Giuseppe Giordan · Enzo Pace Editors

Religious
Pluralism
Framing Religious Diversity in the
Contemporary World
Religious Pluralism
ThiS is a FM Blank Page
Giuseppe Giordan • Enzo Pace
Editors

Religious Pluralism
Framing Religious Diversity
in the Contemporary World
Editors
Giuseppe Giordan
Enzo Pace
Department of FISPPA
University of Padova
Padova, Italy

ISBN 978-3-319-06622-6 ISBN 978-3-319-06623-3 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06623-3
Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London
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Contents

Introduction: Pluralism as Legitimization of Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Giuseppe Giordan
Part I Ideas and Concepts on Religious Pluralism

Re-Thinking Religious Pluralism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

James A. Beckford
Religious Diversity, Social Control, and Legal Pluralism:
A Socio-Legal Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
James T. Richardson
Oligopoly Is Not Pluralism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Fenggang Yang
Part II Case Studies in Religious Pluralism

Religious and Philosophical Diversity as a Challenge

for the Secularism: A Belgian-French Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Jean-Paul Willaime
The Diversity of Religious Diversity. Using Census and NCS
Methodology in Order to Map and Assess the Religious Diversity
of a Whole Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Christophe Monnot and Jörg Stolz
Increasing Religious Diversity in a Society Monopolized
by Catholicism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Enzo Pace

v
vi Contents

Re-Thinking Religious Diversity: Diversities and Governance

of Diversities in “Post-Societies” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Siniša Zrinščak
Diversity Versus Pluralism? Notes from the American Experience . . . . 133
James V. Spickard
Between No Establishment and Free Exercise: The Dialectic
of American Religious Pluralism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
William H. Swatos Jr.
Missionary Trans-Border Religions and Defensive Civil Society
in Contemporary Japan: Toward a Comparative Institutional
Approach to Religious Pluralism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Yoshihide Sakurai
Religious Tendencies in Brazil: Disenchantment, Secularization,
and Sociologists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Roberto Motta
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Author’s Bio

James A. Beckford Fellow of the British Academy, is Professor Emeritus of

Sociology at the University of Warwick and a former President of four professional
associations for sociologists of religion. In addition to publishing several books
which examine theoretical questions about the sociology of religion, he has
conducted empirical research projects on the accommodation of religious diversity
in Britain, Canada, France and the USA. His books on this subject include Religion
in Prison: Equal Rites in a Multi-Faith Society, with S. Gilliat, 1998; and Muslims
in Prison: Challenge and Change in Britain and France, with D. Joly &
F. Khosrokhavar, 2005.

Giuseppe Giordan is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Padua.

From 2009 to 2013 he served as General Secretary of the International Society for
the Sociology of Religion. With Enzo Pace and Luigi Berzano he edits the Annual
Review of the Sociology of Religion. His books in English include Identity and
Pluralism: The Values of the Post-Modern Time. Center for Migration Studies,
2004; Vocation and Social Context (ed.), Brill, 2007; Conversion in the Age of
Pluralism (ed.), Brill, 2009; Youth and Religion (ed.), Brill, 2010; and Religion,
Spirituality and Everyday Practices (ed. with William H. Swatos, Jr.)
Springer, 2011.

Christophe Monnot is Assistant Professor of the Sociology of Religion at the

University of Lausanne. His field of study is mainly on religious organizations and
institutionalization of religious diversity with quantitative as well as qualitative
approaches. He has recently published a book on religious congregations in
Switzerland: “Croire ensemble. Analyse institutionnelle du paysage religieux en
Suisse” and has edited another specifically on institutionalization of the Muslim
“La Suisse des mosquées. Derrière le voile de l’unité musulmane”. He has also
co-edited with Gladys Ganiel and Heidemarie Winkel the forthcoming volume
“Religion in Times of Crisis, Critiques and Change”.

vii
viii Author’s Bio

Roberto Motta has degrees in Philosophy (Recife), Sociology (The Hague) and a
Ph.D. in Anthropology by Columbia University (New York). He has done extensive
field work on the Afro-Brazilian religions and has also a keen interest in the
relationship between religion and social change. He has published in several
languages and has worked in teaching and research in Brazil and abroad. A member
of ISSR since 1993, he has presented papers and organized sessions in most
conferences held in the last 15 years. Having retired from Recife University, he is
at present an associate researcher of Conselho Nacional de Pesquisas (Brası́lia) and
of Groupe de Sociologie des Religions et de la Laı̈cité (Paris).

Enzo Pace is Full Professor of Sociology of Religion at Padua University,

Directeur d’Études invité at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
and Past-President of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion
(ISSR). He is a co-editor of the Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion
(Brill). His recent publications include: Religion as Communication. Farnham:
Ashgate, 2011; Il carisma, la fede, la chiesa: introduzione alla sociologia del
cristianesimo. Roma: Carocci, 2012; and La comunicazione invisibile. Religioni e
internet. Cinisello Balsamo, San Paolo Editore, 2013.

James T. Richardson is Professor of Sociology and Judicial Studies at the Univer-

sity of Nevada in Reno, Nevada. He directs the Judicial Studies graduate degree
program for trial judges offered by the University. He has authored, edited and
co-edited a dozen books and nearly 300 articles and chapters, most of which deal
with various aspects of NRMs and minority religions. His recent work has focused on
social control of minority faiths. His most recent books include: Regulating Religion:
Case Studies from around the Globe (Kluwer, 2004), Saints under Siege: The Texas
Raid on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (with Stuart Wright; New York
University Press, 2011), The Sociology of Shari’a (with Adam Possamai and Bryan
Turner; Springer, forthcoming 2014), and Legal Cases New Religious Movements
and Minority Religions (with Francois Belanger; Ashgate, forthcoming 2014).

Yoshihide Sakurai is a Professor of Sociology at the Graduate School of Letters,

Hokkaido University, Japan. He obtained Ph.D. in Development Studies of
Thailand at Hokkaido University and published many papers and books on the
research of Thai Buddhism, East Asian transnational religions, and Japanese reli-
gions from sociological and anthropological perspective. He was a former president
of The Japanese Association for the Study of Religion and Society, and he is
executive committee member of Japanese Association for Religious Studies. His
English paper is included in the Hokkaido University Collection of Academic
Papers: http://eprints.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/dspace/index.jsp?locale¼en.
Author’s Bio ix

James V. Spickard is Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the University

of Redlands, where he teaches social theory, the sociology of religion, research
design, and a series of courses on the ethical implications of contemporary social
issues. He has published widely on religion in contemporary society, human rights,
social research methods, and non-Western social theory, among other topics. His
most recent book is Religion Crossing Boundaries (Brill 2010), co-edited with Afe
Adogame, on the transnational dynamics of African Christian movements. His
current project is a book on non-Western sociologies of religion.

Jörg Stolz is Professor of the Sociology of Religion at the University of Lausanne.

Working with a framework of “analytical sociology”, he uses quantitative, quali-
tative and mixed methods approaches. He has written Die Zukunft der
Reformierten. Gesellschaftliche Megatrends – kirchliche Reaktionen (together
with Edmée Ballif), has edited an issue of Social Compass on “Salvation goods
and religious markets” and has co-edited the book La nouvelle Suisse religieuse.
Risques et chances de sa diversité (with Martin Baumann). He is the author of many
articles in leading sociology journals, among them “Explaining religiosity.
Towards a unified theoretical framework” in the British Journal of Sociology.

William H. Swatos Jr. is Editor of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on

Religion, published through Baylor University, and Executive Officer of the Reli-
gious Research Association. From 1996 to 2012, he also served as Executive
Officer of the Association for the Sociology of Religion. He is author, co-author,
editor or co-editor of at least 23 volumes in the sociology of religion, including the
text Sociology of Religion, with Kevin Christiano and Peter Kivisto, entering its
third edition. From 1989 to 1994, he edited the journal Sociological Analysis/
Sociology of Religion, immediately prior to which he served as its book review
editor.

Jean-Paul Willaime was born in 1947, is a Doctor of Religious Studies (1975) and
Doctor of Sociology (1984) from the University of Strasbourg. He was a Lecturer in
Sociology of Religion at the University of Strasbourg (1975–1992). Since 1992, he
is the Research Director at l’Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Department of
Religious Studies, Sorbonne, Paris. He is member of the Research Centre Group of
Sociology of Religions and Laı̈city (EPHE/CNRS) and past-president of the Inter-
national Society for the Sociology of Religion. His main publications include:
Europe et religions. Les enjeux du XXIe siècle, Fayard, 2004; Sociologie du
protestantisme, PUF, 2005; Le retour du religieux dans la sphère publique. Vers
une laı̈cité de reconnaissance et de dialogue, Editions Olivétan, 2008; Religions-
kontroversen in Frankreich und Deutschland, Matthias Koenig/Jean-Paul Willaime
Hamburger Edition, 2008; Les jeunes, l’école et la religion (ed. with C. Béraud,
Bayard, 2009); and La nouvelle France protestante. Essor et recomposition au
XXIe siècle (ed. with S. Fath, 2011).
x Author’s Bio

Fenggang Yang is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center on Religion

and Chinese Society at Purdue University. His research focuses on religious change
in China and immigrant religions in the United States. He has received two
distinguished article awards in these two areas. He is the author of Religion in
China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule (Oxford, 2012) and Chinese
Christians in America: Conversion, Assimilation, and Adhesive Identities
(PennState, 1999), the co-editor of nine books or journal special issues, and the
Editor-in-Chief of the Review of Religion and Chinese Society.

Siniša Zrinščak is a Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of

Zagreb. His main scientific interests include religious and social policy changes in
post-communism, Church-State relations, European and comparative social policy,
gender, and civil society. He has been President of the ISORECEA (International
Study of Religion in Central and Eastern Europe Association) and Vice-President of
the International Sociological Association RC 22 since 2006, as well as General
Secretary of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion since 2013. He
has been involved in several mainly international scientific projects, and has
numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals and books.
Introduction: Pluralism as Legitimization
of Diversity

Giuseppe Giordan

The theme of religious pluralism is taking an increasingly important place within

the sociology of religion. Its greatest merit is to have finally shifted the sociological
debate from the juxtaposition between the supporters of the theory of secularization
and those who opposed the issue of religious revival against it, toward a more
articulate perspective that seems able to explain and better interpret what is
happening in the world of religions and contemporary spiritualities.
Pluralism is a key concept toward understanding what is happening in our world,
even if the risk, as with all the words that suddenly become popular and fashionable,
is that it becomes an umbrella under which we put together quite different and
heterogeneous phenomena, sometimes hardly consistent with each other. This
error, which still often occurs in much sociological literature, is to superimpose
the meaning of pluralism onto that of diversity, as if they were synonyms. Actually,
as some authors contributing to this volume argued several years ago (Beckford
1999; Beckford and Richardson 2007), we must not confuse the normative-
regulatory level, namely that of pluralism, with the descriptive level of empirical
diversity. Besides, even taking for granted now the distinction between the norma-
tive and the empirical aspects, the concept of religious pluralism needs to be further
refined to make it useful to the study of the different socioreligious situations. The
contribution that this volume offers is to define the concept of religious pluralism as
clearly as possible and then to make its explanatory potential evident by applying it
to some specific case studies.
The prospect of religious pluralism places the study of religions and spiritualities
outside the enclosure within which sociology of religion had voluntarily locked
itself for several decades. While there were certainly valuable exceptions and
dissident voices, there is no doubt that the theory of secularization has largely
dictated the agenda of the sociological study of religion, especially in Europe, for

G. Giordan (*)
Dipartimento FISPPA, University of Padua, Via Melchiorre Cesarotti 10/12, 35123 Padua,
Italy
e-mail: [email protected]

G. Giordan and E. Pace (eds.), Religious Pluralism, 1

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06623-3_1, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
2 G. Giordan

more than 40 years since the 1960s. Given that the ambition of this book is to
address not only scholars, but also students and those who are interested in such an
important subject as that of religious pluralism, in this introduction we can retrace
briefly the path that sociology of religion has taken in recent decades by highlight-
ing what were the main hubs that led to the change of perspective in the study of
contemporary religious phenomena.
What has happened in this span of time as a result of which the category of
secularization, which at the moment of its greatest fortune had become almost a
sociological dogma, has slowly but inevitably lost its explanatory power? To
understand the scope of the category of pluralism, which is placed outside the
debate on secularization, it is useful to review briefly the changes in the religious
landscape between the second and third millennium, passing the theories of “God’s
death” to the recognition of his “return” and his “revenge” (Kepel 1991).

From the Disappearance of Religion to Its Transformation

It is worth mentioning that, from the point of view of the sociology of culture, the
emergence of a new analytical category is certainly an index of the inadequacy of
the existing conceptual tools, and such inadequacy is directly related to the speed of
the social and cultural change that characterizes a certain period of history. In the
lapse of few decades, with a speed and acceleration that in many ways had never
been recorded before in human history, we have passed from the traditional to the
modern and then to the contemporary context, consistently redesigning all the
spheres of social life, from politics to the economy, from education to leisure, not
to mention that complex system of meanings and behaviors that we usually label
with the word “religion.”
One of the outcomes of the speed and depth of such changes is the difficulty to
describe them within the categories we inherited from the past. Conceptual instru-
ments that until not very long ago managed to bridle the reality of today in an
unequivocal manner, nowadays are blunt weapons that, instead of helping us to
understand, run the risk of creating confusion. The theory of secularization is an
example of how fast changes rust categories seemingly stainless, making them
usable only on the condition that they are accompanied by many details.
The theory of secularization, as it was presented in the 1960s (Acquaviva 1961;
Berger 1967), solved the problem of the relationship between religion and moder-
nity according to an almost mechanistic model: in an inversely proportional man-
ner, as the modernization process advances, religion should progressively and
inevitably disappear, at least with regard to its public manifestations. In fact,
however, as Casanova (1994) has consistently pointed out, the theory of seculari-
zation brings together three different perspectives and interpretations of the rela-
tionship between religion and modernity: their confusion and overlapping has led to
often ideological and misleading interpretations of reality. As we know, a first
interpretation means secularization as the differentiation of social spheres, thus
Introduction: Pluralism as Legitimization of Diversity 3

distinguishing and emancipating such putatively secular spheres as those of the

state, economy, science from the religious sphere. A second version, the one that
has established itself in the public debate as well as in the scientific one, secular-
ization means the disappearance, or at least the progressive irrelevance, of religion.
The third version of the concept describes it as privatization.
The great mistake, as has been highlighted by many, is to have overlapped the
first and the second version of the concept of secularization, inseparably linking the
functional differentiation of the social spheres with the progressive irrelevance of
religion. If in Europe this model could appear plausible in some respects, in other
contexts, as for example in the United States, the emergence of modernity has not
triggered any process of the loss of relevance of the different religious traditions
and not even the confinement of religion to the private ambit. Indeed, it is under
everybody’s eyes, how precisely in the United States the modernization and
democratization processes have led not only to the persistence of the traditional
religious presence, but also to new forms of “religious awakening.”
Even in Europe, where there is a marked decline of religious practices, the fall of
the priestly ordinations and the emancipation of the faithful from the official
teachings of the churches on ethical issues, we also can record from at least the
1980s forward, a great proliferation of new religious movements, and more
recently, under the influence of increasing migration, we can also record an
unprecedented proliferation of multi-religious presence even in countries such as
Italy, where the management of the religious market was monopolized by a single
majority religion.
Far from being marginal and residual, religious phenomena in the contemporary
world attract the attention of scholars for their peculiar vivacity, for their ability to
get into the game of modernity and democracy by offering new experiences, often
hardly comparable with the role played by religions in the traditional era.
The transition from the traditional to the contemporary world has not registered
the disappearance of religion, but rather its more or less radical transformation
according to the different social and cultural contexts. It has been a process of
de-composition and re-composition, at both individual and collective levels, which
has redesigned the role of religion itself, often putting together the juxtaposition of
quite heterogeneous issues. The significance of religion within contemporary soci-
ety therefore lends itself to multifarious interpretations that try to explain both the
individualization of belief, the challenge of the fundamentalist movements, and the
use of religion in an identity and ethnic interpretation. Religion, therefore, does not
disappear, but adapts and transforms itself within modernity, often through hetero-
geneous issues, not to be explained with simple and linear theories: it suffices to
think of the diversity of experiences of the Pentecostal or neo-Pentecostal, Charis-
matic and Evangelical religious communities in Latin America, or in Asia or in
sub-Saharan Africa. It is a process of negotiation between the need of absoluteness
typical of any system of religious belief and the different social and cultural
contexts unceasingly changing – a negotiation that has led to the progressive
deconfessionalization of belief, together with its individualization under the push
of the freedom of choice of the subject.
4 G. Giordan

Deconfessionalization and the Freedom of Choice

of the Subject

The traditional world, governed by the principle of cuius regio eius religio,
confirmed by the Treaty of Westphalia, structured belief in Europe in a territorial
manner, and for many centuries the parish regulated such structure in a confessional
way. With the urbanization processes typical of modernity, this orderly and stable
world falls into a crisis. We can remember the reflections of the French sociologist
Gabriel Le Bras (1956) who argued in the 1950s that as soon as the French peasant
arrived at the Gare de Montparnasse in Paris, he would stop going to church because
the model of the French rural parish could not be reproduced in the wider ambit of a
modern metropolis – and, indeed, the options in the immediate second post-war
France were either Catholicism or non-religion.
It should not be forgotten, however, that the same urbanization phenomenon in
the United States of America had a different value, providing the immigrants with
the most diverse religious beliefs not only the possibility of joining other people
sharing the same religion but also the opportunity to change their own religious
identities: the multicultural and multireligious context of the American metropolis
offers the chance to choose which religion to join, without having to opt for
nonreligion if persons don’t feel at ease in their religion of birth. Similarly, in
Latin America, the deconfessionalization processes have not resulted into the
disappearance of religion, but rather into its explosion, with the birth of innumer-
able Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal Churches, as well as with the rediscovery of
the Afro-American Churches and the syncretistic experiences of spiritism, as well
as Umbanda and Candomblé in the Afro-Brazilian context.
The deconfessionalization process goes hand in hand with the affirmation of the
freedom of choice of the subject, who has wider and wider operating margins even
in the religious ambit, while obedience to the traditional religious authorities fade
into the background. The practice of such freedom of choice is obviously not
without consequences for the relationship of the believer with the tradition and
with the religious institutions: the relationship with the sacred is no longer governed
solely by the moral laws or the beliefs of the different churches, but also by the
expressiveness and the creativity of the individuals. Scholars since at least the
1990s – even if 30 years before there were already scholars, such as Peter Berger,
who recorded the shift “from the institution to the subject.” Daniélè Hervieu-Léger
(1993), for example, speaking of “religion without memory,” says that the auton-
omy of the subject, the rationalization of social life, and the differentiation of the
institutions have marked the end of the “societies of memory.” The collective
memory of modern societies is a memory made of fragments and lacks coherence,
and also establishes the principle according to which each one must find one’s own
way. Just this principle triggers a process of “exit from religion” and, at the same
time, a dynamism of religious resocialization based on the elective dimension – that
is to say, on the free choice of the believers.
Introduction: Pluralism as Legitimization of Diversity 5

Hervieu-Léger calls the tension between the freedom of the subject, with his
feelings and needs, and the institution of believing, with its dogmatic and normative
references, “elective fraternity.” The spread of elective fraternity shows how
modernity resolves the tension between the affirmation of the modern culture of
the individual and the traditional regulations of faith and of the religious practices.
The group of freely chosen brothers and sisters is the place where a specific and
authentic personal research can express itself, outside any reference and orthodoxy
institutionally regulated.
Charles Taylor (1989, 1991, 2002) likewise reflects on the new perception that
the subject has of himself as modern era advances. Speaking of the “culture of self,”
he describes the “subjective turn” of contemporary culture, which consists in the
individuals’ refusal to live their lives in such exclusive allegiance to objective roles
that are imposed on them from outside. Such refusal allows the subjects to be in
tune with their “inner selves,” which suggests from each one’s inside which tasks to
take, the ways to implement them, the judgments to give. This approach is both
cause and effect of a reflexive way of dealing with life, no longer accepting external
rules and practices uncritically but, as we have just seen, in tune with the needs of
the “inner self,” which pays more attention to subjective authenticity than to
objective truth. Such change from exteriority to interiority brings with it specific
attention to emotions, feelings, dreams, memories, the body, compassion, and
individual life experiences.
It is clear that the shift of attention from the order established by any system of
objective meaning, as for example the order crystallized in the religious institutions,
and the needs of the subject as he or she perceives them, brings as a consequence the
redefinition of the relationship between the believing subject and the institutions
that have always governed the relationship with the sacred. We might say that in the
contemporary age the “sacred self” becomes the source of meaning and the primary
authority to which we owe obedience.

Spirituality as Democratization of the Sacred

These processes of deconfessionalization and individualization reformulate belief

in terms of relativity (Michel 1994). In the words of Poulat (1994), whereas once
everything was according to God’s Grace, for us all now everything is linked to
man’s freedom, and within the limits of his possibilities, the only controls and
prohibitions are the rules deemed appropriate by one’s society. Crucial in this
regard is the transformation that happened in respect to ways of conceiving the
relationship with power and authority. As noted by Gauchet (1998), after the three
modern revolutions (the English, the American and the French), power does not
impose itself on the will of men “from above,” be it religious or political, but rather
it is drawn back to earth “at eye level.” The democratic exercise of power seems to
inaugurate a new situation in which the human is no longer defined in relation to the
sacred, but it is the latter that is understood differently starting from the protection
6 G. Giordan

of the needs of the individuals. Hence, the religious diversity of contemporary

societies and the consequent processes of normative pluralism should be studied not
only from the religious institutional aspects, but we must also consider the trans-
formation of the self and of the way of believing. The individualization of the way
of believing consists precisely in this: the subject engaged in the research of
meaning no longer accepts the normative answers that come from outside. As
Michel (1994) points out, the contemporary way of believing, far from being
functional to religious identities conceived according to the criterion of stability,
places the primacy of experience over dogmatic contents, of authenticity over truth,
according to a perspective that legitimizes change as the rule. The debate on the
concept of spirituality, as it has been carried out in the sociology of religion for
more than a decade, can be placed in this situation of the gradual weakening of
traditional legitimacy, as it is recognized in institutions, while instead affirming the
affirmation of the democratic device protecting the freedom of choice of the
individual.
Clark Roof (1993, 1999) and Robert Wuthnow (1998, 2001) were the first to put
the terms “religion” and “spirituality” in a dialectical position, starting from the
analysis of empirical data.
To Roof (1993), the former term highlights the importance of the personal paths
of research for the meaning of life, research that is often carried out at the margins
or even outside the boundaries of the traditional religions. And even if the polar-
ization between religion and spirituality is certainly not a new issue (in the theo-
logical and philosophical ambits the polarity between the subjective and the
objective dimensions of believing has always been acknowledged), the novelty
consists in the new hierarchical order of the two dimensions: the objective dimen-
sion no longer governs the subjective dimension, but vice versa. As we have already
seen above, it is the actual needs of the believing subject that reshape the offer of
meaning of the traditional churches. This seems to be the keystone to understanding
the relationship of contemporary man with the sacred and the transcendent: every-
one builds for himself or herself a “tailor-made meaning system” both within the
historical religious traditions and outside them. As noted by Wuthnow (1998),
considering the relationship with the sacred no longer starting from the institution
but rather starting from the subject means to understand better the issues concerning
authority, the recognition of truth, the credibility of beliefs, the durability and
stability of belongings. Wuthnow makes a distinction between “dwelling spiritual-
ity” and “seeking spirituality.” The former characterized religion in the context of
the traditional society: it referred to a relationship with the sacred that was granted
by the rites and the certainties offered by the religious institutions, which
guaranteed the objective meaning of believing. On the contrary, “seeking spiritu-
ality” marks the dynamics of the contemporary believing, where the risk of explo-
ration and openness to multiple possibilities of meaning is preferred to the security
ensured by dogmatic certainties.
If in the traditional perspective the sacred referred to the stability of clear
boundaries that made the identities and the differences recognizable, today the
relationship with the sacred does not know any safe boundaries. Indeed, it prefers
Introduction: Pluralism as Legitimization of Diversity 7

openness and movement through the different beliefs, both traditional and
non-traditional, and the many possible life experiences, often eclectically combin-
ing teachings and practices from different cultural traditions. To Wuthnow the two
approaches to the sacred are not to be considered as alternatives: The traditional
way of believing may become meaningless. Then it can give way to a need for
freedom and openness toward diverse experiences. Incessant research for new
experiences, by contrast, might generate a need of belonging and of strong identity.
The “spiritual revolution” to which by now various scholars of religion refer
(Heelas 2002; Tacey 2003; Heelas and Woodhead 2005) fits into this line of
thinking, sometimes assuming mistakenly, that religion and spirituality would be
two opposing dimensions, in a “zero sum” relation. Although the usefulness of the
category of spirituality is still discussed within the sociological debate, it seems
undeniable that that it has the merit of highlighting a new legitimizing process of
the relation with the sacred, a legitimization that is no longer based on obedience to
the religious institution but one that is founded on the freedom of choice of the
subject who can even freely accept to adhere to an extremely conservative religion,
not very attentive to the individuals’ needs of expressiveness and creativity.
Rather than being in competition with religion, then, spirituality shifts the axis of
legitimacy from the institution to the subject, acknowledging in the religious field
the effects of the recognition of the freedom of choice of the individuals, spirituality
in this sense can again be considered as the democratization of the sacred. As
widely recognized in other spheres of social life, from politics to family, from the
orientations of value to the choices of ethical character, even in the religious field
we ultimately record a slip of legitimacy from externally directed moral codes to
normative systems based on the subject and his freedom. From a functional point of
view, we could say that spirituality enables the believer to be more flexible in a
world in which religious diversity affects even those national contexts in which
there is a monopoly or semi-monopoly control of the religious market. As illus-
trated by Pace (2010), even countries that until not long ago were homogeneous
from the point of view of religion, now must deal with the religions and beliefs of
the millions of immigrants who populate them. For example, of the seven nations
forming the United Arab Emirates, only 20 % of the population are indigenous.

From Religious Diversity to Religious Pluralism

The transition from the twentieth to the twenty-first century has been characterized
by a transnational migration process that has radically transformed the social and
cultural landscape of wide areas of the planet. Such process of global mobility has
caused a transformation from the cultural and religious homogeneity, either real or
socially constructed in many nations, and especially in Europe, to the acknowl-
edgement of diversity. Religious differentiation, then, is played on more levels: an
individual level, with what we have called the democratization of the sacred, and a
social one, with the differentiation of the religious offer: if on one side the demand
8 G. Giordan

for goods and religious services is becoming more complex, on the other side the
supply of such goods and services is also becoming complex, and this is the result of
the new proximity of different cultures and religions.
According to the estimates of the United Nations Population Division the
number of migrants in the world has grown in the last 50 years from 80 million
to 214 million, shifting from 2.6 to 3 % of the world population. A report published
in 2012 by Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life shows that nearly half of these
migrants are Christian (49 %), 27 % are Muslim, 5 % Hindu, 3 % Buddhist, 2 %
Jewish, while 4 % belong to other religions and 9 % are unaffiliated.
The millions of migrants who have moved from one part of the globe to the other
have brought with them, besides the hope to better their own and their families’ life
conditions, the culture, the values, the traditions and the religions of their countries
of origin. No doubt the place where such changes are more noticeable are the cities:
it is here that the highest concentration of immigrant people are recorded, and there
is no western town that has not experienced a profound re-configuration due
precisely to the migratory flows in the last two decades, and the same goes for
the immense towns of the Asian continent.
Just to give some examples of how these global towns must confront the social
and cultural diversity never experienced before, the city of Birmingham, Britain’s
largest minority-majority city, has launched a program of study and of social action
which is entitled “Superdiversity”: the local university and the City Council will
work side by side to understand the challenges and the opportunities offered by the
presence in the same urban space of an unusual variety of languages, ethnic groups,
faiths, and traditions that make the daily interaction of the citizens more and more
variegated and complex. A superdiversity experience like that of Birmingham is to
be found in many cities of the western world, as well as in the Latin American
universe or in some African metropolises. Across the next 15 years this will be more
and more the situation of many cities in Asia in which, according to a forecast of the
World Development Bank, within 2030 there will be more than a billion people,
and more than 50 % of the population of those countries will settle around the urban
areas. Given this situation, on one hand it is not difficult to imagine, considering the
size of the urbanization processes, that in the coming decades the issue of religion
will be among the most relevant ones in the agenda of the governors of the major
global cities; on the other hand it is virtually impossible to make predictions about
what will be the outcomes of this interlacement of cultures, traditions and religious
beliefs.
What we can say for certain is that such religious diversity will have to be
“governed” in some way by the civil authorities, and the increasingly diverse
demands for the free practice of one’s religion will find a regulative principle in
the State, that will try to combine the general interests of the community with the
legitimate requests of acknowledgment of the “minorities” and of the individual
believers. The transition from “religious diversity” to “religious pluralism,” as we
shall see well illustrated in the chapters of this book, consists precisely in the
“institutional arrangements,” especially of legal nature, that regulate diversity,
Introduction: Pluralism as Legitimization of Diversity 9

and in the ideas of political and philosophical nature that tend to consider cultural
and religious diversity as a high value.
The legal, regulatory and cultural answers to religious diversity vary consistently
from country to country: there are contexts in which all religions, from the tradi-
tional ones, historically established, to the new religious movements and the
religious beliefs that group a few hundred followers, can live and proliferate
without any interference on the part of political power, and contexts in which
religious diversity is governed very strictly, if not even prohibited.
The reasons for such difference are justified depending on the issues that such
diversity puts under discussion: they often touch the nations’ very identities, built in
many cases through a more or less recognized identification with a single religious
tradition, but they also have to do with national security, public order, and the
protection of individuals’ health and dignity. The particularly close eye of the
public authority especially supervises groups who might potentially cause problems
for national security (e.g. Islam in many European countries, but not only in
Europe), or that might be dangerous for the people who join it (e.g. cases of
collective suicide of the Order of the Solar Temple in Switzerland, France and
Canada).
The religions, from their part, obviously do not suffer the external regulation
exercised by the State against them passively: they react by implementing adapta-
tion strategies that can involve both the legal and the regulative levels, as well as
cultural awareness and social mobilization. In this regard, Beckford and Richardson
(2007), explained in detail how religion is both subject and object of regulation at
the same time: in the former case religion and the religious organization exercise
their power of control within their own area of influence and in the external area
where they operate; in the latter case, it is the political and military agencies who
exercise the power of control over religion. The modalities of controlling and being
controlled vary not only from country to country but even more depending on the
different historical periods. The economic and financial crisis which erupted in
2008, for example, has re-defined migration flows and has changed the attitudes of
the citizens and the politicians of many states toward immigration. Suffice it to
recall what two political leaders stated in Germany and Great Britain only a few
months apart: in October 2010 Angela Merkel announced that the German attempt
to build a multicultural society had “utterly failed”; 4 months later, in February
2011, British Prime Minister David Cameron stated that the experiment of multi-
culturalism had failed in Great Britain. Statements of this kind cannot fail to have
important consequences on how to read and interpret cultural and religious diver-
sity, and then, later, on the different types of religious pluralism that are being
tested. When we speak of pluralism, it is important to remember that we do not
mean a single mode to adjust to and to deal with diversity of culture in general and
religion in particular, but we refer to a number of strategies involving religions, the
State and the civil society. It is a continuous process of negotiation and
re-negotiation, in an ongoing effort to maintain and preserve the boundaries
between the different social spheres in a world that makes these boundaries ever
more porous and fragile.
10 G. Giordan

In the end, the issue of religious pluralism helps sociologists to open their eyes to
a reality that is plural in itself, and that only in an ideological and artificial way has
been understood as homogeneous and singular. As pointed out by Ammerman
(2010), religious pluralism is the “normal state of affairs,” and this is so not only
because religion is a multidimensional reality, but also because the institutions that
govern it are manifold, both from within the religious field itself and outside
it. Even more, the focus on religious pluralism has made visible the religious
traditions that have been present for centuries in countries where the religious
market was monopolized by a single religion which, with its shadow, made all
the others invisible (Dı̀ez de Velasco 2010).
From the point of view of political and sometimes even religious rhetoric, it is
difficult to find someone who openly opposes cultural and religious pluralism
(except for xenophobic parties that are present in all nations). Reality, however,
often contradicts the statements of principle.
It is also the sociologist’s concern to distinguish between the two levels, that is to
say between the statements of principle and the practices of daily life, and this book
attempts to make a contribution in this direction. The volume is divided into two
parts: the first four chapters of a theoretical nature mean to offer a definition, as
exhaustive as possible, of the concept of religious pluralism, focusing different
perspectives; the second part includes another eight chapters that report case
studies, illustrating how diversity and religious pluralism are combined together
in different ways according to the different social and cultural contexts.
In chapter “Re-thinking Religious Pluralism” James Beckford proposes a con-
ceptual clarification distinguishing the definition of religious pluralism from that of
religious diversity, and then places this distinction within political, legal and
cultural contexts. In chapter “Religious Diversity, Social Control, and Legal Plural
ism: A Socio-legal Analysis”, James Richardson focuses on the systems of social
control that are implemented on the various religious groups, highlighting the
different degrees of intensity by which this control is exercised. In chapter “Oligop
oly Is Not Pluralism”, Fenggang Yang distinguishes the difference between oli-
gopoly and pluralism, then addressing an ever-present issue in the sociology of
religion: the definition of the concept of religion itself.
In chapter “Religious and Philosophical Diversity as a Challenge for the Secu
larism: A Belgian-French Comparison”, Jean-Paul Willaime, starting from a com-
parison between France and Belgium describes two different ways of understanding
the concept of “secularism” in Europe: the former way considers secularism as a
general principle of relationship between the State and the religions in the context
of pluralist democracies that respect the individuals’ exercise of freedom; the latter
way interprets secularism as an agnostic philosophical concept that refers to a
non-religious view of the world; in this latter meaning, then, secularism behaves
like a true belief, and is organized in the same way as the traditional religions.
In chapters “The Diversity of Religious Diversity. Using Census and NCS
Methodology in Order to Map and Assess the Religious Diversity of a whole
Country”, “Increasing Religious Diversity in a Society Monopolized by Catholi
cism”, and “Rethinking Religious Diversity: Diversities and Governance of
Introduction: Pluralism as Legitimization of Diversity 11

Diversities in “Post-Societies” religious diversity in three European countries is

presented: Switzerland, Italy and Croatia. Christophe Monnot and Jorg Stölz,
illustrating the “diversity of religious diversity” in Switzerland, show how census
and quantitative “national congregations study” methodology can be combined to
describe and interpret the religious diversity of an entire nation. Enzo Pace, in
chapter “Increasing Religious Diversity in a Society Monopolized by Catholicism”
illustrates the mapping of religious diversity in Italy, a country traditionally char-
acterized by the monopoly of Catholicism. Siniša Zrinščak analyzes the similarities
and differences in the regulation of religious diversity in other post-communist
countries, starting from the socio-religious situation in Croatia.
James Spickard and William Swatos, focus the situation of religious diversity in
the United States respectively in chapters “Diversity Versus Pluralism? Notes from
the American Experience” and “Between No Establishment and Free Exercise: The
Dialectic of American Religious Pluralism”: Spickard emphasizes how the concept
of religious pluralism should be considered carefully when it is applied to the
United States, a country that is still predominantly Christian; Swatos, starting
from the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, shows the
problematic consequences when it is applied in an increasingly multi-religious
situation.
Chapters “Missionary Trans-Border Religions and Defensive Civil Society in
Contemporary Japan: Toward a Comparative Institutional Approach to Religious
Pluralism” and “Religious Tendencies in Brazil: Disenchantment, Secularization, and
Sociologists” lead us to Japan and Brazil: Yoshihide Sakurai explains in a historical
perspective how the transnational religions arrived in Japan with immigrants and
missionaries have contributed to make that country more and more differentiated as
to religion. Roberto Motta, describing the revival of Candomblé, the emergence of
liberation theology and the rapid spread of the Pentecostal Churches, interprets the
religious change in Brazil as a process of “dis-enchantment” and “re-enchantment,”
stressing how in this process the sociologists have played a major role.

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secolarizzazione nella società industriale e post-industriale. Milano: Edizioni di Comunità.
Ammerman, Nancy T. 2010. The challenges of pluralism: Locating religion in a world of diversity.
Social Compass 57(2): 154–167.
Beckford, James A. 1999. The management of religious diversity in England and Wales with
special reference to Prison Chaplaincy. MOST Journal on Multicultural Societies 1(2): 10.
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Beckford, James A., and James T. Richardson. 2007. Religion and regulation. In The SAGE
handbook of the sociology of religion, ed. James A. Beckford and N. Jay Demerath III, 396–
418. London: Sage.
Berger, Peter L. 1967. The sacred conopy. Garden City: Doubleday Anchor.
Casanova, José. 1994. Public religions in the modern world. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press.
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Dı̀ez De Velasco, Francisco. 2010. The visibilization of religious minorities in Spain. Social
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Tacey, David. 2003. The spirituality revolution. The emergence of contemporary spirituality.
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California Press.
 Part I
Ideas and Concepts on Religious Pluralism
Re-Thinking Religious Pluralism

James A. Beckford

Introduction

I want to begin by going back to one of the foundational works of the philosophy of
the social sciences, namely, Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, and What
Alice Found There. This 1871 sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland raises
many profound questions about the nature of human reality and our capacity to
understand it. For my purposes, one of the most interesting episodes in the book
occurs when Alice meets the egg-shaped, argumentative character called Humpty
Dumpty. When she disputes his meaning of the term ‘glory’, his ill-tempered reply
tells us a lot about our use of words:
When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I
choose it to mean — neither more nor less.
The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different
things.
The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all. (Carroll
1871: 73).

Some commentators regard Humpty Dumpty as a postmodernist avant la lettre

for implying that words can mean more or less anything he chooses. But my
interpretation is different. I think Humpty Dumpty’s argument is more sinister.
I think his argument is that the meaning of words is dependent on the power to
enforce it. This linguistic Realpolitik is crude but it contains the kernel of a truth
that underlies my chapter.
I shall argue that the term ‘pluralism’ needs to be used with special care and that
a particularly important dimension of ‘religious pluralism’ has not yet received the
sociological attention that it deserves. My strategy will be to place pluralism in a
variety of different contexts in order to show that religious pluralism is not alone in

J.A. Beckford (*)

Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK
e-mail: [email protected]

G. Giordan and E. Pace (eds.), Religious Pluralism, 15

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06623-3_2, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
16 J.A. Beckford

giving rise to interesting questions and problems. There is no special metaphysical

pathos attaching to the notion of religious pluralism; and we need to place it
squarely in the context of other types of pluralism and struggles for recognition
because they are all features of liberal democracies in a globalizing era (Tully 1995;
Connolly 1995). I shall begin with a summary of the range of meanings often
attributed to pluralism in political and legal contexts. Then I shall argue that the
term ‘religious pluralism’ can refer to four different things:
(a) empirical forms of diversity in relation to religion
(b) normative or ideological views about the positive value of religious diversity
(c) the frameworks of public policy, law and social practices which accommodate,
regulate and facilitate religious diversity.
(d) relational contexts of everyday interactions between individuals and groups
identified as religious.
There are clearly overlaps and mutual interactions between empirical religious
diversity, normative views of pluralism, frameworks to sustain and regulate reli-
gious diversity, and everyday interactions around religious diversity. Indeed, the
political philosopher William Connolly (1995) insists that his inclusive notion of
‘deep pluralism’ must embrace the descriptive and the normative. And Martin
Marty (2007: 16) argues that ‘“pluralism” implies and involves a polity, a civic
context which provides some “rules of the game”, refers to an ethos, and evokes a
response’. But the distinctions that I want to make are not only essential for
conceptual hygiene but are also pre-conditions for the clarification of empirical
realities and public policies and regulations.

Varieties of Pluralism

Variation in the meanings attributed to pluralism is extensive. In fact, it would be

better to think in terms of ‘pluralisms’ in the plural. This would draw attention not
only to the differences between usages of the term in different intellectual disci-
plines but also to the tensions that exist between meanings of pluralism within the
same disciplinary frameworks. These differences and tensions should alert us to the
fact that discourses about pluralism are contentious for many different reasons.
Nevertheless, there is a wide measure of agreement that the term – in its most
general normative formulation – refers to ‘a powerful ideal meant to resolve the
question of how to get along in a conflict-ridden world’ (Bender and Klassen 2010:
1). And this is how the Global Centre for Pluralism, jointly funded by the Canadian
government and the Ismailis, describes it:
Pluralism rejects division as a necessary outcome of diversity, seeking instead to identify
the qualities and experiences that unite rather than divide us as people and to forge a shared
stake in the public good. (Global Centre for Pluralism 2012: 1)
Re-Thinking Religious Pluralism 17

The ideal is admirable, but pluralisms invariably place limits on the choice of
others with whom getting along is permitted or encouraged. For example, in a
powerful indictment of colonialism and its continuing effects on the native peoples
of North America, Tracy Leavelle (2010: 175) concludes that ‘Pluralism . . . enacts
definitions of acceptable difference’. And Geneviève Zubrzycki (2010) shows how
the religious diversity of Poland before the 1930s was masked by discourses of
Polish Catholic unity and uniformity in the face of threats from Nazi Germany and
the Soviet Union. Indeed, she adds that ‘Religious discourse in present-day Poland
generally is not being used to advocate the building of an open society, as it had
under communism, but rather to exclude those considered unworthy of full mem-
bership’ (Zubrzycki 2010: 279).
In the space available I can only sketch the broad outlines of a small selection of
the many variations in the use of the notion of pluralism. For the sake of conve-
nience, I shall group them under the three headings of political, legal and religious. I
shall have to omit medical pluralism (Cant and Sharma 1998), cultural pluralism
(Deveaux 2000) and welfare pluralism (Johnson 1987; Gilbert 2000) as well as
many others. But it would be a mistake to neglect the fact that all the variations on
the theme of pluralism derive from ancient philosophical discussions of whether the
nature of reality – and/or knowledge of reality – was monist, dualist or pluralist.
(i) Political pluralism
Discussions of pluralism have been at the centre of political philosophy and
political theory for many centuries.1 Discussions focus mainly on questions about
the most appropriate distribution of valued goods, power and authority in political
regimes that are not entirely centralized or totalitarian. In particular, the slow
emergence of liberal democratic regimes in Western Europe and North America
provided ideal conditions for theorizing about relations between the one and the
many, the individual citizen and the sovereign state, the public and the private, and
the clash between irreconcilable values – ‘value pluralism’ (Lassman 2011). Early
modern contributors include Spinoza, Hobbes, Rousseau and Kant. In their differ-
ent ways, each of these thinkers grappled with questions about the appropriate – or
putatively natural – relations between unity and multiplicity or between sameness
and difference. Contributors in the modern era include William James, Charles
Pierce, Richard Rorty and Jean-François Lyotard. The question of whether philo-
sophical pluralism necessarily entails relativism haunts many of the discussions.
More to the point of this chapter, echoes of these discussions can be heard in

1
My discussion takes no account of the radically different notion of ‘plural societies’ which
characterized colonial regimes in which power was unevenly distributed between different
categories of people identified by their so-called race. Western European and American colonial
territories in South and South East Asia met the criteria of a plural society originally laid down by
J.S. Furnivall (1948: 446): ‘A plural society, with different sections of the community living side
by side, but separately, within the same political unit. Even in the economic sphere there is a
division of labour along racial lines’.
18 J.A. Beckford

disputes about relations between religious diversity, multiculturalism and cultural

relativism (Trigg 2007, 2010).2
There are major differences between American and English traditions of theo-
rizing about political pluralism. American approaches to political pluralism tend to
start from the assumption that power and other resources in the USA have invari-
ably been unevenly distributed between a wide variety of competing interest groups
(Dahl 1967, 1982). The aim of pluralist thinking is therefore to determine how best
to ensure that none of the competing groups becomes tyrannical and that none of the
minority interests is excluded from democratic processes. The function attributed to
the state and to legislatures is largely to mediate between competing groups.
There is more continuity than discontinuity between American pluralism, which
flourished in the 1960s and 1970s, and more recent currents of neoliberalism. They
share an equally strong commitment to minimizing the role of the state, but
neoliberalism lacks faith in the capacity of overlapping intermediary associations
to keep the state in check. Neoliberals prefer to leave this role to individuals,
enterprising corporations and voluntary associations rather than to competing
interest groups.
By contrast, English political pluralism – which flourished in the early twentieth
century – starts from criticism of the state for centralizing all power in its own hands
(Hirst 1997). The pluralist aim is to challenge the idea that the state must be, by
definition, sovereign and to loosen its grip on society by dispersing certain powers
to properly constituted associations and corporate organizations such as workers’
guilds, voluntary associations and community groups.3 In this scenario, represen-
tative democracy would no longer be based on political parties alone but, instead,
would be stronger for being able to draw on citizens’ other interest groupings – and
on the overlaps between them. In other words, ‘In the pluralist mode, government is
the arena of competition among private interests, in which it brokers, bargains and
manages conflicts’ (Kazepov and Genova 2006: 249).
The locus classicus for this style of theorizing about political pluralism is John
Neville Figgis’s Churches in the Modern State, which was first published in 1913
(Hirst 2000). Figgis, an Anglican priest who greatly admired the co-operative
theory of the German legal philosopher Otto von Gierke, located sovereignty in a
‘community of communities’ comprising voluntary associations, churches, guilds
and community groups – all regarded as having a legal personality of their own.
Loud echoes of this type of pluralist thought could be heard in the policies advanced
by the New Labour Party before and after their election victory of 1997 in the
UK. But David Runciman’s downbeat assessment is cogent:

2
‘Pluralism can quickly degenerate into relativism, the view that “truths” are only true for those
who believe them. Once a society stands back from the standards of a particular religion, and tries
to treat all religions fairly, there are problems about whether it can accept the beliefs of all religions
as of equal value.’ Trigg (2007: 1, 3).
3
According to Hirst (1997: 64), ‘the principle underlying a pluralist state – as conceived by
J.N. Figgis, G.D.H. Cole and H.J. Laski’ would be ‘that the state exists to protect and serve the
self-governing associations’.
Re-Thinking Religious Pluralism 19

[T]he greater the emphasis placed on voluntary associations (such as the family, for
communitarians; or voluntary pension schemes, for new Labour), the greater the constraints
that come to be placed on the ways in which these associations can operate. . . The attempt
to enhance the role of voluntary associations does not result in a diminution of the authority
of the state; it merely relocates it. (Runciman 1997: 264).

Similar arguments have been made about New Labour programmes for partner-
ships between the state and the ‘faith sector’ (Carmel and Harlock 2008; Beckford
2010a, b).
In short, political pluralisms can take a variety of forms. American pluralism
tends to emphasize the search for balance between competing interest groups, while
the focus of English pluralism is on the need to devolve power from the State to
voluntary and communal groups.
(ii) Legal pluralism
Individualism and universalism are important hallmarks of Western liberal philo-
sophies and ideologies. They leave little space for the particularities and relativities
of pluralist thinking. This is most clearly evident in the pressure from the advocates
of legal pluralism to acknowledge that distinctive ways of life and cultures deserve
to be recognized to some degree in national and international systems of law
without necessarily jeopardising rationality. The belief that existing systems of
self-regulation and adjudication – operating alongside national systems of state law
– are appropriate for certain professional, religious, ethnic or cultural collectivities
is at the heart of legal pluralism. And in the case of England, legal pluralists could
point to ‘living’ practices of social and cultural regulation by norms other than those
of the state’s legal system. Religious tribunals, for example, are free to deal with the
religious aspects of marriage and divorce for members of religious communities
who voluntarily submit themselves to their jurisdiction.
Nevertheless, these tribunals have no standing in English law; and their deci-
sions are not taken into account in civil law (Douglas et al. 2011).4 For example,
systems of ecclesiastical law and diocesan consistory courts regulate the Church of
England. The Roman Catholic Church has its own canon law, courts and lawyers.
Orthodox Jews can have recourse to ‘beth din’ or rabbinical courts for the resolution
of various civil matters. And although the term ‘sharia court’ is questionable,5
Muslims can certainly use Islamic law, procedures and institutions to seek redress
or resolution of civil problems. Even Jehovah’s Witnesses have judicial committees
in their congregations for investigating and adjudicating claims of misconduct
among members. On the other hand, the contributions that religious tribunals may
make towards the arbitration of civil disputes between parties who willingly choose

4
‘None of the tribunals has any legal status afforded to them by the state or the civil law, and their
rulings and determinations in relation to marital status have no civil recognition either. They derive
their authority from their religious affiliation, not from the state, and that authority extends only to
those who choose to submit to them.’ Douglas et al. (2011: 48).
5
Sharia Councils and Muslim Arbitration Tribunals make judgments on the basis not only of
sharia but also of other Islamic sources of guidance.
20 J.A. Beckford

to seek this form of arbitration may be recognized under the Arbitration Act 1996
(Sandberg 2011: 184–90). Sports, professions and universities are other areas in
which self-regulation is conducted largely in ‘supplemental jurisdictions’, although
the power to enforce or overturn determinations remains ultimately with State law.6
Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA have also established supplemental
jurisdictions for aboriginal, indigenous, native, Indian or First Nations peoples.
Given the existence of these well established instances of legal pluralism in
England and elsewhere, it is surprising in some ways that such intense controversy
flared up in 2008 when the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke openly about legal
pluralism in practice (Tucker 2008). He recommended to a meeting of eminent
jurists that a scheme should be instituted ‘in which individuals will retain the liberty
to choose the jurisdiction under which they will seek to resolve certain carefully
specified matters’ (Williams 2008: 274). He was also far from being the first to
make such a proposal (Morris 1990) or to note the religious dimension of legal
pluralism (Allott 1990). But the public response to the Archbishop’s proposal was
overwhelmingly critical, with outspoken condemnation of the possibility that
so-called sharia courts would be free to discriminate against women and to inflict
inhumane punishments for minor offences (One Law for All 2010). Some experts in
law, for example Adam Tucker (2008), were also highly critical of the Arch-
bishop’s proposal.
Nevertheless, it remains the case that forms of legal pluralism have existed in
England for centuries and that the institutions of religious law have provided
supplemental jurisdictions with varying degrees of success. More than 20 years
ago, Antony Allott (1990: 225) characterized the ‘English way’ of coping with
competing pressures for legal recognition as ‘to allow the maximum freedom to
subsidiary home-made legal systems, constituted by contract, by membership of a
group with its own customs’. This pragmatic approach was also characteristic of
British colonial policies and practices for accommodating some of the distinctive
and widely differing systems of traditional conflict resolution among religious,
tribal and ethnic peoples subjected to British rule.
What is still unclear is how far the enactment of laws promoting equality and
prohibiting discrimination will strengthen the case for legal pluralism or undermine
it on the grounds that the rights to equality and non-discrimination are universal and
dependent on the power of unitary legal systems to enforce them. In other words,
recognition of sub-national categories of peoples and cultures as deserving of
separate protections in law seems to be simultaneously an objective of both
liberalism and pluralism. A reminder of David Runciman’s point is in order here:
‘The attempt to enhance the role of voluntary associations does not result in a
diminution of the authority of the state; it merely relocates it.’ (Runciman 1997:
264). Jane Lewis (2005) made a similar point about the failure of partnerships with
New Labour governments to foster ‘civil renewal’ or ‘democratization’. Instead,

6
‘The doctrine of “consensual compact” means that the rules and structures of voluntary associ-
ations are binding on assenting members.’ Sandberg (2011: 188).
Re-Thinking Religious Pluralism 21

she argued, partnerships had the effect of controlling as well as harnessing the
energies of community and voluntary associations. Something similar could be said
about religious pluralism as well.
I have tried to make two main points so far. First, questions of pluralism are
common in the realms of politics and law in liberal democracies. Second, there are
competing doctrines within political and legal pluralisms. I now want to move on to
consider religious pluralism, which also gives rise to a variety of approaches and
normative doctrines. In addition, I shall emphasise the fact that studies of religious
pluralism often confuse its normative and its empirical aspects.
(iii) Religious pluralism
Earlier in this chapter I listed four distinct – but overlapping – meanings of religious
pluralism:
(a) empirical religious diversity
(b) normative ideas about the positive value of religious diversity
(c) the frameworks of public policy, law and social practices which recognize,
accommodate, regulate and facilitate religious diversity
(d) the social relational contexts of everyday interactions between individuals and
groups in settings where religious differences are considered relevant.
Ideally, researchers would keep these four categories distinct for analytical
purposes, but the tendency is to conflate them within a generic notion of pluralism.
Moreover, the fourth category attracts far less scholarly attention than the other
three, although I shall argue below that it is no less important than they are.
(a) Empirical diversity
Religious diversity sounds simple but is potentially complicated (Beckford 2003:
74–77; Bouma and Ling 2009; Bramadat and Koenig 2009; Ahlin et al. 2012). It
displays many dimensions, but I shall limit myself to just three.
(i) First, religious diversity refers to the variety of distinct faith traditions to be
found in any region, country or continent. The list of such traditions could be
both long and contentious because of potential disputes about the identity of
traditions, the extent to which they are unified, and the boundaries that
separate them. Paul Hirst (1997: 43) caricatures the extreme case of empirical
religious diversity as ‘a virtual process of “Ottamanization”, in which plural
communities co-exist side by side with different rules and standards’.
(ii) Second, diversity within distinct faith traditions has long been a feature of all
religions. Again, boundary disputes are common between schools, currents
and factions within each tradition – as well as between formal organizations
representing particular expressions of the traditions.
(iii) Third, individual religious believers and practitioners differ in terms of (a) the
extent to which their beliefs, practices and emotions reflect different faith
traditions and (b) the extent to which they accord salience to religion at
different stages of their life and in different situations. This adds to the
22 J.A. Beckford

diversity of ‘lived’ religions and is closely related to variations in the emo-

tional registers of religious practice.
Devising empirical indicators and measures of these three dimensions of reli-
gious diversity is not easy, but I believe that this should be a priority for sociological
research on religion.
(b) Normative religious pluralism
Studies of the positive value attributed to religious diversity – perhaps most
famously associated with John Hick’s (1977) edited volume on The Myth of God
Incarnate – are too numerous to be easily summarized here. They include debates
about ecumenism, multi-faith philosophies, inter-faith activities, religious
‘othering’, the theology of religions, religious aspects of multiculturalism, religious
literacy, religious dialogue, intercultural religious education, and so on. They all
analyze and/or advocate respect for the positive value of religious diversity in itself
or as a means to the attainment of social and cultural cohesion and harmony. In this
respect, some versions of normative religious pluralism resemble the ‘value plu-
ralism’ strand of political theory. And it is worth bearing in mind Peter Lassman’s
observation that ‘The problem . . . for political theory is not so much that values
might be plural, but, rather, that plural values can and do conflict with each other’
(Lassman 2011: 13).
Indeed, the positive evaluation of religious diversity has paradoxically acquired
the force of a unitary standard of rectitude in some places. This raises the question
of whether liberal democracies have reached a point where expressions of doubt
about the desirability of religious diversity are automatically categorised as ‘radi-
cal’ or ‘extremist’. As ever, the liberal dilemma is how far to tolerate illiberal
ideas and practices without jeopardising liberalism (Mahmood 2007; Butler 2008;
Beckford 2008; Woodhead 2008).
In comparison with the doctrines of political and legal pluralism, however, there
is a distinctive feature of normative religious pluralism. In theory it places few or no
limits on the extent of the religious diversity to be promoted. By contrast, discus-
sions of political and legal pluralisms tend to confine themselves to interactions
between a relatively small number of ‘interest groups’ or legal systems. ‘Plural’ in
these contexts usually means ‘a few’, whereas religious pluralisms are more likely
to imply a much greater range of diversity. Indeed, James Davidson Hunter (2009:
1309, 1311) describes modern pluralism as ‘a near-infinite yet random number of
spiritual and religious positions’ in the absence of a ‘dominant culture’. This is the
ideal or the theory, but sociological analysis shows that the reality tends to be
different. That is, the social settings to which labels such as ‘pluralistic’ or ‘inter-
faith’ are usually applied invariably exclude large numbers of religious or spiritual
groups. Religious pluralism in practice is confined to ‘acceptable’ groups – espe-
cially in ‘closed’ institutions such as prisons where religion can be contentious
(Beckford 2011). Inter-faith dialogue is never open to all would-be participants
(Stand for Peace 2013); and the full extent of religious diversity is rarely reflected in
Re-Thinking Religious Pluralism 23

doctrines or displays of religious pluralism.7 This is another good reason for

keeping empirical diversity analytically separate from notions of normative
pluralism.
(c) Frameworks of regulation and recognition
Scholarly attention to the frameworks of law and custom that regulate relations
between individuals and groups, in so far as they are identified in terms of their
religion, has increased sharply in recent decades. In particular, the general field of
law and religion has expanded well beyond its traditional concerns with state
constitutions, the freedom of religion, and varieties of religious law (Beckford
and Richardson 2007; Doe 2011; Sandberg 2011). The complex matrix of
overlapping factors driving this expansion includes the juridification – in Western
Europe predominantly – of equality and non-discrimination in relation to religion
and belief, the intensification of concern with questions about human rights and
religion, the acceleration of labour migration between countries with different
religious ‘complexions’, and the globalization and glocalization of religious move-
ments. All these factors shape the social, political, legal and cultural contexts within
which religious diversity is recognized, represented, accommodated, encouraged,
restricted and regulated.8
Sophisticated and in-depth studies of law and religion – with implications for
aspects of religious diversity – are already available (Greenawalt 2006, 2008;
Sullivan 2005a, b, 2010a, b; Doe 2011; Sandberg 2011). But there is scope for
further investigations of secondary legislation and administrative regulations that
may have an impact on the recognition or repudiation of religious diversity. For
example, social settings such as schools, universities, hospitals, prisons and the
military operate their own rules regarding what counts as religion, what is permitted
in the name of religion, how the practice of permitted religions is controlled, and –
in some places – facilitated. Researchers have tended to emphasise the legal and
administrative restrictions imposed on religion, but encouragement and facilitation
are the other side of the coin. For example, taxation regimes, concessions to
religious charitable organisations, broadcasting opportunities, education syllabuses,
exemptions from certain laws on non-discrimination, ‘interpellation’ to enter into
partnerships with agencies of the state (Beckford 2011, 2012), and representation
on state bodies and at state ceremonies can all create opportunities for the promo-
tion of the interests of particular religions. And the contribution of inter-faith
organisations towards establishing the ground rules for interactions in the public
realm between members of different faith communities should not be overlooked
(Weller 2008, 2009). In other words, ‘Religious pluralism must be understood in its
broadest sense – as a normative system that is socially created and maintained. Such

7
See Todd (2010) for a vivid account of the ‘politics of religious pluralism’ which reduced
New York City’s diversity of religions to Protestant, Catholic and Jewish participation in the
Temple of Religion at New York’s World’s Fair in 1939–1940.
8
See, for example, Beckford (1999), Bréchon and Willaime (2000), Ahmed (2005), Poole and
Richardson (2006), and Clark (2007).
24 J.A. Beckford

a normative system does not arise without human effort: it must be envisioned,
cultivated, shared, and practiced’ (Roof 2007: 8).
In short, the focus on recognition and regulation in the study of religious
pluralism highlights the contexts that shape, manage and control the diversity of
religious expressions in the public domain. It is not directly concerned with religion
‘as such’ but is focused on the political, cultural and social forces that push and pull
the public expression of religions in various directions. The ‘politics of cultural
recognition’ (Tully 1995) is a common feature of legislatures and courts of law,
although the criteria by which claims are made for the official recognition of
religious identities may not be fully understood (Eisenberg 2009). But there is
even less understanding of the ways in which these claims to, and assertions of,
religious identity are negotiated in everyday life. That is the focus of my final
category of religious pluralism.
(d) Everyday interactions in settings of religious diversity
Instead of being concerned with mapping such things as the extent of religious
diversity, the force of normative theories or the impact of regulatory frameworks,
the focus of my fourth category of religious pluralism is on the representations,
attitudes, negotiations and social interactions that occur in mundane or everyday
settings where religious diversity is recognised or denied, challenged or extended. It
concerns the skirmishes that take place along the line of ‘settled’ or ‘acceptable’
diversity when attempts to extend it are either welcomed or rejected. In the spirit of
William Connolly’s (1995) sense of ‘pluralization’, it is about the process of testing
the limits of acceptable or reasonable forms of diversity. This involves investigating
the outer limits of the diversity that is conventionally celebrated by self-identified
pluralists and the criteria that they use for resisting further extensions of acceptable
diversity. The crucial question at the heart of such negotiations is why any partic-
ular group or identity should be treated differently from ‘us’. And, if it is to be
treated differently, does it have to conform to the norms governing the existing state
of diversity which includes people like ‘us’? As Lori Beaman has argued, the social
construction of difference necessarily underlies assumptions about ‘reasonable
accommodation’, but ‘the language of reasonable accommodation reifies the
boundary between “us” and “them” and displaces equality as a framework for
negotiation’ (Beaman 2012: 208).
In effect, this category of religious pluralism separates out, for analytical pur-
poses, the interactive level of social life – without forgetting that social interaction
takes place not only against a background of normative ideas about pluralism and
regulatory frameworks but also in the presence of uncertainty and ambiguity about
religious identities and boundaries. This is not about the construction and imposi-
tion of religious labels and boundaries by the state, by courts of law or by other
official agencies. Nor is it about ‘everyday religion’ (Ammerman 2007). It is about
social interactions in everyday life that may have a bearing on perceptions of
religious differences and/or the state of religious diversity in the eyes of at least
some participants.
Re-Thinking Religious Pluralism 25

My main reason for constructing this category is to draw attention to situations in

which people use or confront ideas about religious diversity in their everyday life –
not only in clearly religious settings. The range of such settings is unlimited, but I
shall select just a few in order to illustrate the value of studying religious diversity at
the interactive level.
Beginning with the least formal settings, religious diversity can be a feature of
personal attitudes (Wuthnow 2005), casual meetings between strangers, of relation-
ships in families containing members of different religions (Arweck and Nesbitt
2010), and of friendship networks.
At a more formal level, relationships between colleagues, associates and fellow-
workers in places of employment can be inflected by differences of religion. Other
public settings with varying degrees of formality where religious diversity and its
associated claims about identity (Eisenberg 2009) is expressed and experienced
include: childcare centres, schools (Francis 2011), police forces (Armitage 2006),
healthcare centres, youth groups (Valk et al. 2009), higher education institutions
(Gilliat-Ray 2000; Tomalin 2007; Mayrl and Oeur 2009), voluntary associations
(Harris and Young 2010), major public exhibitions and millennium celebrations
(Gilliat-Ray 2004, 2006), the Olympic Games (Watson et al. 2005), sites of
humanitarian aid delivery (Hicks 2010) and sports clubs (Taskforce on Religious
Diversity 2011) may all be among the places where encounters with religious
diversity take place.
Residential settings in which religious diversity may require careful consider-
ation include hospitals (Gilliat-Ray 2001; Cadge et al. 2009), prisons (Beckford and
Gilliat 1998; Beckford et al. 2005), welfare facilities (Kelly and Sinclair 2005), and
military establishments (Benham Rennick 2009; Hansen 2012).
These studies of social interaction in formal and informal social settings open a
window on to religious diversity as a dimension of lived experience and a fact of
social life. They raise a number of questions such as: (a) What is at stake when
religious diversity becomes part of everyday social interactions? (b) How are
religious differences signified, side-stepped or suppressed in social interactions?
(c) Does social interaction tend to reify religious identities or liquefy them?
(d) Does the prevailing ethos of pluralism favour certain forms of interaction and
discourage others? (e) How do appeals to ‘secular neutrality’ affect claims to
religious difference and identity in social interactions?

Conclusions

This chapter makes three main points:

(i) First, it is unhelpful to confuse normative pluralism with empirical diversity.
For analytical purposes, they should always be kept separate, although the
confusion may be common in everyday discourse. A clear conceptual
26 J.A. Beckford

distinction between the normative and the empirical is a pre-requisite of sound

social science.
(ii) Second, debates about religious diversity and religious pluralism are part of
much broader discussions of identity and difference in political, legal and
cultural contexts. There is no reason to think that religion deserves special
treatment in these discussions.
(iii) And, third, there are good reasons for conducting careful analyses of the uses
to which religious diversity is put in everyday social settings and interactions.
This is a dimension of religious diversity and pluralism which is underdevel-
oped but essential to the understanding of what is at stake in different social
settings.
The spirit in which I have made these three points is not in harmony with
Humpty Dumpty’s boast that he could make words mean anything he chose. Rather,
my aim has been to demonstrate the value of making conceptual distinctions that
help to throw light on the range of social contexts in which the varied meanings of
religious pluralism are in play either as features of discourse and/or as analytical
categories.

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Religious Diversity, Social Control,
and Legal Pluralism: A Socio-Legal Analysis

James T. Richardson

Introduction

Religious diversity is a fact of modern life, even if some leaders of societal

institutions deny and regret it. Most societies have a dominant religious tradition,
and some of those religions have very strong legal protections and prerogatives;
they might even be designated as a “state religion.” However, no modern society
can claim that there is no religious diversity within its boundaries. Migration
patterns caused by political conditions, wars, natural disasters, and economic
conditions, facilitated by modern means of travel and communication have
guaranteed that various ethnic and religious minorities would develop throughout
the nations of the world. Also, new indigenous religious groups have developed
within societies in response to conditions experienced by members of those soci-
eties, including disquiet about the activities and culture of dominant religions.
Some newer movements – referred to as New Religious Movements (NRMs) by
scholars – have spread across national boundaries because of deliberate efforts to
promote their beliefs and values to others, also contributing to religious diversity.
Given the undeniable fact of religious diversity, questions arise about how
societies respond to the increasing variety of religious faiths within their borders.
Are religious minorities allowed to function within public space, and if so, how?
Are they allowed to operate as legal entities with rights and privileges associated
with larger traditional faiths? Or, are minority religions harassed by authorities and
attacks on them by others allowed to take place? What rights and privileges are
allowed members of minority faiths? Are minority religious groups openly dis-
couraged from building or renting space to function, and are they disallowed from
opening banking accounts or owning property? Can they offer religious education
classes within public schools, or function as chaplains in the military?

J.T. Richardson (*)

Judicial Studies Program, University of Nevada, Mail Stop 311, Reno, NV 89557, USA
e-mail: [email protected]

G. Giordan and E. Pace (eds.), Religious Pluralism, 31

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06623-3_3, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
32 J.T. Richardson

Connuum of legal social control over minority religions

Operang outside Operang within legal Operang outside legal

formal legal structure structure with varying privileges structure with approval

but with cauon; typically according to placement in by authoriesbut with

Ignored by authories hierarchy of accepted religions some limitaons

Fig. 1 Continuum of legal social control over minority religions

Answers to these and related questions will reveal much about the degree of
tolerance and religious freedom in a society, and also will indicate to what degree
minority religious groups are allowed to exist and function within a society.
Modern societies are increasingly governed by formalized legal structures. The
ways those structures are built and the degree of flexibility within those structures
reveals how open and accommodating societies are when dealing with minority
faiths developing within or coming from outside their borders. A continuum can be
posited (see Fig. 1) that involves significant differences in the legal status of
minority religious groups and the ways different societies manage minority reli-
gious groups.
At left end of the continuum are religious groups with no legal status at all, which
means they are not formally registered and recognized by the state. Religious groups
at this end of the continuum are generally quite small, and therefore usually are
viewed as inconsequential by societal authorities unless some action is taken by the
group that calls attention to it by authorities. These groups operate outside the
bounds of whatever legal structure exists within a society, but are always potentially
subject to social control actions by the state in which they exist. Ironically, these
groups that operate outside the bounds of societal legal structures can implement
their own norms and values to an extent, and thus might be thought of as having a
very limited form of legal pluralism. However, these groups must operate carefully
in order not to attract the attention of authorities. Such groups may be allowed to
exist and function with impunity outside the formal legal structure in many socie-
ties, but in others (China being an example) they could be subject to arbitrary and
punitive efforts at social control by governmental authorities.
In the middle ranges of the continuum are minority religious and ethnic groups
that are allowed some measure of legal status, with attendant rights and privileges
that vary greatly by society and by specific group. Many societies have formal or
informal hierarchies of religious groups, and institutional structures that enforce the
rules associated with the various levels within the hierarchy (Richardson 2001;
Durham 1996). Typically these minority religious groups are officially registered
through a process the state has established, and they are categorized within the
hierarchy of religious groups thus making it clear what the group can and cannot do
within the society. There are gradations in the middle ranges of the continuum,
Religious Diversity, Social Control, and Legal Pluralism: A Socio-Legal Analysis 33

which means there are many opportunities for states to exercise social control as
they attempt to manage religious diversity within their borders.
At right end of the continuum would be religious groups that have managed to
acquire a degree of functional legal autonomy by being allowed to have their own
legal enclave in which the group’s customs, norms, and rules operate, implemented
by their own institutional structures. Such groups are generally larger or geographi-
cally isolated so that exercising social control over them would be problematic.
Also, a society’s history might play a role here, as indigenous peoples might be
allowed to retain a degree of autonomy. Societal authorities may simply decide to
leave such groups alone as much as possible, and let them govern themselves using
their own norms and customs.
The situation to the far right of the continuum would be an example of legal
pluralism functioning for a religious group within a society. Legal pluralism is
defined as occurring when two or more legal and normative structures are allowed to
function with the same geographic space. How the two (or more) legal structures
function within the legal structure of a society can vary greatly, of course. Some
legal pluralism situations might involve only certain matters, such as domestic
affairs, to be handled within the subgroup’s confines, whereas different societies
might allow other areas of life, such as financial matters, to be governed by norms
and rules of the subgroup. So, as in the other two major categories on this conti-
nuum, there are gradations and ambiguities present that must be understood and
taken into account by minority religious groups, as the privileges associated with
allowing some degree of legal pluralism can be withdrawn by leaders of the society.
There is a definite reciprocal relationship and interaction between the presence
of minority religious and ethnic groups and the development of legal pluralism in a
society (Beckford and Richardson 2007; Richardson 2009). If there is openness and
flexibility, with religious diversity actually being promoted by a society, then
minority groups may be more prone to come into that society, and indigenous
religious groups may also be encouraged to develop. If there is a perception that the
society is closed and unwelcoming of religious diversity, this may discourage
attempts to develop different religious traditions within the society, which also
would mean less legal pluralism. But, the presence of religious and ethnic mino-
rities, especially large and politically strong ones, may in turn encourage the
development of legal pluralism within a society as these groups negotiate with
the powers that be in a society for rights and privileges that allow more self-
governance by the groups. Thus this is an ongoing and even dialectical process
that can evolve rapidly as conditions and perceptions change within a society.

Theoretical Considerations

There are a number of relevant theoretical traditions germane to understanding how

religious diversity is dealt with within a society, and how religious diversity relates
to the development of legal pluralism. Adopting a broad socio-legal perspective
34 J.T. Richardson

focuses attention on the history and culture of a society, but also incorporates
theories and methods from the social sciences. Thus this approach is explicitly
interdisciplinary, calling on several related areas of scholarship to seek a fuller
understanding of the effects of religious diversity on a society, and how the society
responds to diversity. I have taken this approach in earlier writings, and will be
referring to them in what follows (Richardson 2006b, 2007, 2011b; Richardson and
Springer 2013).

Sociology of Religion and the Religious History of a Society

The religious history of a society is, of course, very important in understanding how
a society might treat minority faiths. If there is a long history of religious pluralism,
then the society’s political leaders may have, over time, found ways to accommo-
date religious differences, even if there is a dominant religion that has more
privileges and higher status in the society. Such arrangements are always subject
to internal or external events that might disrupt the peaceful co-existence mode that
had evolved over time. Events such as the destruction of the World Trade Center or
the Madrid train bombing can shift public opinion rapidly about certain minority
groups within a society.
However, there are historical examples of societies that have accommodated
different religious traditions for periods of time, and done so relatively peacefully,
as Jamila Hassan (2011) discusses in the case of Malaysia. The accommodation
may derive from a formal legal structure that is established that includes a hierar-
chical arrangement with attendant privileges by category, as has been developed in
Singapore (Hill 2004), or the accommodation could be based on customs of long
standing, perhaps even from colonial times. Accommodation mechanisms could
include a casual approach that ignores minority faiths as long as they are not
perceived to be disruptive of the social order, or accommodation could include an
overt effort to manage religious diversity using formal processes and procedures
established in law.
In situations where minority faiths have developed more recently or come into a
society from outside, problems can arise, and quickly. Dominant religious groups
may feel threatened when indigenous religious groups arise from within the tradi-
tion or when groups enter the society from outside and begin aggressive prosely-
tizing and criticizing the dominant religious tradition. Dominant religions also may
work in concert with political authorities to defend and extend their prerogatives
and influence using minority faiths as pawns in such machinations. Indeed, domi-
nant religious traditions may attempt to foment anxiety and concern about minority
faiths quite deliberately, as was the case with Russia from the 1990s onward. The
Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) was attempting to reestablish itself as the domi-
nant faith of the Russian people and as an organization with political influence
(Shterin and Richardson 2000, 2002). ROC leaders courted conservative national-
istic politicians who were quite willing to join forces with the ROC using minority
Religious Diversity, Social Control, and Legal Pluralism: A Socio-Legal Analysis 35

religious groups as a foil in their efforts. Similarly, Chinese authorities seem to have
used the Falun Gong as a way of solidifying the authority of the Chinese Commu-
nist Party during a time of rapid social change in China (Edelman and Richardson
2005; Tong 2009).
There are other concepts besides religious pluralism from the Sociology of
Religion that could be brought to bear concerning social control of minority
religions. One that is particularly relevant concerns whether a society defines itself
as secular or religious (or somewhere in between), and how it implements the
relationship between church and state. If a society defines itself as strictly secular
(France and Turkey are examples), then the state apparatus may exert considerable
effort to control religious groups of all kinds. If a society defines itself as religious,
possessing of a theocratic state (Iran is an example), then even more rigorous efforts
might be made to control, or even exterminate rival religions. Most modern states
fall somewhere in between these extremes, and have worked out arrangements
whereby there is some degree of separation of church and state, and mechanisms for
managing religions and religious groups have been developed. How those arrange-
ments are constructed has immense implications for social control of religious
groups.

Characteristics of Legal and Judicial System

Legal and judicial systems vary considerably in terms of basic characteristics, and
the way they are constructed and function influences how minority religious groups
are treated in a given society. In some societies the justice system is completely
subservient to the political realm, and those functioning within the system lack
autonomy (see Finke 2013: 302–303; Finke et al. 2013). In societies operating with
low levels of autonomy those who enforce the law and make decisions about
conflicts and disputes that end up in court are simply following directions or
expectations of other more powerful individuals or institutions. Not to do so can
result in loss of their position, if not a worse penalty. China is such a society at
present where the judicial system lacks independence, and even lawyers attempting
to represent clients such as Falun Gong participants can get arrested for doing so
(Edelman and Richardson 2005). In Russia there also are examples of directions
being given and followed in major cases involving religious groups, in what is
referred to as “telephone justice” (Shterin and Richardson 2002).
Examples of China and Russia are not rare, however, as many nations have
relatively weak justice systems that are subservient to military rule (present day
Egypt), dominance of a particular religion (Iran), or one particular political party
(present day Hungary). In such societies the law and its enforcement becomes a
weapon for use by those who dominate the society. This use of law and the justice
system as a weapon – rule by law – is quite contrary to the modern western concept
of the rule of law, which means that all citizens should be treated equally under the
law, and that the law should be administered in a fair and equitable manner.
36 J.T. Richardson

Legal systems vary greatly in terms of how pervasive they are. Do legal consi-
derations affect few aspects of life, or do such considerations impinge on most daily
activities of citizens and groups, including those related to their religious? Are
societal institutions involved in surveillance and monitoring of minority religious
groups (Richardson and Robbins 2010), or are such groups generally left alone?
A less pervasive legal system would probably result in less attention being paid to
smaller religious groups, such as those at the left end of the continuum posited
above. Legal pluralism might also be allowed to flourish with some groups, if
societal leaders decided that this would be a more prudent course than attempting to
enforce normal rules and laws of the society on a minority religious group. Minority
religious groups in the middle ranges of the social control continuum also might see
fewer efforts to regulate and manage their activities in a society with a less
pervasive and intrusive legal system. However, even in more open societies with
guarantees of religious freedom minority religious groups may be subject to
monitoring and surveillance, as has been shown in the U.S. with the Branch
Davidians (Wright 1995) and the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints in Texas
(Wright and Richardson 2011), as well as other groups in the U.S. and elsewhere
(Richardson and Robbins 2010).
Closely related but not completely overlapping with pervasiveness is the vari-
able of degree of centralization of a legal system. If a society had a highly
centralized legal system, including a centralized judicial system, then this could,
and usually does, indicate considerable control being exerted over the lives of
citizens in the society. Legal systems in western European nations are all, to varying
degrees, centralized, with Switzerland being an exception to the usual rule with its
Canton system of governance. And Germany grants considerable authority to its
internal units (called “lands”). However, when a society such as Germany with its
centralized legal system also has a “culture of paternalism” this can result in
significant social control being exerted toward minority religious groups, with
efforts made through governmental institutions to warn citizens of the dangers of
such groups (Beckford 1985; Richardson and van Driel 1994; Seiwert 2004).
France with its secular ideology of laicité working in concert with its centralized
legal system, also has attempted to implement strong measures of social control
toward minority faiths (Richardson and Introvigne 2001; Beckford 2004; Duvert
2004; Palmer 2011). And China, a quite centralized state system, certainly engages
in monitoring and surveillance of unapproved religious groups, and then takes
punitive action based on information gathered (Tong 2009; Edelman and Richard-
son 2005; Richardson 2011a).
In societies with a federated approach that allows considerable autonomy to
states or territories, such as in the United States or Australia, there is more variety in
how legal systems operate, thus allowing more flexibility and opportunity for
citizens in such a society. Thus if a minority religion group is harassed by author-
ities in one region of a society with less centralized governance structure, it might
be able to move to another area where the legal situation and social control
apparatus differed in important ways. However, even in federated political systems
there is usually an overarching legal system operating through a national
Religious Diversity, Social Control, and Legal Pluralism: A Socio-Legal Analysis 37

constitution and legal structure that places limits on what can occur within the
federated units that make up the nation. For example, the Bill of Rights of the
United States Constitution with its First Amendment guaranteeing religious free-
dom and precluding establishment of a state religion must be taken into account by
any state or local government as it deals with minority religious groups. However,
many nations such as Australia do not have a Bill of Rights, so any guarantees are
based more on tradition, possibly allowing more flexibility in dealing with minority
faiths (but see Bouma (2011) on Australia’s culture of tolerance toward minority
religions).
There are important caveats to the statements just made about the effects of
centralization and pervasiveness of justice systems. One relates to an earlier
discussion (Richardson 2006b) about the role of a “strong state” (which might
better be thought of as a “history” variable) in promoting and protecting religious
freedom for minority faiths. A strong state would usually have a highly centralized
justice system. This could allow the state, if its leaders desired, to act in a punitive
manner toward religious groups, and do so with impunity, as is the case with
contemporary China (Tong 2009). But, leaders of a strong state could also decide
to promote religious freedom, and allow or even encourage minority faiths to
flourish within the society. This positive approach to diversity and religious plural-
ism may be rare, but it is possible, as Beckford notes in his discussion of religious
pluralism (Beckford 2003). Arguably the United States can be said to promote
religious freedom through its pervasive and overarching centralization of a legal
system that incorporates key values found in the Constitution, such as the guarantee
of religious freedom. Canada seems to be functioning similar since the development
of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms adopted in 1982, which makes it clear that
the provinces are subservient to federal rules and norm concerning human and civil
rights, including in the area of religion.
A strong state could also decide to allow legal pluralism to develop within a
society for some ethnic and religious groups, and even sanction such developments
with constitutional provisions and statutes, as is the case with the relatively new
South African legal structure (Danchin 2013). This might be done for reasons of
convenience and economy – it could be less trouble to allow a legal pluralistic
situation to develop than to attempt to force compliance with general laws within in
a society. Such a situation of legal pluralism in a “strong state” also could simply be
a recognition that a society is religiously diverse, and that the societal governance
structure must allow for this fact of life (see discussion above about importance of
taking religious history into account). Or such a development might simply derive
from actions of societal leaders who value religious diversity and pluralism.
Therefore it is not at all the case, just because a society has a pervasive and
centralized legal system, that minority religious groups will always be more subject
to social control.
Note however that, especially in strong state societies with a dominant religion
having many rights and privileges, centralization and pervasiveness would usually
be expected to contribute to more stringent efforts at social control of competitive
minority faiths. Again, the case of Russia with the growing influence of the ROC
38 J.T. Richardson

comes to mind as an example of this type of historical circumstance. This occurs

even though there is some decentralization of the legal system in Russia. However,
in Russian hinterlands the westernized notions of individual religious freedom
never took root after the fall of communism, lending support to the dramatic change
of law in 1997 that allowed much more control of minority religions (Shterin and
Richardson 1998).
One additional but crucial consideration is that many modern societies are
themselves subject to regional or even international legal and judicial systems.
For example, the United Nations International Court of Justice, the European Court
of Justice, which is the judicial arm of the European Union, and especially the
European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) which is the court for the 47 nations that
are members of the Council of Europe (COE) exercise tremendous authority and
influence over member nations and their justice and judicial systems. The ECtHR is
especially noteworthy in terms of religious freedom as it has in recent decades taken
up the cause of protecting minority religious groups, especially in former Soviet
dominated nations but also in nations that were some of the original founders of the
COE (Hammer and Emmert 2012; Richardson and Lykes 2012; Richardson 2014b;
Richardson and Lee 2014; Lykes and Richardson 2014).
Thus, any analysis of how justice systems work has to take into account whether
they are part of larger systems of justice, and the authority and effectiveness with
which those larger systems function. As Hammer and Emmert (2012) note in their
systematic treatment of former Soviet dominated nations, there is a growing
tendency for courts in those nations to cite ECtHR case law and decisions as
precedent, and to adhere to those precedents. Sadurski (2009) argues that the
ECtHR is becoming more like an overarching “Supreme Court” for the region
that is developing a willingness to declare laws “unconventional” (not comporting
with the European Convention on Human Rights), and encouraging COE Member
States to change their laws to better fit with Convention values. Related to this
development is the growing importance of constitutional courts in the COE region.
Such courts have, in some newer COE nations, over-ruled decisions of supreme
courts, and exerted themselves, sometimes on behalf of minority religions
(Sadurski 2006, 2009; Richardson and Shterin 2008; Richardson 2006a).
Another characteristic of legal systems that deserves mention is whether there is
an adversarial or inquisitorial system operating. If the former, this means that those
involved with the legal system have the right to have an advocate who represents
them within the justice system. In the latter situation no advocate is possible, as
judges perform multiple roles and manage cases as they see fit; no personal
advocates are allowed. It seems clear that having an advocate for a defendant
member of a minority religion or for a religious group itself would greatly
strengthen chances for a party in a legal matter to defend themselves and increase
the chances that they might ultimately prevail. Thus the chances of exerting social
control over the activities of a religious group would seem lower in societies where
an adversarial legal system operates, and thus those societies might be more prone
to allow forms of legal pluralism to exist with some minority faiths.
Religious Diversity, Social Control, and Legal Pluralism: A Socio-Legal Analysis 39

Sociology of Law Theories

Two prominent Sociology of Law theorists, William Chambliss and Donald Black,
have produced theoretical schemes that are quite different, but also somewhat
complementary. And both schemes are useful in understanding how minority
religious groups are dealt with by societal authorities attempting to manage and
even control such groups and movements. Their theories can help with understand-
ing how legal pluralism might be allowed to develop with certain religious and
ethnic group. I have applied ideas from these two theorists in some of the work
mentioned earlier (Richardson 2006b, 2007, 2011b; Richardson and Springer
2013). More recently the theoretical scheme of Chambliss has been applied directly
to understanding how efforts to extend elements of Islamic Shari’a law are being
dealt with in American, Canada, and Australia (Richardson 2014; Also see Turner
and Richardson 2013).

Applying Donald Black’s Theorizing

Black (1976, 1999) focused more on the question of “who wins” when conflict
develops that requires resolution. His quite abstract theorizing encompasses various
types of self-help dispute resolution, but also is applicable to what happens when
disputes end up in court. Black posits some key variables including social status
and prestige, and cultural and personal intimacy to help explain who usually
prevails in disputes that arise in society. He and a former student also have proposed
an intriguing concept of third party partisan to assist in explaining what happens
when an entity unexpectedly prevails in a dispute (Black and Baumgartner 1999).
The applicability of Black’s theorizing to the area of social control of minority
religions is easy to demonstrate. Sometimes religious groups and individuals acting
out their faith find themselves caught up in legal battles as they defend themselves
from actions of the state when they are perceived to have violated a law. Such
entities or individuals might also find themselves defendants in a civil legal action
brought by someone who claimed to have had their interests injured by the group or
individual. And in some societies private individuals or groups are allowed to bring
legal actions against religious groups working in concert with the state. (France and
Russia are two such societies.) When such legal actions occur, Black’s theorizing
allows predictions about who will prevail – those of higher status and more prestige
who share cultural and perhaps even personal intimacy with decision makers will
usually prevail. And when a party slated to lose because of being of lower status and
prestige and not sharing cultural and personal intimacy with the decisions makers
does in fact win, the concept of third party partisan often can help make sense of the
outcome. In practical terms, this latter situation means that someone who is of
higher status and prestige and who does share cultural and even personal intimacy
40 J.T. Richardson

with the decision makers intervenes and becomes a partisan on behalf of the
defendant.
Black’s theorizing can assist in understanding what happens with religious
groups arrayed along the continuum posited above. Groups to the left end are
typically smaller and newer, and, unless they do something to attract attention
from authorities, they are typically left alone unless and until something happens
that does brings them to the attention of societal authorities. If that happens such
groups are greatly disadvantaged, whether it is in dealing with representatives of
institutions of society such as child welfare agencies, school authorities, or tax
agencies. If irate parents of relatively high status and prestige, upset that their son or
daughter has joined such a group, can call attention to the group and succeed in
getting authorities and mass media to focus on them through political processes or
by filing civil suits, the group also is quite disadvantaged.
In these situations the religious group would usually be expected to lose in
whatever confrontation developed, unless some entity of much higher status and
prestige intervened on their behalf. Such a third party intervention might involve
prominent legal assistance from a well-respected advocate (attorney) who takes on
the case (if such is allowed in the society), but it might also involve an organization
such as the American Civil Liberties Union or an organization of religious groups
seeking to defend religious freedom. Indeed, it is even possible to characterize
judges or courts as third party partisans if they value religious freedom and have
the authority of constitutional or convention provisions or statutes to support them
in their decisions. Recent decisions of the European Court of Human Rights
(ECtHR) and the United States Supreme Court demonstrate this last point quite
well (Richardson and Lykes 2012; Richardson and Shoemaker 2014; Lykes and
Richardson 2014; Richardson 2014b).
Those entities on the far right hand of the continuum might be allowed to
develop and enforce their own internal laws and procedures in an example of
legal pluralism. Leaders of such groups would clearly have to possess sufficient
status and prestige, and perhaps also cultural, if not personal, intimacy with societal
leaders to effect such an agreement with authorities. The status and prestige for
leaders of a minority group seeking a relatively autonomous legal system might
derive from various sources, but clearly one such source could be strength of
numbers and an accompanying threat, implicit or explicit, that conflict and even
violence might occur if the group was not allowed to develop and implement its
own rules and procedures covering at least some areas of life. The minority
religious group might garner some support from third parties in the process, as
leaders of the political structure in a society might agree to allow some form of legal
pluralism to develop for a group for several reasons, including convenience or an
ideological belief that the group’s cultural values should be allowed expression.
The most obvious examples of legal pluralism in contemporary western societies
involve indigenous peoples being allowed some self-governance, and the develop-
ment of some degree of legal pluralism with Jewish, Catholic, and even Muslim
Religious Diversity, Social Control, and Legal Pluralism: A Socio-Legal Analysis 41

groups concerning domestic matters such as divorce, child custody, and inheritance
rules.1 Some of these situations might be sanctioned by law in a given society, while
others are allowed to exist without formalization in law.
The middle range of the continuum can offer even more clear application of
Black’s theories. Groups in the middle ranges are subject to regulation such as
being placed in some sort of hierarchical ranking of religious groups that grants
different rights and privileges depending on where the group is located in the
hierarchy. The placement of groups in the hierarchy is done by officials in a
governmental agency which has the task of managing religious groups in the
society. In developing a hierarchy of religions those officials implement their
own values and the values of those who placed them in their positions. Those
religious groups with higher status and prestige, and which promote values shared
by those doing the ranking would be expected to be ranked at the top, and those
groups having lower status and prestige and whose values are not shared by the
decision makers would be placed lower in the ranking scheme, and allowed fewer
rights and privileges.
One other relevant aspect of Black’s theorizing was developed by another student
of his, Mark Cooney, whose groundbreaking work on the social production of
evidence is relevant to our focus on religious diversity and legal pluralism (Cooney
1994, Likes and Richardson 2014).2 Cooney’s theorizing can be extended to also
incorporate the fact that judges not only make decisions about what evidence to
admit, but they also can decide what legal rules to apply to a given case. As developed
in Richardson (2000), judges are key decisions makers who usually can exercise

1
Although Jewish and Catholic informal or even formalized tribunals have been allowed in certain
areas of life in some societies (clear examples of legal pluralism in operation), recently contro-
versies have erupted when Muslim groups have called for even limited legal pluralism for Muslim
groups in some western societies. See Ahdar and Maloney (2010) discussion of controversy caused
when the Archbishop of Canterbury urged that Shari’a be granted some recognition in the U.K.,
Turner and Richardson’s discussion of controversy in America (2013), Richardson’s (2013)
discussion of controversies in Australia, Mcfarlane’s coverage of the situation in Canada and
America (2013), Aires and Richardson (2014) on controversies in Germany, Possamai et al. (2014)
volume focusing on Shari’a in western and non-western nations, and Berger’s (2013) on Shari’s in
western nations.
2
Cooney did not discuss religion but his ideas are useful in understanding conflicts over religion
that become legal and judicial matters. Those involved in a legal case make decisions about how
much time and resources to spend gathering and developing evidence, and whether evidence
developed can and will be used in court. Cooney points out that this is a social process explicable
by knowing the status and prestige of those involved on both sides of a case, and how well they
(and their advocates in an adversarial system) share the values of decisions makers. Cooney also
allows for intervention in cases by third parties who might take the side of a disadvantaged party in
the process. He proposes an intriguing concept of “strange attractor” to draw attention to situations
where an otherwise lower status and prestige party attracts someone from a quite different station
in life to assist in their defense.
42 J.T. Richardson

considerable discretion in how they handle a given case, and what variant of law
might apply in various matters before them.3 Particularly in matters of family law,
judges in many western states allow norms and customs deriving from religious
traditions to be influential if not determinative. This can become quite controversial
(see footnote 1), but when this happens it demonstrates that limited forms of legal
pluralism are being allowed to operate.

Applying William Chambliss’ Theorizing

Chambliss (1964; Chambliss and Zatz 1993) is more interested in how major
changes in law occur. He posits a never-ending agency-oriented dialectical process
that involves contradictions, conflicts, dilemmas, and temporary resolutions.
Chambliss initially focused on economic conditions and how they can lead to
problems in how a society functions. He later expanded his definition somewhat
and stated Chambliss and Zatz (1993) that contradictions are situations where
“. . .the working out of the logic of extant political, economic, ideological, and
social relations must necessarily destroy some fundamental aspect of existing social
relations.” In short, Chambliss focuses on situations where following the letter of
the extant law will lead to major difficulties in a society. When this occurs it can
lead to conflicts between interest groups, which in turn can cause a dilemma for the
state. The state must attempt to resolve the conflict so that order can be maintained.
Thus a resolution may be adopted that solves the problem in the short term, but
which causes other contradictions which can lead to more conflict and dilemmas for
the state. Thus a given resolution probably is never final, according to Chambliss,
even if it may last for a period of time.
Chambliss’ ideas have seldom been applied in the area of religion, but the
application of his theorizing in this realm can be useful. There are many contra-
dictions concerning religious and religious groups in contemporary societies, not the
least being that many modern societies have constitutional provisions guaranteeing
religious freedom, and most societies are signatories to international agreements that
state clearly that religious freedom is a basic and important value. However, in many

3
Judges sometimes lower the standards of evidence when an unpopular party is a defendant in a
case before them. This has happened in some famous cases involving religious groups or
individuals where questionable evidence was admitted, leading to convictions and long prison
terms. The “Hilton bombing” case involving the Ananda Marga group and the Lindy Chamberlain
case involving the Seventh Day Adventists are examples from Australia of such cases that were
eventually overturned and the individuals freed from prison after serving long terms (Richardson
2000). But, there are other examples where judges allowed suspect evidence to be admitted. The
“brainwashing” cases in the United States are another example of judges allowing weak evidence
to be introduced to considerable effect on the outcome of cases brought by individuals against
small religious groups (Anthony 1990; Richardson 1993). Judges can also disallow crucial
evidence that might be quite dispository of a case’s outcome. Again, Cooney’s theory derived
from Black’s theories offers assistance in understanding when decisions might be made to either
allow or disallow evidence to be used in a legal matter.
Religious Diversity, Social Control, and Legal Pluralism: A Socio-Legal Analysis 43

societies those provisions are honored in the breech, and simply ignored. And in
other societies that make impressive claims to implementing such provisions it is a
modern fact of life that religious are managed, and that the ways in which members
of a religious group can act out their values is limited, sometimes quite severely.
However, sometimes the resolution that is developed as a way of managing religious
minorities allows them considerable autonomy, especially in certain areas such as
domestic matters. Thus, managing does not necessarily always mean rigorous
control, but instead legal pluralism may be allowed to develop.
Recent developments in Russia furnish an excellent example demonstrating the
value of Chambliss’ theoretical approach. Russia’s post-communist Constitution
clearly states that religious freedom is a paramount value, and so do statutes
adopted in the early 1990s. Those religious freedom guarantees are derived from
language used in western oriented constitutions and in the European Convention on
Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. However, a contradiction was imme-
diately obvious in that the Russian Orthodox Church was attempting to assert itself
and be accepted as a state church, and a number of political leaders and ordinary
citizens agreed with this effort (Shterin and Richardson 1998, 2000). Potential
conflicts quickly arose over the rapid influx of many New Religious Movements
(NRMs) and other religious groups from the west into Russia, causing a dilemma
for the state. Also, it has become obvious that this situation of western religious
groups coming into Russia afforded an opportunity for the ROC and more nation-
alistic politicians to promote their own values and goals.
Thus a “resolution” was eventually achieved with statutes concerning religion
being dramatically changed in 1997, in an effort to limit the access of foreign
religious groups to Russia. That law has come under heavy criticism from some
elements of Russian society, but also externally because Russia is now a signatory to
the European Convention on Human Rights and therefore under the purview of the
ECtHR. Efforts to enforce the new law in Russia and refuse reregistration of formerly
registered groups have resulted in a number of major losses in cases brought to the
ECtHR (Richardson and Lykes 2012). This result has forced recognition that the
“resolution” afforded by the 1997 law has itself led to other contractions, given
Russia’s own constitution as well as its membership in the Council of Europe. How
this situation will be resolved remains to be seen, but predictably there will be other
“resolutions” in the future,4 and those newer resolution may need to grant more

4
The Russian case also demonstrates the confluence of the theories of Black and Chambliss, and
highlights the key role of the judiciary in developing policy toward religious groups in contem-
porary western societies. As noted, the Russian Constitutional Court has attempted to defend
religious freedom for minority groups by enforcing the constitutional provisions concerning
religious freedom even to the extent of declaring provisions of the 1997 law void. The rulings of
this Court represent movement in the direction of more legal pluralism in Russia. This “resolution”
was, however, unacceptable to the Russian bureaucracy which refused to enforce the judgments,
leading to several cases before the ECtHR which Russia lost in a series of unanimous decisions.
Whether the Russian state will accept those judgments and implement a new resolution that
comports with the European Convention is not clear, however (Richardson and Lykes 2012;
Richardson and Lee 2014; Lykes and Richardson 2014).
44 J.T. Richardson

autonomy to religious groups operating in Russia, which would be movement in the

direction of more legal pluralism for such groups.
There are many other examples that might be cited where laws relating to
religious values have been dramatically changed as a result of contradictions
being found, leading to potential conflict, forcing the state to respond to resolve
the dilemma it faces. One such dilemma that is widely felt in newer Member States
of the COE concerns the issue of conscientious objection to military service, a basic
tenant of the Jehovah’s Witness religion. Many states do not allow alternative
service, but this has led to problems because enforcing the law can result in
incarceration of many individuals, which undercuts claims made about religious
freedom and is also quite expensive. For example South Korea currently has about
600 members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in prison because of their refusal to serve
in the military (Brumley 2013). This issue has also arisen with a number of former
Soviet-dominated states now in the COE. Jehovah’s Witnesses members have
brought many legal actions to force a resolution, and have won a number of those
cases, either through a “friendly settlement” that involves a change of law, or by
decisions of the ECtHR (Brumley 2013; Richardson and Lykes 2012; Richardson
2014b). When these nations have agreed to allow alternatives to military service,
this can be viewed as allowing alternative values to influence societal legal struc-
tures (Beckford and Richardson 2007; Richardson 2009) but also as some recogni-
tion of legal pluralism in action.

Conclusions

Religious diversity exists in every modern society, and there are as many ways to
deal with that diversity as there are societies attempting to manage the diversity that
exists within their borders. Herein I have posited a continuum (see Fig. 1) of efforts
at social control of minority faiths that goes from little effort to exert control at all to
smaller less visible groups, through many different methods of managing religions
that want or require legal status, with attendant rights and privileges. At the far right
end of the continuum are religious groups which may be allowed to establish their
own form of legal pluralism, at least concerning certain areas of life such as
domestic affairs. But on the far left end we also see a form of legal pluralism, as
smaller less visible groups may be allowed to self-govern to a considerable extent.
I have then attempted herein to develop theoretical ideas derived from the
Sociology of Religion and the Sociology of Law to help explain how and why
religious social control is exerted over minority faiths at various locations on the
continuum. I have focused attention on situations where religious diversity has
contributed to the establishment of various forms of legal pluralism, in an effort to
demonstrate that sometimes circumstances may allow for degrees of autonomy to
develop that allow religious minorities more flexibility in managing their affairs
than is commonly assumed. Space did not allow a full-blown effort to illustrate
every possible aspect of these efforts, but hopefully what I have presented will
Religious Diversity, Social Control, and Legal Pluralism: A Socio-Legal Analysis 45

generate further research, and contribute to the fruitful integration of the Sociology
of Religion and the Sociology of Law, which together can yield much of value to
understanding contemporary efforts to manage religion in the very diverse contem-
porary societies that have developed.

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Oligopoly Is Not Pluralism

Fenggang Yang

Religious Freedom and Pluralism

In the world today, religious diversity is on the rise in all societies. Several
megatrends in the modern world make the increase of religious diversity inevitable.
The first factor is migration. In the globalizing market economy, more and more
people have become migrants in order to chase after investment or employment
opportunities. In addition to capital and economic skills, immigrants also bring
religions that differ from that of the host society. Although immigrants both expect
and are expected to accommodate to life in the new society, for most people religion
is not something that they can easily unlearn nor easily acquire. For economic and
social reasons, the host society also expects and is expected to accommodate the
religious beliefs and practices of immigrants who supply either the capital or the
social and economic skills needed by the society.
The second factor is transnationalism. In the era of globalization, facilitated by
advanced technologies of transportation and communication, more and more
migrants are in fact transnationals who maintain homes in two or more countries
and travel back and forth regularly. Even those immigrant settlers who maintain a
single home in the immigrant country are now more likely to make frequent visits to
their country of origin, and they maintain constant contact with relatives and friends
in both societies. These transnational connections make it necessary for migrants to
maintain religious as well as social ties to their community of origin, either by
upholding their traditional religion or by introducing back into their home commu-
nities religious practices learned in the communities they have joined.
The third factor is mass media and the Internet. Without migrating themselves or
receiving immigrants from another society, people can easily access information on
religions practiced in other times and places through books, magazines,

F. Yang (*)
Center on Religion and Chinese Society, Purdue University, 700 W. State Street,
West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
e-mail: [email protected]

G. Giordan and E. Pace (eds.), Religious Pluralism, 49

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06623-3_4, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
50 F. Yang

newspapers, television, and increasingly the Internet. They may also join virtual
communities dedicated to various religions or make virtual friends with people
residing in other parts of the world and practicing their distinct religions.
Finally, the new migratory and cosmopolitan experiences of life have generated
both the spiritual and social needs and the practical possibilities that might encourage
immigrants or nonimmigrants to develop new religions, perhaps by choosing elements
from various traditions to form a new community with a distinct religion. Religious
innovation is a common phenomenon of late modernity.
In short, given the megatrends in the economic and social spheres, it is inevitable
that a modern society will have an increasing number of religions.
The secularization theory, as exemplified in Peter Berger’s earlier works (1967,
1970), predicted that increased religious diversity would lead to an overall decline
in religion because the presence of an increasing number of religions, along with
developments in science and education, would erode traditional religious beliefs,
thus leading to a decline in religiosity among individuals and a decline in religious
communities. That prediction has failed and Berger has rescinded his secularization
theory. In the contemporary world, religion persists, resurges, and revives in almost
all societies (Berger 1999; Berger et al. 2008). The relationship between religious
decline and religious vitality became the focus of a series of paradigmatic debates
that have occupied creative thinkers and scholars for the last two to three decades.
By now, however, it is clear that the paradigm shift has completed (Warner 1993,
2003), even though there are lingering issues that require more careful examination
with more sophisticated methods.
If increasing plurality is inevitable, even if it does not necessarily lead to the
decline of religion in general, what challenges will it pose? Obviously it challenges
the dominant conventional religion or religions in a given society. In terms of
individual choice, as more and more religions become available to individuals in
the religious marketplace, either through interactions with neighbors and coworkers
in the same physical community or in virtual communities facilitated by the
Internet, challenging questions arise: How much freedom may individuals have in
choosing a religion, and how much freedom may religious groups have in prosely-
tizing? Should individuals have the freedom to choose whatever religion they like?
What about unconvential or cultish religions? Should such religions be allowed to
operate in a community on equal terms with its dominant conventional religion or
religions? Should the state protect the status and privileges of the traditional
religion or religions? In economic terms, should the religious market be equally
open to all religions, whether they are new or old, conventional or strange? On the
part of individuals who choose religion, more specifically, what should parents,
schools, and local and national governments be permitted to do about
nonconventional religions? As social scientists, we also need to ask questions
pertaining to the social scientific study of religion: How do various people and
institutions respond or react to the increasing presence of plural religions in a
rapidly globalizing society? What are the dynamics and processes of change in
church-state relations? What are the different social and political consequences of
various ways of dealing with increasing religious plurality?
Oligopoly Is Not Pluralism 51

Religious freedom has become a modern norm. This is in part due to the United
Nations’ proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Interna-
tional Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on
Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. However, the ideal of religious freedom has
encountered serious obstacles and setbacks in the twenty-first century, as both
mainstream news and the frequent reports of the Pew Research Center have
shown. There are certainly political and economic factors contributing to such
obstacles and setbacks. But the concept of religious freedom may have its weak-
nesses as well.
It seems to me that the concept of religious freedom itself may have an
individualistic bias. It narrowly focuses on individual rights, but excessive indivi-
dualism has become a concern or worry in many societies that are undergoing rapid
modernization. In comparison, religious pluralism is probably a better conceptual
tool both for the social scientific study of religion and for the implementation of
religious freedom. Religious pluralism is the social arrangement that protects both
individual freedom and group equality in religious affairs. We as social scientists of
religion may ask the following research questions: Is religious pluralism the destiny
of social change in the modern world? What are the social conditions that favor or
oppose the change toward religious pluralism? What are the costs and benefits to a
society that attains and retains religious pluralism?

Pluralism, Plurality, and Pluralization

First of all, we need to differentiate between pluralism at the social and the indivi-
dual levels. At the individual level, pluralism is a personal perspective, philosophy,
or lifestyle by which one deals with multiple religions within one’s own mind and
heart. It is a philosophical or theological position different from exclusivism,
inclusivism, or relativism (see Hemeyer 2009). At the social level, it is a social
configuration for dealing with multiple religions within a given society. Although
these two levels are closely related, they are not identical. As Robert Wuthnow put
it, “A pluralist is someone who can see and appreciate all points of view, a person
who is presumably tolerant, informed, cosmopolitan, and a pluralist society is one
in which social arrangements favor the expression of diverse perspectives and
lifestyles” (Wuthnow 2004:162–163). In such a society, we can see that a person
may favor pluralistic social arrangements without buying into a personal philo-
sophy of pluralism or relativism.
For instance, some fundamentalists in the United States do not adhere to a
pluralistic philosophy. They are exclusivists, believing that their religion is the
only true religion and all other religions are false. Nonetheless, fundamentalists
would fight for a social arrangement that includes religious pluralism so that they
could hold on to their right of religious freedom without governmental interference.
Worries about a fundamentalist takeover or a new theocracy are based on a
confusion of individual pluralism and social pluralism. But in the real world few
52 F. Yang

fundamentalist Christians in the U.S. would relinquish their religious freedom or try
to take away others’ religious freedom, which is guaranteed by the First Amend-
ment to the Constitution and affirmed by conservative Christians. In other words,
Christian fundamentalists may reject theological or philosophical pluralism but will
fight to maintain the social arrangements of religious pluralism. Social scientists of
religion must not confuse the individual and the social levels of religious pluralism,
even though the two levels may interact with each other.1
Second, on the social level, we need to differentiate further between the descrip-
tive and the normative dimensions – that is, between plurality and pluralism. Some
scholars continue to use the term ‘pluralism’ in both descriptive and normative
senses. Such usage hinders further theoretical development.
For the descriptive dimension, James Beckford and others prefer the word
“diversity,” whereas I would adopt the word “plurality.” According to Beckford
(2003), the word “plurality” implies a limited set of options, whereas “diversity”
suggests many more choices. Granted that the terms have different connotations,
I nonetheless believe “plurality” is a more accurate term for two reasons. First,
“plurality” shares its root with the word “pluralism,” which provides a consistent
terminology for theorizing about a set of inseparable things, as explained below.
Second, in reality, a society will only have a limited number of religion. The
maximum possibility would be one religion per each person of the population,
but that assumption defies the very notion of religion as a group phenomenon, as it
was conceptualized by the founder of sociology, Emile Durkheim. It is possible that
in a given society there could be hundreds or even thousands of different religions,
as Gordon Melton has ably documented in his Encyclopedia of American Religions
(2009). However, the religious market of most societies is dominated by a few large
religions while a number of small religions fill in various niches.
In brief, in the descriptive dimension, plurality describes the degree of religious
heterogeneity within a society, whereas pluralism refers to the social arrangement
favorable to a high or higher level of plurality. Obviously, some societies have
lower degrees of religious plurality than some other societies, and plurality may
increase in a given society. Pluralization is the term for the process of increasing
plurality in a society.
For the purpose of theoretical construction, it is helpful, to me at least, to use this
set of words derived from the same root (Latin plus, which means “more”). The
three terms – plurality, pluralism, and pluralization – refer to the variety of religions
tolerated in a given society, the society’s arrangements favorable for plurality, and
the process of increasing religious plurality in that society, respectively. The social
arrangement of religious pluralism means (1) accepting, affirming, and granting
equal protection to plural religions in a society; (2) setting up social institutions and
(3) creating favorable social and cultural conditions for the presence of plural

1
Eileen Barker in a 2003 article discussed the impacts of the pluralistic society on individuals’
belief, behavior, and belongings.
Oligopoly Is Not Pluralism 53

religions; and (4) granting and protecting the freedom of the individual to choose
whatever religion he or she wants, or no religion at all.

Levels of Religious Plurality

In societies throughout the world today, there are four major degrees of religious
plurality. The lowest is zero religion. That is, religion is banned. This has indeed
happened in human history, but only twice and briefly. A total ban on religion was
declared in China and in Albania in the mid-1960s; it lasted for 13 years in China
(1966–1979) and a decade longer in Albania. There was zero religious freedom
under the religious ban. The next level is religious monopoly. That is, only one
religion is protected by the state, which has been the case in many societies from
antiquity through the early modern times, and up to the present in some parts of the
world. Then there are societies in which the state allows the practice of a few select
religions. I call this oligopoly. Finally, in societies where religious plurality is
unrestricted, numerous religions operate in a society on equal terms guaranteed
by law.
Religious oligopoly is not pluralism. Quantitatively, oligopoly permits a plural
number of religions, as opposed to monopoly’s solitary creed. Qualitatively, how-
ever, monopoly and oligopoly are close cousins. Both have to be maintained by the
state through political power. When the power of the state is used to support one or
a few religions, it inevitably results in the political restriction and persecution of
followers of other religions, religious conflict, or even religious wars. In monopoly
and oligopoly, religious organizations compete not only for followers, but also for
control of state power. Meanwhile, political forces also compete to control the state
religion or religions in order to control state power. In other words, the difference
between religious oligopoly and religious pluralism is not simply a matter of the
number of religions existing in a given society. It is a matter of how that society’s
religions are treated by law, either equally or unequally. Monopoly and oligopoly
also have different dynamics. While Rodney Stark and Roger Finke (2000) have
articulated the dynamics of religious monopoly and pluralism, I have tried to
articulate the dynamics of religious oligopoly in the triple-markets theory – the
red, black, and gray markets of religion – which is not specific to China, but
describes all oligopolies (Yang 2012).
In religious pluralism, in contrast to religious monopoly or oligopoly, the ruling
power stays out of the competition among religions. But there is much confusion
over this kind of church-state relationship. One source of confusion is that religious
pluralism is unregulated. In fact, the state may withdraw entirely from the compe-
tition among religions, without inserting itself as a competitor as communist
governments did. However, the religious market, just like other kinds of markets,
needs regulations to maintain order or ensure orderly competition. Consequently
the state, as the body responsible for the public order, may regulate the ways and
means of religious competition. In a pluralistic arrangement, the religious market is
54 F. Yang

open to all comers, and any religion may enter the fray and compete on equal
grounds. In such a marketplace, rational argument and sentimental persuasion are
worth more than anything else in winning and keeping members and followers. The
power of the state may be used to ensure that proselytization is noncoercive and that
conversion remains voluntary, but it will not be used to prohibit any particular
religion or outlaw conversion to a particular religion. This kind of legal arrange-
ment is religious pluralism, which, if implemented in social practice, will inevitably
result in greater plurality over the long run, as the number of religions coexisting in
a given society grows.
It is important to emphasize that a pluralistic arrangement does not mean that the
state has nothing to do with religion, or that the religious market is unregulated.
Modern society has become so complex that the social order has to be maintained
by regulations, especially through the rule of law. However, the pluralistic regula-
tion of religion does not ban or favor any particular religion; it merely administers
specific aspects of religious practice that are applicable to all religions, such as the
construction of religious buildings, the performance of animal or human sacrifice,
and fiscal concerns such as tax exemption and the financial accountability of
religions to their members and to the public.
In short, real religious pluralism treats all religions equally and grants freedom to
individuals. Of course, this is the ideal of religious pluralism, and the actual practice
may fall short of the ideal. However, if a legal arrangement does not guarantee
equal treatment to all religions and freedom of choice to all individuals, it is simply
not religious pluralism. It is in this sense that I stress that oligopoly is not pluralism.
In oligopoly, as in monopoly, the regulations favor a few religions while other
religions are outlawed and suppressed.

The Prevalence of Religious Oligopolies

Using regulations or legal arrangements as a criterion, we find that of the almost

200 countries of the world today, about 20 % are clearly pluralistic and 22 % are
clearly monopolistic. The rest of the countries fall somewhere in between, being
more or less oligopolistic (see Table 1).
Theoretical studies in the sociology of religion have focused almost exclusively
on two of the four types of social arrangements outlined above: monopoly and
pluralism. These categories have determined the course of scholarly discussion in
Europe and North America, where religious monopoly and pluralism have histori-
cally been regarded as the most common arrangements. Without empirical studies
of oligopolies and theorizing about oligopolies, the social scientific study of
religion will remain parochial or provincial, Euro-centric or Euro-America-centric.
Furthermore, I would argue that many of the so-called pluralistic countries are in
fact oligopolistic, such as Great Britain and Italy. Evidently, in many countries,
even if the constitution or basic law includes a declaration of religious freedom,
other parts of the constitution may contradict it and the existing laws may not
Oligopoly Is Not Pluralism 55

Table 1 Four types of state-religion relations

“To what extent is there a favored (or established) religion in the country?”

Religious Number of Percent

Policy/law countries

Pluralism All religious brands are treated the same 40 20.4

Cultural or historical legacies only 16 8.2

Some brands have special privileges or government

56 28.6
Oligopoly access

One religious brand has privileges or government

41 20.9
access

Monopoly One single state or official religious brand 43 21.9

Total Ban All religions are banned (2)*

TOTAL 196 100.0

“Cross-National Data: Religion Indexes, Religious Adherents, and Other Data”

(http://www.thearda.com/; Grim and Finke 2006).

Source: Fenggang Yang (2010)

“Cross-National Data: Religion Indexes, Religious Adherents, and Other Data” http://www.
thearda.com/; Grim and Finke 2006
a
These ‘zero religion’ situations happened in the 1960s–1980s but no longer retain in 2006

support it. On the contrary, they may sabotage religious pluralism, making its
practical implementation impossible. China is one such case. For over a century
since 1912, the constitution of the Republic of China, in its many versions, has
retained a guarantee of religious freedom. However, when the Republic of China
withdrew to the island of Taiwan, martial law was imposed and the constitution was
suspended. Only after 1987 has the religious freedom become implemented in the
Republic of China on Taiwan. In the People’s Republic of China under the
Communist Party, the first constitution of 1954 and the later versions have always
included an article guaranteeing freedom of religious belief, but the constitution has
little bearing on political and social life in China. In practice, religions have been
restricted, suppressed, and even banned (Yang 2013).
Thus, although most countries in the world today have adopted legislation that
supports religious pluralism, the full implementation of religious freedom requires
more than legal guarantees on paper. There are at least three factors that must be
simultaneously present for the ideal of religious pluralism to take effect in practice:
56 F. Yang

a culturally grounded conceptual framework that supports the ideal, legal regula-
tion, and civil society.

The Conceptual and Civic Arrangements of Religious

Pluralism

How do we explain the fact that most countries have written religious freedom into
their constitutions but practice religious oligopoly? As sociologists, we must look
for other social factors in addition to the legal arrangement. At least two other kinds
of social arrangements play important roles, namely, the cultural and intellectual
context and civic society. I believe that “civic and cultural arrangements are
foundational to attain and retain the legal arrangement for pluralism” (Yang
2010:196). “Without the intellectual understanding and certain level of consensus
that legitimize and justify individual freedom of religion and group equality of
religions, without civic organizations in the civil society that keep in check the state
agencies and religious organizations, the pluralistic legal structure cannot be
implemented or maintained in practice” (Yang 2010:196). When the three kinds
of social arrangements are not synchronized or in accord, a de facto monopoly or
oligopoly is the result.

Definition Matters

When theorizing about religious pluralism, we encounter a serious problem of

definition. Toward the end of his response to my 2010 article on religious oligopoly,
James Beckford (2010:221) gently suggested that it was necessary to give “serious
consideration to questions about the conceptualization and definition of religion in
the everyday contexts of politics, public policy, the media and courts of law,”
because “surely this is where the challenges facing pluralism are most intense.”
In other words, a definition of religion is in order.
In countries that maintain oligopoly de jure or de facto, a common strategy used
by the dominant powers is to label certain religions as non-religions. The authorities
and the cultural elites thus adopt a narrow definition of religion. In some cases, the
established religions and the state collude to label the other religions as bad
religions, sects, cults, or evil cults, to the extent that people may believe it is
morally right and in the public interest to ban them. But the moral arguments for
banning cults that are advanced by advocates of the established religions are
probably self-serving, sabotaging the principles of fairness and equality in the
marketplace. As long as the established religions dominate the public discourse
about what religion is and is not, they will be able to maintain the status quo of
unfair competition.
Oligopoly Is Not Pluralism 57

We certainly should acknowledge that religion is a term whose meaning is

contested by various social forces. The question is whether we scholars of religion,
especially the social scientists among us, should offer an expert opinion on the
definition of religion. Many brilliant scholars have evaded this task. The most
notorious is Max Weber, who began his Sociology of Religion by stating that “to
define ‘religion,’ to say what it is, is not possible at the start of a presentation such as
this. Definition can be attempted, if at all, only at the conclusion of the study”
(Weber 1963:1). In the end, he claimed that he has completed his studies and there
was no longer any need to make the attempt. Had Weber lived longer, would he
have provided a definition? On the other hand, Emile Durkheim devoted his last
book (2001) to defining religion.
In my book Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule
(2012), I offered a definition of religion for the social scientific study of religion.
Without this definition, the triple-market theory, the shortage economy theory, and
the oligopoly theory would fall apart. In other words, the theoretical discussion of
religious pluralism requires a definition of religion, which admittedly may have
practical implications as well. Because at present I do not see the need to revise my
definition, I quote here the main points from my book:
A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices about life and the world relative to the
supernatural that unite the believers or followers into a social organization of moral
community. (36)
This definition includes four essential elements of a religion: (1) a belief in the
supernatural, (2) a set of beliefs regarding life and the world, (3) a set of ritual practices
manifesting the beliefs, and (4) a distinct social organization of moral community of
believers and practitioners. From this definition, we will develop a classification of reli-
gious phenomena and closely related social phenomena that compete with religion [which
is summarized in Table 2]. (36)
This definition with classification combines substantive and functional definitions of
religion and encompasses conventional religions and their competitors in modern society.
The competitors, besides conventional religions and semi-religions, also include pseudo-
religions that are regarded as substitutes for conventional religions and quasi-religious
beliefs and practices that are inseparable from other social institutions. (40)
This definition with classification is a useful tool in the political economy of religion
that deals with conventional religions and their active competitors in the same society. In a
study focusing on the survival and revival of religions in Communist-ruled China, the
distinction between religion and pseudo-religion is especially important. In China, as in
other Communist-ruled societies, the pseudo-religion of Communism was forced on the
people as a substitute for religion, but many people resorted to some semi-religion that
would provide the supernatural element. Because of the lack of formal organizations or the
elusive nature of the organizational element in popular religion or folk religion, it is more
difficult for authorities to suppress such practices and beliefs. (42–43)

My definition probably falls into the category of “second order” definitions of

religion, according to Beckford’s distinction (2003:7). It can be placed alongside
the “first order” definitions used by the practitioners of various religions. In a
modern society, nobody can force others to accept a definition, but in the modern
world, I believe in the power of persuasion. As part of the scientific enterprise, I also
value the ongoing improvement of the conceptual tools that we use to analyze the
58 F. Yang

Table 2 A definition of religion with classification

Supernatural Beliefs Practices Organization Examples
Full religion Yes Yes Yes Yes Christianity,
Buddhism,
Islam
Semi-religion Yes Underdeveloped Yes Underdeveloped Folk or popular
religion,
magic,
spiritualities
Quasi-religion Yes Yes Yes Diffused Civil religion,
ancestor
worship,
guild cults
Pseudo-religion No Yes Yes Yes Atheism,
Communism,
fetishism
Source: Fenggang Yang (2012)

world. Therefore this definition is laid on the table, waiting for and welcoming
critiques and criticisms.

Conclusion

We have seen an increase of religious plurality in most societies in the world today.
However, true religious pluralism remains an ideal that begs to be implemented in
practice. On the social level, issues pertinent to religious freedom include three
important aspects: a conceptual framework, legal regulation, and civil society.
Even though many countries have adopted the legal arrangement of religious plural-
ism, it is not always grounded in a conceptual framework shared among the political
and cultural elites, and social institutions to support its implementation in practice are
lacking. To attain and retain religious freedom in a society, it is necessary to
make social arrangements that promote religious pluralism. More importantly, the
conceptual framework, legal regulation, and civil society must be synchronized.
In reality, this synchronization is difficult to achieve and maintain in any given society.

References

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Beckford, James A. 2003. Social theory and religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Beckford, James A. 2010. Religious pluralism and diversity: Response to Yang and Thériault.
Social Compass 57(2): 217–223.
Oligopoly Is Not Pluralism 59

Berger, Peter. 1967. The sacred canopy: Elements of a sociological theory of religion.
Garden City: Doubleday.
Berger, Peter. 1970. A rumor of angels: Modern society and the rediscovery of the supernatural.
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Stark, Rodney, and Roger Finke. 2000. Acts of faith: Explaining the human side of religion.
Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.
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International Affairs 11(2): 6–17.
 Part II
Case Studies in Religious Pluralism
Religious and Philosophical Diversity
as a Challenge for the Secularism:
A Belgian-French Comparison

Jean-Paul Willaime

Three Different Meanings of Secularism

Regarding ‘laı̈cité/secularism’, one may start with observations on vocabulary and

semantics. The French word laı̈cité is difficult to translate, especially in English and
German. I am not confident that the English word secularism, though ordinarily
used in translation, would describe it perfectly. How would one extend it to laı̈cisme
in this case, for its inference as an ideology that may be critical of religion, or even
hostile towards it? But one finds the notion of laı̈cité in the Latin languages, with
the word laicità in Italian, and the words laicismo and laicidad in Spanish (also in
the name of the Spanish association Europa laica, which is a member of the
European Humanist Federation). This difficulty with translation becomes quite
apparent in Belgium between the two linguistic communities, the French-speaking
Walloons and the Dutch-speaking Flemish. While the Walloons speak of laı̈cité and
a secular movement (for example, to describe the Centre d’Action Laı̈que) in the
same sense as their French neighbours, the Belgian Flemish use the Dutch term
vrijzinnig, which in French means freethinker. In Flemish, the Centre d’Action
Laı̈que is therefore called the Centrale Vrijzinnige Raad (Central Council of
Freethinkers) and there exists a Unie Vrijzinnigen Verenigingen (Union of Free-
thinking Associations) which leading member is the Humanistisch Verbond
(Humanist Association), an organization which also exists in the Netherlands.
Such term as ‘humanist’ is used in Great Britain with the British Humanist
Association. Also in Great Britain are the National Secular Society and the Ratio-
nalist Association. In France, secular movements are represented by associations or
groups that use the term laı̈que in their appellations (such as the Union des Familles
Laı̈ques, the Comité National d’Action Laı̈que) as well as by associations like the
Union Rationaliste or the Union des Athées, which, as implied by their names,

J.-P. Willaime (*)

Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laı̈cités Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne, Paris
e-mail: [email protected]

G. Giordan and E. Pace (eds.), Religious Pluralism, 63

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06623-3_5, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
64 J.-P. Willaime

clearly designate philosophical beliefs conceived as an alternative to religions.

A major organization like the Ligue de l’Enseignement et de l’Education
Permanente is known as a secularist movement, particularly within the school
system. As for the French Constitution, the First Article states that “France is an
indivisible, secular, democratic, and social Republic”, while specifying that the
Republic “respects all beliefs”.
This cursory overview of words, their translation, and their varying meanings,
promptly leads us to make two observations:
1. The term laı̈cité in French has two attributes. On the political plane, it refers to a
general principle of neutrality towards any and all belief systems or ‘world-
views’ (Weltanschauungen). This would include the principle of respective
independence between government and religion. On the philosophical plane, it
refers to secular, non-religious, worldviews conceived as an alternative to
religious beliefs. I leave it to English-speakers to determine whether secularism
would include these two dimensions. According to the Oxford English Dictio-
nary in 20 volumes (1989 edition), the term secularism has an activist content. It
expresses a conviction, a doctrine, whose general aim is to justify secularization
and give it a positive and ethical purpose. Some believe that in English the
notion of secularization is not as extensive as laı̈cité, whereas secularism,
depending on nuances, may go further (Wolfs et al. 2007). I would also observe
that spheres of influence qualifying themselves as laı̈que traditionally include
philosophical currents and organizations whose criticism and denouncement of
religion play an important part in their raison d’être. Three different meanings of
secularism are thus straightaway apparent: (1) secularism as non-sectarian
neutrality of the state (Secular State); (2) secularism as a secular worldview
alternative to religious beliefs; and (3) secularism as an ideology opposing
religion and denouncing its misdeeds and deleterious effects (one speaks of
‘laicism’ in this case). Let us note that anticlericalism, in its criticism of religious
institutional power and its clergy, may find expression in these three versions:
(1) as religious anticlericalism; (2) as philosophical or political anticlericalism;
and (3) as an anticlerical component of overall religious criticism.
2. The fact that we find the very term laı̈cité, or laicity, more often in Latin
languages than in Anglo-saxon and Germanic languages, leads us to question
whether the notion of ‘laicity’ would concern more, as regards Europe at least,
countries that are predominantly Catholic than those which are predominantly
Protestant or bi-confessional. In any event, laicity as a cause for the emancipation
of public institutions and individuals from any religious influence is a notion that
appears to be more operative in Catholic countries than in Protestant ones.
Laicity, in this case, appears as a movement of emancipation reacting against
the control and influence that the Catholic Church once exercized within and over
some civil societies. The philosopher Jean-Marc Ferry, professor at the Free
University of Brussels (Ferry 2009: 164), in comparing France and Germany,
made the following remark: “The secularization (laı̈cisation) of French society is
not the secularization (sécularisation) of German society. They are two different
Religious and Philosophical Diversity as a Challenge for the Secularism: A. . . 65

processes in the political neutralization of religions: the Catholic or post-Catholic

process is effected through separation rather, while the Protestant one proceeds
more by interiorizing and absorbing elements [that were] initially religious”. The
spirit of Enlightenment evolved differently by country and in relation with
religious questions. In aiming for the emancipation of individuals and the
realization of a righteous society, the emphasis was not placed, as Jean-Marc
Ferry points out, on the same ‘levers of self-development’ (épanouissement):
“Let us say that French Enlightenment would have centered on the State and the
political sphere; Scottish Enlightenment, more so on markets and civil society;
Prussian Enlightenment, on scholarship (Université) and culture”. To speak of
‘laı̈cité/secularism’, after all, is it not to speak of this ‘other’ relative to which
‘laı̈cité/secularism’ is construed, namely, religion? Conversely, this ‘other’ rel-
ative to religion may not be of relevance to all religious thinking, as it pre-
supposes that religion can be dissociated from what it is not. This not
comprehensible for a certain number of cultures.

The France-Belgium Comparison

The comparison between France and Belgium is all the more interesting from the
viewpoint of secularism as these two countries perfectly illustrate two dimensions
of secularism that are both just as real and as legitimate, namely: (1) secularism as a
general principle of relations between the State and religions in pluralistic demo-
cracies respecting freedom of conscience, of thought, and of religion, as well as
everything that freedom implies; and (2) secularism as a philosophical concept that
is free-thinking and agnostic promoting a secular-cum-secularist vision of man and
the world, as an alternative to religious worldviews. It is in the manner of consi-
dering these two dimensions that our two countries differ. In France, one refers so
often to secularism as a general precept that one tends to forget that secular activists
represent a particular trend which, however respectable, is no more legitimate as a
belief system than religions that respect human rights and democracy. In Belgium,
one refers so often to the ‘secular pillar’ one tends to forget that secularism
represents not just a particular philosophical movement but also a general principle
of organization of mutual independence between government and religions, advo-
cated and valued by believers and non-believers alike. In fact, to compare France
and Belgium on the question of secularism is to reflect on the neutrality of the State
and the scope to be given to non-religious worldviews.
The France-Belgium comparison instantly portrays the three dimensions implied
by the notion of secularism: (1) secularism as an all-embracing principle of
neutrality of the State and government vis-à-vis religions and worldviews; (2) secu-
larism as a worldview alternative to religions; and (3) secularism as criticism of,
and activism against, religion. The first two dimensions are have particular illu-
strations in each country. Whereas the French Republic is secular in the sense that
secularism is a part of its Constitutional order, the Belgian monarchy is pluralistic:
66 J.-P. Willaime

secularism, regarded as ‘organized secularism’, is identified with a particular philo-

sophical current that groups individuals affiliated, not along religious lines, but
along varying non-religious beliefs – freethinkers, freemasons, marxists, or other.
Two leading universities embody this pluralistic model built around pillars in
Belgium: the Free University of Belgium on the side of Freethinkers, and the
Catholic University of Leuven. As for the third dimension – criticism of religion
and its denunciation as alienation – it is equally present in both countries, but in
varying degrees and within specific organizations. Tension exists between, on the
one hand, a liberal conception of secularism conceived as fair neutrality towards
religions and atheistic philosophical convictions, and, on the other hand, a concep-
tion of secularism as emancipation from all religious spheres, a combat ideology
against religions. I believe that in the case of French secularism this last dimension
has never disappeared and resurfaces periodically, as was the case in recent years
with the “dérives sectaires” (the expression used for cult-like indoctrination and
alienation) and questions relating to Islam (Willaime 2008a). As a result, there has
been a resurgence in militant atheisms, even though this development remains
fairly limited, all things considered.

The Belgium Case

Whereas the French State does not recognize or fund any religion, the Belgian State
recognizes different religions and subsidizes them. While recognizing that “the
Belgian system draws a plain and clear distinction between the State and religion”
and “sanctions their mutual independence”, Rik Torfs (2005), of the Catholic
University of Leuven, suggests that the Belgian Sate practices an “active neutrality”
towards religions by recognizing certain faiths and funding them. The Flemish
Minister Geert Bourgeois recently explained when he opened a university confer-
ence in Ghent (Bourgeois 2010: 11): “Neutrality does not mean that public author-
ities may not entertain relations with religious or philosophical organizations. It is
not opposed to financially supporting Churches and religious or philosophical
institutions, any more than it is to subsidize the social activities of Churches and
organisations having religious or philosophical vocations”. But, of interest to us
here is the fact that, besides the six recognized denominations (Catholicism,
Protestantism, Anglicanism, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Judaism, and Islam),
the Belgian State recognizes by a law of June 21, 2002 “non-confessional philo-
sophical communities” as well. This is what in Belgium is designated as ‘organized
secularism’, and what makes the sociologist, Claude Javeau, say that secularism
represents the “seventh recognized faith” (Javeau 2005) in Belgium. In prison or the
army, one may request a chaplain who is either Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or
Muslim. . . as for a “Humanist” one (non-confessional). The Catholic University of
Leuven is a wholly public university, as is the Free University of Brussels
influenced by freethought and freemasonry. In other words, in Belgium, secularism
is not regarded as a framework embracing all society, it is treated as a non-religious
Religious and Philosophical Diversity as a Challenge for the Secularism: A. . . 67

worldview, i.e., a particular philosophical alternative equivalent to a ‘religion’.

Several have observed that the recognition in an organized form, and subsequent
financing, of secularism had the paradoxical effect of consolidating the Belgian
system of recognition and funding of religions.
The Belgian Constitution, in Article 24 (on Education), clearly provides for the
respect of philosophical or religious conceptions within private and family life in an
education system organized by linguistic community (French, Flemish, and
German):
(1) Education is free; any preventative measure is forbidden; the repression of offenses is
only governed law or decree.
The Community offers free choice to parents.
The Community organizes neutral education. Neutrality implies notably the respect of
the philosophical, ideological, or religious conceptions of parents and pupils.
The schools organized by the public authorities offer, until the end of mandatory
schooling, the choice between the teaching of one of the recognized religions and
non-denominational moral teaching.
(2) [. . .]
(3) [. . .] All pupils of school age have the right to moral or religious education at the
Community’s expense.

Well before the law of June 21, 2002 recognizing secularism alongside religions,
official schools in Belgium had provided for the organization of “philosophical
teaching” (or the teaching of worldview subjects – levensbeschouwelijke vakken –
as they say in Dutch-speaking Belgium) allowing pupils and their families to
choose between religious teaching in one of the denominations (mainly Catholic,
Protestant, Jewish, or Muslim) and “non-denominational moral teaching”. In regard
to the question of secularism, it is interesting to note at this point the somewhat
ambiguous meaning of “non-denominational moral teaching”. Does it involve
providing pupils with the lowest common denominator of moral teaching in a
pluralistic society, a sort of education in citizenship and democracy defining the
rights and duties in societies characterized by independence between the State and
religions, by human rights, and by individual freedom with respect to worldviews?
Or does it involve teaching a particular moral philosophy, that of freethought
namely? Although the subject “non-denominational moral teaching” is not termed
“secular moral teaching”, according to the association Centre d’Action Laı̈que, it
refers to libre examen (philosophical critical thinking) and is the only “contact
between secularism and youth” (Husson 2002: 36). The varying reactions in
Wallonia and Flanders are enlightening with respect to requests made by Jehova’s
Witnesses families for exemptions from “non-denominational moral teaching”, as
these families, for lack of identification with official denominations, did not wish as
a better measure to enroll their children in a non-denominational ethics course. In
Wallonia the exemption was refused on the grounds that “non-denominational
moral teaching” did not educate children in particular ethics, but in ethics common
to all. Flanders on the contrary granted the right to exemption on the grounds that
“non-denominational moral teaching” being an ethics course in freethought, the
exemption must be granted to enable families to exercise their right of free choice in
68 J.-P. Willaime

selecting religious or philosophical teachings in line with their aspirations. Through

this example, one also sees how the Belgian system poses without doubt a problem
for religious minorities too limited in their numbers to be taken into account by
organizing a course dedicated to them (Buddhists, new religious movements. . .).
Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the different philosophical courses, be
they religious or non-confessional, claim to pursue in their separate ways a common
set of objectives. Thus one may read, in a brochure published by Belgium’s French
Community Government entitled Les cours de morale et de religion - Des lieux d’é
ducation (Class courses in Ethics and Religion – Places of Education) the following
statement1:
Whether they refer to a religious experience, to the memory of a people, or to secular
culture, human beings are still faced with the same fundamental questions. Birth, life, [and]
death, still pose the same great metaphysical questions. Social inequality, denial of demo-
cracy, crimes against humanity, demand new exigencies of justice. Advancements in
technology, medicine, surgery, [and] genetics, raise new ethical issues.
Whatever values each one of us may evoke to differentiate ourselves, we wish to affirm
a few ideals that engage us in the same cause:
• The dynamics of liberation, including liberation of thought, wherever diminishment,
pauperization, oppression, or negation, of the human being is manifest
• The indefatigable pursuit of peace, fraternity, justice, friendship and love
• The development of democratic commitment through the teaching and learning of
dialogue and tolerance with a regard for differences, and mutual respect
• Education in citizenship through the recognition of, and respect for, human rights and
fundamental freedoms.
Schools must be centered on the human being. Class courses in ethics and religion are
places of education which, respectful of all particular convictions, promote integration in a
pluralistic society. Through proper educational action, they help combat indifference,
fanaticism, dogmatism, intolerance, violence, negativism, and other dehumanizing ills of
our times.

To conclude on the Belgian case and illustrate all its complexity, let us note that
the Buddhist Union of Belgium requested to be recognized in 2006, not as a
religion, but as a “non-confessional philosophy of life”. If the Buddhists joined
the freethinkers, freemasons, and rationalists, in the secular pillar, its purpose in
providing an alternative to religions would be progressively diluted. As for class
courses in non-confessional ethics, to the extent these are considered to be courses
in secular ethics, should one consider Buddhist ethics as secular ethics? The
Belgian complexity has the advantage of leading one to raise some good questions
regarding secularism. One sees this as well in the area of public funding of
‘organized secularism’, as demonstrated by Jean-François Husson and Caroline
Sägesser (2002: 50). If the State finances recognized beliefs, it should be able to
allocate resources to the different beliefs based on numerical importance. This in

1
This brochure provides at the end six contact addresses for moral education in: non-confessional
ethics (Centre d’Action Laı̈que), the Catholic religion, the Jewish religion, the Protestant religion,
the Islamic religion, and the Christian Orthodox religion.
Religious and Philosophical Diversity as a Challenge for the Secularism: A. . . 69

turn raises the daunting question: how does one count the secular segment? Would
this be all persons who identify themselves as being without religion, or solely the
declared freethinkers and militant secularists? We will return to this question from a
general sociological standpoint.

Secularism as a Non-religious Conception of Man

and the World

The question posed is what place should be given to non-religious worldviews, or to

secular humanisms, given that a certain form of secular humanism is a common
good for all, believers and non-believers alike (i.e., secularism is not exclusive to
secular humanists/secularists), and that agnostic and atheist convictions may and
should be accounted for if they are socially organized. This may occur via secularist
organizations as in Belgium, or through the possibility, as in Germany, for commu-
nities holding non-religious conceptions (Weltanschaungsgemeinschaften) to
incorporate themselves legally (as for religions). The alternatives appear to be
either to promote the organization of secular humanisms, to recognize and integrate
them alongside religions as secular worldviews advocated by secularist groups or
organizations, or to consider more or less implicitly that secular humanism and its
secularist activists represent a vision more universal and common – in which case
religious conceptions would be forcibly denied a universal dimension. At the risk
therefore, in the latter case, of considering that secular humanism would be the
philosophy embracing all society while religious humanisms would represent
particular views, whereas it might be argued that secular humanism is also a
particular view and that the common and universal humanism which Europe refers
to is richly endowed with both ‘secular inheritance’ and ‘religious inheritance’.
This is why I suggested using the terms, insofar as the French language is
concerned, humanisme laı̈que and laı̈cité to designate the common frame of refer-
ence for religious followers and secularists alike, and the framework for harmoni-
ous living in a pluralistic Europe. One finds again here two very distinct
conceptions of secularism as laicity: laicity as a common good for believers and
non-believers alike, and laicity as an alternative to religions, as a secular worldview
held by organizations and advocates who propone it (rationalist activists, free-
thinkers, secularists). If both expressions of laicity exist and each has its legitimacy,
European laicity can only be all-embracing, integrating all sources of humanism,
whether secular or religious. In this sense, one may say that European humanism is
more laı̈que than it is secular: it is neither the sole prerogative of secularists nor that
of the religious, precisely because it integrates both religious humanisms and
secular humanisms.2 From this viewpoint, it is also important to be rigorous and

2
To speak of humanisme laı̈que in French thus has the advantage of encompassing secular
humanisms and religious humanisms by considering that secularist conceptions of man and the
70 J.-P. Willaime

accurate in the manner of wielding statistics on the religious affiliations of

Europeans. In surveys, persons who define themselves as “without religion” may
not ipso facto be regarded as as secular humanists, as if these individuals were
secular activists for the very fact that they declared themselves as being “without
religion”. The tag of ‘secular humanist’ should therefore, from this standpoint, be
reserved for declared atheists or agnostics. But, as Jacqueline Watson (2010: 15)
observes, “taking a general approach to secular worldviews leaves the way open to
explore a range of non-religious worldviews and the insights of different agnostic
and atheistic ‘insiders’. While two-thirds of young people in Britain may refer to
themselves as non-religious (Department for Education and Skills 2004, 10–11),
few will be members of the British Humanist Association (BHA), yet, in most
syllabuses that include secular worldviews, BHA humanism speaks as the
authorative voice”.3 Hubert Dethier (1985: 31), in a study on “Freethought, free-
masonry and secular movements” in Belgium, notes that “there is a great difference
between the number of people belonging to no church and the number of those who
participate in freethinkers’ associations”. Being non-religious is not enough to be a
freethinker, it is not a zero sum distribution. Persons who declare themselves
without religion or without particular philosophical identification should rather be
considered as indifferent individuals without any identifiable conviction, neither
religious nor philosophical. The question is all the more relevant as the line is fine
and porous between “doubting believers” who identify themselves as Catholic,
Protestant, Muslim, or from other religions, and “believing doubters” who identify
themselves as “without religion” while adhering to varying creeds and being
interested in spiritual questions. Secularism as a secular philosophical conception
alternative to religions may not be taken into account unless it demonstrates itself
through an organization and a social base of members.

Towards an European Secularism?

In Europe, secularism incorporating religious recognition prevails. In other words,

while it respects the mutual independence of the State and religions, and seeks to
safeguard the fundamental principles of freedom and non-discrimination which are
implied, European secularism recognizes the social, educational and civic contri-
butions of religions and convictions, and integrates them as a result in the public
sphere.

world represent, along with religions, worldviews among others. It also has the advantage of
corresponding with the Anglo-Saxon conception which identifies as secular humanists advocates
of secular worldviews. Secularism as laı̈cité, I insist, is not and should not be the prerogative of
secularists, nor be identified unilaterally with a secular worldview. It is a common good for atheists
and believers, it is intrinsically neither anti-religious nor pro-religious.
3
Jacqueline Watson refers to the Department for Education and Skills Report: Young people in
Britain: The attitudes and experiences of 12 to 19 year olds (2004).
Religious and Philosophical Diversity as a Challenge for the Secularism: A. . . 71

With respect to secularism/laı̈cité, European integration essentially has two

consequences. To begin with, it strengthens the judicial means of recourse
( judiciarisation) of secularism and its inscription in the register of human rights
and fundamental principles of liberal and pluralistic democracies, regardless of
legal regimes governing faiths, and religious particularities, by country. It is the
success of secularism and its acceptance as a commonplace standard (banalisation).
The role played by the European Convention on Human Rights in this regard is far
from negligible. The fundamental principles of secularism have been generally
‘consecrated’ at the European level, while they remain respectful of varying types
of church-state relationships prevailing in each country. Otherwise, in the manner
that religions and philosphical convictions are organized opposite European insti-
tutions in Brussels, secularism is mostly regarded as a particular philosophical
conception (freethought, astheist humanisms) that stands alongside religious world-
views, and not as a higher ideology embracing all religions (along the Belgian-
Dutch model resting on pillars where the secular world is established as a particular
segment of society next to religious worlds). Non-religious beliefs are represented
by the European Humanist Federation. By dissociating these two aspects of
secularism, the Europeanization process would conceivably marginalize the French
model of laı̈cité, if such were ever to remain rigid, which is not at all the case. While
it incorporates the French model and widely institutionalizes it via ‘judiciarization’
and secularization, European construction also contributes to the emergence of
recognition of the secular humanist current as a particular alternative, rather, to
different religions. In some respects, the Europeanization process reinforces the
Belgian conception of secularism as a particular philosophical option. Hence, in
some respects, the Belgian model is the one which is spreading at European level.
By the same token, despite the periodic revival of a certain current in French laicism
particularly mistrustful of religion, notably in reaction to sectarian problems and
fanaticism in Islam, French practices are becoming more ‘Europeanized’ by evol-
ving towards a secularism incorporating social recognition of religions (see
Willaime 2005, 2008 and Portier 2003, 2008).
In the ultramodern age of modernity, it is no longer the head-on collision
between secular and religious magisterial authorities in society that most defines
the situation, but the reconfiguration of religious and political spheres in dis-
enchanted societies. Jürgen Habermas (2001), for his part, speaks of “secularization
in a post-secular society”. We are thus brought to ask ourselves what is happening
both with religion in European “post-Christian societies”, and with secular convic-
tions in “post-secular societies”. The secular and the religious alike are in motion: it
is more necessary than ever to break the illusion of an impenetrable line between
the two spheres. ‘Hypersecularization’ of contemporary society invites us to a
reappraise the role and resources of religious convictions, even as we hold the
fundamental benefits of secularism to be the common good for believers and
non-believers alike. From this perspective, religious and secular worldviews appear
as resources of conviction, identity and ethics, whose role in furthering social
coexistence (vivre-ensemble) should be recognized.
72 J.-P. Willaime

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The Diversity of Religious Diversity. Using
Census and NCS Methodology in Order
to Map and Assess the Religious Diversity of a
Whole Country

Christophe Monnot and Jörg Stolz

Introduction

Questions of religious diversity and pluralism are of great importance in Western

societies and policies of diversity and pluralism must be based on a thorough
empirical knowledge (Beckford 2003; Heelas and Woodhead 2005b). It is therefore
no wonder that a large number of diversity and mapping studies have emerged in
recent years. These often local, regional and qualitative studies have greatly
extended our knowledge about questions of religious diversity and pluralism, but
they are also plagued by various problems. They often study only small areas,
give limited quantitative information about the religious groups, have limited
comparability across religious traditions, treat only certain types of diversity and
are mainly descriptive.
This chapter claims that studying religious diversity can be improved by using a
combination of census and national congregations study (NCS) methodology. With
this methodology, it is possible to study religious diversity in a comprehensive way
across all religious traditions and in its organizational, geographic, structural, and
cultural dimensions. We exemplify this claim by presenting both the state of the art
of mapping studies in Switzerland and the added-value of the results produced by
the first study with our research design in Switzerland and – for that matter – in
Europe.

C. Monnot (*) • J. Stolz

Institute of Social Sciences of Religion, University of Lausanne, Anthropole, CH – 1015
Lausanne, Switzerland
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

G. Giordan and E. Pace (eds.), Religious Pluralism, 73

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06623-3_6, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
74 C. Monnot and J. Stolz

In what follows, we first comment on the state of the art and then describe our
new methodology in order to present a study using this framework to describe
various types of religious diversity in Switzerland.

State of the Art

Terminology: Diversity and Pluralism

We make a distinction between a descriptive and a normative way of dealing with

questions of religious diversity (Bouma 1997; Stolz and Baumann 2007).1 Reli-
gious plurality or diversity is used when describing a state of affairs in a value-
neutral way. This plurality or diversity can be analyzed in organizational, geo-
graphic, structural, cultural (or other) dimensions. Religious pluralism, on the other
hand, refers to normative ideas about the value of religious diversity; frameworks
that accommodate and regulate religious diversity; or everyday interactions
between individuals and groups in settings of religious diversity (Beckford 1999,
2003). In this chapter, we only look at the various dimensions of religious diversity
– leaving the description of religious pluralism to other publications.

Religious Diversity

In what follows, we give a state of the art concerning the different types of studies
that can be found on religious diversity in Switzerland (for an overview see
Baumann and Stolz 2007; Bochinger 2012). Our goal is to use these studies as a
backdrop to the kind of information we may obtain from the methodology we
propose in this chapter. While we give the most important literature on Switzerland,
we only point to some outstanding international literature on religious diversity.
A first type of publications consists of general overviews of religious diversity.
In such publications, various religious traditions are treated, often in an “egalitar-
ian” manner, describing the religious, cultural, structural and geographic attributes
of different religions and religious groups. A Swiss example of such a publication is
Baumann and Stolz (2007). This book also includes chapters on the historical
development of religious diversity in Switzerland as well as on the relationship
between religious diversity and various “societal subsystems”. A second example is
the book by Bochinger (2012) reviewing the results of National Research Program
58. Books of this kind normally rely on secondary sources; their comparisons, while
interesting, are of limited depth. Often, several experts on different religious

1
See for a more general treatment of “diversity”: Salzbrunn (2012).
The Diversity of Religious Diversity. Using Census and NCS Methodology in. . . 75

traditions collaborate to publish such a book, leading to a pooled expertise, but also
creating specific problems (see below). Well-known international publications of
this kind are Eck (2001) for the USA, Bouma et al. (2010) for Asia and Australasia,
Ferrari and Pastorelli (2012), Pollack (2008), Vertovec (2007) and Willaime (2004)
for European countries.
Second, we find publications using official statistical data. Authors of such texts
use various official statistical sources in order to describe religious diversity. In
Switzerland, Bovay (1997) is such a text, providing information on religious
membership since 1900, based on Swiss census data. Husistein (2007) is another
example, using official Catholic statistics in order to shed light on internal Catholic
diversity.
Third, there are so-called mapping studies. Authors of such studies normally
work on a limited geographic area, try to locate all the existing places of worship for
a single religious tradition or for several or all of the traditions, and visit these
places or conduct a qualitative description of the places and communities found. In
Switzerland, we find such mapping studies for the city of Zurich (Humbert 2004),
the city of Basel (Baumann 2000), and the canton of Ticino (Trisconi di Bernardi
2006). A project at the University of Lucerne continually maps religious diversity
in the canton of Lucerne2 and Rademacher (2007) has mapped spiritual groups and
new religious movements in the city of Bern. Such mapping studies are extremely
useful in getting a sense of the sheer complexity of groups in a certain area. On an
international level, one of the first important studies of this type is that directed by
Cnaan in Philadelphia. This contributed to the identification of 2,095 different
communities in this city (Cnaan and Boddie 2001). In the United States, other
surveys were subsequently conducted, such as the one by the United Way of
Delaware, which inventoried 100 communities in Wilmington (Cnaan and
Wineburg 2009) or the one made in a county of Michigan: the Kent County
Congregations Study (KCCS), which identified 720 groups in this area (Hernández
et al. 2008). In Europe, two groundbreaking projects based on congregation map-
ping must be mentioned. The first was conducted in England at Kendal, a town of
fewer than 30,000 inhabitants, by Heelas, Woodhead and their collaborators, who
visited the groups that they defined as the “congregational domain” and those of the
“holistic milieu” (Heelas and Woodhead 2005a, b; Woodhead et al. 2004). Hero,
Krech, and their collaborators conducted another large scale project in Germany to
identify the religious communities in the state of West Rhine-Westphalia (Hero
et al. 2008). Other surveys have been or are now in process in European cities, such
as Turku in Finland (Heino 1997; Martikainen 2004); the Aarhus area in Denmark
(Ahlin et al. 2012)3; or again in Great Britain in the context of the Community
Religion Project.4

2
http://www.religionenlu.ch
3
http://teo.au.dk/en/csr/religionindenmark/
4
http://arts.leeds.ac.uk/crp/
76 C. Monnot and J. Stolz

A fourth kind of text analyzes the evolution of religious diversity concerning

specific religious traditions, often in regards to migration. In Switzerland, we find
many such studies. Some examples are the studies by Baumann (2004, 2009) on the
Tamil and Hindu diasporas in Switzerland, the texts by Behloul (2012a, b) on
Muslims from the former Yugoslavia in Switzerland or the work edited by Monnot
(2013a) on the institutionalization of Muslim organizations. Well-known inter-
national studies include the survey by Knott (2009) on Hinduism in Great Britain,
the book by Kay and Dyer (2011) on European Pentecostalism, and the studies on
the transformations and influences of Islam in Europe (Al-Azmeh and Fokas 2007;
Frégosi 2008; Göle 2011).

General Problems and Issues

We think that both the Swiss and the international studies mentioned have been
very useful and have greatly extended our knowledge of religious diversity. How-
ever, there are a certain number of shortcomings in many of them. While the first
two types mentioned – general overviews and official statistics – give an overall
picture of religious diversity, their comparisons are often very limited and lack a
certain depth. This depth is often found in the third and fourth types – the mapping
studies and the combination of studies concerning specific traditions – but these
studies have at least four other drawbacks:
1. They normally study a relatively small geographic region. Emerging from them
is an overall picture rather like Google maps: certain areas are very precise, with
a wealth of ethnographic data, while other areas are very pixilated. Some cities
or neighborhoods are richly documented while others are not investigated at all,
thus limiting a general representation of the situation.
2. Limited quantitative information. Many mapping studies are inherently quali-
tative, often relying on participant observation, interviews and documentary
analysis. While this is certainly very useful information, many interesting
questions about religious diversity require quantitative measures that are con-
sistently applied to all the studied groups.
3. Limited comparability. This third point is linked to the second. When different
religious groups are investigated with qualitative methods by different
researchers, the results are often difficult to compare. They are rarely based on
the same definitions of the object of study, which is here the religious commu-
nity. We also find in quite a few mapping studies that experts on certain religions
collaborate, each expert working on “his” or “her” religion. However, the
problem then arises that the ways in which the religious traditions are studied
vary, because different experts adopt different positions, requiring distinctive
methodologies. Of course, this leads – once again – to limited comparability
among religious traditions.
The Diversity of Religious Diversity. Using Census and NCS Methodology in. . . 77

4. Inapplicability to different types of diversity. It also appears that existing map-

ping studies often treat only certain types of diversity, while neglecting others. It
is rare that organizational, geographic, structural, and cultural diversity are
investigated systematically across religious traditions.
5. Inability to lead to theory testing. Finally, mapping studies are normally purely
descriptive, refraining from an explanation of the regularities observed. This is
due, on the one hand, to the methodological inclinations of the researchers; on
the other hand, however, it is also true that the data gathered from mapping
studies are seldom structured and complete enough to allow for systematic
explanation.
Our claim in this chapter is that a number of problems of all four types of studies
may be overcome – at least in part – with the methodology presented here. We of
course do not suggest that all studies on religious diversity should be abandoned in
order to do national congregations studies. Rather, we think that the study here
presented complements the existing ones very usefully, putting the latter into a
larger context and rendering scattered information comparable.

A New Approach: The NCS Method

To gain an overview with parameters permitting the sociological comparison of

local groups and communities, an important 3-year study was carried out in
Switzerland. Modeled on the survey of the NCS (conducted in the United States
in 1997–1998, and then conducted in a second wave in 2006–2007 under the
direction of Chaves (2004; Chaves and Anderson 2008), a major study has recently
been set up in Switzerland (Stolz et al. 2011). A notable difference with the
American study resides in the fact that, in Switzerland, a mapping of all the active
congregations has been undertaken.

Defining and Operationalizing Congregations

We define the term “congregation” as: “a social institution in which individuals

who are not all religious specialists gather in physical proximity to one another,
frequently and at regularly scheduled intervals, for activities and events with
explicitly religious content and purpose, and in which there is continuity over
time in the individuals who gather, the location of the gathering, and the nature
of the activities and events at each gathering. This distinguishes congregations from
other religious social forms such as monasteries or denominational agencies, which
are constituted mainly, perhaps exclusively, by religious specialists; religious
television and radio productions, whose audiences are not in physical proximity
to one another; seasonal celebrations, holiday gatherings, and other religious
78 C. Monnot and J. Stolz

assemblies that may occur at regular but infrequent intervals; rites of passage,
corroborees, and other events that occur neither frequently nor at regular intervals;
and camp meetings, post-game prayer circles, pilgrimages, religious rock concerts,
passion plays, revivals, and other religious social forms that lack continuity across
gatherings in participants, location, or content of activities” (Chaves 2004: 1–2).
This definition covers the groups historically established in Europe, as well as those
in the process of implantation; it does not differentiate groups according to a
typology, but as specific organizational units regardless of the denomination, the
religious tradition or the cultural history of the group.
But is it really possible to apply the notion of “congregation” to non-Christian
religions? Here, it is important to bear in mind the exact definition given above. In
our view, Christianity, Judaism and Islam may clearly be seen as congregational in
modern societies, but even religious traditions that elsewhere are not organized
congregationally, such as Hindu traditions or Buddhism, tend to take this form
when they try to survive in the diaspora in Western countries. As Ammerman
(2005: 3) noticed: “there are common patterns in how people have chosen to
gather”. The organization of the diaspora pushes religious expression in a congre-
gational direction. This trend was first called “de facto congregationalism” by Wind
and Lewis (1994). In Europe, the specialists have identified the same tendency
towards a “congregationalization” or a “templeisation” as an effect of the diasporas.
For example, Baumann observes that “Tamil Hindus in Germany and Switzerland
have been eager to establish collective places of worship, starting with small sites in
basements and private rooms, and gradually moving on to much more spacious
halls for worship and social gatherings” (Baumann 2009: 166). Thus, we argue that
we find in many religious traditions “local communities” or “congregations” as we
have defined them above, and that it is feasible to include them in our compre-
hensive list, if they conform to the definition.

Conducting a Census

We conducted a census from September 2008 to September 2009, counting all local
religious groups in Switzerland. This was done by combining all sources of
information we could find, such as:
– existing lists of local religious groups by Churches and Federations
– existing lists (published or not) by scholars of religion
– existing lists appearing on institutional internet sites, directories or databases
– data collected from the terrain with, notably, snowball sampling and indications
from informers within the religious milieus.
We combined all this information, finely filtering the types of organizations so as to
identify only the local religious groups (congregations). Each entry on the final list
was checked by two independent sources of information.
The Diversity of Religious Diversity. Using Census and NCS Methodology in. . . 79

Of course, a certain number of hybrid phenomena exist and, accordingly, we had

to develop specific rules of decision for “difficult cases” (Marzi 2008). These rules
were based partly on the criteria to distinguish a religious organization described by
Jeavons (1998) and the definition of religion given in Stolz (2010: 7).

Conducting a Representative Survey of Congregations

In the second phase of our study, we drew a representative sample of 1,040 religious
communities in Switzerland, starting from the census report. The existence of the
census data allowed us to stratify our sample and to overrepresent religious
minority groups. This is why our data let us compare local religious groups across
both majority and minority traditions. For every chosen congregation, one key
informant (in most cases the spiritual leader) was interviewed by telephone
(CATI) in one of the three national languages. A closed question questionnaire
was used that was adapted from the American counterpart (Chaves and Anderson
2008).5 Special care was taken to adapt the questionnaire to Swiss conditions and
the whole range of religious traditions.
In order to avoid well-known types of bias in key informant studies, the
approximately 250 questions were centered on concrete and verifiable practices
as well as on the tangible characteristics of the organization for which the respon-
dent could provide reliable information (Chaves et al. 1999: 463–465; McPherson
and Rotolo 1995: 1114). The various religious federations supported the project by
encouraging the local leaders to take part in the inquiry, thus producing a response
rate of 71.8 %.6

Assessing the Diversity of Religious Diversity:

Organizational, Geographic, Structural, and
Cultural Comparisons

In what follows, we show that the combination of a census and a NCS is able to
capture social/organizational, geographic, and cultural diversity in a comprehensive
way, thus avoiding the “Google map problem” of only selective precision. We
illustrate these claims with various examples.

5
For the adaptation of the questionnaire, we refer to Behling and Law (2000); Forsyth et al. (2007).
6
The response rates correspond to RR1 calculated according to the standards defined by the
AAPOR (2011).
80 C. Monnot and J. Stolz

Organizational Diversity: 5,734 Congregations

Our data allows us to give exact statistical information on the number and percent-
ages of local religious groups in Switzerland, that is, social/organizational diversity
(Table 1). From September 2008 to September 2009, we identified 5,734 local
religious groups active on the Swiss territory. The census survey lets us first observe
Christian diversity. We counted 1,750 Catholic communities (30.5 %) and 1,094
Reformed parishes (19.1 %). 1,423 congregations are Evangelical, representing
one-quarter of the local groups. All other Christian traditions have a much smaller
percentage of local religious groups. The one big surprise in this list is the very high
number of Evangelical congregations. The evangelical milieu in Switzerland makes
up only about 2–3 % of the population, but it produces about a quarter of all
congregations! The obvious explanation is that Evangelical local groups are all
rather small in comparison to, say, Roman Catholic or Reformed groups.
Almost one out of five communities in Switzerland (17 %) has its roots in a
tradition that is not Christian. If one-third is linked to Islam (5.5 %),7 let us highlight
the internal diversity of these groups: they include Sunni communities (Hanefites,
Malechites, Hanbalites, Shafiites); Sufi communities; Shi’as of various traditions
such as the Alevis, the Ismaelians, etc.; and a number of groups considered as
dissident by Sunni Islam, such as the Ahmadiyya, who built the first mosque in
Switzerland in Zurich, and the Abashes, who have the main mosque in Lausanne
(Monnot 2013a: 33).
For the other non-Christian collectivities, the groups are very varied, too. For
Buddhism (2.5 %), let us note that the first Tibetan monastery in Europe was
founded in Switzerland, at Rikon, then a second near Montreux. Both the traditional
Buddhist currents (Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana, Zen) and the neo-Buddhist
ones are present in communities in Switzerland. The same is true of Hinduism
(3.3 %), with both the traditional groups, such as the Tamil temples, and the
Neo-Hindu groups, such as Hare Krishna (ISKON, six groups), Yoga (Sahaja,
self-realization, etc. 0.5 %), and Transcendental Meditation (0.2 %). We also
count groupings of Sikhs (0.8 %), Baha’is (0.7 %), as well as various communities
(4.5 %) including esoteric groups (1.1 %), Spiritualism (0,8 %), Scientology
(0.5 %), six circles of Grail movement and many more besides.

Geographic Diversity: The Urban-Rural Gap

Our methodology can also describe the geographic religious diversity in Switzer-
land. Geographical religious diversity is not distributed homogeneously over the
national territory; it mainly concerns the cities. This can be seen, first, by looking at
common measures of diversity on the basis of the number and size of different

7
For one-half of the regular non-Christian worshipers.
The Diversity of Religious Diversity. Using Census and NCS Methodology in. . . 81

Table 1 Distribution of Congregations in Switzerland (2008)

congregations by religious
tradition Religious tradition N %
Roman Catholic 1,750 30.5 %
Christ Catholic 35 0.6 %
Reformed 1,094 19.1 %
Evangelical 1,423 24.8 %
Orthodox 58 1.0 %
Other Christian 399 7.0 %
Jewish 33 0.6 %
Muslim 315 5.5 %
Buddhist 142 2.5 %
Hindu 189 3.3 %
Other religions 296 5.2 %
Total 5,734 100.0 %
Source: NCS, University of Lausanne 2008

traditions. Using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, we find that the supply of

congregations is “moderately concentrated” with an index at 2035.
Second, we see that cities are also much more diverse in that they have the most
non-Christian and non-established groups (Fig. 1). In the cities, we find 31 % of
non-Christian groups: Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, New Religious Move-
ments and others 11 % of Other Christians (e.g. Lutherans, Anglicans, messianic
congregations: Jehovah’s Witnesses, Latter Day Saints, New-Apostolics, etc.) and
32 % of Evangelicals – leaving only 26 % to the established Christian groups. In
rural areas, on the other hand, we find only relatively small percentages of
non-Christians (5 %), other Christians (5 %) and Evangelicals (17 %). 74 % of all
the groups belong to the established Churches: Roman Catholics and Reformed.
The rural areas show a traditional profile, with an important supply (in relation to
the number of inhabitants) in the two historical denominations. The more urban is
the geographic space, the greater is the diversity. In the city, on the one hand,
Christianity is fragmented into small groups of different denominations and, on the
other, non-Christian communities can find room to become established. Several
reasons for these disparities can be cited. Historically in Switzerland, the city was
the most suitable place for the Reformation, opening the door to Protestant diver-
sity. More recently, the city has been the favored environment for migration
(Wihtol de Wenden 2004). Since the beginnings of the Chicago School with
The City by Park et al. (1925) or – as far as migration and religious communities
are concerned – The Ghetto by Wirth (1928), we know that the city plays a
central role in the absorption of migration. With our methodology, we can measure
the impact on religious diversity and thus better understand the disparities in order
to document the different dynamics that stem from it.
82 C. Monnot and J. Stolz

Fig. 1 Types of denominations according to the urban/rural characteristics of the areas (Source:
NCS, University of Lausanne 2008)

Structural Diversity: Buildings, Wealth and Staff, Membership

Our methodology also lets us analyze religious diversity in the social/structural

dimension. This dimension is often neglected in texts on religious diversity.
However, it is of utmost sociological importance. In our study, we were able to
reduce the complexity of religious groups to four large profiles: the recognized
communities, the non-recognized Christian communities, the non-Christian congre-
gationalist communities and “spiritual” groups organized as networks.
These different profiles were arrived at by inductive analysis of various kinds –
but they can best be presented as following from three distinctions (Monnot 2013b)
(Fig. 2).
First, we distinguish local religious groups that are established (State recog-
nized) from those that are not established. In the first group, we find Reformed and
Catholic churches. They enjoy a public recognition in most cantons (the exact
effects of recognition vary)8 and their local groups enjoy administrative, legal and
fiscal advantages that the other groups do not have.
Second, and among the non-established groups, we distinguish those that are
Christian and those that belong to other religious traditions. Historically, the
associative forms of Western society have influenced the Christian institutions.

8
See for the details: Pahud de Mortanges (2007) In some cantons, other religions may also be
recognized.
The Diversity of Religious Diversity. Using Census and NCS Methodology in. . . 83

Fig. 2 Four structural profiles (Source: NCS, University of Lausanne 2008)

Third, and among the non-Christian groups, we distinguish on the one hand
groups whose religious traditions are based on a collective and organized ritual such
as the Jews and the Muslims, the Buddhist temples, the Hindu temples connected
with the diaspora (Baumann 2009; Baumann et al. 2003; Knott 2009) and, on the
other hand, groups favoring networks and an alternative and individual spirituality,
close to that which Heelas and Woodhead (2005a) have named the “holistic
milieu”.
Together, the three nested distinctions thus lead us to the four profiles that we
will now briefly describe. Our claim is that these four profiles make sense of much
of the structural diversity of local religious groups in Switzerland. As Table 2
shows, the first is constituted by the historical, majority and state-recognized
Churches, founded on average before the seventeenth century. The communities
of this category meet in dedicated religious buildings that, very often, they own
(or have the right to use) and that benefit from historic preservation. These groups
have many members; they have a high income and provide their university-
educated leader with a comfortable salary, full-time in three-fourths of cases. The
worshipers meet in a community close to their homes. The audience there is old and
much feminized. An interesting aspect to point out here is the relatively low rate of
education/awareness training of the children in the community context. This rate
reflects the strong institutionalization of the groups rather than a weak following
among the youth. In fact, their status allows them, in more than one-third of cases,
to provide religious education within the school system. Moreover, the parishes are
84 C. Monnot and J. Stolz

Table 2 Four large institutional profiles

Non-
Recognized recognized Non-Christian Non-Christian
Mean Churches Churches group type network type
History and Building
Founded (year) 1690 1940 1975 1984
Historic preservation of the 74 % 17 % 20 % 7%
building
Religious building 98 % 59 % 35 % 6%
Rent premises for religious 3 % 34 % 46 % 64 %
practice
Wealth and Staff
Annual income of the con- 850’000 220’000 110’000 13’000
gregation (CHF)
Annual salary of the leader 91’000 42’000 24’000 0
(full-time in CHF)
Paid spiritual leader 98 % 62 % 43 % 4%
Full-time spiritual leader 70 % 45 % 32 % 0%
Paid staff (part and full- 7 2 2 0
time)
University education of the 98 % 60 % 63 % 15 %
leader
Age of the leader (years) 51 49 47 54
% of female spiritual leaders 12 % 8% 9% 50 %
Members
Affiliated members (theo- 1,400 75 270 16
retic mediana)
Regular attendants (median) 90 80 60 15
Female regular attendants 66 % 57 % 42 % 64 %
Regular attendants aged 58 % 29 % 22 % 20 %
60 and more
Source: NCS, University of Lausanne 2008
a
Estimate of the number of affiliated persons identified in Switzerland (Bovay 2004) calculated
from the number of persons having a “link” to a congregation (NCS, University of Lausanne 2008)

interlinked with the Churches that organize or centralize certain services such as
catechism.
The non-recognized Christian congregations were mostly founded in the nine-
teenth and twentieth century (mean: 1940). A little more than one-third of the
groups rent their premises because they do not possess any. The annual income of
the communities is four times lower than that of the recognized Churches. The
spiritual leaders work as volunteers in four communities out of ten and a little less
than half are employed full-time for a salary of about 42,000 CHF.9 In six cases out
of ten, the leaders have had a university education. In these groups, the median
number of regular worshipers corresponds to the number of affiliated persons,

9
CHF: Swiss Francs. The average Swiss salary is 60,000 CHF (FSO 2012: 19).
The Diversity of Religious Diversity. Using Census and NCS Methodology in. . . 85

indicating thereby that a member is almost automatically an active person in the

community, which is not the case for members of the recognized congregations.
The members must travel a little further to practice, but the majority nevertheless
resides less than 10 min away. Contrary to the preceding group, the local commu-
nity strongly organizes the religious education of the children.
The profile of non-Christian groups based on a collective ritual resembles that of
the non-recognized Christian communities, since legally they are on the same level.
However, the non-Christian congregations are distinguished by a greater instability
and recency of the group with a strong foreign presence: only one celebration out of
five is given in the language of the linguistic region. Founded on average late in the
twentieth century, these communities, in four cases out of ten, do not own premises
in which to meet. The average income is circa 110,000 CHF and one-third remune-
rates a spiritual leader. Another point to bring out is their relative similarity with the
recognized Churches regarding the number of affiliated members, very much higher
than that of the regular worshipers, since the latter represent about one-fifth of the
affiliated. A particularity to note here is the relatively high proportion of men who
regularly attend the religious ceremonies. This element depends on traditions and
theological elements, in Islam and in Judaism, which strongly differentiate religious
practices according to gender.
The final profile assembles smaller, more recent groups, meeting in premises
that are “not religious”, sometimes in centers shared by several groups (alternative
spirituality). Their leadership is mainly voluntary since only one group out of ten
provides a leader with a salary, and is strongly feminized since a woman directs
almost one group out of two. The latter point distinguishes these groups very clearly
from the others, since only the recognized Churches and especially the Reformed
Church have more than one group out of ten with a female spiritual leader. In
groups of the holistic milieu, the number of affiliated members corresponds to that
of the regular members, who travel much more than do members of the other groups
to get to the place where the main spiritual activities occur. The members, who are
mostly adult women, attend these groups in order to experience well-being, develop
their personality, and grow spiritually. In this sense, another important point to
highlight is that the communities of this category are clearly distinguishable from
the others by the absence of the transmission to and education of children. The
center of attention is thus the adult member. This category corresponds, at the
institutional level, to the “holistic milieu” of Heelas and Woodhead (2005a) or
Mayer (1993).

Cultural Diversity: Worship Modalities

Our methodology further lets us compare the groups on the cultural level. Qualitative
studies often analyze this type of diversity, but seldom succeed in comparing it across
religious traditions; in quantitative studies, cultural diversity is rarely measured.
86 C. Monnot and J. Stolz

In the following, we show religious diversity concerning celebrations across religious

traditions.
As could have been expected, religious celebrations in Switzerland vary greatly
according to religious traditions – our methodology, however, lets us estimate for
the first time just how much they differ on both a number of general dimensions and
very specific attributes.
Take, for example, the length of the religious service. In Fig. 3 we see that
Roman Catholics have, on average, the shortest religious services (54 min), while
Orthodox groups clearly have the longest services (more than 200 min on average).
Other religious traditions fall between these extremes. However, we can compare
not only the absolute length of the religious service – but also the relative length of
various internal components. Thus, we can see from Fig. 3 that Reformed services
are much shorter than Orthodox services – but that they give the same amount of
absolute time to the sermon – about 15–16 min. Another way to say this is that the
sermon is relatively more important to the Reformed tradition. Again, this is what
we would have expected – but here we can (we think for the first time) estimate the
differences.
Let us go a bit deeper into the description of the four domains of ritual elements
that we distinguish in religious services across traditions:

Prayer

Concerning meditation, prayer and liturgical acts, the non-Christian groups

distinguish themselves by a major portion for this type of element, which repre-
sents more than 50 % of the time of celebration. For the Christians, this element
also remains close to one-half of the celebration time. The groups with Protestant
roots spend less time on ritual and on prayer, but more on preaching. This is the
opposite for the Roman Catholics or the Christian Catholics. For the Orthodox, let
us point out further that the priest accomplishes a major part of the ritual by
singing, thus blending two elements that remain much more separate in the other
denominations.

Music

The portion of music is also very diverse. The Christian groups all spend between
20 and 30 % of the celebration time on music (with the exception of Orthodox
worship with more than 60 % of the celebration sung). On the other hand, for the
non-Christian communities the time for singing or music is minor, since the
groups generally do not sing for more than 10 % of the celebration time, with
the exception of the Jewish groups; Hindus, who devote 40 min to music and
The Diversity of Religious Diversity. Using Census and NCS Methodology in. . . 87

average in minutes)

Fig. 3 Time of prayer, music, sermon and fellowship for 13 religious categories (average in
minutes) (Source: NCS, University of Lausanne 2008)

singing per celebration; and the Sufi fellowships (included in the Muslim
category).10

Sermon

The sermon, for all the groups, is the shortest part of their celebration. Two poles
emerge, however, with groups where the time for the sermon is marginal and those
where it nevertheless represents an important part of the ritual. At one pole, the
Baha’i have only a brief address of about 1 min on average; Catholic priests speak
for 6 min; Jewish rabbis 12 min, etc. At the other pole are the groups sprung from

10
The Muslims sing from 1 to 2 min in their celebration if we take the call to prayer into account.
For many Muslims, the practice of music is forbidden (which is not the case for singing). The
average for the denominational category is higher than these few minutes because of the Sufi
fellowships.
88 C. Monnot and J. Stolz

Protestantism, where preaching takes on a central character and occupies slightly

less than one-third of the celebration time.

Fellowship

Concerning fellowship, it is notable that the longer the ceremony is, the more time
the worshipers spend together. An Orthodox Christian who has just spent an
average of two and a half hours in praise spends another hour with his or her
coreligionists in informal discussion. At the other extreme, Catholics who have
spent on average 54 min in the celebration spend only slightly more than a quarter
of an hour in fellowship. The length of the celebration and that of the time spent
informally by the worshipers indicates the type of community. For the groups with a
population with a strong immigrant background, the community represents an
important center for networking. The celebration is longer, with a greater formal
and informal participation of the members. For the others, the celebration is
primarily a practice before being a community of fellowship.
Using simple and comparable elements, we can thus analyze and compare –
apart from any theological considerations – the cultural production of very diverse
religious traditions. In principle – for lack of space we do not go into these questions
here – it is also possible to then explain these differences through various cultural,
structural, and historical factors.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have shown that existing problems and issues when studying
religious diversity may be tackled with a new methodology that combines a full
census and a national congregation study (NCS). Our claim has been that when this
method is used, all religious traditions may be compared in a great many dimen-
sions of religious diversity and in an extended geographic region. The data thus
gathered may illuminate both diversity and pluralism and allow for both description
and explanation of the phenomena observed. The study we have described has
analyzed the organizational, geographic, structural, and cultural diversity, as well as
aspects of the religious pluralism, of the whole range of religious traditions in
Switzerland. This study has led to an entire set of original results, hitherto never
observed. Our focus in this chapter has been to present the methodology and some
exemplary results. Further publications will present these results in much more
depth and will describe various contexts. We hope that other researchers will follow
up on this methodology in order to complement all local and regional mapping
studies with such national investigations, thus completing our knowledge of the
fascinating topic of the diversity of religious diversity.
The Diversity of Religious Diversity. Using Census and NCS Methodology in. . . 89

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Increasing Religious Diversity in a Society
Monopolized by Catholicism

Enzo Pace

Introduction

Because of the flow of many people coming from 180 countries around the world, to
what extent is the Catholic monopoly in Italy challenged by an increasing degree of
religious diversity? Roughly speaking, the question concerns the relation between
religion and migration in Europe, in particular in the Southern countries, focusing
on the switch from being countries of emigration to becoming countries of immi-
gration. Secondly this process affects the peculiar religious structures of these
countries. Many of them, like Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain (Vilaça
et al. 2014; Vilaça and Pace 2010; Perez-Agote 2012), for historical reasons, are
countries up to now with a dominant religion: Orthodoxy in Greece, Catholicism in
the others. The monopolistic structure of the religious field in any case is challenged
by the increasing religious diversity. It means an increase in social complexity and a
differentiation of the religious field in relation to and tension with the dominant
system of belief.
From a theoretical point of view, it seems to me useful to conceptualize the
socio-religious change occurring in the Southern part of Europe according to
systems theory. Societies can be studied as systems that interact with environments
more complex than the precarious and unstable equilibrium in which each religious
system tends to reside. A given society must learn to transfer the external com-
plexity, as represented by the unexpected religious diversity, to an internal differ-
entiation. Religious systems are large organizations that are experts in complexity.
The more the social environment in which these organizations operate is differen-
tiated, the greater must be the degree of the expertise of a religious system in order
to learn to reduce the complexity of the external environment to avoid the entropy
of the system itself (Luhmann 1987, 2012; Pace 2011a, b). The point of view of the

E. Pace (*)
Dipartimento FISPPA, University of Padua, Via Melchiorre Cesarotti 10/12, 35123 Padua,
Italy
e-mail: [email protected]

G. Giordan and E. Pace (eds.), Religious Pluralism, 93

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06623-3_7, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
94 E. Pace

theory of social systems seems to me particularly useful for analyzing what happens
in a society when its environment changes, becoming in many ways not easily
amenable to the apparatus of social cohesion and social control (political, ideolog-
ical, economic and cultural) that could apply to a society relatively more stable and
homogeneous. The risk of the entropy both for the society as a whole and for a
Catholic institution is even higher when the flow of immigrants coming from a
variety of countries around the world is not homogeneous. There is a diversity
within the diversity. Not only Islam, but Muslims from different traditions; not only
Orthodox Christians, but Romanian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Moldovan, Greek, and
Russian Orthodox, each with its own specific religious characteristics; not only
people coming from India, but Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Tamil and so on;
not only Pentecostals, but African, Latin-American and Chinese Pentecostals,
belonging to a plurality of different denominations. If a dominant religion would
like to open the dialogue with the new Christian churches and denominations, with
whom should it start? How to navigate a field of religious forces that has become so
crowded and differentiated? Within the Catholic Church, for instance, there is a
Pentecostal movement. Can this movement be a means of communication with the
forms of Pentecostal Christianity that come out of Europe? Or could this be a risk
for a model of the Catholic church, since Pentecostalism prefers the anarchy of the
Holy Spirit’s gift? And if I decide to dialogue with Muslims, with which commu-
nity or group? How can I be sure not to get in front of fundamentalists who interpret
my gesture of openness as a sign weaknesses?
Similarly the political system of governance of complex modern societies is
questioned by religious diversity. How to find the right balance between the rule of
justice and the good that every religious community intends to follow? How to stay
connected to the string of a god, and at the same time, subject to the rules that
should apply to all citizens? It was, on closer inspection, the same dilemma that
Karl Marx raised in his famous writing on the Jewish question (Marx and Arnold
1844: 42 in the English version):
The political emancipation of the Jew, the Christian, and, in general, of religious man, is the
emancipation of the state from Judaism, from Christianity, from religion in general. In its
own form, in the manner characteristic of its nature, the state as a state emancipates itself
from religion by emancipating itself from the state religion—that is to say, by the state as a
state not professing any religion, but, on the contrary, asserting itself as a state. The political
emancipation from religion is not a religious emancipation that has been carried through to
completion and is free from contradiction, because political emancipation is not a form of
human emancipation which has been carried through to completion and is free from
contradiction.

In other words, and focusing on to the Italian case, the political system is called
upon to rethink the way the State has traditionally managed the relations on the one
hand with the dominant Catholic Church and on the other with the other denomi-
nations considered minorities, admitted today to enter the legally ruled public
space. It means the necessity of an Italian way to manage religious diversity. The
peculiar policy of religious pluralism in Italy is an instance, among many, of related
Increasing Religious Diversity in a Society Monopolized by Catholicism 95

conceptual difference introduced by many scholars (Beckford and Demerath 2007;

Doe 2011; Finke 2013; Richardson and Bellanger 2014; Wuthnow 2005).
The present discussion is divided into three sections. In a first, using the paradox
of Achilles and the tortoise, I intend to specify the contours of the issue of religious
diversity and its management policy in Italy. The second section will document
with the help of maps of places of worship the spread of major religions that are new
to Italy today. In the third and last one I will show how the Catholic Church has
responded to the unprecedented religious diversity that challenges its historic
monopoly position.

Religion and Immigration: The Social Change

Using the famous paradox of Achilles and the tortoise attributed to the pre-Socratic
philosopher Zeno of Elea (fifth century BC), I propose to analyze the social changes
taking place in Italy from a particular angle, i.e. the passage from a society under a
Catholic monopoly to one characterized by an unprecedented and unexpected
religious pluralism. The maps illustrating the presence of a number of different
religions from those of a typical Italian’s birth (Catholicism) show how the
country’s social and religious geography is changing. Such a change is a major
novelty in a country that has always seen itself as Catholic for long-standing
historical reasons and also for deeply-rooted and still strong cultural motives.
Despite the religious diversity that is beginning to make itself socially obvious,
the Catholic Church continues to have a central role in the public arena but, like
Achilles in the metaphor, it is beginning to realize that Italian society (the tortoise in
the metaphor) is moving on, not only because other religions are striving to gain
visibility and public recognition, but also because they are contributing in some
cases to making the religious field more variegated.
To better delineate the object of our analysis, if I were asked, “Who does
Achilles represent?” in my metaphorical premise, I would answer as follows.
According to the Greek myth, Achilles’ mother Thetis immersed him as a baby in
the waters of the River Styx to make him become invulnerable; to do so, she held
him by his heel, which remained the only part of his body liable to harm. Homer’s
hero symbolizes the Catholic Church and religion in Italy, a system of belief that is
still well-organized, permeating every facet of society, custodian of the collective
memory and identity of the Italian people, with a complex potestas indirecta
(Poulat 1974) in the sphere of political decision-making. This is the majority system
of religious belief, the religion of Italians’ birth. Albeit with growing difficulty, it
has continued to withstand the onslaught of secularization, as an analysis on a
representative sample of the population (Garelli 2011) and an ethnographic study
(Marzano 2012) have recently confirmed, taking two very different approaches. By
comparison with other situations in Europe (Perez-Agote 2012), Italy appears to
have become secularized while remaining faithful to its image (in collective repre-
sentational terms) as a Catholic country, thanks to the Church’s organizational
96 E. Pace

strength. It is no longer a Catholic country in terms of many Italian people’s

practices, but the collective myth of the Italians’ Catholic identity still seems to
hold (Garelli et al. 2003). So, having explained the role of Achilles, let us see who
the tortoise represents. I use the tortoise to impersonate the socio-religious shift
taking place in Italian society, from a religious single culture to a novel form of
religious diversity. This is a slow process that is going largely unnoticed, generating
no particular tension or conflict (except for the case of the Muslim places of
worship), but it is ultimately producing a change in the country’s socio-religious
geography. Italian people are no longer born inherently Catholic.
My aim in the following pages is to illustrate and describe this change with the
aid of data collected in a study completed in 2012 (Pace 2013), which enable us to
go beyond mere generic estimates of the presence of other, non-Catholic religions
in Italy to map the different places of worship, by region and by religious confes-
sion. In its annual report on immigration, Caritas/Migrantes prepares estimates that
measure religious diversity on the basis of a simple (sometimes over-simple)
inductive process: if 100 immigrants have arrived from Morocco, for instance,
then 99.9 % of them will be Muslims because that is the proportion of people of
Muslim faith by birth in their society of origin. Caritas is a Catholic voluntary
organization that has the merit of attempting over the years to fill a very obvious gap
in the reliable information available on immigration in Italy. Although the number
of immigrants reached five million in 2011 (accounting for 7 % of the population),
neither the central Italian Statistics Institute (ISTAT) nor the Ministry of the
Interior have succeeded in providing a comprehensive picture of the real presence
of the various religions in the country, apart from the case of the Muslim places of
worship, which are monitored by the police and the intelligence services on behalf
of the Ministry of the Interior for reasons of public security. Indeed this source
provides a good starting point for examining and further analyzing the situation, as
was done recently by Allievi (2010) and Bombardieri (2012).
Be that as it may, the 189 different nationalities of Italy’s immigrants make it
plain that religious diversity is now part of our lives, at the local market, in our
hospital wards, prisons and school rooms, at the offices of our local social services,
and so on. Estimates may be a starting point, but they no longer suffice to give an
accurate picture of Italy’s socio-religious geography, capable of realistically illus-
trating people’s experiences and their ways of belonging to a given religion. In
other words, estimates cannot answer the question of what people that we formally
classify as Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Pentecostals, and so on, actually
believe in.
We are beginning to gain an idea of the areas where the immigrants’ different
religions tend to become concentrated, but we have only a very incomplete and
imprecise map of their places of worship. These places are still not very obvious to
the naked eye—to our cursory gaze, at least: though we are accustomed to recog-
nizing a Catholic church at a glance, we are less well equipped to notice buildings
that identify the presence of other, non-Catholic religions. Our eyesight has a role in
religions. Our eyes reflect and record an orderly outside world, where we see things
that are familiar to us. If, at some future time, we were to see a mosque or a Sikh
Increasing Religious Diversity in a Society Monopolized by Catholicism 97

temple standing alongside our local parish church, the new building might seem
like an intrusion, an image that stands out instead of fading into the background. We
can learn something from the recent referendum held in Switzerland (in the autumn
of 2009) to prevent the building of minarets (not of mosques, note) because the
referendum’s promoters see them as invasive symbols in a religious landscape
characterized and occupied mainly by bell towers.
To begin to really see how Italy’s socio-religious geography is changing, we
must first go a step further, going beyond mere estimates of the different religious
realities that have now become well-established in our country. Some religious
communities show a marked degree of homogeneity, while others are differentiated
even amongst themselves (this is true both of Islam and of the Orthodox Churches
that refer to different patriarchal sees or national Churches). It is easy to find
information on the homogeneous entities, much more difficult for the heteroge-
neous (as in the case of the Muslim communities that refer to different associations,
some of which represent the world of believers as a whole, while others are based
on geographical origin). For some religions, despite some degree of differentiation,
we can deal with the problem of obtaining a credible picture of their places of
worship by relying on a network (that we have patiently constructed) of witnesses,
who have provided addresses and other precious details.
Maps are used for travelling, and combined with a compass, they help us to
orient ourselves in an effort to interpret the new situation of religions in Italy. If
somebody were to travel through Italy from north to south, and from west to east,
they would certainly not be immediately aware of any Sikh temples or mosques, nor
would they know how to recognize an Orthodox church (barring a few exceptions in
Trieste or Venice, or in Bari or Reggio Calabria in the south, where there are
churches that bear witness to the historical presence of flourishing Greek and
Albanian Orthodox communities). They would be even less likely to stumble
upon evidence of Hindu mandir or Buddhist temples, and would have virtually no
chance of noting any African, South American or Chinese neo-Pentecostal
Churches. While the African neo-Pentecostal Churches have been the object of a
specific investigation (Pace and Butticci 2010), their Latin American and Chinese
counterparts have remained in the background. A problem with the new churches,
moreover, lies in the fact that it is very difficult to find them because they are often
born and survive in very precarious logistic and operating conditions. It is none-
theless common knowledge that some Latin American mega-Churches, and partic-
ularly the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (born in Brazil in 1977) are now
widespread in many countries (Corten et al. 2003; Garcia-Ruiz and Michel 2012).
This Church has ten locations in Italy (in Rome, Milan, Turin, Genova, Mantova,
Verona, Udine, Naples, Florence and Siracusa). Then again, little or nothing is
known about the religious habits of the Chinese, with the exception of a study
conducted in Turin (Berzano et al. 2010).
98 E. Pace

Table 1 Places of worship of the new religions in Italy in 2012

Places of Immigrant population by religious affiliation (Caritas/
Denomination worship Migrantes estimates)
Islam 655 1,645,000
Orthodox Churches 355 1,405,000
African Pentecostal 858 150,000
Churches
Sikh 36 120,000
Buddhist 126 80,000
Hindu 2 1,500
Total 2,032 3,265,000
Source: Pace (2013)

Lento pede. The Tortoise Is Moving

Taking a quick look at the map of religions in Italy, we see the following situation
for the places of worship (Table 1).
As we can see, the Chinese and Latin American Evangelical Churches are not on
the list: the former are difficult to survey; the latter are beginning to spread, but they
are of little importance by comparison with the other denominations included in the
above table.
There are Islamic places of worship dotted all over the country, with a greater
density where the concentration of small and medium enterprises (in the numerous
industrial districts of northern and central Italy) has attracted numerous immigrants
from countries with a Muslim majority. This means not only the Maghreb countries
(Morocco taking first place, with half a million men and women who have now
been residing permanently in Italy for 20–25 years), but also Egypt, Pakistan and
Bangladesh. The relatively large Iranian and Syrian communities date from further
back, having become established at the time of their two countries’ political
troubles, with the advent of Khomeini’s regime in Iran, and Hafez el-Assad’s
repression of the political opposition in Syria in the 1980s.
The following map gives us an idea of the uneven distribution of the places of
worship, which are mainly prayer halls (musallayat), sometimes precariously
occupying uncomfortable premises. In fact, the number of mosques, in the proper
sense, can be counted on the fingers of one hand: there are only three, the most
important being the one opened in Rome in 1995 (which can contain 12,000
faithful) (Map 1).
We can see from the above map that the prayer halls are concentrated mainly
along the west-east axis, peaking in Lombardy, followed by the Veneto and Emilia-
Romagna regions. This distribution also reflects the different components of the
Muslim world, recognizable in some of the most important national associations,
simply because almost all the places of worship included in the census refer, from
the organizational standpoint, to one of these associations. There is the Union of
Islamic Communities of Italy (UCOII), which is historically close to the Muslim
brotherhood (though it is currently undergoing internal change): this is one of the
Increasing Religious Diversity in a Society Monopolized by Catholicism 99

Map 1 The Muslim prayer halls in Italy (data as at 2012, by Province and Region) (Source:
Rhazzali 2013)

best-organized associations, which manages 31 % (205) of the prayer halls identi-

fied in the census, while another 32 % (209) are part of the new Italian Islamic
Confederation, (CII), which mainly enrolls Moroccan immigrants (and their fam-
ilies). The other 240 musallayat belong to other, smaller associations, at least one of
which—called the Islamic Religious Community (COREIS)—was founded by an
Italian converted to Islam (through the esoteric tradition that goes back to the figure
and thinking of René Guénon); so it is easy to imagine that this is, strictly speaking,
an Italian Islam. Although this is numerically a small group, it has a public visibility
unlike any of the other, above-mentioned associations.
The presence of the Orthodox Christians appears to be much more stable and
well-defined than the still precarious position of the various Muslim communities
(also in terms of the often poor, derelict urban locations made available to them as
100 E. Pace

Table 2 New Orthodox parishes in Italy by reference institution (data as at 2012)

Parishes and
Jurisdiction monasteries
Romanian Orthodox Church (Patriarchate of Romania), Dioceses of Italy 166
Sacred Orthodox Archdiocese of Italy and Malta (Ecumenical Patriarchate 84
of Constantinople)
Russian Orthodox Church (Patriarchate of Moscow), Administration of the 44
Churches in Italy
Copter Orthodox Church 21
Greek Orthodox Church of the Calendar of the Fathers—Holy Synod in 9
Resistance
Archbishopric for the Russian Orthodox Churches of Western Europe 7
(Exarchate of the Ecumenical Patriarchate), Decanate of Italy
Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church 5
Serbian Orthodox Church (Patriarchate of Serbia) 4
Romanian Orthodox Church of the Old Calendar 3
Independent Orthodox Church of Western Europe and the Americas— 3
Metropolia of Milan and Aquileia
Bulgarian Orthodox Church (Patriarchate of Bulgaria) 2
Eritrean Orthodox Church 2
Macedonian Orthodox Church 2
Armenian Apostolic Church 1
Russian Orthodox Church of the Ancient Rites (Metropolia of Belokrinitsa) 1
Orthodox Church in Italy 1
Total 355
Source: Giordan (2013)

places of worship), since the latter are still waiting to see their legal position
confirmed on the strength of an understanding between these Muslim communities
and the Italian State, in accordance with the Italian constitution. This difference is
not only because one of the Orthodox Churches was recently recognized
(in December 2012) by the Italian State, but also because their inclusion in the
Italian social and religious fabric has been facilitated, for the Romanian, Moldavian
and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches, at least, by the bishops of the Catholic Church.
In many a diocese, where there was a visible and pressing demand for places of
worship or parishes, the Catholic bishops have authorized Orthodox priests to use
small churches left without a priest, or chapels that had remained unused for some
time (located on the outskirts of towns). The global picture, accurately
reconstructed in a study by Giuseppe Giordan (2013), emerges as follows (Table 2).
The vast majority of the parishes were established after the year 2000, and
almost 80 % of them occupy churches that were made available by Catholic
bishops; 81 % of the pastors are married and 69 % of them are between 29 and
45 years old. By comparison with the Muslim communities, the Orthodox parishes
are more evenly distributed all over Italy, as we can see from the following Map 2.
If we now look at the 36 Sikh temples (Gurudwara), their uneven territorial
distribution stems from the segments of the job market that immigrants from the
Punjab have gradually come to occupy. A sizeable proportion of these workers has
Increasing Religious Diversity in a Society Monopolized by Catholicism 101

Map 2 Orthodox parishes in Italy (as at 2012 per Municipality and Region) (Source: Giordan
2013)

filled the space abandoned by the Italians throughout the central portions of the
North West and North East of Italy, including parts of Emilia, as breeders of cows
serving the large dairy industries and pigs for pork meat products: the historical
figure of the Italian bergamini (as they were called throughout the Po valley) has
been replaced by men with a turban, the Sikh. By contract, these migrants have not
only benefited from a good salary, they have also been given a home (usually
adjacent to the stables so that they could take care of the animals round the clock),
and this has made it easier from them to bring their families to Italy—something
that is much harder for other communities of migrants to do because they are
usually unable to demonstrate that they have a stable home. As a consequence, a
generation of Italian Sikhs was soon to develop (either because they arrived at a
very young age, or because they were born in Italy).
102 E. Pace

The Sikh communities now amount to about 80,000, out of the 120,000 immi-
grants from India. Most of them arrived in Italy around 1984, driven by a combi-
nation of factors and severe social problems in the Punjab region because: Great
Britain (the country to which these migrants had historically flocked) refused them
entry; there was a crisis in the farming sector; and there was political conflict
between the independentist Punjabi movement and the government in New Delhi
(Denti et al. 2005; Bertolani 2005; Bertolani et al. 2011).
Our map of the gurudwara was developed by Barbara Bertolani (2013). First of
all, it shows a gradual institutionalization of the Sikh communities, which have
proved capable not only of finding the financial resources needed to renovate old
industrial sheds and convert them into places of worship, but also of negotiating
with the native communities without encountering any particular administrative
difficulties or political obstacles (unlike the Muslim communities when they try to
set up a prayer hall or mosque). The map also shows the early signs of a differen-
tiation amongst the Sikh: there are two different associations (the Association of the
Sikh Religion in Italy and the Italy Sikh Council), to which the various temples
refer. There is also a religious minority that mainstream Sikhism considers hetero-
dox, the Ravidasi, followers of a spiritual master named Ravidas Darbar, who
appears to have lived between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Punjab;
for his wisdom and authority, he was recognized as a new guru and added to the ten
that all of the Sikh world venerates. Although some hymns attributed to Ravidas
have been included in the Sikh’s sacred text (the Granth Sahib), most Sikhs deny
him the same status as the gurus officially acknowledged by tradition. Ravidas
would appear to have come from a dalit caste (the tanners, an occupation consid-
ered by the Hindu Brahmins to be the very quintessence of impurity) and, although
in principle the way of the Sikh (which literally translates the expression sikh-panth)
preaches the abolition of the caste system, there still appears to be a strong
resistance to the dalit even amongst today’s Sikhs (Map 3).
So far, I have chosen just a few of the maps now available to document the slow
movement of Italian society towards an unprecedented, unexpected socio-religious
configuration that is still, in some aspects, unknown to many Italian people. Just to
give an example, in the areas where the Sikhs have settled, for a long time they were
mistaken for Arabs with a turban, or Orthodox Christians; few people grasped the
differences that exist between them in terms of their different national Churches.
To complete the picture, it is worth taking a look at a few other maps, which
reflect changes underway in Italian society that are not due to exogenous phenom-
ena (like the immigration of men and women from other countries). Here again, I
have chosen two maps illustrating the growth in the last 10 years of the Jehovah’s
Witnesses and the various Pentecostal congregations (the most important of which
are the Assemblies of God and the Federation of the Pentecostal Churches), both of
which have been recruiting new members from among Italian people who were
originally Catholics, but have opted to adhere to another form of Christianity.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses first came on the scene in 1891; since then, they have
grown constantly in number. Today, they are widespread all over Italy (see Map 4),
with more than 3,000 congregations, 1,500 kingdom halls, 250,000 evangelizers,
Increasing Religious Diversity in a Society Monopolized by Catholicism 103

Map 3 The 36 Sikh temples (gurudwara) in Italy (as at 2012) (Source: Bertolani 2013)

and a similar number of supporters. They also have a far from negligible number of
new conversions drawn from among the Albanian, Romanian, and Chinese immi-
grants, as well as from the French- and Portuguese-speaking Africans (Naso 2013).
The diffusion of the Pentecostal Churches is even more significant. Most of them
come under the heading Assemblies of God, with 1,181 communities dotted all over
Italy, with a greater density in certain southern regions (Sicily, Campania, and
Calabria, as shown on Map 5), areas that are generally believed to have strong
Catholic traditions. The other group, the Federation of Pentecostal Churches,
currently has 400 congregations and approximately 50,000 members.
If we combine the Pentecostal communities and Churches with a Protestant
matrix with the African, Latin American and Chinese neo-Pentecostal Churches,
and then add the movement that has formed within the Catholic Church called
Renewal in the Spirit (which now includes approximately 250,000 people in Italy,
104 E. Pace

Map 4 Pentecostal Churches from Ghana (at 2012 per Province and Region) (Source: Butticci
2013)

with 1,842 communities established in almost every region (Table 3)), we can see
that the Church-religion model that Catholicism has developed over the centuries,
with its parish-based civilization, is being challenged by an alternative model where
the experience (through community rites) of a charism counts for more than a set of
dogmas (Map 6).
Above all, the organizational format of these alternative religions no longer
preserves the traditional separation between clergy and layman. If the spirit blows
where it will, as Pentecostalism (in all its various expressions) becomes more
established in Italy’s traditionally Catholic society, it could become an element of
further differentiation in Italians’ choices in the religious sphere.
Increasing Religious Diversity in a Society Monopolized by Catholicism 105

Map 5 The Pentecostal Churches from Nigeria (at 2012, per Province and Region) (Source:
Butticci 2013)

If the new type of Pentecostal Christianity challenges Catholicism, Eastern

religions represent another alternative that extends the spiritual religious supply
in a country of wide and long Catholic tradition.
The Italian society had already met in the 1970s and 1980s of the last century the
new face of westernized Buddhism, through the various spiritual movements from
India and Japan respectively. The most famous were, among others, in the first case,
the Hare Krishna movement and Osho Rajneesh, while in the second, Soka Gakkai.
There is, therefore, a long-standing Italian Buddhism. Today it is recognized mainly
in an association approved by the State, the Italian Buddhist Union (about 80,000
members). With the arrival of immigrants from Sri Lanka, India, and China a new
layer of followers of various schools of Buddhism has formed. It is in fact an
innovation that makes even more plural the presence of Buddhism in Italy
106 E. Pace

Table 3 Communities of the Region 1978 2005

renewal in the spirit (1978–
2005) in Italy by region Abruzzo 9 51
Basilicata 1 27
Calabria 10 97
Campania 13 193
Emilia-Romagna 12 77
Friuli Venezia Giulia 0 23
Lazio 26 100
Liguria 17 46
Lombardia 30 174
Marche 9 83
Molise 6 17
Piemonte 41 176
Puglia 8 114
Sardegna 9 82
Sicilia 22 292
Toscana 9 75
Trentino 0 15
Umbria 4 26
Veneto 42 90
Total 1,037 1,842
Source: Contiero and Pace (2014)

(Squarcini and Sernesi 2006; Molle 2009, 2013; Macioti 1996, 2001). The distri-
bution of the various meditation centers, as the map shows, clearly documents this
(Map 7).

Achilles Travelling at Two Speeds

Italy’s socio-religious geography is changing—slowly, but constantly and irrevers-

ibly. The above maps and figures also faithfully record a demographic transition,
affecting Italian society as a whole, that has been going on for at least 50 years.
The Italian population is continuing to age (nowadays, 20 % of the population is
over 65 years old). Meanwhile, the size of Italy’s population is not diminishing
thanks to a higher birth rate per female (from 1.19 in 2002 to 1.25 in 2012), due to
the greater propensity of immigrant families to have children, and more of them, by
comparison with Italian couples. Set against this background, it is hardly surprising
that the Catholic clergy is constantly ageing too: while there were 42,000 priests in
Italy in 1972, this figure is expected to drop to 25,000 by 2023; 48 % of Italian
clergymen are now over 65 years old, and the mean age of the clergy as a whole is
62. There is a paucity of vocations, and policies to recruit young Asian and African
priests seem unable to fill the gap that is already apparent in the ranks of the Italian
clergy (Castegnaro 2012). By comparison, the new pastors of the 355 Orthodox
parishes are much younger: 60 % of them are between 30 and 45 years old, and 6 %
Increasing Religious Diversity in a Society Monopolized by Catholicism 107

Map 6 The Church of Pentecost (at 2012, per Province and Region) (Source: Butticci 2013)

are under 30; the mean age of the Muslim communities’ 600 imam is under 35; and
the 300 pastors of the African Pentecostal Churches are usually between 28 and
35 years old.
For the Italian Catholic Church, the changes taking place on the religious scene
are an absolute historical novelty. Being used to seeing themselves, quite under-
standably, as a well-organized salvation organization, with a capillary distribution
throughout the country (with 28,000 parishes and a considerable number of mon-
asteries, sanctuaries, centers for spiritual retreats, and so on). Though it is still an
authoritative actor on the public stage, the Catholic Church—understood here in all
its various aspects, from the highest ranks right down to the normal clergyman,
from the lay associations to the individual believers and practicing Catholics—Is
having to cope with the changes underway. For a good deal of the short history of
Italy as a nation, right up to the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church had
108 E. Pace

Map 7 Buddhist and Neo-Buddhist Meditation Centers in Italy (at 2012, per municipality and
region) (Source: Molle 2013)

maintained a sort of civil disinterest in the country’s religious diversity. Then it

changed tack, during the years of ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue, becom-
ing more open to exchanges with the Hebrew communities and the Churches of a
Protestant matrix. It succeeded in considering the other religious presences
established in Italy as potential parties to a dialogue between different faiths,
promoted by the Catholic Church with a view to appearing tolerant and open-
minded, while emphasizing that it was still the dominant figure on the public stage
in the Italian religious sphere, the primus inter pares in regulating public commu-
nication on matters of religion. In parallel with official steps taken by popes and
bishops, from the Second Vatican Council onwards, the dialogue continued and a
number of small spontaneous schemes flourished (associations of Hebrews and
Christians; permanent roundtables for Muslims, Christians and Hebrews; and so
Increasing Religious Diversity in a Society Monopolized by Catholicism 109

on). Sociologically speaking, this was an acknowledgement of the existence of

other subjects with a religious vocation that were allowed to speak, often for the
first time, in a religious arena that had been wholly occupied by a single subject, the
Catholic Church (Pace 2011b). The arrival en masse of immigrants from various
parts of the world completely changed the religious scenario. In addition to differ-
ences of faith among Italians, there are other diversities, of language, culture,
nationality and customs. What was remote has come closer, and the exotic has
become familiar. Instead of just exchanging views with one’s neighbors, it is now a
matter of acknowledging a profound change in the socio-religious composition of
the Italian population.
The Catholic Church, in all its expressions, has not remained indifferent to
society’s movement; it too has moved, but it two different speeds. It has sought
to interpret the phenomenon, calling upon all its material and symbolic internal
resources, and taking action as an organized, expert system of religious belief
accustomed to operating in a social setting where it had a monopoly of the symbols,
and this system is seeking to transfer the unprecedented external complexity into an
internal differentiation. The Catholic Church system is striving to incorporate the
novel shape and topology of the religious landscape and make sense of it using its
own categories, which are broad and narrow at one and the same time, based on
open and closed codes. A religious system shows all its power and wisdom
(in organizational terms) when it succeeds in functioning as a closed system,
capable of defending its symbolic boundaries that identify it as such, in order to
remain open towards the outside. If we consider the aspect that can be defined as
Catholic welfare, managed directly by the Church and its most important
supporting associations (from Caritas to the ACLI), the commitment is enormous,
as we can see from the map of the centers that provide shelter and (religious)
support, set up specifically to serve the material and spiritual needs of many
immigrants (see Map 8).
This capillary effort to provide shelter and support has been balanced by a
differentiation in the willingness to have a closer exchange with the other religious
faiths that have begun to become organized in Italy. Indeed, the Catholic Church
has first fine-adjusted its traditional charitable activities, mainly through its reli-
gious welfare associations, also engaging in openly criticizing the conditions of
social injustice and the negative stigma to which immigrants as a whole have been
subject, especially when there were center-right governments in office. Secondly,
the Italian Catholic Church has tried to reiterate its central role on the public stage,
acknowledging the existence of a religious pluralism, but also defending its histor-
ically established dominant position. There are two main indicators of this latter
tendency, among others that are less pertinent to the present discussion: the first is
the Catholic Church’s determined defense of the teaching of Catholic religion in all
public schools (from kindergarten through secondary school, for an hour a week);
the second concerns the different ways in which it communicates with the new
religious entities.
Concerning the teaching of Catholic religion at school, the Church’s strategy so
far has been: from the institutional standpoint, to have the State acknowledge that
110 E. Pace

Map 8 Catholic pastoral centers for immigrants by zip code and region (as at 2012) (Source:
Chilese and Russo 2013)

teachers of this subject (who are recruited and trained by the Church at institutes of
religious sciences run by the bishoprics) have a public role and the same value as
teachers of other subjects, and to promote the idea that this lesson on religious
culture is not strictly confessional but also presents the other religious faiths.
As for the differentiated willingness to communicate with the other religions, the
Catholic Church officially has a soft spot for the Orthodox Churches (which are
often granted the use of unused churches and chapels, as mentioned earlier), while it
is more cautious in dealing with other religious entities, and particularly with the
multicolored world of Islam. While local parish priests and Catholic associations
were often willing to exchange views and even provide spaces for prayer in rooms
attached to the parishes up until 2001, the attack on the Twin Towers and the
growing sentiments of fear and suspicion in its aftermath still make it difficult for
practicing Catholics to accept a dialogue with and give credit to Muslims.
Increasing Religious Diversity in a Society Monopolized by Catholicism 111

Conclusion

From the religious standpoint, the Italian case is a good example of how, and to
what extent, a symbolically monopolistic system can be transformed exogenously.
The unprecedented, unexpected religious diversity that has begun to emerge in Italy
makes it necessary to update the maps of religiosity and secularization that the
country’s sociologists of religion study to interpret the changes taking place over
the years (Naso and Salvarani 2012). In the past, these changes often occurred
within Catholicism itself (Cartocci 2011), often involving small percentage dis-
placements in a picture of apparent substantial immobility in terms of the Italians’
collective representation of themselves. They saw themselves as Catholic in more
than 85 % of cases, though they revealed marked differences (and diversified levels
of secularization) in both their attitude to their belief and their behavior (from their
religious practices to their moral choices, which were sometimes highly individu-
alized and by no means consistent with the official doctrine of the Catholic Church).
Now, for the first time after years of research, the maps (some of which are
illustrated here) show that we need to use a different compass to interpret a rapidly
and radically changing social and religious scenario. With time, Catholicism will
also experience some degree of internal change. In the debate on pluralism within
the Catholic Church, it will no longer be enough to say “bring in the cavalry” to
conceal the fact that 5 % of Italy’s immigrant population are Catholics, but they
come from worlds that are moving away from the theology and the liturgy of the
Roman Catholic Church. These African, Latin American, Philippine, Chinese, and
Korean Catholics will add their own point of view to what being Catholic means,
which will not necessarily be consistent with Italian mainstream traditions.
This will give rise to a new area of research that will require new intellectual
energies to investigate the real religious experiences of so many people belonging
to so many religions, going beyond the ethno-centrism (or Catholic-centrism that
has inevitably characterized our research on our predominantly Catholic society).
We also have to reflect critically on the concepts and theoretical reference systems
needed to deal with the unprecedented religious diversity that has been increasingly
characterizing life in Italy.
I can sensibly assume that the change of pace from the Catholic Church may
have also reflected on the management policies of pluralism. In particular, with the
new Pope Francis. One of his public appearances in July 10, 2013 was in Lampe-
dusa, the island south of Sicily, a place of continual arrivals of immigrants and
shipwrecks with thousands of deaths. The last tragedy occurred on July 2013 (see
Picture 1 and Picture 2) with 194 deaths. The Pope spoke about the Samaritan “who
saw and was moved with compassion”; he addressed the Italian government and
politicians, urging them to change policy, rejecting “the globalization of
indifference”.
In a country where every debate on the granting of citizenship to children of
immigrants born in Italy hangs straight to the opposition by center-right parties, it is
not easy to predict whether the preaching of Francis will foster new cultural
orientations in public opinion and the overcome and even bypass the ideological
112 E. Pace

Picture 1 The Francis pope at Lampedusa’s Mass (Source: Vatican News)

Picture 2 The corpses lined up on the beach of Lampedusa (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/

world-news/pope-francis-says-lampedusa-migrant)

barriers that have so far prevented a comprehensive policy and liberal religious
pluralism in Italy.
Increasing Religious Diversity in a Society Monopolized by Catholicism 113

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Re-Thinking Religious Diversity: Diversities
and Governance of Diversities
in “Post-Societies”

Siniša Zrinščak

Introduction

It has become highly problematic to describe modern European societies in terms of

religious diversity and religious pluralism. Europe has been religiously diverse for
centuries but what we witness today is the acceleration of diversity – in terms of
different types of both religious and non-religious and (or) spiritual belonging.
However, the meanings and social consequences of this process are far from
obvious. The social acceptance of diversity is quite ambiguous and public (state)
management of diversity differs highly among countries and has become a topic of
heated public debates. There are contradictory processes at play here. On the one
hand, diversity is a visible public fact and modern societies describe and understand
themselves in pluralistic terms. In the European Union this has been accompanied
by anti-discrimination policies, which include the anti-discrimination provision on
grounds of religion or belief (as well as racial and ethnic origin, which is relevant
when religion is closely intertwined with ethnicity). Acceptance of diversity is also
visible in the “disestablishment” process in the Church-state relations, as certain
European countries have dissolved their strong ties with the state or national
Churches, as well as in the emergence of what is known as the European model
of Church and state, partly seen in the protection of religious freedom and rights and
neutrality of the state in exclusively religious matters (Robers 2005; Torfs 2007).
On the other hand, religious discrimination has been on the rise around the globe
and though Western democracies (including Western European states) are still far
more tolerant and pluralist in comparison to other world regions, there are also
patterns of rising religious discrimination, rising religious regulation, and rising
religious legislation (Fox 2007, 2010) in these countries as well. While contro-
versies about Islam are part of this process, this should not be reduced to the question

S. Zrinščak (*)
Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Trg m. Tita 3, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
e-mail: [email protected]

G. Giordan and E. Pace (eds.), Religious Pluralism, 115

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06623-3_8, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
116 S. Zrinščak

of the Muslim presence in Europe and how different Islamic traditions are (or are
not) in concordance with the European, mostly secular, public spaces, as many
European countries continue to discriminate against (or try to highly regulate)
non-traditional minority religions, including those which are known as new reli-
gious movements (Richardson and Lykes 2012). Fox argued also that “the most
common increases in religious discrimination between 1990 and 2008 were new
anti-sect laws or policies” in Western democracies (Fox 2012: 174).
Post-communist societies are usually seen as a particular case in regard to the
issues of diversity and pluralism. Although there is a general appreciation of high
diversity among them in terms of basic religious landscape, post-communist Europe
is largely described as a region in which revitalization of religion has been
manifested in the post-1989 period, and a region in which controversies about
Church and state are particularly high. This is mainly a result of the attempts of
traditional Churches to regain the public (and political) influence they had in the
pre-communist times, attempts which contradict the position and rights of other
(minority and new) religions and which clash with opposing views on the issues of
secularity in modern Europe. Yet another, more complicated case concerns the
countries with a recent history of violent conflicts (such as wars in post-Yugoslav
countries) where religions, as important markers of separate ethnic identities,
played a significant social role.
However, the argument here is that a comparative view on the issues of public
acceptance of religious diversity and the Church-state relations in Western and
Eastern European countries shows that the line of difference does not run between
Western countries with a longer democratic history and Eastern countries with a
burden of the communist past, but between the countries (both Western and
Eastern) which impose a high degree of regulation on minority or new religions
and those which seem to be more tolerant of public religious issues. Also, a closer
look inside one particular country shows that the issue of regulation of religion is a
highly complex reality. This chapter, therefore, draws on a previous work which
argues that (1) in regard to the Church-state relations post-communist Europe does
not presents a unique case and Europe as a such faces a more general problem of
balancing historically shaped Church-state relations that favoured traditional
churches with the rising religious and socio-cultural pluralism; (2) that there is no
clear connection between the general socio-religious profile of one country and its
Church-state relations, i.e. that the countries which are similar in terms of high or
low religiosity or high or low religious monopoly are not, at the same time, similar
in terms of their Church-state relations; (3) that, in order to understand a basic
socio-religious configuration, more attention should be paid to social expectations
of people about the public (social) role of Churches; (4) that there is a need to
complement studies of the Church-state relations with new understandings of
(individual and group) identity construction in contemporary societies (Zrinščak
2011). Drawing on these arguments, this chapter seeks to investigate factors which
shape the way religions have been regulated and the way in which this regulation
can be understood in relation to diversity and pluralism. In particular, the first and
main section of the chapter focuses on the Church-state relations in Croatia, which
Re-Thinking Religious Diversity: Diversities and Governance of Diversities. . . 117

is usually described as a country with a dominance of collectivistic religions and/or

a post-conflict country with a burden of the dominant religion’s exclusionary
effects on others, but which at the same time maintains public recognition and
acceptance, though in different degrees, of a wide range of minority religions.
Theoretically, the question is whether the notion of collectivistic religion helps in
understanding its way of developing relations to other religions, and what is the role
of other social factors in that respect. The next section expands to other post-
communist countries and the way they deal with the diverse religious landscape,
particularly by examining phases of regulations in different countries. Theoreti-
cally, the question is whether the notion of post-communist social space helps in
understanding the ways in which different countries deal with their religions. The
final, concluding section connects the analysis of Croatia and other post-communist
countries with a general discussion on the public recognition of religions in Europe
and briefly discusses results of the analysis in the light of future research agenda.
Without going into details, it should be noted that the chapter follows the authors
who differentiate between (1) religious diversity as a fact or description of reli-
giously diverse reality (meaning different religions or individuals who are free to
build/combine their religious identity), (2) religious corporate pluralism or accep-
tance/recognition of different religions in the public sphere and (3) (full) religious
freedom or religious pluralism as a (positive) value (Dobbelaere and Billiet 2003;
Beckford 2003). Although these meanings can be further explored in their different
usage, this chapter mainly deals with the recognition of different religions in the
public sphere, which is mainly conditioned by the state regulation and by public
expectations about their social roles. Thus, it demonstrates further that sociology
needs more knowledge about the circumstances and factors influencing ways and
forms of the public recognition of different religions in different societies.

Croatia: Religious Diversity in “Post-Yugoslav”,

“Post-communist” and “Post-conflict” Society

Church and State: Two Phases and Three Tiers

In terms of the Church-state relation, Croatian post-communist history can be

divided into two phases. The 1990s are characterized by the transition from the
communist to post-communist social order. However, in the case of Croatia this
period was marked by the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia and building of an
independent Croatian state, the process which was accompanied by its war of
independence and by the war in the neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina. All of
this had considerable effects on the overall social development. Religion was an
important part of the overall social processes in the post-communist period. How-
ever, this importance comes not only because religion was an important marker of
the identity of different nations in the former Yugoslavia (which simply blew up
118 S. Zrinščak

during its downfall), but also because the communist treatment of religions
enhanced their political features. Although religion was very much present in
everyday lives of the majority of people, religion did not have access to the public
scene and though the way it could operate in society was strictly prescribed by the
regime, Churches were actually the only social institutions which were not totally
controlled by the state and which had a capacity for articulating anti-communist
voices. Thus, the immediate post-communist period brought social benefits mainly
to the Catholic Church, and was conditioned by restrictions on religion in commu-
nism and general support for religion in post-communism, but mainly by the nation-
and state-building process which further strengthened the link between the Catholic
Church and the Croatian nation. Hence, the Government introduced confessional
education in public schools as a non-obligatory subject and in 1996 and 1998 signed
four agreements with the Holy See on the position of the Catholic Church, which
regulated their numerous rights: from acknowledgement of its full legal entity,
co-operation with the state in numerous fields (education, culture, social services,
military and police, etc.) to the partial co-funding from the state budget.1 By
regulating the relation with the Catholic Church in such a way and in line with
the Constitutional principle of separation of the Church and the state, Croatia
positioned itself among the European countries which follow the so-called concor-
dat or co-operation model between the Church and the state (Ferrari 2003a, b;
Robers 2005).
During this first phase, other religious communities were free to operate, but
their position and rights were not regulated and the issue of their social position was
not part of the public agenda. That changed in the early 2000s, when the party in
power changed for the first time after 1990. The newly elected left-centre coalition
opted for a more democratic development and re-established its relations with the
EU with a clear goal to effectively start the process of joining the EU (Stubbs and
Zrinščak 2009). Part of this agenda was equality of other religions, vivified in
passing the Law on the Legal Position of Religious Communities in 2002, which
regulated the procedure of registration by the Ministry of Administration. More-
over, the Law envisaged the possibility of concluding agreements between the
Government and respected religious communities on issues of mutual interests
which would grant them the rights enjoyed by the Catholic Church on the basis
of agreements with the Holy See. Following this Law and further Government’s
regulation on the criteria for signing the agreements (passed in 2004), the Govern-
ment concluded a total of seven agreements with 16 (mainly traditional) religious
communities, from the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Islamic Community, several
Protestant communities, to two Jewish communities which exist in Croatia. The
political climate changed after the Law came into force in 2002, which provoked
some backlashes in the willingness of the Government to further recognize the
rights of smaller religious communities (the backlash came in 2004 when the right-
wing party came back to power and indeed did not change when the left-wing party

1
More on that in Zrinščak (2004, 2007).
Re-Thinking Religious Diversity: Diversities and Governance of Diversities. . . 119

came back to power in 2011!). Still, the Law had a very positive influence on the
position of religious communities and, as religious communities themselves have
been very positive about the overall legislative framework in Croatia up to today,
the post-2000 period is here treated as one period or as the second phase in terms of
the Church-state relations, despite the backlash.
Governmental actions in the first and the second period resulted in the system
which is known in many European countries as a three-tier system. The first tier is
occupied by the Catholic Church due to international agreements which guarantee
its rights but also due to its position and overall social role and influence. In this
respect, it is worth highlighting that according to the 2011 Census, 86.28 % of
citizens belong to the Catholic Church. The second tier comprises religions that
have agreements with the Government in place. The Agreements grant them
(at least at the normative level) the same rights enjoyed by the Catholic Church.
The third tier comprises all other religious communities which are registered as
such and which, on the basis of this registration can operate freely, but as they do
not have an agreement with the Government they cannot enjoy additional rights,
such as having confessional education in public schools, official (eo ipso) recogni-
tion of religious marriage, funding from the state budget, etc. This third tier could
be even further distinguished into two additional ones. The Law of 2002 introduced
differences between the then existing religious communities which were able to
perform a simple registration procedure and the new ones, those established after
the law had come into force, whose registration was complicated by additional
criteria: at least 5 years of existence as citizens association and having at least
500 members – the criteria (particularly the latter) which many of the “old”
religious communities do not comply with. Although it is not easy to obtain official
(detailed) data and to assess what all this actually brings in respect to the public
recognition of smaller religious communities, the fact is that Croatia has a total of
44 registered religious communities – 17 with the agreements and 27 without the
agreements with the Government. In relation to further analysis, it should be noted
that among the registered religious communities in Croatia there are also those
which provoke debates and introduction of restrictions in some other countries,
such as Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Church of Scientology.

A Puzzle About Public Recognition: Islam vs. Small Protestant

Churches

In the same year when the Law on the Legal Position of Religious Communities
was adopted by the Croatian Parliament (2002), the Government signed the first
agreements with two traditional religious communities, the Serbian Orthodox
Church and the Islamic Community. According to the 2001 Census (a year prior
to signing of the agreements) these were minority communities (accounting for
4.42 % and 1.28 % respectively) with a history of conflicts or at least tensions, as
120 S. Zrinščak

they also represent different nations, Serbs and Bosniaks. However, due to the fact
that these are traditional and old religious communities with a long-standing
presence, and due to the wish of the Government to respect their rights thus
exemplifying its strong democratic and pro-European stance, these were the first
two communities which were able to exercise the rights set out in the 2002 Law.
Thus, the agreement with the Islamic Community regulated a range of rights,
from the right to organize confessional education in public schools (based on the
number of pupils who were interested in Islamic education), the right to establish
their own schools, educational, cultural, and social institutions which were
recognized and co-funded by the state, to the official recognition of religious
marriage, chaplaincy in military and police forces, the right to be free or not to go
to school during religious holidays, etc. As underlined on several occasions and
reiterated over the years by the leaders of the Islamic Community in Croatia, this
agreement and its observance in everyday life at the national and local levels,
places Croatia among a few European countries to have officially recognized
Islam (Austria, Belgium, Spain), which is a precondition for the full equality.
Moreover, the Islamic Community leaders have been heard to say that Croatia has
the best solution for “Islam issues” in Europe and can therefore be a role-model
for other countries.2
Such a favourable image of respecting religious diversity has a different face
when it comes to a few particular religious communities wishing to sign agreements
with the Government. The Government firmly declined to do so. Although the
Government signed agreements with a few Protestant and other Christian Churches
(such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Reformed Christian Church, the
Evangelical (Pentecostal) Church, the Christian Adventist Church, the Union of
Baptist Churches, etc.), it declined to do so with three small Churches – the
Protestant Reformed Christian Church in the Republic of Croatia, the Full Gospel
Church and the Word of Life Church. The argument was that they did not comply
with the criteria for signing the agreements that the Government passed under the
Governmental Conclusion in December 2004. It has to be noted that this Conclu-
sion established additional criteria not envisaged by the Law itself and, moreover,
the Government itself did not observe them in the case of some other religious
communities with which it signed agreements in the following years. After the case
had not been settled in Croatia and after the Constitutional Court had declared it had
no jurisdiction over passing such a decision, in December 2010 the case was
brought before the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled in favour of
these communities. However, the ruling has not been implemented so far (late
2013) and, what is more, this issue has not been high on the public agenda in the
meantime.3

2
Interview by Aziz ef. Hasanović, leader of the Islamic Community in Croatia: http://balkans.
aljazeera.net/vijesti/hasanovic-hrvatska-primjer-zemljama-evrope (Accessed 15 September 2013).
3
More about that in Zrinščak et al. (2014).
Re-Thinking Religious Diversity: Diversities and Governance of Diversities. . . 121

What to make of this puzzle: recognition of full rights to some religious

communities (or rather to many of them, including those with a history of conflicts
and tensions) and denial of the same rights to some others? What places Croatia
among a few European countries that fully recognize the Islamic community and
why the same is not extended to others? Are the reasons of sociological interest and
what are the social consequences?

Collectivistic Religions and Their Capacity for Otherness

In searching for the answer, I will rely on the concept of “collectivistic religions”
introduced and extensively analyzed by Slavica Jakelić (2010). In brief, her main
thesis is as follows: “the analytic perspective that focuses on choice correctly
recognizes one large part of contemporary religiosity, but omits its other major
component: the millions of people around the globe who were ‘born into’ some
religious group rather than religiosity ‘born again’. They experience their religion
as ascribed to them rather than chosen by them as fixed rather than changeable,
despite and because of the fact that their religious identities are profoundly shaped
by the historical and cultural particularities of their social location” (Jakelić 2010:
1). She argues that collectivistic religious traditions are generally viewed with
suspicion. The general (dominant) perception is that collectivistic religion is a
kind of dying phenomenon which will be replaced by voluntary religious belonging
and that Western Europe is both ‘secularized’ and ‘secularizing’. The idea that
collectivistic religions are always reduced (or reducible) to something else because
they are identity-oriented is, according to her, historically but also theoretically
problematic. This is based on an implicit theory of religion, which understands
religion to be about beliefs and rituals (i.e. theology) and not about a kind of
belonging that shapes communal boundaries (i.e. identity, culture, or politics)
(pp. 9–10). On the contrary, the notion of collectivistic religion puts forward
threefold claim: “first, that religions have long been and still are a source of
collective identity in their own right; second, that religions, when constitutive of
collective identities, are highly adaptable to historical changes: and, finally, that
collectivistic religions offer viable resources for tolerance of religious Others,
despite their role in establishing group differences” (p. 187). Furthermore, in a
detailed analysis of the role of (collectivistic) Catholic Church in Croatia, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, and Slovenia (extended as well to the study of the role of
respective dominant Churches in Greece, Ireland, and Poland), it is shown that
the theoretical perspective which reduces collectivistic religions to ‘religious
nationalism’ and portrays them as essentially anti-modern and intolerant is fully
wrong. Yes, they produce such results, but they also produce completely opposite
ones. It is because the Church is not a monolith unity itself and also because
different social circumstances and different social localities shape the way religion
produces specific social consequences. Temporal dimension is easily overlooked in
that respect, but (collectivistic) religions change over time. Moreover, the religious
122 S. Zrinščak

life is not reducible to the image of a dominant and powerful Church. Quite the
contrary, strong institutional religiosity co-exists with individualized, personally
shaped religiosity in a country such as Croatia (Nikodem and Zrinščak 2012).
Going back to the issue of the role of Islam in Croatia, several historical facts are
of interest. The coming of Islam to the territory of Croatia and particularly
neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina was connected with the Ottoman invasion.
Throughout the centuries, Islam has been perceived as a completely different
religion, as a religious other, religion (and culture) which had threatened the
essence of Christian Europe. Still, Islam has remained a dominant religion in
Bosnia and Herzegovina after the Ottoman Empire collapsed and as such became
a part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
(1918–1941) and communist Yugoslavia (1945–1991). The public recognition of
Islam as a religion with full equal rights goes back to that period. The Croatian
Parliament, which existed at that time, although with a limited purview, passed a
law on the recognition of Islam as an official religion in 1916, following the same
law passed in the Austrian Parliament in 1912 (Potz 2005). Future position of Islam
was very much connected with the political turnovers that dominated the territory
of Croatia and former Yugoslavia throughout the twentieth century. Besides the
communist repression in the post-WWII period, particularly in relation to the public
visibility of religions, the issue was the recognition of Bosniak people as a separate
ethnic group in line with their separate religious identity (Islam). The separate
identity was questioned due to several historical reasons but particularly due to the
fact that Bosniaks speak the same or very similar language as Croats and Serbs
which are other majority ethnic groups that live in Bosnia and Herzegovina and
whose motherlands are neighbouring Croatia and Serbia. This was solved in the
1960s when the communist Government officially recognized Muslim people as a
separate nation. The term Muslim was understood to have a secular meaning, but
with an obvious implicit recognition that the Ottomans and Islam as the dominant
religion created a group which differs from Croats and Serbs in its ethnic dimen-
sion. In the post-Yugoslav period Muslims renamed themselves Bosniaks based on
their ethnic belonging, while underlining the strong connection between their ethnic
(Bosniak) and religious (Islam) identity. Despite the fact that religion has been the
main marker of difference between Croats (Catholics), Serbs (Orthodox) and
Muslims or later Bosniaks (Islam) and thus an important part of shaping group
boundaries, similarities in language, and partly culture, and the long history of
co-existence, albeit marked with tensions and conflicts, gave rise to both inclusion-
ary and exclusionary effects of religion towards the Other. Which effects would
occur and prevail depended on the complex relations between history and contem-
porary social processes. This was visible during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina
in the early and mid 1990s. In one period of the war there was an armed conflict
between Croats and Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the conflict that disrupted
the alliance between Croats and Bosniaks who had jointly faced Serbs’ intention to
dissolve Bosnia and Herzegovina as one country. As the armed conflict involved
ethnic groups with very different religions (Catholicism and Islam), it immediately
acquired religious features as well, particularly visible in the use of religious
Re-Thinking Religious Diversity: Diversities and Governance of Diversities. . . 123

symbols in order to mark and enforce separate identity (Pace 2004; Zrinščak 2002).
Interestingly, a part of the Catholic Church supported the conflict, but the other part
(the larger one) strongly opposed it both in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Croatia.
The then Archbishop of Zagreb and president of the Croatian Bishop Conference,
Cardinal Kuharić, known as the religious leader who firmly supported the indepen-
dence of Croatia during the break-up of Yugoslavia and underlined the link between
the Croatian ethnic identity and religious Catholic belonging, also firmly opposed
the conflict between Croats and Bosniaks.
To sum up, both inclusionary and exclusionary effects of Catholicism on other
religions can be traced throughout history to the present day. As regards the position
of Islam in Croatia, the inclusionary effects prevail due to a number of reasons.
Similarities in language and (partly) culture are important factors in this regard, in
line with the Europeanization process which was translated into the need to respect
others. The issue of similarity is particularly interesting and needs further elabora-
tion, the one that exceeds the scope of this paper. Still, the long history of
co-existence and the fact that the Muslims who live in Bosnia and Herzegovina
are autochthonous people and that those who live in Croatia today are those who
had (mainly) come to Croatia in search of jobs during the Yugoslavian period, have
evoked the widespread feeling that the possibility of not recognizing full rights of
the Islamic Community is simply out of question. It is also quite interesting that this
happened at a time when major configuration of the way Islam was living was going
on. The post-communist circumstances, the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina which
had some religious features and the support to and influence on Muslims by other
countries with the Muslim majority provoked the growth of religiosity in Bosnia but
also internal differences in Islam. There is no need to exaggerate, but volunteers and
soldiers who came to Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war from other countries
brought pluralisation of Islam in Bosnia. At the same time, leaders of the Islamic
Communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina have been very eager to underline the
European character of Islam in European countries, as visible in the launch of an
official document entitled “A Declaration of European Muslims” (2006), issued by
the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but fully endorsed by the
Islamic Community in Croatia and officially released in Zagreb, the Croatian
capital, not in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mustafa Cerić,
the then Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina, said that this document could be
viewed as an appeal to: (1) the European audience not to make a mistake in
generalizing Muslims and not to spread Islamophobia, (2) to the Muslims who
live in Europe to take seriously events in New York (September 2001), Madrid
(March 2004) and London (July 2005) that may have great consequences for their
stay in Europe and their status in Europe, and (3) to the Muslim world at large to
help the Muslims in the West, and especially in Europe, to develop a kind of
dialogue that would be acceptable to Muslims and to Europeans. This Declaration
was prompted, among other things, by the fact that the Muslims with centuries-long
presence in Europe differ in cultural, but also in religious terms, from the Muslims
in other parts of the world.
124 S. Zrinščak

As shown, the circumstances which favour public recognition of specific reli-

gious communities are complex and include both historical and contemporary
factors. Therefore, the capacities of societies to produce tolerance towards and
recognition of others are not reducible to a single factor. Social distance, as a usual
measurement of attitudes towards others is, as this analysis suggests, just one of the
elements in creating a full picture of the social status of a group. Thus, in the
Croatian case, there is a mismatch between the results of the social distance towards
Muslims and their public recognition. A comprehensive analysis of anti-Muslim
prejudice in Europe based on the 1999–2001 European Value Survey data has
reported that the social distance towards Muslims (measured as a percentage of
those not willing to have Muslims as their neighbours) is in general higher in
Eastern Europe than in Western Europe, while in Croatia it is higher than the
Eastern European average (Strabac and Listhaug 2008). Also, interestingly, religi-
osity does not have strong positive effects on prejudice towards Muslims.
While not downplaying the effects of prejudice or denying the social effects that
the existing intolerance towards different minorities in the Croatian society may
have, this chapter would support the thesis that one set of factors in the relation
between Muslim minorities and the majority population are “to a larger degree
under national control”, as well as that “national attempts to develop harmonious
relations between the majority population and Muslim minorities might prove to be
an especially challenging endeavour” (Strabac and Listhaug 2008: 283–284). This
point underlines that the state capacity for full recognition of others should not be
reduced to the religious capacity of developing full respect for different religions/
groups. Although this chapter deals with religions and the way the religious role in
shaping group differences influences the position of religious others, it suggests that
even when a religion assumes a collectivistic social role, religion is not reducible to
such a role, and particularly that a society is much more than the entity produced by
religion and ethnic links.
Assuming this is so, then why is full recognition not extended to small Protestant
Churches as compared to the Islamic Community and other Protestant Churches
(and other Christian and Jewish ones) which have been recognised and enjoy
special rights?
The reasons are far from obvious. No single official explanation has been offered
during all these years. Even more, the issue has not attracted much public interest,
and this fact could indeed be part of the answer. The position of the Catholic Church
is an issue which provokes heated public debates. The social position of Muslims,
Orthodox Christians or Jews is an issue that attracts public interest. Opinions
diverge on both issues, but the public interest and sensitivity is present. For specific
reasons (such as those explained here in regard to the Islamic Community) these
Churches and communities can provoke public concerns about their rights, though
this is not to suggest that the public is unanimously in favour of their full rights.
Still, the official standpoint has not questioned the need for their equal treatment
and this standpoint has not provoked a single opposition (at least not a public one).
Several Protestant and other Christian Churches, such as Lutherans, Baptists,
Calvinists, Pentecostals, Adventists, Churches of Christ received the same
Re-Thinking Religious Diversity: Diversities and Governance of Diversities. . . 125

treatment (recognition of full rights by signing agreements with the Government),

but this was not the case with the Churches briefly outlined previously. In general,
the public interest in any Protestant Church is hardly noticeable. They simply do not
have the capacity to attract the interest of the public in their problems or in
resolving problems with the implementation of the Agreements or in the life of
those Churches which are registered and can freely operate but cannot enjoy the
same rights as others. It should be also noted that these are small communities, not
well known and that some of them are generally labelled as small religious
communities, or even sects, giving rise to public suspicion. Also, as heard in the
public discourse from time to time, particularly during the Parliamentary and public
debate on passing the Law on the Legal Position of Religious Communities, the
question remains of where to draw the line? There is no general support in favour of
the same treatment of all religious communities irrespectively of their history,
teachings and particularly their size. This suggests that the social meaning of
“equality” and “recognition” is far more complex than usually perceived.

Religious Diversity and “Post-communist” Space

Although the term post-communist has been widely used, the analysis mentioned
earlier concerning the Church-state relations in “post-communist” Europe suggests
a very limited explorative power of such a term for two main reasons (Zrinščak
2011). The first one is related to a huge diversity of post-communist societies in a
number of aspects: history, post-communist transition, social development and
prospects, religious composition, level of religiosity and ways in which their
Church-state relations have been developing. The second one is related to the
numerous similarities in the Church-state relations between Western and Eastern
Europe and the same dilemmas they face, though in slightly different degrees
and ways.
Religious diversity is a fact of Central and Eastern European countries as the
region comprises countries with very different confessional traditions (Catholic,
Orthodox, Protestant, Muslim, etc.) with a long-standing existence in the region as a
whole. On the other hand, there are countries which are very monolithic, as more
than 90 % of their population belongs to one confession (“Catholic” Poland,
“Orthodox” Romania), and countries with different confessions, or those with a
large share of atheists (Hungary, Czech Republic and Estonia). The important thing
is that diversity is a historical fact, and although it was influenced by atheist
regimes, it has not changed as such during the twentieth century. However, the
post-communist transition brought about profound social transformation, which
includes pluralisation of thoughts, life styles, religions and different ideological
stances about the social position and role of religions, both traditional and new
ones. This means that the diversity experienced in the post-communist period has
been significant, but still different from the one experienced by many Western
126 S. Zrinščak

European countries, as these countries have still not faced immigration from
non-European countries.
These aspects of post-communist social transformation have been reflected in
two phases of the Church-state relations which, interestingly, partly differ from
what has been described in regard to Croatia. On a more abstract level, it is
interesting to note that in many countries the immediate post-communist period
(the early and mid 1990s) brought about overall liberalization (as a general reaction
to the communist times), which included very liberal conditions for the registration
of religions, new ones as well. That triggered opposition from dominant Churches
as well as from large sections of society and initiated passing of stricter regulation
and stricter conditions for obtaining certain rights. Hungary passed a law in 1990 by
which requirements for registration of Churches and other religious communities
were quite formal, resulting in the most liberal or permissive regime of the Church-
state relations in Europe (Schanda 2003, 2005; Uitz 2012).4 In the meantime there
were several attempts to make requirements stricter, particularly in relation to
“dubious sects”. However, these initiatives have faced opposition, demonstrating
that social consensus on such issues is hardly possible. Still, the Law was amended
in late 2011 allowing only a limited number out of over 200 religious associations
under the 1990 Law to continue enjoying the Church status, while all others remain
religious associations with limited privileges (Uitz 2012). The Czech Republic had
a different trajectory, but the consequences are similar (Tretera 2005; Moravčikova
2012). According to the 1992 Law the registration was possible for the religious
communities with 10,000 members or 500 members if they belonged to the World
Council of Churches. The 2002 amendments made the requirements much easier
(only 300 members), but the same Law limited the rights of newly registered
communities and the rights such as the right to teach religion in public schools, to
have pastoral care in prisons and army, etc. are now recognized as “special” and
granted only to those communities that have been registered for more than 10 years
and have more than 0.1 % of inhabitants as their followers (which is a bit more than
10,000!). Slovakia has a stricter system that was established in 1991 and has not
been changed since. Under this system 20,000 adult citizens are necessary in order
to meet the registration criteria (Moravčikova 2005, 2012). Poland does not have
such a strict system (the basic requirement is that the organization has at least
100 Polish citizens as its members), but nevertheless there are two groups of
Churches and religious communities. The first group, which has greater rights,
comprises only 14 out of 150 registered Churches and religious communities
(Rynkowski 2005). Changes towards much stricter requirements and, moreover,
changes towards very limited religious rights occurred in Russia. However, as
Russia is, along with some other post-Soviet Union countries, a special case in
this regard, it is not covered here under the heading of “post-communist” Europe
(Shterin and Richardson 1998, 2000).

4
For an overview of Church-Sate relations in Central and Eastern Europe see also Ferrari and
Durham Jr. (2003).
Re-Thinking Religious Diversity: Diversities and Governance of Diversities. . . 127

Although countries differ with regard to the phases of the Church-state relations
in the post-communist period, changes that occurred in the meantime have, in one
way or another, brought them, with some variations, to the cooperationist model,
which privileges certain traditional Churches and allows other religious communi-
ties to act as such and to be present in the public, but without enjoying specific
rights. Therefore, a clear two- or three-tier system has been established. All of this
causes tensions and debates, which are indeed very similar to those in the majority
of Western European countries. As already pointed out, the question is how to
achieve a balance between the historically shaped Church-state relations and
emerging diversity, or rather how the diversity and overall pluralisation might be
transferred in an acceptable social space for very different religions. This is also
reflected in the debates about new religious movements in the immediate post-
communist period. Public debates were in turn reflected in the analyses of the
scholars as well as in the concerns about the position of different religions and about
observance of basic human and religious rights (e.g. Barker 1997; Črnič 2007, etc.).
While it became obvious in the meantime that social hysteria over spectacular rise
of new religious movements has been exaggerated and while countries were trying
to find, more or less successfully, ways to accommodate to the changing social and
religious landscape, it has also become obvious that the post-communist countries
significantly differ in the way they treat new religions. Findings of the analysis of
new religious movements in a number of Western and Eastern European countries
points to “uniqueness” and “differences” over any clear pattern: “This brief over-
view reveals tremendous variance in the legal status of NRMs and other minority
faiths in the ‘new Europe’. Some nations such as Hungary and the Netherlands have
seemed more solicitous of minority faiths, while others, such as France and more
recently Russia, seem quite hostile to such entities. Also, the pattern of legal
protections and opportunities afforded such groups varies by location and time,
with great changes sometimes occurring in a short period, as has been the case with
Russia” (Richardson and Lykes 2012: 321) (author’s highlights).

Instead of Conclusion: Diversities and the Research Agenda

in “Post-secular” Europe

Starting from an empirical fact that public acceptance of religious diversity has
become highly problematic and has been provoking heated debates, even at the time
when contemporary European societies face the acceleration of diversity in differ-
ent social fields, this chapter has demonstrated that the concepts usually used to
describe the countries of Central-Eastern or South-Eastern Europe, such as the
“post-communist”, “post-Yugoslav” or “post-conflict”, are not of much help in
analyzing how these countries regulate the position and rights of different religious
communities and social consequences thereof. By focusing principally on Croatia,
it has proved that a complex combination of social and cultural factors (both
128 S. Zrinščak

historical and contemporary) is at play in explaining why Croatia, in respect to the

rights and privileges that the Islamic Community obtained, can be considered even
a role-model for other European countries at the same time when pluralism in
general has not been considered as a highly respected value in the Croatian society
and when the same rights have not been extended to a few Protestant religious
communities. The extension of the analysis to other “post-communist” countries,
mainly those Central-European, has shown how they, after having initially
embraced religious pluralism, established a two- or three-tier system in which the
rights and position of religious communities differ according to their historic and
social relevance. Thus, the dominant or national, or in the majority of cases the
Catholic Church backed by international agreements with the Holy See, occupied
the first tier, followed by other religious communities (usually those historically
present) with special privileges and rights, while a range of very different religious
communities comes at the end, as they are free to operate but are deprived of
enjoying any special privileges. Very interestingly, particularly in view of the
consequences for future research agenda in this field, post-communist countries
have positioned themselves close to many other Western European countries in
which different religious communities have different types of access to the public
sphere and can enjoy different types of state support. Moreover, also interesting
from the point of view of research agenda is the fact that focusing just on a two- or
three-tier system does not help much in explaining the details of how different
religious communities are treated in a society and whether some of them face major
restrictions in their public appearance. Hence, the multi-tier system which operates
in the majority of Western, Central, and Eastern European countries actually hides a
huge range of differences in respect to the treatment of different religious
communities.
In explaining the particularities of the Croatian situation the chapter relies on the
notion of “collectivistic” religions as analyzed by Slavica Jakelić (2010). The use of
it was triggered by two main ideas. The first one is that most of the sociological
literature describes collectivistic religions as identity-oriented, religions whose
main aim is to sustain group boundaries and, consequently, it views them with
suspicion because of their alleged consequences (i.e. religious nationalism), but
also because it is assumed that collectivistic religions are a dying phenomenon, a
phenomenon not pertaining to the modern or post-modern social conditions. Sec-
ondly, collectivistic religions are not seen as being capable of producing tolerance
towards other religions and other social groups. However, as shown by Jakelić, and
as demonstrated in this chapter, collectivistic religions have the capacity for both
exclusionary and inclusionary effects towards the Other. Collectivistic religions
vary in space and time and the argument is that a detailed ethnographic insight is a
precondition for any sociological conclusion about how collectivistic religions
influence the regulation of diversity in a specific society.
All that might be of interest for the general research agenda about diversity and
particularly on the Church-state relations in Europe. As indicated in the introduc-
tory part, religious discrimination has been on the rise around the globe and
although Western European countries are still much more tolerant and pluralist as
Re-Thinking Religious Diversity: Diversities and Governance of Diversities. . . 129

compared with other parts of the world, they are also experiencing rising religious
regulation and very heated public debates with uneven consequences for the rights
and positions of different religious communities. The issue is not only Islam, but
many other particularly smaller religious communities or new religious move-
ments, public recognition of which is opposed by large sections of societies. This
should be connected with an observation that the Church-state relations in (West-
ern) Europe are still heavily influenced by the history, particularly by the way
religions had been connected with the process of formation of modern nations and
states, and that the normative liberal principle of state neutrality clashes with
empirical reality of state involvement in religious matters (Madeley 2003a, b).
Still, the reality of the Church-state relations and debates about public religions in
Europe, and about (non)secularity, suggest that the state involvement in the regu-
lation of religions, and even higher religious discrimination, is just part of the wider
story, i.e. part of the fact that collectivistic religions are realities of Europe, though
in different ways and degrees. European identities, political and cultural, whether
local, national or global, are strongly connected with religions and religions have
continued to play a distinctive role in shaping identities in wider Europe. Whether
or not we would agree with a rather normative Casanova’s statement (2008) that the
European anxiety to recognize Christianity as one of the constitutive components of
European cultural and political identity is “responsible” for debates about Islam and
other minority religions, the fact is that the role of religion in sustaining a separate
identity (and the way these identities interact with other social processes) is a
crucial step in understanding if and how diversity is recognized, i.e. the diverse
recognition of diversities in different societies. Hence, the concept of collectivistic
religions or, in general, the concepts of (religious) identity and (religious) memory
(Hervieu-Léger 2000) should be employed more systematically in the contempo-
rary sociology of religion.
Finally, although they were not part of the analysis in this chapter, arguments
presented suggest also that research agenda should not be very impressed by the
concept of “post-secular” Europe. As it has been shown, the focus on post-secular
(which in general wrongly describes the continuing role of religion in different
European societies) has diverted attention from the questions of involvement of
states in shaping and regulating public response to religious diversity (Beckford
2012). Also, the notion of an open public space inside which secular and religious
voices/actors meet and discuss have diverted attention from the fact that public
space is heavily influenced by interests and discourses of most powerful social
groups (Susen 2011). Therefore, the issue here is not the normative statements on
liberal and/or secular preconditions for modern societies or how these principles
have (have not) been translated into reality, but rather which groups have the power
to shape debates. Which groups define what is equality (or neutrality) and in what
ways and what do equality (or neutrality) mean in very practical terms of everyday
life? The crucial issue here is a continuing link between religion(s) and identity
(ies), and the way in which (in terms of spatial and temporal factors) it influences
the Other.
130 S. Zrinščak

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Diversity Versus Pluralism? Notes from
the American Experience

James V. Spickard

Europe seems newly awash in a discourse of “pluralism”. Long seen as a White,

Christian continent—ignore Germany’s ‘Turks’, France’s banlieues, Spain’s Moor-
ish heritage, the Jews, and the Roma—Europe seems to have shifted ethnically and
religiously in recent decades. The continent that produced the Westphalian state
system as a way to institutionalize religious homogeneity (cuius regio eius religio)
now confronts newcomers who don’t fit the old mold. Cross-border migration
has made hash of the nineteenth-century nationalist idea that each ‘people’ has
‘one language’, ‘one history’, ‘one phenotype’, and ‘one culture’ and thus deserves
one state (Anderson 1983). Religious and ethnic diversity is on the rise. How to
reconceptualize Europe becomes a crisis of the first order.
The title of this volume gives us some avenues of understanding, most notably
“diversity” and “pluralism”. These boast many definitions, but we can do worse
than begin with a distinction posed by Professor Diana Eck, the Director of Harvard
University’s “Pluralism Project”. That project’s website quotes her as follows:
“Diversity is just plurality, plain and simple—splendid, colorful, perhaps threaten-
ing.” “Pluralism”, on the other hand, involves an “energetic engagement with
diversity”. It is more than just tolerance of others, but “the active seeking of
understanding across lines of difference”. It is, Eck writes, “the encounter of
commitments, based on dialogue” (Pluralism Project n.d.: 1). Put more simply,
diversity is a brute fact, while pluralism takes work. It is, indeed, an accomplish-
ment: an accomplishment of communication.
Eck points out that diversity and pluralism have different policy implications.
“Diversity can and has meant the creation of religious ghettoes with little traffic
between or among them” (Pluralism Project n.d.: 2). It has often meant exclusion:
deliberate barriers erected against those whose religions or ethnicities differ from
the local norm. Europe’s Jewish ghettos come immediately to mind, but the

J.V. Spickard (*)

Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Redlands, 30545 Bridlegate Drive,
Bulverde, TX, USA 78163
e-mail: [email protected]

G. Giordan and E. Pace (eds.), Religious Pluralism, 133

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06623-3_9, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
134 J.V. Spickard

United States has a similar history. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, augmented
by the Immigration Act of 1924 served “to preserve the ideal of American homo-
geneity” (Office of the Historian n.d.) against an imagined onslaught of Chinese,
Italians, Jews, Slavs, and so on. The objections were both ethnic and religious.
Italians were shunned for their Catholicism, as the Irish had been 60 years earlier.
Chinese were seen as a superstitious race, unable to rise to the level of native
Protestant virtue (P. Spickard 2007; Nee and Nee 1973). Japanese (Buddhist,
Shinto, and Christian) were famously herded into camps during World War II,
something not done to America’s largely Christian German population. East Asians
may now be our “model minority” (Petersen 1966), but they were long shunned.
There are other ways to handle diversity, of course, among them erasing it
through assimilation; I shall return to this below. Eck, however, favors the pluralist
option. As she described at length in her 2009 Gifford Lectures (Eck 2009),1
pluralism seeks to turn diversity to humane uses. Rather than shunning or
oppressing those unlike ourselves, we seek them out. We try to understand their
humanity, in the hope that it will deepen our own. Diversity, says Eck, is inevitable
in the contemporary world. The world is full of disparate peoples, now easier to
encounter than ever before. We must, she says, let this unite us rather than divide
us. We must get to know them, recognize them, appreciate their humanity, and let
them touch our lives. This is a fine moral project and a democratic one. It is also a
good deal less simple than meets even Eck’s experienced eye.
What can we learn about diversity and pluralism from the American religious
and ethnic experiment of the last 200 years? That is my topic for this chapter.

A Nation of Immigrants

The United States is a notoriously diverse country, both ethically and religiously. It
has never been resoundingly pluralist. We are known as “a nation of immigrants”—
the title of a long pamphlet that our future President John F. Kennedy wrote a few
years before taking office. Its two key words—“nation” and “immigrants”—imply a
unity that has seldom been part of American practice. Our country has always
welcomed immigrants but has also always tried to turn them into something other
than they thought they were. As Jason DeParle (2011) recently described, the
Virginia colony sought workers but turned them into slaves; Massachusetts sought
religious believers but punished dissent; Pennsylvania sought citizens but got
foreign enclaves—the Amish, Hutterites, and ‘Pennsylvania Dutch’ whose rural
communities now attract tourists in droves.
Here’s how our national myth goes. It says that people come to the U.S. from all
over the world and assimilate to become “Americans”. Never mind that over half of

1
As of October 2013, these lectures have not been published. They are, however, available for
viewing on YouTube.
Diversity Versus Pluralism? Notes from the American Experience 135

early-twentieth century Italian ‘immigrants’ returned home after making money—

this being the point of their overseas adventure. Most Chinese intended the same,
though their return was more hazardous, as was the racism they suffered. The same
is true for many contemporary Mexican laborers: one can, for example, build a very
nice house in the little town of Gomez Farias, Michoacán, on wages from American
field labor. Yes, one has to endure hardship while doing so, but many find the trip to
“Gold Mountain”2 worth the effort. Also never mind two centuries of anti-Catholic
bigotry and even violence, broken only (if temporarily) by John Kennedy’s elec-
tion, toward which his own nation-of-immigrants mythologizing was aimed.
In the religious sphere, the myth takes a particular turn. In its vision, migrants
start out immersed in the religions of their homelands—Protestant, Catholic,
Orthodox, Jewish, Buddhist, animist, or whatever. They move to the United States
and gradually, over two or three generations, become American. This assimilation
does not require that they give up their native religions. It does, however, ask those
religions to become Americanized. Half a century ago, Will Herberg described this
process in his famous book Protestant, Catholic, Jew (1955). There, he argued that
American religions have become domesticated: torn from their historical and
theological roots to become soft identities. To be a Jew in America, he said, or to
be an American Catholic, is to affirm a diffuse religious heritage that one may or
may not practice in private life but which certainly does not intrude on the public
sphere. As President Dwight Eisenhower put it, American public life “makes no
sense unless it is founded on a deeply held religious belief—and I don’t care what it
is” (quoted in Herberg 1955: 84). Religious diversity works so long as religion
doesn’t matter very much. This is supposedly the secret to America’s success.
Of course there are other factors. As Warner and Wittner (1998), Ebaugh and
Chafetz (2000), and others have shown, almost all immigrant religions adopt the
congregational form pioneered by early American Protestants. Such congregational
communities ease the transition to American life. As Ebaugh and Chafetz put it:
Whether it was the churches and synagogues of the earlier immigrants, or the churches,
temples, mosques, gurdwaras, and storefront churches of today, religious centers serve as
places where immigrants can worship in their own languages, enjoy the rituals, music, and
festivals of their native lands, share stories from their homelands, and pass on their religious
and cultural heritage to the next generation. Simultaneously, these religious centers help
immigrants adapt to U.S. society by teaching them civic skills, providing economic and
social services, providing the social space for networking, and affording status oppor-
tunities by creating socially valued religious roles. (p. 141)

This is the famous American “melting pot”, which the American Indian activist
Vine Deloria described as “a cauldron in which the scum rises to the top and
everything on the bottom gets burned”.3 More technically, it is what historian
Paul Spickard (2007) calls “the Ellis Island model” of immigration, after the

2
This was the nineteenth century Chinese term for America.
3
Personal communication, 1975. He probably did not invent the phrase but he is the first whom I
heard speak it and he used it a lot. I have not found a better or earlier attribution.
136 J.V. Spickard

Ellis Island Federal Immigration Station in New York harbor, which processed
much of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century immigration from Europe,
including many of my relatives. In this model, Latvians, Poles, Norwegians,
Italians, French, Germans, Croatians, and the like all, in time, became Americans,
as they discarded their native languages, attitudes, and identities to become one
people.
Framing it this way points up the conceptual flaw: Latvians, Poles, Norwegians,
etc. didn’t just become ‘Americans’; they became White Americans. African
immigrants never had that option: the Middle Passage and the fire of slavery
stripped away the differences between the Yoruba, Fon, Ibo, Ewe, Akan, and so
forth, but it made them Black, not White. Chinese exclusion, Japanese internment,
and so on kept ‘Asians’ separate. The fact that Gary Locke, America’s first Chinese-
American state governor, got multiple death threats during his term of office was
not a result of his policies; it was the color of his skin.
Today the problem is supposedly Mexicans. Anti-immigrant agitation has
reached great heights in recent years, but it is not directed against those coming
across America’s northern border: most of them are White. Anti-immigrant feeling
faces south. It does not matter that some of those stopped for “Driving While
Latino”4 never crossed the border; instead, the border crossed over their ancestors
after the 1846–1848 U.S.-Mexican war. Europe is familiar with such things: the
French-German border has crossed over Alsace many times. In our case, the
American Southwest’s many Hispanos and American Indians are too often treated
as foreigners in their own land.
The point is: race matters. The United States is no melting pot because race is
still a source of difference and privilege. At best, the United States is a multi-
cultural ‘salad’. That image, though, implies some unifying dressing that makes us
all taste as if we belong at the same meal. Too bad; we haven’t got one. Diversity is
the best we can do.

Caesura

So: how did we move from religion to race? Aren’t they fundamentally different
sorts of things? Unless we’re Jews, both sociologists and ordinary folk have long
treated race as something we’re born with but religion as something we can change.
Nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Christians went to the corners of the earth
to ‘convert heathens’, never imagining that they could make them White by doing
so. Their scientific contemporaries argued about whether there were three races or
five or twelve, whether or not they all had a common origin, and how one should

4
In American parlance, DWI stands for “driving while intoxicated”. DWB (“driving while
Black”) and DWL (“driving while Latino”) are spin-offs that highlight the common police practice
of pulling over minority group drivers as a means of intimidation.
Diversity Versus Pluralism? Notes from the American Experience 137

rank them, but none doubted that race was a biological matter fixed at birth. Only in
the late twentieth century did this view begin to change (P. Spickard 1989). By then,
cross-border travel showed that racial systems are different in different places.
A Pakistani-American, for example, is “White” at home, but was “Black” in 1960s
Britain, although he or she would now be labeled “Asian” there. Race is now
recognized as a malleable, if still not a matter of choice.
The fourteenth-century Arab historian Ibn Khald^un (1958) had a clearer view.
Best known for his analysis of the conflict between ‘civilization’ and ‘barbarism’,
Khald^ un actually produced the first sociological analysis of multi-ethnic and multi-
religious society. His approach has uses in the present day.
Ibn Khald^ un saw the history of his native Maghreb as a cyclic struggle between
barbarism and civilization—‘tribes’ and ‘cities’, to use a contemporary shorthand.
In his vision, nomads are typified by “Badâwah”: “bedouinity” or “desert attitude”.
They live a rude and savage life, forced by their harsh surroundings to stick
together. Individuals cannot survive here, and are thus of no consequence. The
tribe works as a unit, especially in response to outside threats. Its group-feeling is
particularly strong. Compelled to courage and fortitude, its members support each
other against all comers (I: 249–258). “Hatharah”—“town-dwelling” or “sedentari-
sation”—on the other hand, typifies city peoples, who are civilized, stable, and
relatively rich. Agriculture, trading, and such livelihoods let them accumulate
wealth. Having what they need to live, they think more of themselves and less of
their neighbors, turning to magistrates and rulers to defend them both against their
fellow citizens and against hostile outsiders. They depend on laws, not persons.
In short, their living weakens their sense of group solidarity, so that they depend on
social institutions for support (I: 249–250, 257–260).
Ibn Khald^ un argued that these two social types live in tension with each other.
Harsh life makes tribes hang together, which enables them to conquer their softer
neighbors. On doing so, they become rulers, who settle down and take on the
civilized habits of their subjects. After a couple of generations of sedentary life,
they have lost their unity, so they fall to the next barbarian wave.
The first point, for our purposes, is that ethnicity is a source of social solidarity,
but not a fixed one: it waxes and wanes. To Ibn Khald^un, people lose their unity
when their al ‘assabiyyah or “group-feeling” declines. Town-dwellers are fractious
and self-centered. They find it hard to act together, which makes them weak. He
thought they could be roused to joint sacrifice, but only if the stimulus were great.
They might, for example, come to identify themselves with their town or city, as
had been the case for the Greek city-states. Citizenship for the Greeks played the
role that ethnicity has played in other societies—an absolute necessity, given the
nature of Greek warfare. (The hoplite phalanx, though effective, required that
everyone live or die together.) In Ibn Khald^un’s view, clan, tribe, ethnicity,
citizenship, and so on formed potentially cross-cutting ties, each contributing
(or not contributing) to the al ‘assabiyyah exhibited at a given place and time.
The historian or social analyst, he said, had to look at the exact situation on the
ground. What ties of group-feeling are strongest? What solidarities are occluded?
How have they shifted over time and what factors led them to do so? For him, none
138 J.V. Spickard

of these factors is fixed—just the opposite of nineteenth-century nationalist and

racist dogma.
The second point concerns the role of religion. Ibn Khald^un thought that religion
could be one such locus of solidarity. By tying people together, religion could
counteract a larger group’s divisions, lending it the strength and unity that it needs
to triumph (I: 305–306, 319–327). He used this insight to explain the seventh-
century Arab conquests, which had been wide-ranging, sudden, and—given his
reading of Arab social life—totally unexpected. The early Arabs, to him, were so
tribally oriented that they could not unify around anything. It took the emergence of
Islam as a strong, missionary religion to weld them into the unified force that
conquered (and absorbed) three sides of the Mediterranean world.
This is not the place to explore Ibn Khald^un’s work in any greater depth (see
Dhaouadi 1990; J. Spickard 2001, 2013). For us, his approach is the first sociology
of a multi-ethnic society—one in which religion played a key but varied role.
Khald^ un saw religion as a parallel means of solidarity, alongside kinship, ethnicity,
and so on. All were active in both tribes and cities, but in different strengths and
combinations. The key element of his sociology, for our purposes, is that it puts
ethnic group-feeling and religious group-feeling into the same mix.
Put otherwise: Ibn Khald^un confronted socio-religious diversity and saw that it
could lead to either chaos or unity, depending on the relative strengths of the
various ‘assabiyyah involved. He grasped ethnic and religious solidarities with
the same set of concepts. We, too, need to make sure that we see ethnic and
religious diversities—particularly those caused by immigration—in the same way.

Religious Diversity in the United States

The contributors to this volume are mostly sociologists, so I would be remiss if

I failed to present some data. Table 1 reports responses to questions about religious
identification on the American Religious Landscape Survey. “N” is over 35,000,
which gives us a
0.6 % margin of error.
The first thing to note is that America has an overwhelmingly Christian popu-
lation. This is not just true of the 86.8 % of American adults who are native-born;
74 % of foreign-born (immigrant) American adults identify as Christian, though
many more of them are Catholic (46 %) than Protestant (24 %); in fact, that is just
about the reverse of the native-born figures. About 9 % of the foreign-born are
non-Christian, as opposed to 4 % of native-born. This is the source of the ‘new
religious pluralism’ to which Warner, Ebaugh, Eck, and their co-workers refer.
Sixteen percent of immigrants are religiously unaffiliated, exactly the same as the
population at large. In short, immigration is indeed changing America’s religious
landscape, but it is not changing it as much as we might think.
Second, the most prominent shift in American religious life is from affiliation to
non-affiliation. Just 6.6 % of American adults claimed to have “no religion” on the
1973 General Social Survey; the 2010 figure was 18 % (Berkeley Social Data
Archive n.d.). The shift was more pronounced among native-born adults than
Diversity Versus Pluralism? Notes from the American Experience 139

Table 1 Major religious Christian 78.4 %

traditions in the U.S. (% of
Protestant 51.3 %
Adult Americans)
Evangelical churches 26.3 %
Mainline churches 18.1 %
Historically Black churches 6.9 %
Catholic 23.9 %
Other Christian 3.3 %
Mormon 1.7 %
Jehovah’s witness 0.7 %
Orthodox (various kinds) 0.6 %
Other religions 4.7 %
Jewish 1.7 %
Buddhist 0.7 %
Muslim 0.6 %
Hindu 0.4 %
Other 1.2 %
Unaffiliated 16.1 %
Atheist 1.6 %
Agnostic 2.4 %
“Nothing in particular” 12.1 %
Secular unaffiliated 6.3 %
Religious unaffiliated 5.8 %
Don’t know/Refused to state 0.8 %
Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life (2008)

among those born elsewhere, but non-affiliation grew among them, also. If numbers
were all that mattered, religious diversity ought to be less of a ‘problem’ than
religious defection. But the size of a social phenomenon does not always dictate its
cultural importance.
These numbers are misleading, however, and in two senses. First, there is a lot of
diversity within American Christianity, especially Protestantism. For example, the
Pew survey divides the Evangelical Protestants into 16 major traditions, each of
which is made up of many denominations. Not all of these are on speaking terms,
despite doctrinal similarities. My college town, for example, is home to three
different Dutch Reformed churches, from separate denominations, who have little
to do with each other. There is thus much more diversity than the table leads us to
expect. It is just among Christians, not between Christians and other groups.
Second, the 16 % with “no religion” are less atheist and agnostic than they are
“nothing in particular”. I guess that’s how the 2010 General Social Survey can
report that 21 % of those claiming “no religion” pray at least daily, half of those
more than once (Berkeley Social Data Archive n.d.). Hout and Fischer (2002)
traced this to liberal disgust with Evangelical Protestantism’s increased engage-
ment in politics; Putnam and Campbell (2010) recently made the same argument
with different and more extensive data. Claiming “no religion” is thus not so much a
statement about one’s beliefs as about one’s unwillingness to be identified with
religious organizations.
140 J.V. Spickard

In sum, America is beset by considerable religion and by considerable diversity,

albeit most of it Christian. Religion matters here, but the same religion does not
matter to everyone.

Dealing with Diversity

How does one unify a country this diverse? Despite the Ellis Island/Melting Pot
myth, American immigrants have never all assimilated to the Anglo-Saxon norm:
not racially, not culturally, not religiously. Religious tolerance has periodically
worked, most recently during Eisenhower’s 1950s, when denominational religion
ruled, not the sectarians. Yes, there were evangelicals and fundamentalists around,
though they kept to themselves. Catholics were finally elected to high office. Still,
my childhood Jewish friends had stomachaches all December from the school
Christmas festivities and no one noticed—something not possible today. Yet
there was relative religious peace.
Times have changed. American politics are now religiously polarized. It is too
much to claim that the Evangelical Christian Right has captured the Republican
Party, but presidential candidates routinely trumpet their right-wing Christian
credentials in primary elections, when that party’s most committed voters go to
the polls. The Public Religion Research Institute (2012) reported 2 weeks before the
2012 presidential election that 76 % of White Evangelical likely voters supported
the Republican candidate, compared to the 73 % of religiously unaffiliated voters
who supported the Democrat.5 Mark Chaves (2011: 95–96) has demonstrated an
increasing correlation between church attendance, political conservatism, and
Republican Party affiliation—explained almost entirely by the increasing embrace
of that party by White Evangelical Protestants.
In brief, American public life has become sectarian—in both the religious and
the political senses of that word. Denominational thinkers, like Diana Eck, may
wish for “the active seeking of understanding across lines of difference” (Pluralism
Project n.d.: 1) but her opponents are not listening. It is worth reminding ourselves
that denominationally oriented people like her recognize the legitimacy of other
religious views, while sectarians do not (see McGuire 2002: chapt 4). Pluralist
dialogue asks all sides to engage in conversation. Not everyone is willing to come to
the table.
So: how does one craft a society that encourages social cooperation without
stifling the ethnic, religious, and social diversity that are increasingly inevitable?
What kinds of social unity do we need? The American experience does have
something to say about this, though it is not the part of America that we have
seen so far.

5
Catholics and Mainline Protestants were split, in part along racial and ethnic lines. Race mattered
in this election more than it had in years when both candidates were White.
Diversity Versus Pluralism? Notes from the American Experience 141

There are at least three ways to craft a unified social order. Émile Durkheim
(1893) uncovered two of them over a century ago. First, we can make sure that
everyone is alike: what he called “mechanical solidarity”, in which people stick
together because of their similarities. In this kind of society, people are connected
by common ideas, common rituals, and the common practices of daily life. Reli-
gious and ethnic diversity threatens this. Exclusion tried to recreate it, but so did the
original American “melting pot”, in the hope that by dissolving away people’s
foreignness, socio-political unity can emerge. Will Herberg’s (1955) picture of
American religious life pointed in this direction, as religion (in his view) no longer
defined one’s core being. Instead, it had become a cloak lightly worn, a matter of
personality and style. His American Jews would never be ultra-Orthodox, his
Catholics never ultramontane. His portrayal of Protestantism drew from the Main-
line, not the Fundamentalists, whom he thought fringe. Little could he see the
Evangelical resurgence two decades down the road.
Herberg was not wrong, of course: there is much truth to his idea that religion is
different in America and that immigration changes the shape of the faiths
transplanted here. Warner and Wittner (1998), Ebaugh and Chafetz (2000), and
others have shown how American congregationalism has stamped immigrant reli-
gions with an organizational form that they had not previously known. But the
underlying issue remains: the melting pot did not produce social unity, neither
ethnically nor religiously. Nor should we expect it to do so.
Durkheim called his second route “organic solidarity”, by which he referred to
the ties that emerge because we all have different jobs, skills, and tastes, and
because our complex economy needs these differences to prosper. Our current
division of labor stretches across the globe. To take just one example: our shirts
are sewn in Haiti or Vietnam from cotton grown in Tajikistan or El Salvador mixed
with polyester from Venezuela or Iran; they are shipped on Liberian or Indian
freighters with international (skeleton) crews. Only the selling is local and this only
sometimes. This “unity” is a matter of function. Durkheim worried that such society
would give people too little in common to avoid social breakdown; his book Suicide
(1897) is a treatise on just how this can play out in individual lives.
America provides a third model. Robert Bellah (1967) famously described
American “civil religion” as a set of concepts, ritual phrases, and ideals that
construct a national sense of purpose. “Civil religion” is not henotheism, a term
that theologian H. Richard Niebuhr (1960) used to denote worship of the group
itself. It is not worship of a society or a nation, and it is certainly not patriotism. It is,
instead, an identity crafted from a sense of mission: a sense that America has a set of
special tasks to carry out in the world. The American political Left and Right agree
about this “American exceptionalism”; they just do not agree about what those tasks
are. Right-wingers think America’s purpose is to promote capitalism and ‘make the
world safe for democracy’. Left-wingers choose human rights and individual
freedoms. The two sides thus support different interventions: the Right supported
America’s invasion of Iraq; the Left was more interested in invading Afghanistan to
aid suppressed women. We can perhaps trace our recent political discord to these
142 J.V. Spickard

competing civil religions; doing might help us better see how deeply these visions
are held.
Bellah rightly noted that all such national callings are prophetic. Indeed, like the
Old Testament prophets, American civil religion calls both government and society
to account for their misdeeds. “With great power comes great responsibility” 6 was
an effective movie line because it resonates so deeply with American culture. To be
exceptional, America’s national sense of purpose cannot merely be self-serving. To
frame this in identity-language, Americans (in this ideology) are the people who are
called to serve everyone. The ideals for which America is famous—democracy,
freedom, justice—are an as-yet unfinished project. Can a country shape its collec-
tive identity around helping everyone attain them?
In this vision, America begins in diversity, but pluralism is not just a matter of
diverse people talking civilly with one another. Pluralism is diversity on a mission.
The mission binds us together. This kind of unity is eschatological, embedded in
national ideals.
Here we reencounter al ‘assabiyyah. In this view, religious group-feeling is not
just a matter of a shared history, nor is it just a matter of contemporary need. The
‘assabiyyah that Ibn Khald^un saw in Islam stemmed from a shared purpose: to bring
about the rule of Allah on earth and to bring all peoples to righteousness. This
enabled religion to unify fractious ethnic groups into a purposeful force. As Ibn
Khald^ un predicted, that unity soon flagged. The vision dimmed, though perhaps it
just turned sweeter: mystical Sufism had its own vision for a just and connected
world, one that it succeeded in fostering for centuries.
Sweet or forceful, can a civil religion of ideals bring people together, leaving
room for their diversity within a larger mission? Again, this is more than Eck’s call
to dialogue. Civil religion has a visionary calling at its core.

Qualms

Yet I have qualms. I hope I do not need to remind readers of the gap between my
country’s ideals and its realities. We proclaim democracy but we support dictators.
We avow independent self-government while we practice empire. The long-past
war in Vietnam was no outlier; it was part of the main trend. So, I am afraid, is the
illegal prison at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba—which is itself an imperial
imposition on a sovereign neighbor—the atrocities at Abu Ghraib, and undeclared
wars without counting. My country has plenty of dirty laundry (see, inter alia,
Johnson 2004; Zinn 2003). I frequently air it at home—and in doing so I engage in
that same prophetic civil religion that Bellah described. I call on my country to live
up to its ideals and to end its sinful ways

6
The original is reportedly by Voitaire. It is a key line in the 2002 Spiderman movie from
Columbia Pictures.
Diversity Versus Pluralism? Notes from the American Experience 143

There, is, however, a second point of worry. American culture has undergone a
shift in recent years, away from this quasi-religious national mission to a distinctly
economic one. To be blunt about it, America is now the place where people hope to
get rich. We are still the land of freedom, but now it is freedom to enjoy our wealth
rather than to do good in the world. Former President George W. Bush didn’t
actually urge Americans to “go shopping” as a response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks;
he did, however, identify our vibrant economy as the thing that our enemies envy
and he asked Americans to continue participating in it (Murse 2010).7 However, the
fact that so many people believe that Bush did say “go shopping” tells us something
culturally important. We joke about our national addiction to shopping malls and
about our need for what our comedians call “retail therapy”. We even have a
clothing chain called “True Religion” that sells very expensive designer jeans.
Have economic enrichment and the resulting consumption become the new
American national purpose? Durkheim worried about this—not the consumption
part, so much, but about the individualism and anomie that he feared would come
from treating our economic differentiation as life’s main goal. Bellah also worried
about this. So do I.
We are, however, in Europe, not in the United States. You have more immigrants
than you did before, and more of them come from diverse lands. They bring with
them strange skin colors, customs, allegiances, and—yes—religions. Will your
“pluralism” be just a matter of talking together? Or will your plurality find its
unity in a sense of mission to the world? Put otherwise, can Europe find its own civil
religion, beyond the religions of nationalism and of wealth? Can Europe become
prophetic, as it maintains its high standard of living? And can you avoid the pitfalls
that have entrapped us, on the other side of the pond?
That is an old question. It is also a Christian one—though not just Christian,
I hasten to add. Jesus had a few things to say about the difficulty of serving God
while still being economically comfortable.

References

Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of
nationalism. London: Verso.
Bellah, Robert N. 1967. Civil religion in America. Daedalus 96(Winter): 1–21.
Berkeley Social Data Archive. n.d. http://sda.berkeley.edu. Accessed 30 Oct 2013.
Chaves, Mark. 2011. American religion: Contemporary trends. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
DeParle, Jason. 2011. Favoring Immigration If not the Immigrant. New York Times, May 9, C1.
Dhaouadi, M. 1990. Ibn Khaldun: The founding father of Eastern Sociology. International Sociology
5(3): 319–335.
Durkheim, Émile. 1893. The Division of Labor in Society. Trans. G. Simpson. New York:
Free Press, 1964.

7
He actually said: “I ask your continued participation and confidence in the American economy.”
G.W. Bush, national address, Sept. 20, 2001.
144 J.V. Spickard

Durkheim, Émile. 1897. Suicide: A Study in Sociology. Trans. J.A. Spaulding and G. Simpson,
ed. G. Simpson. New York: The Free Press, 1951.
Ebaugh, Helen Rose, and Janet Chafetz (eds.). 2000. Religion and the new immigrants: Conti-
nuities and adaptations in immigrant congregations, Abridged student edition. Walnut Creek:
Altamira Press.
Eck, Diana. 2009. Gifford lectures: The age of pluralism. Unpublished, but viewable at http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v¼M0wDxV4vOqU. Accessed 30 Oct 2013.
Herberg, Will. 1955. Protestant, Catholic, Jew: An essay in American religious sociology.
Garden City: Doubleday.
Hout, Michael, and Claude S. Fischer. 2002. Why more Americans have no religious preference:
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Ibn Khald^un. [1377–1399]. The Muqaddimah: An introduction to history (in 3 volumes), 2nd ed.
Trans. F. Rosenthal. Bollingen Series XLIII. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958.
Johnson, Chalmers. 2004. Blowback: The costs and consequences of American empire. New York:
Holt.
McGuire, Meredith B. 2002. Religion: The social context, 5th ed. Belmont: Wadsworth.
Murse, Tom. 2010. Did Bush really tell Americans to ‘go shopping’ after 9/11? About.com: http://
usgovinfo.about.com/od/thepresidentandcabinet/a/did-bush-say-go-shopping-after-911.htm.
Accessed 30 Oct 2013.
Nee, Victor, and Brettde Bary Nee. 1973. Longtime Californ’: A documentary study of an
American Chinatown. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
Niebuhr, H. Richard. 1960. Radical monotheism and Western culture. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. n.d. The Immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-
Reed Act). http://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/ImmigrationAct. Accessed 2 Mar 2013.
Petersen, William. 1966. Success story: Japanese American style. New York Times Magazine,
January 20, 20ff.
Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. 2008. American religious landscape survey. http://
religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf. Survey carried out
between 8 May and 13 August, 2007. Accessed 12 Mar 2013.
Pluralism Project at Harvard University. n.d. http://www.pluralism.org. Accessed 2 Mar 2013.
Specific quotes come from: http://pluralism.org/pages/pluralism/what_is_pluralism; http://
www.pluralism.org/pluralism/essays/from_diversity_to_pluralism.php
Public Religion Research Institute. 2012. American values survey, 2012. http://publicreligion.org/
research/2012/10/american-values-survey-2012/. Accessed 12 Mar 2013.
Putnam, Robert D., and David E. Campbell. 2010. American grace: How religion divides and
unites us. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Spickard, James V. 2001. Tribes and cities: Towards an Islamic sociology of religion.
Social Compass 48(1): 97–110.
Spickard, James V. 2013. Accepting the post-colonial challenge: Theorizing a Khaldûnian
approach to the Marian apparition at Medjugorje. Critical Research on Religion 1(2): 158–176.
Spickard, Paul R. 1989. Mixed blood: Intermarriage and ethnic identity in twentieth-century
America. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Spickard, Paul R. 2007. Almost all aliens: Immigration, race, and colonialism in American history
and identity. New York: Routledge.
Warner, R. Stephen, and Judith G. Wittner (eds.). 1998. Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious
communities and the new immigration. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Zinn, Howard. 2003. A people’s history of the United States. San Francisco: HarperCollins.
Between No Establishment and Free
Exercise: The Dialectic of American
Religious Pluralism

William H. Swatos Jr.

It is well known that “religious freedom” is one of the cornerstones of the American
political-social order. The very first words of the First Amendment to the Consti-
tution of the United States are “Congress shall make no law respecting an establish-
ment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . .” It then takes up the
issues of freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and petition for redress of
grievances. Indeed, “religious freedom” has always been offered as a cornerstone
of American democracy to persecuted creeds around the world. Many would
consider it the unique “gift” of the “American experiment” to the rest of the world.
At the same time, however, these words in fact address in one breath two
different aspects of the privilege. One is that there will be no law respecting the
establishment of religion; thus the state may not establish any religion as a state
religion. The second clause, however, is much less straightforward in its potential
consequences and is where practically all “religious freedom” questions in the
United States and beyond have been argued—namely that there shall be no prohi-
bition of “the free exercise” of that religious freedom. While at first blush this might
seem to suggest nothing more than the right of a person to “attend the church of his
or her choice,” in a “no establishment” context it in fact opens a virtual Pandora’s
box of possibilities. If there is no legal establishment of a religion or religions, then
anyone can effectively create a religion on whatever basis she or he pleases. When
we look at the history of the cases that have come to court relating to “religious
freedom” questions, they almost universally derive from claims and counterclaims
regarding “free exercise.”1

1
The First Amendment was also the source one of the first cases to come before the U.S. Supreme
Court with respect to “states rights”—but on that occasion in New England, far away from the
Deep South, where the phrase was invoked in the twentieth century. Several New England states
claimed that the word “Congress” meant just what it said, the United States Congress, hence states
W.H. Swatos Jr. (*)
Institute for the Study of Religion, Baylor University, 618 SW 2nd Avenue, Galva, IL
61434-1912, USA
e-mail: [email protected]

G. Giordan and E. Pace (eds.), Religious Pluralism, 145

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06623-3_10, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
146 W.H. Swatos

The matter gets further complicated by the Second Amendment, whence another
double-barreled salvo sounds forth: “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the
security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be
infringed.” Keeping arms is one thing; bearing them is another. The context of the
Amendment makes its rationale clear: national self-defense after an historic revo-
lution. The new nation was in no position to create a either a standing army or the
military apparatus that for its day would have been the equivalent of the modern
Department of Defense. People needed to keep arms to defend both themselves and
their properties against potential attack. There was no standing army, hence all
people had to be prepared to join in the defense of their persons and property.
The U.S. Constitution thus sets up in itself, from the nation’s very beginning, the
potential for both religious pluralism and socio-political and socio-religious con-
flict. Persons of our generation, for the most part, saw the most dramatic explosion
of the energies latent in these two double-barreled amendments in the Branch
Davidian conflagration, but smaller explosions at the periphery of religious differ-
ences have occurred across US history and continue to occur. The Branch Davidian
event was “special” only in the sense of the amount of firepower accumulated by the
Davidians on the one hand and the fact that it all blew up on morning TV in our
living rooms, inasmuch as the Constitution also gives us freedom of the press.
The Davidian conflagration clearly indicates that whether the language of
“diversity” or “pluralism” is operative, the issue of the freedom of “the other” to
engage in specific practices either in the name of or under the auspices of religious
freedom needs far more careful negotiation and articulation than was likely in the
minds of the framers of these several Constitutional amendments that, with others,
form part of the American Bill of Rights. What happened in the Davidian case was a
denial of the privileges extended by these first two amendments to the Consti-
tution—viz. the right of free exercise and the right to keep and bear—when put in
juxtaposition to each other. Americans apparently have the right to keep and bear
arms and the right of freedom of religion, but not the right to keep and bear arms as
a part of their religion. Implicit in this peculiar contradiction of what on the face of
it the Constitution specifically entitles to Americans is an assumption that by
keeping and bearing arms, the Davidian leadership was denying persons the
freedom to leave the Davidian compound, hence their freedom to reject the religion
of Davidianism, if they so chose, although in fact this was never proved.
Is the Davidian case an exception, such that I should be considered over-reacting
to a single event? I don’t think so. For example, the context of the mass suicides at

could continue to have religious establishments, specifically in the form of taxation to support the
established church within the state, as long as they also allowed people to worship wherever they
pleased. In other words, citizens would pay taxes to support the state establishment, but were not
required to attend the established church or else face fines or imprisonment. Other churches could
be built and public worship conducted there, but a state could, if it chose, continue to tax its
citizens to support the established church of the state. This was eventually struck down in the
1830s as unconstitutional, and it is on that decision that all subsequent claims to “states rights”
have ultimately also been rejected, giving any privilege extended by the United States Constitution
full authority at every other level of civil government.
Between No Establishment and Free Exercise: The Dialectic of American. . . 147

Jonestown at the end of the 1970s has similar overtones. Again, what we find is a
religious group of American origin labeled as “extremist” and then a decision on the
part of the U.S. government to intervene. The difference was that Jones in a sense
“trumped” his opponents by taking control of the situation out of the government’s
hands and “ending it all” by his own scheme. Although not directly threatened by
physical violence, the Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT), another American
NRM, was repeatedly harassed by the United States Internal Revenue Service with
claims of tax evasion and a temporary revocation of its tax-exempt status as a
religious organization. (Ironically, a certainly unintended beneficial consequence
for CUT as a result of the outcry raised by the Davidian fiasco was that CUT’s tax
exempt status was reinstated, although CUT remained under close government
scrutiny, and the initial IRS investigation had symbolic effects on its recruitment
of new members.) On a much smaller scale, we can examine the various cases,
eventually at least quasi-resolved by a relatively recent Supreme Court decision,
about animal sacrifice in various Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Brazilian groups in the
US. How else do we understand the amount of both personal energy and finances
invested in these cases, when hundreds, possibly thousands, of animals are put to
death in public pounds daily—not to mention animals intentionally raised for
slaughter to feed not only humans themselves, but also their pets in a thriving
trade? The supposed logic of this concern boggles the mind, unless one sees that it
has nothing to do with the animals and everything to do with putatively “strange”
religions—practiced in the main by “strange” people.
I raise these cases from the US because I believe that one should begin with a
certain amount of self-criticism with respect to one’s own society and understand
that written guarantees of rights and privileges are set out in specific historical
settings that may or may not be considered practical 1, 2, or 300 years later.
Consider, for example, the strange American practice, prior to the end of slavery,
of counting a slave as 3/5 s of a person for apportionment of members of the US
House of Representatives (for whom, of course, they could not vote) as provided
until the 13th Amendment to the Constitution repealed the practice. Perhaps there is
no sillier phrase ever written into any other Constitution in history, but of course,
the point is that without counting the slaves in some way, the slave states would
have had inadequate population numbers to maintain the legality of the slave
system, inasmuch as membership in the House is determined by population. I
raise this example, which has nothing to do with religious organization directly,
simply to point out that we make various kinds of adjustments to accommodate, as
it were, preconceived practical necessities on the one hand, while on the other,
when matters of practical import are insignificant, we can take more inflexible
stands. A case in point here, to move us away from the US, is the vote on the Swiss
referendum to disallow the building of (further) minarets in the country, especially
inasmuch as none of the four existing minarets was used for the (Islamic) call to
prayer. Other European countries have taken similar kinds of steps to minimize the
perceived threat of Islamification of either the country as a whole or at least some
major urban areas. Much of these have nothing to do with the realities “on the
ground” at the moment, but rather “perceived” threats of what might happen in one
148 W.H. Swatos

of several potentially envisionable future scenarios of population change and

sociocultural dynamics that might occur “in, with, and under” those.
Here we see rather different notions of “establishment” coming into play. In the
US case, the establishment of any one religion is prohibited, but any religion may
“establish” itself as a religion very easily. It simply has to have people who
congregate for religious observances in a regular way and who do not otherwise
break the law in the process—for example, by holding their observances in a locale
whose zoning does not permit public-access types of activities (usually “high end”
residential areas). It certainly helps if the religion has some form of doctrinal
manual and has a “corporate” structure that at least has the appearance of assuring
continuity. Religions wishing to take advantages of US tax laws must also keep
careful financial records and file papers annually with the Internal Revenue Service.
Some states also require separate filings. Religious employees are not tax exempt,
though in some cases they may have special privileges that may have the effect of
reducing their tax obligations. For example, religious practitioners may opt out of
our Social Security tax system, but then they must be careful not to invest their
funds in other instruments that have a “corporate” character. (Personal bank
accounts and bonds are fine, but not mutual funds.)

Good Will

Underlying American religious freedom is the general notion of Kantian good will
that was very much in the air at the end of the eighteenth century; that is, the
contemporary premise of American democracy that preceded the Constitution and
its Amendments was a beneficent deism that bound together the nation’s leadership.
For the most part, the Constitutional “fathers” embraced the deism of the late
eighteenth century regardless of their particular religious denomination. Absent
this understanding of good will, religious freedom can obviously turn ugly. This
good will ideology of religious freedom persisted at least into the 1960s and
underlies the statement ascribed to President Dwight Eisenhower—but unable to
be proof-texted today—that “everyone should have a religion, and I don’t care what
it is.” Eisenhower also supported the idea that “America the Beautiful” should
replace “The Star Spangled Banner” as the United States’ national anthem, and it
was during Eisenhower’s administration that the words “under God” were inserted
into the “Pledge of Allegiance” to the United States’ flag. It was also the era of
the “gray flannel suit,” and of particularly significant activities on the part of the
U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities in a peace-
time situation. Un-American Activities in this regard were especially associated
with persons of ill-will in American society, including sequentially Nazi sympa-
thizers in its earliest years and then Communist sympathizers once the cold war had
set in.
These historical ebbs and flows are particularly significant to understanding the
present context of religious freedom in the United States, which continues to be
Between No Establishment and Free Exercise: The Dialectic of American. . . 149

“overdetermined” in some respects by the events of September 11, 2001, which

were without a doubt acts of ill will, whether or not they were provoked by specific
U.S. positions or commitments. I was particularly struck by the extent to which the
events of “9/11” were commemorated in the summer of 2011, on the tenth anni-
versary of the attacks. I confess I had hardly any awareness of the anniversary
myself until it hit the media over the weekend that included that date. What became
absolutely clear through the media at that time, however, was the enormous
bi-partisanship among American political and social figures denouncing religious
bigotry and personal ill-will, while at the same time associating religious bigotry
and ill-will with the perpetrators of the events of 9/11, through all of which sounded
a chorus of religious devotion to good will. President Obama’s political capital was
undoubtedly further increased with the death of Osama bin-Laden, an act for which
he has been straightforward in accepting personal responsibility. The “Axis of Evil”
has shifted from godless Communism to militant Islam (or Islamic radicalism).
“Free exercise” clearly does not extend to attacks on the putative “American
Satan,” by Muslims or any other religious group.
How this plays out for “ordinary Muslims” in the United States is difficult to
estimate. On the one hand, there have been relatively large communities of both
Arab Christians and Arab Muslims in the Detroit area, for example, for many years.
Large blocks of Arab and other Eastern Christians have also more recently settled in
southern California—in both cases people from Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Muslims from
some of the same areas have also fled to the United States—some to avoid sectarian
violence, others as a result of repressive political regimes quite apart from religious
issues or simply for perceived opportunities for economic advancement. In general,
free exercise seems supported for these populations provided there are explicit
declarations that make support for no establishment equally clear—participation of
a mullah, for example, in his local ministerial association along with general
conformity by him and his congregation to American social standards in regard to
such things as clothing, manners, civic participation, the role of women, and so on
serve as indicators of acceptance of the “separation” norm.
It may indeed be the case that some Christian groups can get away with forms of
disruptive behavior more easily than would be allowed Muslims in a similar
situation. The anti-gay protests at the funerals of American military service per-
sonnel by the Westboro Baptist Church, for example, might be more difficult for a
Muslim group to pull off, if they so desired. That the anti-gay protests are them-
selves signs of ill will is what makes them so reprehensible to the general American
population, not least when they occur in connection with the death of a soldier who
is perceived to have given his life “on behalf of his country,” a setting where
American civil religion is also attacked and where the deceased soldier was not
himself gay. Now that the Westboro case has been finally adjudicated, however,
American civic groups related especially to veterans’ concerns have begun to find
ways to use other Constitutional privileges to avert Westboro agitation at funeral
sites in some locales. Nevertheless, the Westboro example is an important one to
keep in mind, inasmuch as it does demonstrate that American Constitutional
privileges extended to religious groups have the potential to turn ugly and move
150 W.H. Swatos

in directions that the founding fathers could never have conceived. On the other
hand, regardless of one’s personal feelings about the Westboro approach, if the
content is removed, then in some respects Westboro’s tactics do not stand entirely
outside the American tradition of taking one’s religion into the public arena to
effect change. In particular, the Westboro strategy is one that has not taken up arms
in its use of freedom of speech. In that sense, its stands firmly within the American
Constitutional tradition.
The sit-ins from the late 1950s into the succeeding decade also shared some
formal characteristics with the Westboro protesters—particularly in those cases
where “freedom riders” from outside the locales where the protests were to occur in
effect rode into town as “outlaws” in the eyes of the locals. There can be no question
that the majority of freedom riders knew they were going to places to break the laws
of those places, which in those places were considered to be legitimately enacted.
Put in the most extreme position from the historic Southern side of the day, it
constituted conspiracy to break the laws of the land. Of course, from the side of the
freedom riders, it was the same question turned around, “Whose land is it, any-
way?” Religious freedom allowed the freedom riders to be arrested and prosecuted
for opposing unjust laws that the freedom riders believed fundamentally violated
the rights of all citizens guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Though
intended as an expression of unity, the popular song of the era This Land is Your
Land, This Land is My Land expressed the tension between the two sides as well.

The Globalization Dynamic and American Civil Religion

Looking at the history of religion in the United States, one might be tempted to see
current issues regarding Islam as simply a “stage” in a process of integration of new
populations into the national fabric. For example, one can point to the fact that in
the nineteenth century various firms would simultaneously put up a sign or take out
a newspaper advertisement seeking employees and then add “Catholics need not
apply.” Inasmuch as the Roman Catholic Church in the United States today is the
largest single religious body, an argument could be made for letting time “work
itself out.” On the other hand, the United States has never been at war with Catholic
states as Catholic belligerents—that is to say, states that claimed that they had the
right to attack the United States or United States citizens because Americans were
heretics or infidels. In that sense, from 1979 forward there has been a new dimen-
sion added to the “religious freedom” struggle at the global level, itself becoming
thereby a dynamic in the globalization process that was not a part of the work of
early globalization theorists, who tended to see states like Iran and Egypt in the
1970s as “progressive” regimes and potential “models” for not only the Islamic
world, but also other regions where Christianity was not dominant. Japan, of course,
had already made the transition, and in the interim China has also become a major
global player—even though it may well be that there are “two Chinas” today in a
quite different sense from what was meant 50 years ago, with places like
Between No Establishment and Free Exercise: The Dialectic of American. . . 151

contemporary Wenzhou and Hong Kong being quite different from western regions
of the country in terms of economic development. It is not without significance that
these two areas have the highest percentages of Christians—and predominantly
Protestant Christians—in China.
To say that the conflicts that occur today with some predominately Muslim
regimes and regime actors is a “new dimension” in our world is new only to those of
us whose lives have been lived in the twentieth century. Barbary piracy, including
the taking of American hostages, in the early nineteenth century was one of the
several forms of international belligerence that brought fame to the United States
Marine Corps whose hymn, also written early in the nineteenth century, begins
“From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli. . ..” The specific occasion
for the Tripoli reference was the Battle of Derne in 1805, at whose conclusion the
United States flag was raised in the “old world” for the first time. The hymn was
written relatively shortly thereafter, so much so that it could be revised into its
present form in 1828.2

Globalization, and American Civil Religion:

What Is Justice?

The title “God Bless America” reflects not only the most popular slogan of the
responses to the events of 9/11 as they appeared across the United States, but also
the diffuse quality of American civil religion, which stands alongside and both
complements and is complemented by the specific traditions that compose the
American religious milieu. “God Bless America” was simultaneously slogan and
song. It gave voice to American emotions. It also has a history of association with
both national resurgence and the sociological corpus, as part of the research of
Robert Merton and colleagues on the World War II war-bond mass radio audience
effort stimulated by singer Kate Smith, who had introduced the song to an imme-
diately successful national reception in 1938, on the occasion of the twentieth
anniversary of the World War I armistice (Merton et al. 1946). Written by Irving
Berlin during his own military service in 1918, the song was rejected for publication
at that time, but at the radio voice of Smith it would become a powerful rallying cry
in the midst of World War II—nor of course, was the fact that Irving Berlin was
Jewish lost in the midst of Nazi anti-Semitism (cf. http://katesmith.org/gba.html).
When examined in a religious rather than sociopolitical context, what is most
immediately obvious is that the song actually says almost nothing about God other
than a providential personalism. It primarily exults the goodness of the nation even
as it affirms the existence of the deity as an ally for her good. Indeed, various
commentators, for example, have noted that if the song were theologically authentic
the title would be something along the lines of “America Bless God.” This

2
The revision had nothing to do with the Tripoli reference.
152 W.H. Swatos

observation underscores the important theoretical distinction between theological

and religious use of language. Inasmuch as more than 95 % of the US population
still acknowledges belief in God (in relatively simplistic surveys), an appeal to God
in this undefined way is an appeal to a singularly unifying religious symbol of high
generality.
It is significant, however, that this song rather than the National Anthem, became
the expressive focus of American reaction to 9/11. Within hours of the attacks,
when members of Congress sang “God Bless America” on the steps of the Capitol,
and certainly by the time of the memorial observance at National Cathedral, the
essentially religious character of American nationhood was increasingly articu-
lated. In the popular vein, Lee Greenwood’s 1983 song “God Bless the U.S.A.”
would also be added to this movement—now incorporated into the naturalization
ceremony of new US citizens (see Meizel 2006; Swatos 2006). The Puritan “errand
into wilderness” to found a “city upon a hill” was reaffirmed: The United States
began as a religious project—the product of a search for “freedom.” The American
Way of religious freedom, in this mythological recreation—which, as Robert
Bellah (1999) has pointed out, is actually far more to be associated with the Baptist
Roger Williams than the “Pilgrim fathers”—was set over against a “foreign” way of
religious tyranny and oppression. Civil religion in America thus is not as entirely
diffuse as it seems at first blush, for there is an aura within which it operates, what
Catherine Albanese has termed American “public Protestantism”—the character-
istic of Americanism that led G. K. Chesterton (and others) to observe that “in the
United States even the Catholics are Protestants.” Today we add other groups as
well—for example, “Protestant Buddhism.” Complementing this public Protestant-
ism is the moral code of the Judeo-Christian ethic.
When the moment came for the specifically religious and the civilly religious to
interpret in the events of 9/11, a crucial choice had to be made as to who should
utter the prophetic word. Neither the liberal female bishop of Washington Epi-
scopalians, nor the one-time leader of the Moral Majority, but a man who would
embody for the bulk of Americans the public Protestantism which they had
encountered the most throughout their lives: Billy Graham mounted the steps of
Washington’s National Cathedral. Though technically a Baptist, Graham has
always been noted as a public figure, both in the United States and abroad,
associated neither with a specific church nor with an ostensibly commercial enter-
prise. In his sermon, Graham interfaced doctrinally specific religion and civil
religion as he has done throughout his career. In calling America to repentance
and renewal, Graham also renewed his own cultural capital as the living icon of the
public Protestantism that forms the specifically religious interface for diffuse civil
religion of America. And did it occur to no one that Billy Graham spent the bulk of
his evangelistic ministry conducting crusades?
Public Protestantism and American civil religion particularly coalesced because
the attacks of 9/11 constituted moral outrages inasmuch as they failed to conform to
the norms of civil societies in regard to the conduct of public conflicts. By acting
outside the norms of structured national conflicts, the perpetrators of these actions
were seen to represent persons who had overstepped the bounds of toleration that
Between No Establishment and Free Exercise: The Dialectic of American. . . 153

are inherent in American civil religion. They both violated the norm of “taking
religion too seriously,” and simultaneously provided evidence of what happens
when people take religion “too seriously.” Whereas within American civil religion
there is a juxtaposition of freedom for and freedom from religion, the latter was
outrageously breached on 9/11. The breaching of this norm means that American
civil religion itself was attacked. The events of 9/11 did not simply attack America
in general, they attacked the American civil-religious principle of laissez faire—
which is also a political-economic worldview, theoretically the American economic
worldview. This interplay of laissez faire religion and laissez faire economics
allows constant ultimate value reinforcement for practical behavior. The appeal
of Billy Graham was always to bring people to make their “own decision” about
religious commitment—Decision being, in fact, the title of his magazine for
supporters. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon thus were
cast not merely as military offences, but as assaults on core American values
including the religious value of freedom for/from. Not surprisingly, American
Muslims quickly had to distance themselves from the contrary values enacted by
the terrorists.
The renewal of American civil religion thus can be projected to have an ironic
consequence; namely, the decline of the influence of right-wing religious extrem-
ism in the political sector within the United States, even as there is a more general
turn to religious articulation of central values. This became quickly apparent in the
days after the events of 9/11, when attempts by Christian Rightists to associate the
attacks with such phenomena as gay/lesbian rights and feminism rang hollow and
received scant hearing. American civil religion is not the worship of America, but it
is an assertion of central values for the separation of religions from politics even as
it asserts the religiousness of the core value of the nation as an instrument of divine
intent, if not action. Hence 9/11 served to knit together a stronger conservative
Judeo-Christian core while paring away the fringes. Issues that once animated the
extreme are being addressed within the core in a spirit of a search for reinvigorated
central values, albeit in the context of a specific threat that may in fact obscure
the root causes of the problems in question. The contradictions of multinational
capitalism, for example, continue to be largely off the agenda of American political
and religious discourse.
Not as apparent in the experience of 9/11 was the relationship between the
attacker’s priorities—the destruction of the state of Israel—and American civil
religion. Perhaps because the initial military assaults against Israel in the 1960s by
the likes of Egypt’s Nasser were fully secularist—Nasser being a great foe of
Islamicists, as was the Baath party that brought Saddam Hussein to power in
Iraq—American policy-makers and military strategists largely missed or misread
the buildup of Islamicist politics during the 1970s. The United States backed
democratic efforts where they seemed viable while accepting the leadership of
“strong men” as long as they did not threaten American “interests”—specifically,
oil resources. Human rights issues were clearly secondary priorities. On the surface
of it, for example, one might have thought Jimmy Carter and the Ayatollah
Khomeini would have been great friends as advocates of moral high ground; instead
154 W.H. Swatos

they became mortal enemies. Because the state of Israel is intertwined with the
Promised Land myth of America, on the one hand, and because of the millennial
expectations of American Protestants on the other, American leadership failed to
understand the extent to which Islamicists view Israel both as a invasion of their
sacred space and, more specifically, as an American client state. Americans by and
large continue to fail to see that the Israeli presence in Palestine appears to
Islamicists as an American “resettlement project” not essentially different from
Soviet resettlements among, for example, the Baltic nations after World War
II. Though perhaps born of the highest motives, nevertheless the establishment of
the state of Israel, the resettlement of Jews in that territory, and the lack of adequate
regard for the people already living there represent a Western incursion of unique
significance entirely counter to the decolonization that otherwise characterized
the post-World War II era. Hence, by its apparent ignorance and arrogance, the
United States becomes the final superpower to be undone.
Undergirding these claims and counterclaims are biblical myths of ownership
that extend thousands of years into the past, before either Christianity or Islam was
ever named. The Promised Land—which is precisely what God is claimed to have
given Abraham—was already populated when the children of Israel arrived.
Palestinians claim a pre-Israelitic ancestry. The claims of modern Jews, further-
more, are historically corrupted by the fact that, if the term “Semitic” has any
genuinely biological concomitants—rather than its fast-and-loose use by anti-
Semites—then many, perhaps most, present-day Jews cannot possibly be biological
descendants of those who occupied Judea at the time of the Roman destruction of
Jerusalem. Hence, the Jewish claim to land rights in historic Israel is a spiritual
claim, rooted in religious myth—a myth ironically shared in part with the majority
of actual occupants at the time of the creation of the modern state of Israel—i.e.,
Muslims. Jerusalem thus becomes the epicenter of myths of eternal significance
with practical consequences. In this context, the specifically Judeo-Christian roots
of American public Protestantism become quite clear. The claim of the “right of the
Jewish people to a nation-state of their own” is shot through with specifically
modern American Evangelical thinking about the nature of the world order. Neither
Catholics nor Muslims in a world-historical context, for example, would think this
way. The process by which American history has been thought and taught in the
United States is retrospectively applied to a universal world history of eternal
significance. “Manifest destiny” is extended as a result of American participation
in World War II from a doctrine regarding the development of the Western
hemisphere to a universal law based on a specific civil-religious reading, which is
also a political-economic reading, of the purpose of the United States as a nation of
eternal significance: “In God we trust”—you can read it on all our money.
At the same time, because of the public Protestantism that pervades the United
States, the successes of the medieval Crusades are often minimized. The Latin
Kingdom of Jerusalem, by contrast, can teach important lessons to those who would
too quickly dismiss the persistence of Islamicist forces. Depending on how its
boundaries are evaluated, it can be said to have lasted from 45 to 200 years. The
modern state of Israel only recently celebrated its 50th anniversary: As Americans
Between No Establishment and Free Exercise: The Dialectic of American. . . 155

fight the current war against Islamicist terrorism, a perspective on what Max Weber
termed the “warrior ethic” of Islam needs to be laid over against the work ethic that
is enshrined within American civil religion (see Swatos 1995). These ethics repre-
sent two competing worldviews of “universal historical” significance. The
Islamicist worldview presents a challenge to the United States entirely different
in kind from that of the Soviet empire, against which American civil religious
defenses were primarily constructed over the last half-century. The terrorists who
struck on 9/11 could have chosen many different targets. The specific choices they
made need to be seen in their symbolic significance, and the importance of the
consequences attached to those choices needs to be addressed in a renewed civil
religion in America in the era of globalization.
My intent here is not to be jingoistic, but rather to point out that there have been
essential differences between the pluralistic worldview espoused in American
society and culture regarding the place of religion in civil life and that of some
Islamic states for over two centuries. The idea, in other words, that “postmodern
globalization” is somehow to be held responsible for problems of religious intole-
rance—that, in a sense, things are “moving too fast” for local systems of action to
adjust themselves simultaneously to global demands is belied by the “shores of
Tripoli” line. At the same time, can we not see a kind of Weberian irony, hence a
larger truth about American society and culture, that it would be not only a
Democratic president (as was Jefferson when the shores of Tripoli lines were
written), but also the first African-American president and the first president born
outside of the continental United States, who would deploy the necessary troops and
tactical support again to both Pakistan and Lybia (and beyond) in the cause of
fundamental human rights as conceptualized within the Bill of Rights.
Globalization has been going on since the beginning of the sixteenth century and
was sufficiently in place by the beginning of the nineteenth for the fledgling
United States to understand that if it was going to protect its national interests it
had to be able to act internationally, hence simply having a standing army at home
was insufficient to protect the liberties it had won. From its very beginnings, then,
the American world view had a global dimension whose focus has narrowed or
broadened as various circumstances seemed to require, yet in fact, it has been those
times when its focus has narrowed that the country has been at its weakest internally
as well as externally. American religious pluralism is part of a broader societal
pluralism that at its best strives to give the greatest possible opportunity for free
exercise while establishing liberty and justice for all. Certainly “the American way”
has had its stronger and weaker moments, not least evidenced not merely in our
Civil War but even more so, in some respects, by the failure fully and consistently
to nurture the fruits of the Union victory. As the world has shrunk, it is the case that
we see these more immediately worked out—indeed appearing on our television
screens almost as they happen—than may have been the case in past centuries. The
picture is not always pleasant, as it was not in Waco, and there are certainly those
who now criticize U.S. decisions and actions within the past year in both Pakistan
and Libya. On the whole, however, the premises of no establishment and free
exercise have weathered changing times surprisingly well, and the United States
156 W.H. Swatos

continues to show weekly attendance at religious services at a higher rate than

virtually any other society in the world.

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the USA since 9/11. Implicit Religion 9: 166–179.
Missionary Trans-Border Religions
and Defensive Civil Society in Contemporary
Japan: Toward a Comparative Institutional
Approach to Religious Pluralism

Yoshihide Sakurai

Introduction

Globalization and modernization have been considered major factors that facilitate
religious diversity and pluralism. As James Beckford clarified in his work, the
concept of pluralism refers to diversity of religion, public acceptance or recognition
of transnational religion, and pluralism as value, and these three aspects of pluralism
are interconnected (Beckford 2003). Japan since the 1980s provides an example in
this regard.
The migrants who were called “new comers” from East and Southeast Asia,
Middle East, and South America brought their historic religions such as Catholic,
Evangelism and Pentecostalism, and Islam into Japan and thereby established
ethnic churches and mosques. It is in contrast with the “old comers” who arrived
from the Korean Peninsula in colonial times with their ancestral cults and shaman-
ism that were almost limited to their own ethnic communities (Sakurai and Miki
2012).
In addition, Japan has also received energetic missionaries from Korean and
Western churches. They are so active that some pastors in mainline churches raised
eyebrows to them and equated them as new religions and/or cults that solicit general
public and obtained converts from their churches (Lee and Sakurai 2011). As a
result, the increasing religious diversity urged the existing established religions as
well as civil society to regard those particular religious activities as the exercise of
their civil rights. Hence, religious pluralism that guarantees freedom and cross-
cultural tolerance to new-comer religions is established.
Sociologists of religion in Japan tended to ignore the macro theoretical theory
that explains religious change, and just consider globalization and trans-nationalism
merely as social background. The primary goal of this chapter is to investigate the

Y. Sakurai (*)
Graduate School of Letters, Hokkaido University, kita 10 nishi 7, Sapporo 060-0810, Japan
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

G. Giordan and E. Pace (eds.), Religious Pluralism, 157

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06623-3_11, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
158 Y. Sakurai

dynamism and interaction between new comers’ religions and civil society from the
institutional perspective of religious and social history. Besides, studies on con-
temporary Japanese religions, whether they are religious, anthropological, or socio-
logical, have focused rather on specific issues so far, typically snapshots of
particular religions and Japanese religiosity. To fill this gap, information of various
new comers’ religions is discussed in details.
Specifically, I examine how globalization has influenced religious diversity and
how incidentally foreign religions have challenged the hegemonic religious order in
Japan. How many and what kinds of foreign religions have come to Japan and
established their churches in order to expand their social capital as well as mis-
sionary for Japanese? How have they adapted to Japanese society and been
approved by traditional religions and civil society? To what extent can the institu-
tional perspective more coherently explain the Japanese reactions to religious
diversity and pluralism-oriented policies that are considered independent of or
inconsistent with its own religious and social history? How does the Japanese
case contribute to the comparative studies of religious pluralism in other cultural
contexts? These are the descriptive and theoretical questions addressed in this
study.

Theoretical Perspective to Explain Contemporary Religions

Japanese social scientists acknowledged the significant theoretical literatures

through the introduction by leading scholars and their translations into Japanese
language. Since the 1970s and 1980s the concept of secularization, which suggests
the negative impact of modernity on religion, was widely recognized through the
works of Brian Wilson (1976), Tomas Luckmann (1967), Peter Berger et al. (1973),
and Karel Dobbellaere (1981). Although sociologists highly appreciated their
theoretical implications, religious scholars question about the applicability of
secularization thesis on Japanese social and religious change. In Japan, secular
warriors were the power of religions since the ancient Yamato Dynasty, hence there
was basically no sacred canopy except for the time when Meiji nation states
invented the synergetic Shintoism and Tennoism and promoted it as the national
ideology of Nihon Empire in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century
(Shimazono 2005). Moreover, new religious movements and New Age also
flourished in this period.
Counter arguments to the secularization thesis, such as the concept of civil
religion (Bellah 1970) and public religion (Casanova 1994), stimulated Japanese
scholars to think whether Japanese religious traditions have become social ethics
and bear significant roles in public sphere. But the State Shintoism or other religions
are no longer expected to be the foundations of morality and justice for Japanese,
because liberalization and democratization rejected any legacy of religious values
as well as institutions after World War II. Therefore, scholars just followed the
academic trend to reevaluate the public role of religions and read the monographs
Missionary Trans-Border Religions and Defensive Civil Society in. . . 159

on new religious movements/cults, Pentecostalism and Evangelism that flourished

and expanded in many countries.
Although these literatures are important works to controvert secularization, the
general theory of religious market and rational choice advocated by Rodney Stark
and William Sims Bainbridge (1985, 1987), Laurence Iannaccone (1992) were not
acknowledged or translated into Japanese, showing a lack of interest in understand-
ing religion comprehensively in the Japanese academia. This model has the basic
premises: (1) meaning of life and world view are necessary for human-being, hence
religious-demand is constant; (2) traditional religions and new religions, mainline
churches and new denominations competitively provide meanings in religious
market; (3) the relaxation of regulations and religious diversity increase religious
options so that participation to church services as well as para-churches’ social
service would also increase. Criticism to autonomous man with rational choice
were also raised (Bruce 1999). Here, my arguments focus on the theoretical pre-
mises and universality of this model.
My argument to the first premise is that monotheism does formulate sacred
canopy and confessional church monopolizes belongingness, while polytheism
and/or customary religious practice is just part of our social life and meaning
system. Japan is a very good example of the latter. Secondly and generally
speaking, religion in any society exists in hierarchy where some are more favored
than the others. They do not necessarily compete to attract consumers. But trans-
national religious movements and multiculturalism began to challenge this hierar-
chy and they compete vigorously for believers. Market model is becoming popular
in any disciplines as global capitalism prevails in the world system. For the third
point, religious market can be highly regulated in reality. For example the triple
religious market invented by Fenngang Yang consists of an authorized market,
suppressed underground market, and in-between gray market. Furthermore, in the
shortage economy of religious groups and specialists, peoples’ religious demands
do not necessarily disappear but rather sustained. Religion has revived once the
regulation is loosened and transnational missionary entered into China (Yang
2012).
A more fundamental limitation of religious market model is the time lag between
the change of religious demands and supplies. Although secularization may have
negative impacts on peoples’ religious interest and church attendance, it does not
significantly undermine the development of religious institution in a short time. For
example in Japan, after the World War II, the ratio of Japanese believing in
polytheistic gods, spirits, and ancestral ghosts has gradually declined from 70 %
to approximately 20 %. Yet traditional and new religions have not declined in
reality. Similarly, the influx of foreign religions has not increased religious demand
either. The supply of religious products is also less elastic and responsive to the
changing spiritual demands of Japanese. Otherwise, religious institutions would
have already been much commercialized to meet peoples’ secular demands of
merit-making.
In short, the religious economy model can explain those religious situations in
which social institutions are largely commercialized. The US is a market oriented
160 Y. Sakurai

state where religious freedom and diversity is high and no regulation by the federal
government has been the institution. However, Europe has strong and unique
institutions of religious order and social institutions that have lasted for centuries,
and they are more robust than market rule. If that is the case, we should focus on the
major institutions that guide and regulate religious demand and supply and provide
the “take-it-for-granted-ness” for people. The target of analysis is not the market
system but institutions.
Considering the institutional transformation of religions in Japan, religious
diversity and control of religions through administrative means are crucial factors
in our analysis. We will begin with an overview of Japanese religious history.

Japanese Religious Institutions

Japanese indigenous religions include folk religions, such as spiritualism, nature

worship, and rites for guardian spirits and ancestors. Such a stable religious world
had become diversified by foreign religions such as Buddhism, Confucianism, and
Taoism, when the early Yamato Dynasty developed relations with Silla and Baekje
in the seventh to eighth century and subsequently Fujiwara aristocracy sent embas-
sies to Tang China in the seventh to ninth century.
Initially Buddhism was a state religion patronized by the Emperor (Tenno) and
their denominations were supported by manorialism. Some monks who were sons
of aristocrats had wives and passed their monks status to their children. Japanese
monks were not required to renounce from the secular world that was very different
from Theravada and Mahayana traditions. Furthermore, recently Japanese histo-
rians argued that three fourth of monks at that time were actually non-official
monks who shaved their head and put on robes just to evade tax and labors (Ito
2008). On the other hand, the religious element of Confucianism entered into Japan
as a form of posthumous name tablets worship and gradually mixed with Buddhist
memorial (ullambana) services.
Until the twelfth century new Buddhist sects emerged from old denominations.
Shinran, the founder of Jodo Shin shu, (Pure land True Buddhism) were persecuted
and exiled. But the exile allowed him to further propagate Buddhism among the
general public. Monks were supported by believers for the first time. At the same
time Taoism and feng shui pervaded into popular beliefs. At that time, religions
were the main components of Japanese civilization and culture among Japanese
until they encountered with Christianity in the sixteenth century.
Jesuit missionary successfully propagated and attracted feudal lords and their
serfs. However, the chief adviser to Tenno and Shogun of Tokugawa were
concerned about the threats of western colonization of Japan as it was happening
in Southeast Asia at that time. Finally Shogunate suppressed Jesuits as well as
Japanese Christian; some of them suffer martyrdom while others were ordered to
renounce their faiths and to belong to particular Buddhist denominations. It was the
first religious control that prohibited Japanese from believing in foreign religions
Missionary Trans-Border Religions and Defensive Civil Society in. . . 161

for almost two and half hundreds years. Buddhist denominations fortunately
enjoyed the privilege to make every Japanese Buddhist parishioners; Buddhism
became part of the secular order. As a result Japanese families recognized Bud-
dhism not as religious belief but households’ religious customs that were passed
down from generation to generation.
In 1867 Tokugawa Shogunate returned its power to the Emperor when low-level
samurais and their feudal lords built antiforeigner factions that strongly criticized
the shogunate’s weak-kneed diplomacy to the West. The new government aban-
doned the policy of seclusion and suppression of Christianity so that new policies
such as freedom of religion, equality of all people, and approval for monks to have
wife and surname were implemented. Moreover, Meiji government ordered all
religions to support militarism and State Shintoism and suppressed new religions
whose founders proclaimed their sacredness deriving from other sources other than
the living god Tenno. For more than 300 years’ of Tokugawa and Meiji-Taisho
period, Japanese became accustomed to regulations on religions and regarded
religious devotees as fanatic and esoteric, while customary religions are widely
accepted.
The defeat of World War II in 1945 was the turning point of religious policies
when the US introduced democracy, politico-religious separation, and religious
freedom to Japan. After the decline of state patronized Shintoism, Japan entered the
“rush hour of the Gods” (McFarland 1967) and those new religious movements
earned political power by forming political party and patronage of politicians.
Although such cozy relation was criticized by liberal and leftist academics, new
religions won over peoples’ mind and became too large to ignore.
On the other hand, secularism has governed many aspects of society including
public education, jurisdiction, and administration to the extent that 70 % of Japa-
nese proclaimed themselves as non-religious. This tendency was amplified by the
Aum incidents, in which Aum cult group scattered sarin nerve gas in Tokyo subway
system and killed 13 peoples and injured more than 6,000 peoples in 1995. Cult
phobia also damaged credibility of religions. On the contrary, influential authors
and intellectuals preferred spirituality and therefore spiritualists, spiritual entrepre-
neurs, and their followers increased at the same time (Shimazono 2004). Religious
preference varied from very religious to anti-religious among Japanese.
At last, we examine the statistics of Japanese Religious Corporation (Table 1).
Total religious believers of 200 million people are almost twice as much as the
population of Japan. Shinto shrines consider all residents in their communities as
their parishioners, and residential groups usually collect membership fee every year
for community shrines. And Buddhist temples ask their members to transfer
membership to their children. General public does not concern about double
affiliation to Shinto and Buddhism. The memberships of Christianity and New
Religious Movement (NRM) seem to be overestimated because they include
defectors as well as dead members. At any rate approximately 20 % of believers
and the rest of practitioners of religious customs comprise of this syncretism of
religious institution.
162 Y. Sakurai

Table 1 Statistics of Corporations Teachers Believers

Japanese religions in 2010
Shinto 85,145 76,190 102,756,326
Buddhism 77,478 348,662 84,652,539
Christianity 4,468 35,129 2,773,09 6
Others, NRM 14,906 216,560 9,435,317
Total 181,997 676,541 199,617,278
Source: Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Bulletin of Religions 2013:
34–35

New Comers’ Religion and Missionary Religion

In 2012 approximately two million Korean entered into Japan as tourists as well as
workers, and among them there are hundreds of missionaries who conducted
pioneering missions in cities and campus crusade. Every spring season my univer-
sity students meet Korean students who talked about Korean film stars, pop songs
and Bible in trained and fluent Japanese. At the Starbucks in Sapporo young people
meet international crusading people who talked in English and broken Japanese.
English learners and people who like western style of communication are brought to
church gathering.
Missionary Christianity attracted a lot of new members and developed their
churches that doubled its size in a few years. Powerful missionaries such as Jesus
Life House International Church built their churches with thousands of member in
just 10 years. Japanese mainline church pastors wondered if there were any special
techniques in those churches, admitting that Japanese churches held the theology of
mission but lacked methodology to proselytize.
Missionary and ethnic churches are two major driving forces to diversify
Japanese religions after the stagnation of new religious movements in past decades.
In the 1980s Japan enjoyed rapid economic growth and received huge migrants with
various religious backgrounds. Korean and Chinese new comers came with their
ethnic churches and religions. Brazilian and Peruvian migrants, who were descen-
dants of Japanese who left Japan during poverty, came to work in factories and built
their ethnic Catholic and Protestant churches. Myanmar refugees built Protestant
churches to maintain and cultivate ethnic identity among their second generation.
Thai also established tens of Theravada Buddhist temples as well as Tammakaya
temples.
In the next section the author discuss Korean churches, Evangelical and Pente-
costal churches from other countries, churches that are regarded as heretic, and
other foreign religions and spiritual movements.
Missionary Trans-Border Religions and Defensive Civil Society in. . . 163

Table 2 Korean churches in Japan

Founded Num. of
Name of denomination year branches
The Global Mission Society of the Presbyterian 1995 2
Church in Korea
Korean Methodist Church in Japan 1985 2
The Presbyterian Church in Japan 1982 10
Tokyo Central Church 1985 7
Full Gospel Tokyo Church 1980s 71
Balnaba Gospel Churcha 1968 2
Yohan Tokyo Christ Church 1988 25
Mission of Jesus Disciple 1983 3
Korean Methodist Church 1994 7
Federation of Baptist Church in Japana 1984 7
International Gospel Churcha 1986 5
Foreign Mission Board from Korea 2000s 9
Independent Church/Jesus Presbyterian Church 1990s 22
Total 172
Source: Lee and Sakurai (2011: 165)
a
No official English name

Korean Churches

In the 1980s Evangelical and Pentecostal churches in Japan were strongly stimu-
lated by the Third Wave of Holy Spirit movement. David Cho Yonggi, the founder
of Yoido Full Gospel Church, world’s NO. 1 mega church of 600,000 members, led
this movement in Korea and established Full Gospel Tokyo Church in 1985 and
expanded its branches throughout Japan. Furthermore, the concept of Mission of
Force and Church Growth from Korean churches deeply influenced Japanese
churches (Table 2).
As Korean Protestantism grew rapidly to five million members, churches also
trained a considerable number of missionary workers. However, Korea became
saturated with Protestant growth, which is in contrast with the ongoing growth of
Catholic. Therefore, they turned their eyes to foreign mission and systematically
trained missionaries to the extent that Korea became the second largest missionary-
dispatching nation in the world after the United States. Their biggest out-reaching
country was Japan, where Christians remained at the level of 1 % of the total
population.
Korean Churches in Japan were divided into two groups. One is Korean Chris-
tian Church in Japan. Such ethnic church was established by Korean old comers in
colonial times and preserved Korean service. Social capital derived from these
churches was just for Korean residents. On the other hand, new comers and
missionary Korean churches did not adhere to Korean language and used Japanese
or simultaneous interpretation in order to attract Japanese believers. Furthermore,
they expanded their membership through study and service in cell groups and
164 Y. Sakurai

discipleship training program, which were the strategies for the rapid growth of
Korean church (Lee and Sakurai 2011).

Foreign Missionary

Western Missionary groups have also expanded their membership since 1980s and
some groups collaborated with other Japanese denominations. The groups listed
(Table 3) are part of foreign missionaries. They are classifies into three types in
terms of missionary and church organization. The first is Crusade and Seminar
where well-known preachers were invited to teach church development and man-
agement. Campus Crusade for Christ provoked excessive mission problem in
Japanese universities. The second is missionary churches from the US and
Australia that used music mission to attract young seekers. The third group used
Tent-making strategy, by which missionary earned their living expenses and at the
same time expanded their sympathizers in workplaces.
Comparing new comers’ missionary with established denomination of Chris-
tianity, the former directed human resources towards missions. It was in sharp
contrast with the missionary of Japanese churches that engaged in education,
medication, and social works to construct a possible social image. Therefore,
foreign missionaries are less known by Japanese and less influential in Japan.

Heresy and Cults

The third group is heresy or cults. Some of these groups founded their Japanese
branch in early twentieth century and gradually expanded their membership.
Jehovah’s Witness have approximately 200,000 members who become active
missionary to distribute “Awake!” on streets and conduct door-to-door canvassing.
Mormons were acknowledged as “western duo cyclists” who engaged in English-
teaching missionary but in vain. Unification Church also has officially 500,000
members (in fact approximately 50,000) and succeeded in proselytizing and
fundraising in recent years. This religion provoked cult controversy due to illegal
masked recruitment method and fraudulent sales of spiritual goods to citizens
(Sakurai 2010). In addition to UC, Jesus Morning Star, whose founder Jeong
Myeong-seok was in jail due to serious offense, also holds approximately 2,000
member among university students and the young.
Catholic undergoes internal reform movements that influenced some Japanese.
However, there were heresy disputes just among Catholics. The priest of Little
Pebble Church in Japan set up religious commune where priests and female
adherents had sexual rites. They also uploaded these scandalous pictures for sale
to earn living expenses (Table 4).
Missionary Trans-Border Religions and Defensive Civil Society in. . . 165

Table 3 Foreign Name of foreign missionary Founded year

missionaries in Japan
The Family International 1972
Japan Keswick Convention 1962
Christopher Sun Evangelical Association 2005
Japan Pensacola Church 1990s
Saddleback Church 2006
Raymond Mooi (Japan Gospel Mission) 2008
Creation Research 1986
Bridging The Gap 2007
Saffron Ministriesa 2006
New Hope International Fellowship Tokyo 1999
Purpose Driven Japan 2009
Asian Outreach Japan 1990s
Power For Living 2007
Japan Campus Crusade for Christ 1990s
The Taizé Community 1998
Franklin Graham Festival 2006
Christian International Asia 1975
Willow Creek Network Japan 2005
Youth With Mission 1980s
Alpha Japan 2000s
Source: Sakurai and Miki (2012: 154)
a
No official English name

Table 4 Heresy or cults Name of religion Founded year

The Tokyo First Church of Christ, Scientist 1920, 1946
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints 1946
Jehovah’s Witness 1946
Unification Church 1964
Jesus Morning Star 1985
Little Pebble Church 2000
Neo-Catechmenate 1990
Movimento Sacerdotale Mariano Japan 1980s
Fraternitas Sacerdotalis Sancti Pii Decimi 1993
Source: Sakurai and Miki (2012: 156)

Others: Foreign NRM, Spiritualism, and HPM

The fourth group is miscellaneous that can be divided into several groups such as
Yoga, psycho therapy, Theosophy, spiritualism, cults, and various human potential
movements. Even if these audience cults and client cults can gather maniacs, they
cannot attract much citizen’s interest widely because they promote cultural singu-
larity and bear a strong sense of personal palatability. Moreover, natural scientists
often criticized their dogma and activities as pseudoscience, although these orga-
nizations expanded their activities even to mainstreams culture, such as psycho-
therapy, education, and medical treatment (Table 5).
166 Y. Sakurai

Table 5 Other religions

Name of group Founded year
Daha World Japan 1997
Scientology, Tokyo 1980s
Vedanta Society of Japan 1959
Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Japan Unknown
Japan Baha’i Network 1932
Raelian Movement of Japan Unknown
The Theosophical Society in Japan 1971
Krishnamurti Study Group 1990s
NPO Anthroposophical Society in Japan 2000
OSHO-JAPAN 1980s
Maharishi Research Institute Unknown
Falun Dafa Japan 2004
Dhammkakaya International Meditation Center of Japan 2000s
Tendo Soutenda (YiGuanDao) 1958
Source: Sakurai and Miki (2012: 158)

Attitude to New Comers’ Religion

The author demonstrates that new comers’ religions have diversified Japanese
religions since the 1980s and attracted a certain number of religious and spiritual
seekers through a wide variety of recruitment strategies and supply of healing,
caring, and salvation. The next part discusses the reaction to new comers’ religions
by the majority of Japanese, who are self-claimed irreligious people.
First, ethnic religions have expanded their branches in proportion to the increase
of migrants. Even if their churches are located in the downtown, general public was
not aware of their existence because masjids or ethnic churches for Brazilian,
Peruvian, Filipino, Myanmar, and Korean have not propagated their religion to
Japanese. The practitioners of Umbanda Espiritismo usually focus on Brazilian
believers. Masjid leaders lead foreign students and workers with their families from
Islamic countries and refrained from promoting to Japanese due to negative image
of religious extremism. Members of Ahamadiyya Muslim Community Japan
engaged in social work with Japanese volunteers who show sympathetic under-
standing to these people.
Ethnic religions were initially monitored and gradually welcomed when Japa-
nese residents understood that foreigners just kept their faith and custom within
their own community with no intention to expand. Even leaders of established
religions held a relaxed attitude to promote interreligious dialogues and became
helpmates of these religions. These trends are treated with favorable impressions by
the media and intellectuals. Multiculturalism became the slogan of municipalities
that promotes the integration of foreign migrants and their children. Moreover,
universities set up courses to promote multiculturalism, even if they did not
recognize that multiculturalism actually premised the idea of religious pluralism.
Japanese do not consider that religions shall express their opinion in public sphere
Missionary Trans-Border Religions and Defensive Civil Society in. . . 167

because of religio-politico separation. Given that the amount of ethnic religion and
their influence was limited, ethnic religions would be considered harmless to “us.”
Second, as for missionary religions, the general public, except for those who
were proselytized, have no interest and/or distrust against them. However,
established religions are suspicious of those emerging religions. Whether new
comers’ religion or Japanese new religions increased membership at a stunning
rate, the characteristics of charismatic founder, discipleship, and extraordinary
activities would be equated to cults and that their spiritual manipulation could
enable their organizational growth. Under the stagnation of mission, mainline
churches actively seek justification for their mission.
No matter what denominations of Christianity in Japan are, they historically
received assistance from foreign mission board in terms of financial and missionary
resources so that they could establish mission schools, hospitals, and charitable
organizations. Even nowadays pastors as well as believers think that the role of
mission should be entrusted to religious leaders. Alternatively Korean churches
traditionally remained independent in terms of mission and financial management
of churches from foreign countries, hence, mission-oriented churches urged ordi-
nary members to propagate and donate considerable amount of time and money to
church. This method is completely the same as the policy adopted by new religious
movement in Japan
Moreover, missionary religions encourage their members to change their daily
practice and relationship with others and society, which might be regarded as being
dangerous. Japanese religious consciousness has rightly or wrongly legitimated the
value of household (ancestor worship by Buddhist commemoration service), com-
munity (guardian spiritualism by Shinto festival), and nation (Tennoism).
Despite discomfort with and vigilance to missionary religions, general public
has been instructed to be tolerant with those religions through cult controversy. The
public reacted to the Aum incidents in the 1990s with avoidance. As a result,
criticism of cults in the mass media by academics and laypersons grew markedly.
However, excessive criticism of cult members who had not faced criminal charges
provoked human-rights backlash in Japan. Human-rights advocates and intellec-
tuals who were protective of Aum declared cults to be “religious minorities.” The
refusal by some municipalities to prohibit residency of Aum members were judged
unconstitutional by courts. Although security police have kept Aleph (changed
name from Aum) under surveillance, approximately 1,500 members are still active.
Japanese people doubt that liberal intellectuals and courts are protecting civil rights
of cult members and that they refrained from playing a preventative role towards
cults (Sakurai 2009).
168 Y. Sakurai

Conclusions

This study examines how the transnational religions brought by immigrants and
missionaries diversified hegemonic religious order in Japan from the institutional
perspective of religious and social history. Several important conclusions can be
derived.
First, religious diversity has been the original characteristics of Japanese religi-
osity since the ancient times. The fundamental religious consciousness and cus-
tomary practice include the worship of ancestors and guardian deities and
shamanism. Foreign religions such as Chinese Buddhism, Confucianism, and
Taoism were introduced by Tenno and aristocrats who aimed at governing nations
through civilization and religious forces. From eighth to nineteenth century plural
religious cultures were syncretized to form Japanese Buddhist denominations,
Shugen-do, and popular religions.
Second, the control of religion by secular authority relies on historical and social
institutions. Despite the fact that Japanese were passionate about the acceptance of
foreign religious culture and were tolerant to religious diversity, the Tokugawa
dynasty prohibited Christian missionary due to the fear of western colonization and
thereby rigorously ordered every lords’ serfs to be parishioners of Buddhist denom-
inations. Religious control by authority continued to the end of World War II, until
that time the government forced its people to bow in front of Shinto shrines
designated as the place of worship for the dead during colonial aggression wars.
After the war, the US and new government imposed religious freedom and the
policy of religio-politico separation on Japan. Because of these policy changes,
liberal Japanese have been reluctant to discuss religious issues in public sphere and
administration conducted non-interactive control to religious matters. Therefore,
although religious pluralism is protected by law and multiculturalism, however,
general public and established religions seem to feel uneasy about cultic and
missionary religions that emerged recently.
Third, new comers’ religions were divided into two types, ethnic churches and
missionary religions, both of which had to develop their mission strategies and
organizational management under the conditions of pluralism and very loose
control from administration and general public. Ethnic churches from various
countries have not always established good relationships with residents, but at
least they have not been rejected because they withheld mission to Japanese. In
contrast, aggressive missionary religions were generally deemed to invade into the
tranquil live of people whether their religious backgrounds were historical religions
or new religions. Although there is no regulation on religions or authenticated or
particular religious orders to monitor new comers’ religions, Japanese tend to gear
themselves well towards religions matters. That is, religions matters are better
considered not as individual secular preference but as collective actions that are
historically institutionalized.
The present study intends to explore the socio-historical development of Japa-
nese religions. However, this chapter may offer some insights to the conceptual
Missionary Trans-Border Religions and Defensive Civil Society in. . . 169

analysis of religious pluralism. My study contributes to a growing literature and

suggests the importance of comparative studies of religions in understanding the
effect of globalization and religious pluralism.

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Religious Tendencies in Brazil:
Disenchantment, Secularization,
and Sociologists

Roberto Motta

Introduction

This chapter deals with two issues related to recent religious change in Brazil. First,
the attempt by some Brazilian social scientists to change highly syncretic, Afro-
Brazilian Candomblé into a full-fledged, self-sufficient religion, a church on its own
right, severing its ties with Catholicism and functioning as a religion that would
lead, or contribute, to the exit from all religion. Second, I will make some consi-
derations about the Theology of Liberation. I contend that the rise of this movement
in Brazil was associated with a kind of “sociologization”, or secularization, of
Catholicism. And this, to my mind, is the basic reason why it came to fail, opening
the way to the fabulous growth of the Pentecostal or “Neo-Pentecostal” churches
and sects in the country. For I also contend that there cannot be a religion without an
enchanted core.1 As simple as this: no enchantment, no religion.2 And if one should
claim, in Marxist terms, that religion, and therefore enchantment, is the “opium of
the people”, I would admit that indeed, from such perspective, it cannot be but the
opium of the people. Let us take it as it is and as it cannot be otherwise. If one
happens to agree with the Marxist or, at that, with the Nietzschean premises, efforts
to unopiate religion are necessarily doomed to fail, except, at the very best, as an
interim situation, based on a more or less generalized wish to cover the issue with a
cognitive penumbra.
I also contend that, in Brazil, sociologists or, more broadly, social scientists,
including anthropologists, or, even more broadly, social thinkers of many kinds

1
As I see it, my implicit conception of religion is akin to those of Durkheim (1985), Eliade (1969),
Lowie (1924), and Otto (1958).
2
And this in spite of what Weber said, or is interpreted to have said, about disenchanted Calvinism
in the Protestant Ethic.
R. Motta (*)
Recife University, Rue Santo Elias, 109. Apt. 701, 52020-090 Recife, PE, Brazil
e-mail: [email protected]

G. Giordan and E. Pace (eds.), Religious Pluralism, 171

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06623-3_12, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
172 R. Motta

have taken upon themselves the task of overseeing and guiding the transition from
(to put it in Comtean terms) the theological into the positive, scientific stage. In
other words, the management of religion, for as long as it lasts, would be incumbent
upon them.3

The Holy Alliance

There is an extensive literature, in several languages, about the so-called Afro-

Brazilian religions, the Candomblé being first and foremost among them.4 Under
the influence of authors such as Arthur Ramos (1940), Roger Bastide (1960), and
Pierre Verger (1957), these religions have been interpreted as the survival, in
Brazil, of African society, culture, and memory. Candomblé, in fact, is a syncretic
religion if ever there was one. It resulted from the fusion, or confusion, between the
worship of the saints of popular Catholicism and that of some gods of African,
mainly Yoruba derivation, according to a code of correspondences based on
attributes seen as common to supernaturals belonging to both origins.
Candomblé can, indeed should, be viewed as a form of popular Catholicism,
adopted, in some coastal and commercial cities of Brazil, by some people with
mainly, but by no means only, West African roots, who also shared some forms of
economic and social insertion. What is perhaps most disconcerting about the Afro-
Brazilian religions is the fact that only 0.35 % [sic] of all Brazilians, according to
the 2009 census, claim allegiance to one of them.5 This is a sociological puzzle.
Why such high number of papers, books, theses, 6 and so on, written by Brazilian
and foreigners, have been devoted to a religion or to religions with such a scant
number of adepts? This would seem to represent an instance, to use Grace Davie’s
words, of “believing without belonging”, or perhaps of believing, belonging, but
not admitting to it (Davie 1990).7 Actually, far more than 0.35 % of Brazilian are
terreiro-goers.8 A first preliminary conclusion is that, despite all kinds of political

3
About the role of sociologists in the process of secularization (or mundanization), indeed of
Social Science as a transformation of religion, references can be multiplied indefinitely. I will limit
myself to just two: Sombart (1955) and Löwith (2002).
4
The name Candomblé used to apply but to one of the varieties of the Afro-Brazilian religions, the
one practiced at Salvador da Bahia. Due to its outstanding prestige, the name spread to all the
religions of like origin.
5
Many saw this as progress due to the “movement of Black consciousness”, since in the previous
count (2003) only 0.23 % of the whole population claimed to belong to one of them.
6
Including my own Ph. D. dissertation (Motta 1988).
7
Exact figures are very difficult to obtain, if at all. I dealt with this problem in Motta (1988), which,
in some essential points, including in its methodological approach, is not outdated. See also, for a
more recent treatment of the question, Motta (2007).
8
Terreiros are the shrines in which worship takes place, comprising animal sacrifices (a basic rite),
dance, trance, divination, etc.
Religious Tendencies in Brazil: Disenchantment, Secularization, and Sociologists 173

and intellectual efforts, the Afro-Brazilians religions have not yet acquired enough
respectability to be acknowledged as theirs by their practitioners.
Intellectuals, among them some of the most distinguished sociologists and
anthropologists of Universidade de São Paulo, Universidade Federal do Rio de
Janeiro, and other outstanding centers of higher learning and research, have
strongly supported their growth. This is not so much due to their religious propen-
sities (although in the process they may experience a few mystical thrills and some
other psychological and theatrical gratifications), but rather, paradoxically, to their
dislike for any form of religion. Sociologists and social anthropologists are, after
all, the progeny of Auguste Comte and the representatives of a form of priesthood
we tend to consider higher than that of conventional religion. We are the priests of
the “religion de l’humanité” and it is incumbent upon us to preside over the
transition from the theological to the positive stage. It is true that, in doing so, we
often create our own systems of metaphysics, indeed our own theology, our outright
mythology, under the guise of social theory.
Perhaps in no other country social scientists have been as bold as in Brazil in
assuming the management of this process.9 Let us now quote from a leading
sociologist who often held positions of the highest prestige, not only in his own
university, but in some of the most important learned societies of South America. In
a book that resulted from a conference, held in Porto Alegre in 1996, on Global-
ization and Religion,10 he contributed an article with the telltale title “Religious
Interests of the Sociologists of Religion” (Pierucci 1997). In a chatty, but forceful
style, he starts by inveighing against “the blurred frontiers and the double game” of
presumably Catholic and Protestant sociologists.11 He claims that
nowadays one hears more and more often from sociologists of religion (are they faithless or
shameless?) that religion gives empowerment to people. It leads to an increase of self-
esteem among the most disadvantaged strata because it leads them to shun undesirable
forms of behavior, like addiction to alcohol, drugs, homosexuality and the like. They come
near to saying that religion frees the poor from their own laziness. (Pierucci 1997: 255–256).

He grants all of the above, but with some qualifications:

It is true. But they [the sociologists] have forgotten to say to students and readers that every
religion is a historical form of domination, every ethical religion a form of repression of our
best energies and that the sociology of religion is only possible because it finds in the
modern critique of religion its post-traditional possibility as a science (ibid.: 257).

9
I think this situation is far from being unique to Brazil. But Brazilians express themselves (the
present writer not excepted) in a somewhat blunt, at times even crude fashion. Dealing with a
similar matter, a European author would wear multilayered gloves of distance and politeness.
10
The conference was sponsored by the “Mercosul”, the Southern South America Association of
Sociologists of Religion (one of a thriving species in our lands) and he speaks with the full
authority of a leading senior scholar.
11
With Bourdieu he exclaims: “There are even bishops who are sociologists!”.
174 R. Motta

This author is not only a sophisticated interpreter of religion with, among others,
a Nietzschean tinge. He is also an active and astute partisan of secularization and
liberation. Thus, he adds that
secularization must be seen as implying the destruction of the roots of individuals and, as
such, as the dessacralization of culture. If it does not lead to liberating the individual from
his traditional ties and allegiances, it has no meaning, it is not worthwhile (ibid.: 258).

For his purposes, he sees as regrettable the transit from Catholicism to

Protestantism:
A meager cultural gift, a gloomy fate for humans is the one represented by passage from
Catholicism to Protestantism. Have you realized that this means that a growing part of our
people, as it embraces Protestantism, abandons polytheism? [. . .] I regret as an enormous
loss the decline of our traditional polytheistic Catholicism. If we do not take into account
the Black religion – and from this standpoint we can hardly overstate the strategic
importance of the Afro-Brazilians – the present religious panorama does not offer us
anything better (ibid.: 260). 12

He finishes his lecture expressing, somewhat unexpectedly, a wish for the

growth of Islam in Brazil:
May the great Allah become stronger among us, and Islam more visible and active, with its
ethical and religious contribution, with its splendid literature, but preferably without its
dessecularizing fundamentalism (ibid.: 261).

But above all he longs to witness

the multiplication, among us, in value, influence, and sheer demographic numbers, of the
Afro-Brazilian cults: Candomblé, Xangô, Batuque, and Umbanda (ibid.: 261).

The Afro-Brazilian religions, in spite of their conspicuous sacrificial character,

seem to agree with a certain modernity due both to their rejection of the notions of
sin and guilt and to their being, or to having been, when they first appeared in
Brazil, religions of the oppressed. They were adopted by many social scientists in
Brazil not so much on strictly religious terms, but under the assumption of the
establishment of a kind of a protectorate by social scientists over these religions.
Thanks to the writings of sociologists and anthropologists, Candomblé was invested
with highly rationalized theological reinterpretations. Congresses and conferences,
attended by both researchers and devotees, have functioned as councils in which
faith is defined and proclaimed.13 A holy and scholarly alliance was therefore

12
Well to the right end of the political spectrum, French writer Charles Maurras (1868–1952),
along lines in part, at least, compatible with Pierucci’s, writes that “it is questionable whether the
idea of God, of an only Deity, present to man’s conscience, is always beneficial. It does raise the
feeling that conscience can establish a direct relationship with that absolute, infinite and almighty
Being. But, on the other hand, Catholicism’s merit and honor lie precisely in the organization it
was able to confer to the idea of the Deity. On the way leading to it Catholics finds legions of
intermediaries, along a continuous chain. Heaven and earth are full of them. Thus, this religion
gives back to our world, in spite of its monotheistic foundation, its natural character of multiplicity,
harmony, and composition” (Maurras 1972: 116–117).
13
I have dealt at length with this issue in Motta (1998) and Motta (2010).
Religious Tendencies in Brazil: Disenchantment, Secularization, and Sociologists 175

established in Brazil between the devotees of the Afro-Brazilian cults and the
sociologists and anthropologists who represent the values of modernity.
Mainline social scientists have not hesitated to take sides in the religious medley.
A recent collection of essays, authored by some of the most distinguished socio-
logists of religion in Brazil, is presented in the following way:
This book is a collective effort to analyze, from various points of view, the impact caused
by the growth of the Pentecostal churches, with their speeches and practices of aggression
and religious intolerance toward the Afro-Brazilians and their violations of civil rights by
discrimination due to sexual preference (Gonçalves da Silva et al. 2007).

I myself, during some time, adhered to a somewhat evolutionist interpretation of

Candomblé. To my mind, it was nearing the completion of a process of
“ecclesification”, whereby it was severing its links with Catholicism and this at
the triple level of ritual, belief and organization (Motta 1998). It would thus turn
into a self-sufficient religion, on an equal footing with, say, the Roman Catholic and
the Presbyterian churches, and competing with them for the same “market” of
religious goods and services. I am now convinced that researchers, including
myself, had largely created, or imagined, the Candomblé as an autonomous
religion.
To my mind, this process can already be recognized in the late 1930s and early
1940s of the twentieth century, with the Brazilians Arthur Ramos (1940) and
Edison Carneiro (1981, or. 1936). The former was a psychiatrist by training,
conversant in several European languages, who, in addition to having read the
literature available on the native religions of West Africa, had the luminous idea of
applying to the interpretation of these religions and to their Brazilian offshoots the
theories of Freud and Jung. He thereby pioneered, in Brazil, the concept of the
“African mind”, which has since ruled over Brazilian or Brazilianist social science
of religion.
Edison Carneiro, a militant Marxist, for some time a friend and later a foe of
Ramos’s, contributed largely to the effort of codifying or legitimizing the
Candomblé by consecrating one of its rites as canonical and excommunicating all
the others as spurious, deviant or revisionist. The rite he chose was associated with
some of terreiros (shrines) of Salvador da Bahia14 that claimed a Nagô (Yoruba)
origin. As a religion of the oppressed, Candomblé and similar cults, elsewhere in
Brazil, were called to play an important role in the social struggle that would
revolutionize Brazil. Carneiro, like many of his peers, did not have any religious
beliefs. Above all, he rejected the notion of “the one Deity held by the highest forms
of religion” (Carneiro 1981: 98). What mattered to him was really “the revolution-
ary potential of the Brazilian Negro”. In order to reach and to direct or control this
energy along the desired lines, he thought that the first thing to be done should be
the rupture with the syncretic links that tied the Candomblé to Catholicism.

14
This city is often called “the Black Rome of Brazil”.
176 R. Motta

Many are called, but few are chosen. Filhos-de-santo15 have conspicuously
failed to answer the call to partisan politics.16 But there was another way intellec-
tuals, both foreign and Brazilian, could put Candomblé to good use. And this has
been its reinterpretation as a “liberated” kind of religion. Pioneers in this trend were
Georges Lapassade and Marco Aurélio Luz (1972), who jointly wrote a seminal, if
underquoted, little book titled O Segredo da Macumba.17
The issue of gay rights is often intertwined with intellectual sympathy for the
Candomblé. For the Afro-Brazilians, so to speak, square the circle. The notions of
sin, guilt, redemption and the like play but a scant role in their devotion such as it
has existed or has been reinterpreted in Brazil. Or rather, these notions, which in
some form or other, are inseparable from any kind of religious experience, do exist,
but are reified in the guise of material, blood (animal) sacrifice. Devotees live in
permanent awareness of what they owe to the supernaturals. And this includes not
so much, in strict terms, an ethical regulation, but rather the imitation, in daily life,
of the character and the behavior of the gods, with their peculiarities (at times of a
sexual character) and even their whims. In addition to this, feast, dance, and trance,
allow the gods to show that they exist. For devotees have implicitly adopted George
Berkeley’s (1685–1753) principle, according to which to be is but to be perceived.
Scholars studying religions often tend to evaluate them according to their
conformity to the criteria they consider as representative of modernity and progress.
The Afro-Brazilian religions, in spite of their conspicuous sacrificial character,
agree, as already highlighted, with a certain modernity both in their practical
rejection of the notions of sin and guilt and in their allegedly being religions of
the oppressed. Thanks to the writings of sociologists and anthropologists, they were
invested with highly rationalized theological reinterpretations. Congresses and
conferences, attended by researchers and religious leaders, function as ecumenical
councils during which faith is defined and proclaimed.
Such as they are understood nowadays, the Afro-Brazilian religions are largely
the product of this latter-day variety of syncretism. But this did not change the
strong concreteness of their form of devotion, very much oriented to the relief of
everyday problems through ritual operations, believed to be effective if adequately

15
“Filhos-de-santo” (children of the holy) is an expression commonly applied to the devotees of
Candomblé and similar religions.
16
Concerning politics, their motto could be “plus ça change, plus ça reste le même”, the more it
changes the more it remains as it is. But this is far from preventing “Candomblezistas” from
engaging in clientelistic alliances with politicians of many or no persuasions.
17
This point was certainly well understood, in spite of severe mythologization in many details, by
the author of Jorge Amado’s obituary in French newspaper Le Monde): “He distinguished himself
from other Brazilian writers of his time by supporting the African religions hitherto brutally
repressed by the Police. A Communist deputy in the Constituent Assembly of 1945, he caused
them to be considered legal in the Constitution. During his whole life he supported their terreiros
and received many distinctions from the priests of Candomblé. Under his influence, the Brazilian
youth abandoned the Catholic churches and came in throngs to Bahia in order to be initiated
[in Candomblé terreiros] and to discover the new values of joy, communion, and finally liberation,
since these philosophies fight evil but ignore sin” (Soublin 2001).
Religious Tendencies in Brazil: Disenchantment, Secularization, and Sociologists 177

performed. And thus we reach, or come back to, a core problem in the inter-
pretation. Due precisely to their concreteness, to their care for the banal, practical,
everyday problems they intend to solve through sacrifices and analogous rites,
Candomblé and similar religions are, at the same time, receptive to many kinds
of intellectual or theological explanations and resistant to all of them. This does not
annul, but sets limits, as it seems evident, in the second decade of the twenty-first
century, to the process of ecclesification, which requires a theological consistency
going well beyond a ritual manipulation of events.
The same core problem can be stated in a different way: these religions provide
short term relief for affliction, but they lack a comprehensive theodicy, which is, or
intends to be, the ultimate form of relief for human suffering and the apparent
nonsense of life. And thus their main advantage in the competitive religious
“market” of Brazil, Latin America, and possibly other areas, is at the same time
their main disadvantage. They do provide short term relief to affliction and this in a
context of feast and enthusiasm. But they seem to be less effective than other
religions in providing the faithful with a comprehensive system able to give sense to
man’s existence and mortality. Let us notice that it is precisely its short term
character that renders it so attractive to intellectuals who tend to consider
Candomblé, especially when properly managed by social scientists, as an adequate
interim religion before the final exit from religion finally takes place.

The Illusion of Liberation

The rise of the Theology of Liberation18 in Brazil should be understood within its
historical, political, and religious context. To present but a simplified picture, on
one hand Brazil seemed to be ripe for Revolution. Fidel Castro took power in Cuba
exactly on the 1st January 1959. This, from the standpoint of theory of revolution
(especially so Marxist theory), was a “divine surprise”. In point of fact, Castro’s
victory aroused not only enthusiasm, but also embarrassment in circles of the Left
and even of the extreme Left. It represented, as expressed in the very title of Regis
Debray’s essay, “a revolution in the revolution”.19 The Cuban Revolution seemed
to demonstrate that, in spite of open or tacit arrangement between the Superpowers
concerning the division of the world, Revolution followed its own laws, or no laws
at all. Let us also take due notice of the rise of the radical left in Brazil, especially so
in the Northeast region and even more so in the state of Pernambuco (capital
Recife), with its Peasant Leagues, which, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, had
not been influenced, in any discernable way, by the preconciliar Brazilian Catholic
Church, which rather opposed them.

18
Henceforth referred to as TL.
19
Debray (1967). Let us remark that in the actual title there is a question mark: “revolution in
revolution?”.
178 R. Motta

On the other hand, let us take into account some all-important transformations in
the Catholic field. These were largely international in scope. I refer, in a general
way, to aggiornamento, the II Vatican Council and all that followed them, in Brazil
and elsewhere. Among other things, the Council and its aftermath entailed
(or perhaps rather were consequential to) a wide trend toward generalized cognitive
capitulation to modernity, a marked loss of plausibility, a strong loss of enchant-
ment of the Church, in Brazil and elsewhere. It was really the end of a world.20
Let us keep in mind that abrupt end came very much as a historical surprise.
Brazilian Catholicism, even before the turn of the twentieth century, had started
undergoing a process of modernization, with a new stress on the word and/or on
organized thought, as opposed to baroque iconolatry and to the ritualism of pro-
cessions, feasts, pilgrimages, and the like. This process has been called the
“Romanization” of Brazilian Catholicism,21 associated with a wider process of
Europeanization of Brazilian society. By 1960, the Brazilian Church had reached a
kind of social, cultural, indeed theological and intellectual zenith. All of this would
drastically change under the pressure of the aggiornamento associated with II
Vatican Council and of the TL.
The TL, according to the thesis I have tried to uphold in several papers (Motta
2009, 2011, etc.), consists in an attempt to secularize Catholicism and render it
relevantly “public” by transferring it from an enchanted, often private and subjec-
tive domain, to the social and political arena. The Church would legitimize its
continued existence by the services of a basically secular nature it could perform in
order to change society, acting, as it were, as the very voice of the otherwise
voiceless. Coherent with the spirit of the time – basically the period between, on
one hand, the victory of the Cuban Revolution (1959) and the II Vatican Council
(1962–1965) and, on the other, the Fall of the Berlin Wall (1990) – there was a
strong Marxist strain in the TL.
Gustavo Gutierrez’s Teologı́a de la Liberación (1971)22 represents one of the
basic statements of the theories and aims of the TL.23 It moves, in the freest of ways,
from Hegel, with the development, or awareness, of consciousness through the
dialectics of the master and the slave, to Marx, and, among many others, to Freud
and Sartre. From the latter, Gutierrez quotes approvingly the dictum: “Marxism, as
the culmination of the whole of our time’s philosophical thought, cannot be
surpassed” (Gutierrez 1986: 22).

20
I am obviously quoting from the title of Danièle Hervieu-Léger’s book, Catholicisme: La Fin
d’un Monde (2003).
21
Bastide (1951) refers explicitly to “Romanization”. de Oliveira (1985) is a standard reference
about this process and its sociological implications. Freyre (1986) deals extensively with the wider
process of “Europeanization” of Brazil. See also Bruneau (1974), Della Cava (1970), DeKadt
(1970), and Serbin (2006).
22
Quoted here according to its Brazilian translation (1986).
23
I consider Gutierrez as a prototypical theoretician of the TL. The ideas of Brazilian (also a
Dominican friar) Francisco Cartaxo Rolim (1985, 1992) are also representative of the TL.
Religious Tendencies in Brazil: Disenchantment, Secularization, and Sociologists 179

After having said that “with the Theology of Liberation we have reached a
political interpretation of the Gospel” (ibid: 26), he further describes it as
a new way to make theology. It is theology as a critical reflexion on historical praxis. Thus
it is a liberating theology, the theology of the liberating transformation of the history of
mankind. [. . .] It is a theology which does not limit itself to thinking the world, but which
rather wishes to place itself as a moment of the process through which the world is
transformed (Gutierrez 1986: 27).

“Salvation” does not entirely vanish, but it is reinterpreted as liberation. Or, put
another way, supernatural, otherworldly salvation is replaced by innerworldly,
historically immanent, political liberation, resulting from the end of oppression
and brought about by class struggle.
We face here some indeed big problems. First, but perhaps not foremost, there is
the problem of a religion that, as such, leads to exit or to the end of religion. And, no
doubt foremost, this theology, which has changed itself into “a critical reflexion on
historical praxis”, wants, nevertheless, to enjoy all the privileges of the status it
would have as a religion. It wants to have its cake and eat it. This is made less
implausible thanks to the basic syncretic character of the TL. In it religious
elements coexist with political elements derived from Marx, Hegel or other authors,
syncretizing but not really synthesizing with them. The long term results of the TL
are thus compromised on both the religious and political arenas. Yet, nothing has
prevented TL from possessing, or having possessed, a certain effectiveness, as it has
represented a kind of “interim ethics”, meant – and this very likely done in full
awareness by at least some of its proponents – to assure a smooth transition from
religion into secularized politics. This was made possible precisely because of its
syncretic character. Its religious and political components are simply juxtaposed.
The cognitive penumbra of syncretism was an adequate strategy to ease the
transition, during which the vested interests resulting from previous commitments
could be decently safeguarded.
For the practical and theoretical evaluation of the TL we have a more decisive
criterion than those represented by the analyses and the wishes of either theologians
or social scientists. It is the criterion of the praxis.24 Let us first to look at it from an
ethnographic standpoint. There is a plentiful literature bearing on the thought and
the activities of the TL in Brazil. This literature should be critically evaluated, with
no concession to the mythologies from several sources that have collected around
it. From all I have so far read, I know no other study as eloquent and poignant and,
indeed, disenchanted, as that of Jadir Morais Pessoa (1999), A Igreja da Denúncia e
o Silêncio do Fiel.25

24
In other words, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”.
25
Pessoa’s jeu de mots can be translated as the Church that accuses and the faithful who is
silenced.
180 R. Motta

The scenery is the diocese of Goiás,26 in central Brasil, where, Pessoa adds,
beginning with the diocesan assembly of 1975, the terms Igreja do Evangelho [Gospel
Church], and Caminhada 27 were to define the new social and religious identity of all
Catholic individuals who adhered prophetically to the process of change that was taking
place in the diocese. These changes comprised above all the rupture with traditional
religious habits centering around the ‘consumption’ of sacraments and the courageous
denunciation of the situations of injustice, especially of the exploitation of the rural workers
by the landowners (Pessoa 1999: 17).

This implied, to put it in Casanova’s (1994) terms, a huge effort of

“deprivatization” of religion, leading to ambiguous consequences:
the uses were dogmatically changed. Whoever attributed to religion the task of explaining,
or giving a meaning to, personal or family situations that have no sense at all (illness, death,
failures, disasters) had now to restrict it exclusively to the decodification of social relations
and of politics of oppression (Pessoa 1999: 118).

Thus, when
several persons of the same family, who were practicing Catholics, were killed in a car
crash at Nova Glória, the priest was called to celebrate their funeral mass. But he not only
refused to go but, in addition, ridiculed the demand of the bereaved (Pessoa 1999: 134).28

Likewise, while conceding that “the violence of the landowners against the
workers was extremely serious, being the source of the problems that really
mattered and toward which all lights were directed” Pessoa also remarks that
problems of a personal kind, like conjugal difficulties, alcoholism, clashes between neigh-
bors, sentimental and sexual problems among the young, raising children, and do on, and so
forth, did not get the same attention, since, from a political standpoint, they had little to do
with people’s development of consciousness (ibid.: 161).

In Goiás, the whole story of the Caminhada, with its erosion of religiosity, ends
by a vengeful return of privatization, whether Catholic or other, which did not even
spare the most militant:
Pessoa tersely reports that a priest, who was
one of the leaders of the [liberationally militant] pastoral work [of the diocese] moved to
São Paulo, where he took a Master’s degree in Social Anthropology and later became a pai-
de-santo [Candomblé priest]29 in Curitiba, where he died in 19. (ibid.: 177).

There is also the less portentous case of the sister

26
The diocese and the city of Goiás should not be confused with the state of Goiás, where they are
located, nor with the city of Goiânia, the capital of that state, nor with the Northeastern city of
Goiana.
27
This term implies walk, march, path and is suggestive of Peru’s Sendero Luminoso, shining path,
as well as of Mao’s Long March.
28
As a matter of fact, “cure of souls” has been very largely phased out in today’s Brazilian
Catholicism.
29
This turn of events does not imply that the priest in question had any African Brazilian ethnic
roots.
Religious Tendencies in Brazil: Disenchantment, Secularization, and Sociologists 181

whose activity was very important in the beginning of the Caminhada. She quit religious
life and married the former president of the syndicate, who was also one of the main lay
agents of the Gospel Church. They are still the leaders of the congregation of the small
valley where they now live. They cultivate a small garden and seldom visit other places
(ibid.: 177).

It is indeed not clear what, in terms of costs and benefits, the rise and fall of the
TL has represented to the Catholic Church. One of the indicators of those costs and
benefits could be presumed to consist of the demographic evolution of Brazilian
Catholicism. According to census30 data, 31 relative to the total population of the
country, the percentage of Catholics fell from 92 % in 1970, to 74 % in 2000, and to
68 % in 2009.
Meanwhile, in the same years and according to the same sources, the combined
membership of the Pentecostal churches leaped from 3.2 % in 1980 (the first time
the census treated them as a separate category) to 11 % in 2000, to 13 % in 2009. If
we add to them the more conventional “historical” churches, Protestants amounted,
in 2009, to very nearly 20 % of the whole country’s population. Pentecostals and
other Protestants have obviously been filling a religious void.32
The “historical” Protestant churches have largely, but not always, lagged behind.
33
Thus, unanglified Episcopalians in the area of Recife have experienced impres-
sive growth. Their membership, however, should be carefully distinguished from
that of Pentecostals. Episcopalians are oriented to the upper and upper-middle
classes of professionals, businessmen, politicians and others. Their main church
in Recife grew from 14 (fourteen) permanent members in 1975 to very nearly
10,000 (ten thousand) in 2010 (de Queiroz 2012). This underreported phenomenon
is, to my mind, one the best examples of Brazilian religious entrepreneurship.
Casanova’s Public Religions in the Modern World (1994), with its chapter on
“Brazil: From Oligarchic Church to People’s Church”, is not mentioned in Pessoa’s
book, published 5 years later. It is likely that Pessoa was simply not cognizant of
Casanova’s book, although the former contains a consistent effort to refute the
latter’s descriptions.34 To the present writer’s mind, Casanova’s chapter is marred

30
Religious affiliation has been a standard item of nearly all Brazilian censuses down to the
present.
31
Brazil underwent very rapid demographic growth in the second half of the twentieth century.
Thus, from very nearly 93,000,000 in 1970, the total population had increased to very nearly
170,000,000 in 2000.
32
Concerning the Pentecostals in Brazil, an early and, to this writer’s mind, still unsurpassed
interpretation is that of Frase’s (1975).
33
In Brazilian parlance, the “historical churches” are ideal-typically represented by the Presbyte-
rians, the Methodists and the Baptists, who have actively missionized in the country. Episcopalians
(in spite of recent successful attempts), and Lutherans, have not so much attempted to expand
beyond their original ethnic borders. In any event those churches have been very largely outdone
by the Pentecostals, who also outdid, to the great chagrin of many commentators, the Afro-
Brazilians and the Theology of Liberation-minded Catholics.
34
I think this apparent coincidence is too strong to be purely coincidental. Pessoa, as a matter of
fact, does not quote or mention any publications in English. But news and ideas travel fast. It may
182 R. Motta

by the frequent use of sheer mythology. Among other instances, it is highly doubtful
that a “people’s church” has really existed in Brazil, in spite of many appeals to the
“people”, like in the letter of the bishops of the Northeast, I Heard the Cry of My
People (1973). Similarly, even though Casanova may have borrowed it from earlier
(and no less mythological) sources, historical credibility is strained when he asserts
that
the popular Church and the ecclesial base communities (CEBs) that emerged in the 1970’s
[. . .] had their historical origins in Brazil’s colonial reality of [. . .] popular religiosity
autonomous from clerical control (1994: 115).

In point of fact, probably in no other time the Brazilian Catholic Church was
more subject to the control of theologians and other intellectuals than in the last
decades of the twentieth century. It may also be doubted whether the CEBs, such as
described in the literature, have ever concretely existed, having no other consistent
and coherent reality but in the wishful thinking and abstract constructs of the same
theologians and intellectuals, Brazilian and foreign.
Yet that religious void is not the subject of this chapter. To state that it was
caused by the (all too real) contradictions of the TL, even if understood in the
broadest of ways, would go beyond the premises of this chapter. Many other factors
may be responsible for it. But it can be stated that the TL did not fill the void. And it
did not seem qualified to do so due to its lack of a consistent theodicy, oriented to
more than the public coming of a new Heaven, indeed of a new Earth. In order to be
successful it should also take into account the private, personal, subjective, ordinary
needs of people. “Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people” (Isaiah 40: 1). I mean things
like disease, aging, addictions, love, rivalries, employment, financial difficulties,
and all the many dismal failures of everyday life.
This is what theodicy, salvation and religion are all about. Let us call it the
opium of the people if we so wish. But it can as well be argued that there is an
opium aspect in the promise of the coming of a Kingdom of Justice through the
action, or with the decisive support, of progressive churchmen, who, after 2,000
years of Christianity, would have deciphered the mysteries of World History with
the help from their Hegelian, Marxist, or plainly sociologist friends. Indeed, by
attributing to themselves such grandiose role in the impending Millennium, those
churchmen are the first and foremost consumers of the religious opium.
It can be safely concluded that in the past scholars promoted the study of
Candomblé for their own reasons, neglecting a broader Brazilian pluralism. Like-
wise, the Theology of Liberation in Catholicism, failing to heed the appeal to
“comfort my people” by not supporting the care of souls, created a vacuum. New
religions, often imported from other lands but capable of very rapidly gaining
national specificities, represented, first and foremost, by the Pentecostal and
Neo-Pentecostal churches, came in to fill the vacuum, strengthening the religious
pluralism typical of early twenty-first century Brazil.

have so happened that Pessoa was indeed trying to refute Casanova’s ideas, without perhaps
realizing that they derived from Casanova or from some other precise source.
Religious Tendencies in Brazil: Disenchantment, Secularization, and Sociologists 183

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Verger, Pierre. 1957. Notes sur le Culte des Orisa et Vodun. Dakar: Institut Français d’Afrique
Noire.
Index

A C
African Pentecostalism, 98, 104, 107 Campbell, E., 139
Afro-Brazilians, 4, 147, 172–176, 181 Carneiro, E., 175
Ahmed, T.S., 23 Caroline, S., 68
Allievi, S., 96 Carroll, L., 15
Allott, A., 20 Casanova, J., 2, 129, 180
Ammerman, N.T., 10, 78 Catholicism, 4, 11, 66, 93–112, 122, 123, 134,
Aurélio Luz, M., 176 171, 172, 174, 175, 178, 180–182
Cava, D., 178
Census, 10, 11, 73–88, 98, 99, 119, 172, 181
B Chafetz, J., 135, 141
Bainbridge, W.S., 159 Chambliss, W., 39, 42–44
Barker, E., 52 Chaves, M., 77, 140
Bastide, R., 172, 178 China, 32, 35–37, 53, 55, 57, 105, 150, 151,
Baumann, C., 74, 76, 78 159, 160
Beckford, J.A., 9, 10, 15–26, 38, 52, 56, Civil religion, 58, 141–143, 150–156, 158
57, 157 Civil society, 9, 11, 56, 58, 65, 157–169
Behloul, S.M., 76 Clark, W., 23
Belgium, 10, 63, 65–70, 120 Cole, G.D.H., 18
Belief, 3–10, 18, 19, 21, 23, 31, 40, 49, 50, 52, Collectivistic religions, 117, 121–125,
55, 57, 58, 64–66, 68, 71, 93, 95, 109, 128, 129
111, 115, 121, 135, 139, 152, 160, Communism, 17, 38, 57, 58, 118, 149
161, 175 Comparative Institutional Approach, 11,
Bellah, R., 141, 152 157–169
Berger, M., 41 Comparison, 10, 22, 51, 63–71, 74, 76, 77,
Berger, P., 4, 41, 50, 158 79–88, 95, 98, 100, 106, 115
Berkeley, G, 176 Conception, 66, 67, 69–71, 171
Bertolani, B., 102 Congregations, 11, 19, 73, 75, 77–82, 84, 85,
Black, D., 39–43 88, 102, 103, 135, 141, 149, 181
Bochinger, C., 74 Connolly, W.E., 16
Bombardieri, M., 96 Cooney, M., 41, 42
Bouma, G.D., 75 Croatia, 11, 115–128, 136
Bovay, C., 75 Cult controversy, 164, 167
Branch, 36, 146, 163, 164, 166 Culture, 2, 5, 8, 9, 19, 20, 22, 31, 34, 36, 37, 65,
Bréchon, P., 23 68, 96, 109, 110, 118, 121–123, 133,
Bruneau, T.C., 178 137, 142, 143, 155, 160, 165, 168,
Buddhism, 58, 78, 80, 105, 152, 160–162, 168 172, 174

G. Giordan and E. Pace (eds.), Religious Pluralism, 185

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06623-3, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
186 Index

D Governance, 10, 33, 36, 37, 40, 94, 115–129

Davidian, 36, 146, 147 Grim, B., 55
Debray, R., 177
Defensive Civil Society, 11, 157–169
Definition of religion, 5, 10, 56–58, 79 H
DeKadt, E., 178 Habermas, J., 71
DeParle, J., 134 Herberg, W., 141
Dethier, H., 70 Hervieu-Le’ger, D., 4, 5
Dobbellaere, K., 158 Hinduism, 78, 80
Douglas, G., 19 Hirst, P.Q., 18, 21
Durham, W.C., Jr., 126 “Holy Alliance”, 172–177
Durkheim, E., 141, 171 Hout, M., 139
Dyer, A.E., 76 Hunter, J.D., 22
Husistein, R., 75
Husson, J.F., 68
E
Ebaugh, H.R., 135, 138, 141
Eck, L.D, 75, 133, 134, 138, 140 I
ECtHR. See European Court of Human Iannaccone, L., 159
Rights (ECtHR) Ibn Khald^ un, 137, 138, 142
Education, 2, 22, 23, 25, 31, 50, 64, 67, 68, 70, Immigration, 9, 95–106, 126, 134–136,
83–85, 118–120, 161, 164, 165 138, 141
Eisenhower, D., 135, 148 Intolerance, 68, 124, 155, 175
Eliade, 171 Islam, 9, 19, 39, 58, 66, 71, 76, 78, 80, 85, 94,
Enchantment, 11, 171–182 97–99, 110, 115, 116, 118–124, 128,
Europe, 1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 17, 23, 38, 43, 54, 129, 139, 142, 147, 149, 150, 153,
64, 69, 70, 73, 75, 76, 78, 80, 93–95, 155, 157, 166, 174
100, 115–117, 120–129, 133, 136, Italy, 1, 3, 11, 54, 93–109, 111, 112
143, 160
European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR),
38, 40, 43, 44, 120 J
Everyday, 16, 21, 24–26, 56, 74, 118, 120, Jakelić, S., 121, 128
129, 176, 177, 182 Japan, 15, 105, 150, 157–169
Javeau, C., 66
Judicial autonomy, 35, 36
F
Ferrari, S., 75, 126
Ferry, J.M., 64, 65 K
Figgis, J.N., 18 Kay, W.K., 76
Finke, R., 53, 55, 95 Khald^un, I., 137, 138
Fischer, C.S., 139 Knott, K., 76
France, 4, 9, 10, 35, 36, 39, 63–66, 127, 133
Frase, R.G., 181
Free exercise, 11, 145–156 L
Freyre, G., 178 Laı̈cité, 36
Furnivall, J.S., 17 Laski, H.J., 18
Lassman, P., 22
Law, 4, 16, 19–21, 23, 24, 34–45, 53–56, 66,
G 67, 75, 79, 115, 116, 118–120, 122, 125,
Gauchet, M., 5 126, 136, 137, 145, 148, 150, 154,
Giordan, G., 1–11, 100 168, 177
Globalization, 23, 49, 111, 150–158 Leavelle, T., 17
“God Bless America”, 151, 152 Le Bras, G., 4
Index 187

Lee, W., 152, 163 Politics, 2, 5, 7, 9, 10, 16–19, 21–24, 26, 31,
Legal pluralism, 19–22, 31–45 33–36, 40, 42, 43, 50, 51, 53, 55–58, 64,
Lewis, C., 15 65, 71, 94, 95, 98, 102, 111, 116, 118,
Lewis, J., 20 121, 122, 129, 139–141, 145, 146, 149,
Lewis, W., 78 151, 153, 154, 161, 167, 168, 172, 174,
Lowie, R.H., 171 176–181
Löwith, K. Pollack, D., 75
Luckmann, T., 158 Polytheism, 159, 174
Poole, E., 23
Possamai, A., 41
M Post-communism, 118
Marty, M., 16 Poulat, E., 5
Marx, K., 94 Protestantism, 66, 88, 139, 141, 152, 154,
Melton, J.G., 52 163, 174
Methodology, 10, 11, 73–88, 162 Putnam, R.D., 139
Michel, P., 6, 97
Miki, H., 165, 166
Minority religions, 31–33, 35–38, 116, R
117, 129 Racial diversity, 115
Monnot, C., 73–88 Rademacher, S., 75
Monopoly, 7, 11, 53–56, 93, 95, 109, 116 Ramos, A., 175
Motta, R., 171–182 Recognition, 2, 6, 7, 16, 19, 20, 23, 24, 37, 41,
43, 44, 67, 68, 70, 71, 82, 95, 117,
119–122, 124, 125, 129, 157
N Reformation, 81
New comer religions, 157, 158, 162–168 Regulation, 5, 9, 11, 16, 19, 20, 23, 24, 41,
New religions, 98, 116, 127, 157, 159, 161, 53, 54, 58, 115–118, 126, 128, 129,
167, 168 159–161, 168, 176
New religious movements (NRMs), 31, 43, Religio-politico separation, 167, 168
116, 127, 129, 147, 158, 159, 161, Religious freedom, 32, 36–38, 40, 42, 43,
162, 165–167 49–56, 58, 115, 117, 145, 146, 148,
Niebuhr, H.R., 141 150, 152, 160, 161, 168
Religious mapping, 11
Religious monopoly, 53, 54, 116
O Richardson, J.E., 23
Oligopoly, 10, 49–58 Richardson, J.T., 9, 10, 31–45
Orthodox Churches, 34, 43, 66, 97, 98, 100, Rolim, C., 178
110, 118, 119 Roof, W.C., 6
Otto, R., 171 Runciman, D., 18, 20

P S
Pace, E., 7, 11, 93–112 Sakurai, Y., 157–169
Pastorelli, S., 75 Salzbrunn, M., 74
Pentecostals, 3, 4, 11, 76, 94, 96–98, 102–105, Sandberg, R., 20
107, 120, 124, 157, 159, 162, 163, 171, Secularism, 10, 63–71, 161
175, 181, 182 Secularization, 1–3, 11, 50, 64, 71, 111, 158,
Pessoa, J.M., 179 159, 171–182
Philosophy, 15, 17, 51, 67–69 Serbin, K.P., 178
Plurality, 50–54, 58, 74, 94, 133, 143 Shintoism, 158, 161
Pluralization, 24, 51–53 Sikh, 80, 94, 96–98, 100–103
188 Index

Social control, 10, 31–45, 94 U

Social scientists, 50–52, 57, 158, 171, United States, 3, 4, 11, 36, 37, 40, 42, 51,
173–175, 177, 179 75, 77, 134–136, 138–139, 143,
Social solidarity, 137 145–155, 163
Sociology of Law, 39–42, 44, 45 US Constitution, 146, 147
Sombart, N., 172
Spickard, J.V., 11, 133–143
Spickard, P., 135 V
Spirituality, 5–7, 83, 85, 161 Verger, P., 172
Stark, R., 53, 159 Vertovec, S., 75
State, 3, 17, 31, 50, 64, 73, 94, 115, 133,
145, 158, 177
Stolz, J., 73–88 W
Swatos, W.H., Jr., 11, 145–156 Warner, R.S., 135, 138, 141
Switzerland, 9, 11, 36, 73–81, 83, 84, 86, Watson, J., 70
88, 97 Willaime, J.P., 10, 23, 63–71, 75
Wittner, J.G., 135, 141
Worldview, 64, 65, 67, 69–71, 153, 155
T Wuthnow, R., 6, 7, 51
Taylor, C, 5
Theodicy, 177, 182
Theology of Liberation, 171, 177, 179, Y
181, 182 Yang, F., 10, 49–58, 159
Todd, J.T., 23 Yoshihide, S., 11, 157–169
Torfs, R., 66
Trans-border religions, 11, 157–169
Transnationalism, 49 Z
Trigg, R., 18 Zrinščak, S., 11, 115–129
Tucker, A., 20 Zubrzycki, G., 17