic loyalty. Despite the often contested interpretations of rituals, totems and taboo, they provide a way of understanding the underlying sentiments and therefore the building blocks of religious convictions. Freud deployed these notions to explain the roots of religious dissent in his book Totem and Taboo (1946). Here he argued that if people witnessing the violation of a taboo suppressed their resulting psychological anxieties and noticed that no retribution followed, they would venture more extensive violations of taboos until a secular outlook even- tually emerged. We discuss more sociological explanations for secularization later. Cohen, Robin, and Paul Kennedy. Global Sociology, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/soton-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4763683. Created from soton-ebooks on 2024-11-21 12:48:05.  chapter 17 g l o b a l r e l i g i o n 305 GLOBAL THINKERS 17 EMILE DURKHEIM (1858–1917) Emile Durkheim is one of the founders of sociology. He held appointments © BETTMANN/CORBIS at Bordeaux and the Sorbonne and established a formidable reputation on the basis of three books – The Division of Labour in Society (1933), The Rules of Sociological Method (1938) and his famous study on Suicide (1952). His early works set the ground rules by which most sociologists continue to operate. In distancing sociology from psychology, Durkheim (1938: 103) argued that: Society is not a mere sum of individuals. Rather, the system formed by their association represents a specific reality that has its own characteristics. Of course, nothing collective can be produced if individual consciousnesses are not assumed, but this necessary condition is by itself insufficient. These consciousnesses must be combined in a certain way; social life results from this combination and is, consequently, explained by it. This core idea led to three of his guiding concepts: 1. Societies evolved from a common set of ideas, norms and expectations that their members largely shared. This he called the collective consciousness. 2. In early prehistoric or agricultural forms of society, social cohesion was built on a common set of superstitions, social practices and rituals, often religious, resulting in what he deemed mechanical solidarity (‘mechanical’ is to be understood as ‘accepted’ or ‘unquestioned’). 3. Organic solidarity, which was based on a more complex division of labour between individuals, replaced mechanical solidarity in the more advanced, urban and industrial societies. Contract, impersonality and self-interest became more common, but Durkheim still strongly insisted that a powerful moral order underpinned modern societies. Despite being an atheist, Durkheim was certain that religion played a vital function in social life. In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1976: 427), he concluded that: ‘there can be no society which does not feel the need of upholding and reaffirming at regular intervals the collective sentiments and collective ideas which make its unity and its personality’. While meetings, reunions, assemblies and the like can be crucial, these tend to become routinized and part of everyday work, home and leisure life. Durkheim labelled such behaviour ‘profane’ and distinguished it from the ‘sacred’, where a sense of awe and reverence is induced and expressed. In this sense, the sacred was just as crucial for Australian Aborigines (one of his cases) as for contemporary Christians. Thus, all religions were systems of beliefs and practices, punctuated and cemented by rituals that drew believers into a moral community. Source: Durkheim (1933, 1938, 1952, 1976). Copyright © 2012. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. All rights reserved. Religion and capitalism Whereas Comte and Marx contrasted the practice of religion with secular, rational and scien- tific pursuits, Max Weber wondered whether there might be an important link between the world of mammon (the Christian representation of greed) and the world of God. In his incisive book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1977), Weber suggested that particular religious convictions could support the pursuit of material gain. Turning this around, he saw that Calvinist notions of predestination (in particular) could prompt hard work and generate patterns of accumulation consistent with successful entrepreneurship. Predestination suggested that God had already marked out the ‘elect’ for worldly success, but people who thought (or hoped) they were members of the elect could only demonstrate that they were to their family and peers if they acquired enough riches to do the good works to prove that they were indeed chosen by God. Rather than encouraging passivity, predestination (along with certain other Protestant assumptions) created a ceaseless quest for material achievement. Cohen, Robin, and Paul Kennedy. Global Sociology, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/soton-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4763683. Created from soton-ebooks on 2024-11-21 12:48:05.  306 part 3 e x p e r i e n c e s a pause to ReFlect Weber suggested that Protestantism and capitalism have a particular affinity. How far, if at all, can we extend this argument? There were many important Muslim mathematicians and famous Chinese philosophers. Is it therefore possible to say that Islam has an affinity with mathematics or Confucianism with philosophy? Weber did not say that Protestantism causes capitalism, or the other way around, but rather that there was ‘an elective affinity’ between them; they went hand in hand. He also focused on rational, calculative capitalism rather than on booty capitalism (characterized by plunder and despoliation) or what he called ‘pariah capitalism’ (such as moneylending). From his later studies of ancient Judaism, China and India, he deduced that it was not Prot- estantism per se that was important. Jainism and Zoroastrianism appealed to Indian traders and entrepreneurs, whereas orthodox Hinduism, with its stress on religious obedience and a passive acceptance of one’s place in the caste hierarchy, constrained capitalism and permitted only slow intergenerational social mobility. Weber put forward equivalent arguments about Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism and Islam. In each case, he was careful to allow deviant options and ‘protestant-like’ elements to emerge, which can accommodate an explanation of why, for example, India is currently such a resounding capitalist success. The role of the Tokugawa religion in providing the preconditions for Japanese industrialization is also consistent with a broad reading of the Weberian thesis (Bellah 1985). The rise of evangelical Christianity in Central and Latin America, as well as in the many other parts of the world that have been experiencing economic growth since the 1970s, has lent additional weight to his thesis. In Brazil, for example, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, which was established in 1977, proved particularly attractive to destitute small farmers from the interior or the arid northeast who were driven by poverty to seek a livelihood in the shantytowns of São Paulo and other cities (Clarke 2006: 213–15). As a form of evangelical or Pentecostal Protestantism, this Church empowers its members to cope with the fragmentation of their former communities, while seeking a ‘moral and ethical code for living in a more open-ended, less predictable world in which thrift and self-discipline are seen as the key to success’ (Clarke 2006: 215). In a presentation commemorating the centenary of Weber’s Protestant ethic thesis, Berger (2010: 5) strongly asserts its continuing relevance: One can observe a positive correlation with social mobility and with it a truly novel phenomenon in Latin America: a growing Protestant middle class, economically produc- tive and increasingly assertive politically. Of course, Latin American Pentecostalism is Copyright © 2012. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. All rights reserved. not a monolithic phenomenon. There are strands which deviate from the Weberian concept (for example, groups that promote a so-called ‘wealth gospel’ wherein God provides benefits to people who have to make little effort beyond having faith). But the overall picture fits neatly with Weber’s description of the Protestant ethic and its effects. the seculaRization thesis Weber was also interested in the future of religion, which, he argued, would decline in influ- ence as the ‘legal-rational’ claims of the bureaucracy of the modern state began to take over ‘traditional’ (by virtue of inherited office) and ‘charismatic’ (by virtue of personality) forms of authority. The ‘iron cage’ of bureaucracy was pitiless precisely because the modern state operated without passion or discrimination. Bryan Wilson (1966), who is the most widely cited proponent of the so-called ‘secularization thesis’ and draws heavily on Weber’s work, believed that ‘rationalization would sweep aside tradition and marginalize charisma’ (quoted Cohen, Robin, and Paul Kennedy. Global Sociology, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/soton-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4763683. Created from soton-ebooks on 2024-11-21 12:48:05.  chapter 17 g l o b a l r e l i g i o n 307 in Aldridge 2000: 73). Although Wilson made far wider claims for his arguments, he mainly based his observations on Anglicanism in England in the 1950s and 60s. Using various statis- tical indicators, he developed his thesis that Anglicanism was failing but set this within wider debates about the future of the Church. Wilson believed that attempts to accommodate to secular society through such gestures as the ordination of women, a deference to laity, and ecumenical dialogues with other faiths were merely indicators of weakness and that such attempts to gain popularity would fail to stem declining church attendances. Meanwhile, clerical salaries were declining along with the prestige of parish priests and dwindling congregations were reluctant to pay for a profes- sional service. Wilson (1966: 76) held that the high rates of church attendance in the USA did not compensate for the shallowness of religious conviction and the indirect forms of secularization that took place within formal religious adherence. At a societal level, the connection between a faith and its following depended on personal contact between priest and parishioners in stable communities. But, the latter were disap- pearing with urbanization and the institutional differentiation between complementary but separate areas of social life. Indeed, the vast systems generated by state power, welfare provi- sion, science and education, capitalism and money, among others, operated effectively irre- spective of religion’s influence while providing many of the needs that individuals once obtained from religious belief and membership (Beyer 2006: 86–8). Another consequence was that religion – at least in the advanced societies – was partly forced to retreat into the private sphere of individual thoughts and feelings. The global shares of adherents to a religion and those claiming no adherence are shown in Figure 17.2. Including Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Pentecostal, Anglican, Monophysite, AICs, Latter-day Saints, Evangelical, SDAs, Jehovah’s Key: Witnesses, Quakers, AOG, nominal, etc. AICs – African Independent Churches SDAs – Seventh Day Adventists AOG – Assemblies of God Christianity 33% Islam 21% Judaism 0.22% Other Shi'ite, Sunni, etc. Sikhism 0.36% Buddhism 6% Copyright © 2012. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. All rights reserved. Nonreligious 16% Chinese traditional 6% Including agnostic, atheist, secular Hinduism 14% humanist, plus people answering ‘none’ Primal-indigenous 6% or no religious preference. Half of this including African group is ‘theistic’ but nonreligious traditional/diasporic FIGURE 17.2 Global shares of religious adherents Note: Totals add to more than 100% due to rounding. Source: Adherents.com (2007). In Figure 17.2, nonreligious people are estimated at 16% of the global population, but this is almost certainly a large underestimation. As Abrams et al. (2011: 1) note, people claiming no religious affiliation are, as a group, growing faster than any religious group. Moreover: Cohen, Robin, and Paul Kennedy. Global Sociology, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/soton-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4763683. Created from soton-ebooks on 2024-11-21 12:48:05.  308 part 3 e x p e r i e n c e s Americans without religious affiliation comprise the only … group growing in all 50 states; in 2008 those claiming no religion rose to 15 per cent nationwide, with a maximum in Vermont of 34 per cent. In the Netherlands, nearly half the population is religiously unaffiliated. (Abrams et al. 2011: 1) Using dynamical systems and perturbation theory derived from engineering and mathemat- ics, the model developed by Abrams et al., which has been applied to 85 countries, predicts the continuing growth of non-affiliation and even the eventual disappearance of formal religion. challenges to the seculaRization thesis: Religiosity thRives We must remember, however, that formal affiliation can be distinguished from religious sentiments and belief, and the latter still has considerable potency in shaping the lives of many people. Religions are also taking on new forms. The evidence indicates that: Christianity is surviving or only modestly declining in the advanced countries. Established religions and their churches may have declined in popularity, but there has been a surge of new religious movements (NRMs) across the world and these seem to be thriving. Virtually all religions – even those that resist modernization and Westernization – have become globalized and this points to some degree of resilience. Some scholars, such as Agadjanian and Roudometof (2005: 4), even go so far as to suggest that religion not only remains ‘mainstream’, in that it provides valuable symbolic capital for humans, but that it has also been ‘rediscovered as a constant and increasing agency’. Perhaps, they suggest, we can even talk of a world process of ‘desecularization’. rElIgIous survIval In thE wEst Through TV and radio channels and political organization, religious beliefs, practices and institutions are politically and publicly in the ascendant in the USA. Indeed, by the turn of the twenty-first century, the organized Christian right had become so important that many credited it with the election and re-election of George Bush Jr. Alternatively, it may be more plausible to argue that the Church is being mobilized for specific ideological purposes; for example, to back a political candidate who opposed abortion, wanted to be tough on terror- ism or who supported ‘family values’. The extent to which there has been a growth of reli- gious sentiment and spirituality within the conventional churches is much less clear. Copyright © 2012. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. All rights reserved. Stark and Bainbridge (1985) echoed Wilson’s notion of a hidden secular consciousness underpinning the rise in church participation. Congregants are, in effect, using rational choice theory, which suggests that human beings seek to maximize their rewards and mini- mize their risks. Also compelling is the argument that the churches provide a series of concrete benefits for their congregants – superior educational opportunities, support in sickness, old age and misfortune (areas evacuated by the neoliberal state), and a network of fellow members ‘who look after each other’ and provide a warm circle of social acceptance. In Britain, where high-quality, state-supported schooling is at a premium, dual-supported Church schools (which are generally of better quality) have insisted that parents attend church if their chil- dren are to be considered for admission. Dutiful attendance at their local Anglican church by ambitious parents does not, however, prove that they have found the way of the Lord. While instrumentality and rationality can partly explain the continued popularity of the established religions, the notable growth of fervent religious sentiment among the non- established churches is apparent. Take the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons. Founded in the 1830s, the Mormons’ scripture, The Book of Mormon, revealed to Cohen, Robin, and Paul Kennedy. Global Sociology, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/soton-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4763683. Created from soton-ebooks on 2024-11-21 12:48:05.  chapter 17 g l o b a l r e l i g i o n 309 Joseph Smith in Salt Lake City, had, by 1997, sold 78 million copies. With over 55,000 missionaries serving worldwide at any given time, the Church currently claims a growing membership of over 14.4 million. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have about 7 million followers worldwide, many of whom read their publications, Watchtower and Awake! Their doctrine proclaims that Christ returned for his second coming in 1874 and was enthroned as king in 1878. All governments and churches were to be destroyed in 1914 and a worldwide paradise was to be ushered in. Despite this and other failed prophecies, the Jehovah’s Witnesses continue to thrive; according to their own statistics, US membership, measured in terms of those attending Kingdom Hall churches to commemorate Christ’s death at Easter, is 2.5 million (Jehovah’s Witnesses 2011). Worldwide, the active membership seems to be growing at around 2.5% annually. thE worlDwIDE growth of nEw rElIgIous movEmEnts (nrms) Beyond established faiths and religious movements like the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, there are many expressions of religion that fall into the categories of ‘sects’, ‘cults’, ‘alternative religions’ or ‘new religious movements’. Beckford (1986: xv) sees the growth of such movements partly as critiques or renewals of older religions and partly as responses to the rapidity and ubiquity of social change, including globalization. He claims that they ‘amount to social and cultural laboratories where experiments in ideas, feeling and social relations are carried out’. Clarke (2006) stresses the innovatory and experimental nature of NRMs, but sees these and other characteristics as applicable to a wide range of world reli- gions, not just those linked to Christianity. He also insists that ‘religious change is constituted differently in different religions and cultural settings’ (Clarke 2006: xiv). Clarke (2006: 6–16) lists the following additional characteristics of NRMs: The core of NRMs involves the desire of individuals under modernizing and globalizing conditions to pursue a spirituality other than that based on external scriptural truth and doctrine or the divinely inspired word of God as mediated by a hierarchically organized church and priesthood (Clarke 2006: 8–10). Because this spirituality is crucially based on seeking direct, personal religious experi- ence, it involves a quest for inner personal development and self-realization. This turning inwards to the self as the authority for belief constitutes, for Clarke, a religion for and of the ‘True Self’ (Clarke 2006: 8). For these reasons, NRMs are basically trying to combine the divine and the human in ways that are compelling and ‘self-empowering’ (Clarke 2006: 7). Equally, believers are trying to transform the world through developing their inner spirituality but without losing contact with the sacred, which they find in their own way. Copyright © 2012. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. All rights reserved. Typically, therefore, most NRMs contain a millenarian dimension. This is the belief that human life on earth can be transformed through spiritual means. Thus, instead of focus- ing entirely on securing salvation in the next world through engaging passively in appro- priate religious rituals during life, they try to find truth and meaning in their present lives on earth. Interestingly, the earlier millenarian movements that sprang up in some coun- tries during the colonial period were directed against alien rulers and sometimes led to acts of political insurrection. NRMs look upon evil more as ignorance than as domination by the devil or an indul- gence in wilful egotistical personal behaviour. Consequently, there is a strong emphasis on acquiring the knowledge, skills and personal disciplines that enable adherents to escape from ignorance into a state of enlightenment. Not surprisingly, NRMs tend to reject priestly hierarchies, although many have gurus or masters who provide personal guidance. They are often tolerant of other religions and may allow members to follow other movements; their leaning towards experimentation tends to result in the adoption of aspects of belief and practice taken from other religions. Cohen, Robin, and Paul Kennedy. Global Sociology, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/soton-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4763683. Created from soton-ebooks on 2024-11-21 12:48:05.  310 part 3 e x p e r i e n c e s An astonishing number and range of NRMs have arisen worldwide in the past two centuries and many of these are very recent. The emphasis on developing a personal spiritu- ality is usually more pronounced in the NRMs based in Western societies, whereas in the global South, where Buddhism and other religions predominate, the members of these move- ments tend to lean more towards ‘communal, societal concerns’ (Clarke 2006: xiv). Never- theless, individual needs and orientations are also evident here, particularly in urban areas, and this trend is strengthening. In Box 17.1, we discuss two case studies that demonstrate this range and variation. BOX 17.1 Case studies of NRMs, North and South The People’s Temple and the Jonestown mass suicide in Guyana Jim Jones, the leader of the people’s Temple, was born of humble origins in 1931. He showed an early interest in emotional religion (in this case pentecostalism) and an ability to attract devotion and mistrust. In 1955 he established an NRM, which became known as the people’s Temple Christian Church. It later moved to California. The movement drew together radical, often affluent, whites and marginal blacks to deliver social care to mentally disturbed and poor people. After falling foul of the Californian tax authorities, the movement decamped to Guyana where it leased 4,000 acres in a remote area. Later, when Jones joined the settlement, it was renamed ‘Jonestown’. Jones advocated a blend of faith healing, utopianism, pentecostalism, communism and anti-racism, directed mainly at the USA. He demanded absolute obedience and claimed divine inspiration, haranguing the community on the public address system. Those who left were denounced as apostates and dismissed. Tim Stoen, a defector, returned to the USA and organized concerned relatives who accused Jones of brainwashing. They demanded a Congressional investigation. When Congressman Leo Ryan eventually visited, the response was paranoiac and confused, and Ryan, three media people and a Temple member who wanted to leave were all killed at the airstrip at port Kaituma. Others were wounded. When Jones realized that the US government would intervene, he shut the community down and proclaimed that their only option was ‘revolutionary suicide’. This was eventually agreed. A cocktail of potassium cyanide and sedatives was prepared, which parents gave to their children before drinking it themselves (Hall 1987: 285). Jones, however, died of a gunshot wound – whether a result of murder or suicide was never determined. On 17 November 1978, the final death toll in Jonestown was 909, nearly a third of them children. Postscript Unsurprisingly, this horrific event and the rise of other exclusive, totalitarian movements prompted widespread concern. In the UK, Barker (1989) was commissioned to undertake a study of 500 NRMs to ascertain whether fears of ‘brainwashing’ and ‘mind control’ were justified. She concluded that the persuasion and socialization techniques they employed differed little from those used in families, schools, the armed forces and traditional Copyright © 2012. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. All rights reserved. religions (Barker 1989: 19). An East Asian case: China’s Falun Gong Many NRMs have developed in East Asia. Some, like the Moonies in South Korea, have spread worldwide. Others are among the world’s largest NRMs. Their dominant concerns can be political or religious, but nearly all are messianic or millenarian, in that they anticipate world transformation through engaging in some kind of self- realization strategy. Some have emerged out of the dominant religions of Confucianism, Daoism or Buddhism, while others have spread from abroad or were established by independent charismatic leaders. Sometimes elements from local folk religions or Christianity are also absorbed. Li Hongzhi, a self-educated man from industrialized Manchuria, founded Falun Gong (also called Falun Dafa) in 1992. While influenced by the anti-Western ideas that the communist government upheld when he was young – he was born in 1951 – he also draws on conventional Buddhist and Daoist/Taoist teachings and qigong (chi gung). He believes that contemporary China demonstrates a moral decline similar to that of the West because of its rampant materialism and pro-scientific approach to modern life. Falun Gong predicts that degeneration will culminate soon in an apocalyptic catastrophe – as the present cycle of the universe reaches its Cohen, Robin, and Paul Kennedy. Global Sociology, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/soton-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4763683. Created from soton-ebooks on 2024-11-21 12:48:05.  chapter 17 g l o b a l r e l i g i o n 311 close – followed by a new age of progress. This can only be avoided by conversion to the movement. This, in turn, requires participants to study and practise the texts Li Hongzhi wrote in 1992 (which have been widely translated), follow certain techniques to enhance health, personal calm and longevity (modern medicine is unhelpful), and live a morally upright life built around the principles of truthfulness, compassion and forbearance – even in the face of threats and persecution. These practices will allow individual members to develop a spirituality rendering them strong in mind and body while transforming the world. In effect, the cult teaches that humans are capable of attaining a much higher state of existence than contemporary society permits. However, through correct spiritual practice, individuals can discover their original true selves before the world corrupted them and perhaps ultimately attain unity with Buddha. Falun Gong is popular in China (and elsewhere), suggesting the presence of widespread dissatisfaction among Chinese citizens. The rural migrants, who lost their jobs through economic restructuring in the early 1990s, are staunch supporters. Following a large demonstration in April 1999, the movement was banned as subversive and an agent of imperialism. Many members were imprisoned or – allegedly – placed in psychiatric institutions, while Li Hongzhi fled to the USA (Clarke 2006: 319–25). Sources: Barker (1989); Chidester (2004); Clarke (2006); Hall (1987); Moore et al. (2004). thE gloBalIZatIon of rElIgIon In the global age, religions readily diffuse across every kind of border, flourish everywhere and often adopt elements from other religions. As Robertson (1992) rightly insisted, just like nations, states, economic systems, cultures, medical practices and other fields of human action, religions have become exposed to each other and cannot avoid interacting. Whether these relationships are hostile, sympathetic or a mixture of both, dialogue is unavoidable. Consequently, religions and their practitioners experience glocalization (see Chapter 2). In reacting to each other, they adapt, alter and mix fragments from other movements. This is as true of the older, traditional religions such as Christianity, Islam and Buddhism as it is of the movements that have emerged more recently. The case studies in Box 16.1 illustrate this well. Such mobility and diffusion, however, suggest that whatever changes may or may not be taking place in each church or movement as it adapts to modernity, science, capitalism and other aspects of its environment, and irrespective of the numbers of adherents it retains, some essential ingredients of what we can broadly define as ‘religiosity’ continue to appeal to many people across the world. There is a further aspect to this. Partly because of the way globalization exposes us to everyone else’s culture, it can also, as Robertson (1992) pointed out, propel us towards think- ing not only about our shared humanity and questions of ethics but also about our own indi- vidual identity and purpose in a complex world – what it means to be human. All these are intrinsically religious concerns. Copyright © 2012. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. All rights reserved. the ‘thReat’ FRom islam Embraced by just over one-fifth of humankind (see Figure 17.2), the expansion of Islam and the revival of militant versions of political Islam (we will call these ‘jihadists’) are viewed with considerable alarm, particularly in Western political circles. This notion of an Islamic threat to Western economic and political interests has gained particular credibility in the wake of the various terrorist attacks that have taken place in New York, Madrid and London since 11 September 2001. In a climate marked by extreme ideological and military conflict, it is difficult to separate myth from reality (it has wisely been said that ‘truth is the first casualty of war’), so we must be careful to assess the strength of the arguments and evidence claiming that Western and Islamic interests are heading for confrontation. The most prominent advocate of this position was Samuel Huntington, a conservative American writer, whose arguments in The Clash of Cohen, Robin, and Paul Kennedy. Global Sociology, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/soton-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4763683. Created from soton-ebooks on 2024-11-21 12:48:05.  312 part 3 e x p e r i e n c e s Civilizations (1998) have been echoed by presidents, politicians and journalists. Huntington forecast a future consisting of cultural conflict and bloody wars between rival ‘civilizations’. His argument can be summarized as follows: 1. A ‘civilization’ consists of the broadest level of cultural identity shared by clusters of ethnic groups, nations or peoples based on common experiences, especially history, reli- gion, language and customs. This yields perhaps seven or eight contemporary civiliza- tions, although each contains important subdivisions. 2. In the post-Cold War era, while nation-states remain powerful actors, ideological conflicts, for example between communism and capitalism, and interstate conflicts are unlikely to shape global politics to t