New Religious Movements and social change

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New Religious Movements and social change

• 3.10.2007

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Readings

• Dawson Why Did New Religious Movements Emerge?
  (in Dawson 1998)
• Hunter The New Religions Demodernization and
  the Protest against Modernity (in Wilson 1981)

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Discussion topics

• Religion and status quo
• Religion and social change
• NRMs a reaction to social change
• NRMs a cause of social change
• NRMs a consequence of social change
• Video Excerpts from With God on Our Side

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Religion and status quo

• Religion as false consciousness
• Marx Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's
  Philosophy of Right (1844)
• religion
• opium of the people
• illusory happiness
• Religion as social cement
• Durkheim The Elementary Forms of the Religious
  Life (1912)
• rituals gt social stability
• Religion as a tool of social control
• Kertzer Ritual, Politics and Power (1988)

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Religion and status quo

• Religion gt legitimation of social structure
• 1) Mystification
• Worldly reality presented in heavenly terms
• 2) Naturalization
• presenting existing social relations as
  self-evident
• time factor
• biology
• 3) Generalization
• the ideas of the elite the ideas of the society

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Religion and status quo

• Religious symbols gt national symbols
• Virgin of Guadalupe (Mexico)
• Eric Wolf (1958)
• "The Virgin of Guadalupe
• A Mexican National Symbol"

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Religion ? social change?

• gt NRMs a reaction to social change
• Re-establish absolutism, spiritual revival
• gt NRMs a cause of social change
• Change the values/institutions of the society
• gt NRMs a consequence of social change
• Fill in the vacuum

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NRMs ? modernity?

• NRMs not a modern phenonenon
• many waves of religious activity
• Europe
• late Roman period
• 4th, 12th, and 17th c
• 1960s
• US
• Four Great Awakenings
• 1730-60, 1800-30, 1890-1920, 1960-
• Japan
• End of 1940s the 'Rush Hour of the Gods'
  (Barker)
• 1970s - shin shin shukyo ('new new religions)

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Modernization

• Especially since 1960s
• Manifested in various changes
• De-institutionalization
• of community
• of identity
• Ethical / moral relativism
• normative breakdown
• value dissensus
• moral ambiguity
• crisis of meaning (Hunter)
• spiritual homelessness (Camus)
• disenchantment of the world (Weber)

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NRMs as a reaction to social change

• Hunter
• Modernity
• Well-developed public sphere / weak private
  sphere
• Neither provides stable/grounded social identity
• gt conditions that are anthropologically
  intolerable
• New Religious Movements
• an anthropological protest against modernity
• a demodernizing force
• Emphasis on cultural continuity
• gt dominant / traditional values

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NRMs as a reaction to social change

• Hunter
• gt Re-establishment of absolutism
• 1) organizational absolutism gt norms and rules
  to live by
• a total institutionalization (eg.
  communitarianism)
• 2) cognitive absolutism gt holistic sense of
  self
• pure consciousness (TM)
• eternal bliss (Krishna)
• God Consciousness (3HO)
• oneness, cosmic awareness, transcendence etc.

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NRMs as a cause of social change

• Weber The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
  Capitalism (1905)
• Protestantism gt necessary value system for
  rationalization/capitalism
• Individualism
• No mediator between believer and God
• Diligence
• Economic success as a proof of being chosen
• Asceticism/puritanism
• reinvestment of profit instead of consumption

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NRMs as a cause of social change

• Hobsbawm Primitive Rebels (1959)
• Millenarianism
• JudeoChristian messianism
• Christian doctrine revealed in the Book of
  Revelations
• Christ's return and his rule on earth for a
  thousand years
• hope of a complete and radical change in the
  world
• Two types of millenarian movements
• old fashioned / pure millenarian movements
• modern revolutionary millenarian movements
• Both preach the change/changing of the world

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NRMs as a cause of social change Hobsbawm

• Pure millenarian movements
• vague about the way social change will be brought
  about
• gathering, preparing, looking for signs,
  listening to prophets, undertaking rituals,
  purifying themselves
• Revolutionary millenarian movements
• explicit about the way social change will be
  brought about
• political ideology, organization, strategy,
  tactics, program
• Pure gt Revolutionary millenarian movement
• Eg. Various cargo cults in Melanesia

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NRMs as a cause of social change

• Especially common in contexts of intercultural
  contact
• Revitalization movements (Wallace)
• deliberate, organized, conscious effort by
  members of a society to construct a more
  satisfying culture.
• Nativistic movements (Linton)
• "Any conscious, organized attempt on the part of
  a society's members to revive or perpetuate
  selected aspects of its culture."
• North America
• Ghost Dance (Paiute, Sioux)
• Peyote Cult / Native American Church
• South Pacific
• Cargo cults
• Asia
• Boxer rebellion (China)
• Africa
• Xhosa rebellion (South Africa)

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NRMs as a cause of social change

• Most NRMs
• no "adequate theory of society
• gt social changes caused unintentionally
• Impact on culture/society
• not in their novel theologies / social reform
• but in increased demands on broader value choices
  
• gt individualism
• gt ideological / value pluralism
• biggest impact on family / civil society
• Anti-cult movements!

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Pentecostalism

• Fastest growing Christian churches
• 120-400 million worldwide
• majority in the Third World countries
• gt Pentecostalism "third force of Christianity"
  
• Syncretic mixes
• Especially Latin America
• Central America 2 (1930s) gt 1/5 (1960s) gt 1/3
  (1980s)
• David Martin
• Rise of Pentecostal churches in LA Cultural
  revolution

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NRMs as a consequence of social change

• NRMs fill in the vacuum created by change
• Secularization
• decline of the role of dominant churches gt NRMs
• Change of legislature
• Eg. change of US immigration policies towards
  Asians 1965
• Change of political regime
• Eg. NRMs in Eastern Europe after the fall of the
  Berlin Wall
• The crack's in the Wall, in fact the Wall is
  down! - It's time to really get in there and
  give'm the Gospel!... Eastern Europe is now
  opening up for the first time and it'll probably
  be the Last time! Let's reach it before the
  Antichrist gets it! (Mo)