Sociology of Religion for Generations X and Y

Adam Possamai

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781845533038
• eBook ISBN: 9781134937745
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Generations X and Y are plugged into the contemporary world of consumption, popular culture, and the internet. These generations treat knowledge and belief as a more flexible concept, often focusing on the practical rather than the theoretical and often drawing on conflicting sources in both popular and cyber culture. Their approach to religious belief and practice requires a new way of studying the sociology of religion. 'Sociology of Religion for Generations X and Y' examines key world religions - Buddhism, Christianity and Islam - as well as newer religious groups, such as Scientology, New Age, Witchcraft and online communities such as Jediism and Matrixism. The book covers a range of key concepts: secularisation and modernisation, re-enchantment, the 'McDonaldisation' of society, and the easternisation of the west. Each chapter opens with a case study from popular culture or the internet which takes the reader to the heart of the topic being discussed. Employing both classical sociological theory and contemporary critical theory, 'Sociology of Religion for Generations X and Y' explains where contemporary religion and spirituality are coming from, where they are now, and where they are going.

1 Religious Diversity and the Politics of Definition

Introduction

For any social scientists researching religion, the Internet has become a considerable source of knowledge. Blogs, among other things, are a valuable source of information when it comes to trying to understand the sign of the times. In these Blogs, people write freely about their opinion and can offer a window for looking at what people think. One such blog is ‘TheoFantastique’, which is ‘devoted to the enjoyment and exploration of the imagination and creativity as expressed through Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror’.¹ Its webmaster, John Morehead, is interested in intercultural studies, new religious movements, theology and popular culture. As part of his blogs, he interviews people who can comment on his interest. For example, on the 12th October, 2007, he posted his conversation with Dr James McGrath from Butler University who made an interesting comment about Star Trek. This will be the thread of this chapter:

TheoFantastique: With the cultural changes in the West in the shift to late modernity or postmodernity [see Chapter 5] do you think there has been an increase in religious or spiritual topics discussed or incorporated within science fiction?

James McGrath: Absolutely. The best example (to preempt your next question) is to trace the Star Trek series in its various incarnations. The original series took a wholly modern outlook. There was no one with any publicly-visible religious beliefs on the Enterprise. They may have had them, but this was a secular enterprise, if you’ll allow the pun. On their journeys they encountered two kinds of civilizations: ones that were enlightened and secular like themselves, and ones that were primitive and in which religion was mere superstition that was used to manipulate people and/or keep them from progressing. If we fast forward to Deep Space Nine, we find that postmodernism has radically altered the outlook of the show. On this space station, everyone (except for most of the humans, interestingly enough) has a religious tradition, and everyone participates in each other’s traditions and rituals, with plenty of room for putting together one’s own eclectic smorgasbord of beliefs. Sci-fi certainly speculates about the future, but it also reflects the present, and because it is the future as seen from the present, it provides plenty of opportunities to reflect on our present values and our aims.²

We will come back to the place of the internet in relation to religions in Chapter 6 and the key notions of modernity and postmodernity will be addressed in Chapters 3, 4 and 5. What I would like to focus on for this chapter is the paradigm shift from the Star Trek series and on the fact that works of popular culture reflect changes within our society. There appears to be a change from a secularist outlook (see Chapter 4) of our world, as indicated in the first series, to a view in the most recent one that celebrates religious diversity (see forthcoming sections). As Deep Space Nine reflects current cultural shifts in our society, this book also indicates change and does not escape imposition from reality. No matter how hard a researcher works, how much he or she collects, analyses, and writes about data, he or she carries with him or her a specific frame of mind. No matter how well trained a social scientist is, he or she cannot fully blank his or her life story, cultural and social influences, education, movies and books read while conducting research. His or her life story has been greatly inspired by his or her parents, but also by his or her skin and gender, by how people have perceived him or her throughout his or her life, and by how he or she has reacted to this perception.

If we come back to the illustration on Star Trek, it becomes easy to find how sociocultural conditions affect what is thought of, written and directed on screen. Writers, like social scientists, are productions of their time and very rarely are the ones who change the times. The ways religion is viewed and practiced, as I argue in this chapter, are also a product of a time. Whatever the message from the gods and/or prophets, whatever the quality of its veracity, the message is always translated in a specific socio-cultural context. And the sociology of religion is no exception as social scientists who analyse the religious message in its practices also follow the sign of the times.

For example, the research I have conducted in the sociology of religion for close to 15 years appears to be a reflection of some facets of my life. I was raised as a Catholic in Belgium by an Italian Catholic father and an English Anglican mother. This country at that time, not taking into account atheism, was deeply mono-religiously Catholic. Because of my father’s work, I travelled on many occasions in North Africa and especially Libya (before and during the international embargo) and Algeria (at the beginning of the civil war in the 90s). These trips exposed me greatly to a part of the Muslim world. I then migrated to Australia and discovered a land with a vastly diverse religious landscape which opened my eyes to issues of management of religious diversity and made me an ardent believer in religious toleration and pluralism.

I just went through this very little biographical sketch to let my readers know about my background, and to make them aware of my perspective in my work in the sociology of religion. As a sociologist following a Weberian approach (see Chapter 3), I research the social meaning that movements and individuals give to their action, and the effect of these meanings and actions on the socio-cultural structure of western societies. As a researcher, I work as a translator (See Conclusion) of these social actors’ multiple ways of being and thinking by exposing them to the broader community through my publications and involvement with the media. By making these findings available, I wish to contribute to the study and promotion of religious diversity; this book being such an outlet.

This book is designed for both religious and non-religious people. Some religious people might wonder if a sociological book can destroy one’s religious belief. Sociology does not make people atheist; it is simply a discipline that analyses religion in society and does not discuss the validity of the religious message. Saying that a religion is not a religion because it does not believe in a Christian God is not a sociological argument. Saying that some religions are in conflict with other religions and that it impacts on the sociopolitical level of a geographical region is worth having a sociological eye on. Like culture, sociologists analyse religion and the various ways it impacts on different levels of our societies. This is why this book will be of interest to religious and non-religious people. It deals with the sociocultural consequences of believing rather than the theological study of the act of believing itself. As one of the many consequences of globalisation, religions and spiritualities coexist in ways not known in the past. But how can we all exist without destructive conflicts between religious groups and between religious and non-religious groups? As Habermas (2006: 4) recently underlined, the challenge is to draw the ‘delimitations between a positive liberty to practice a religion of one’s own and the negative liberty to remain spared from the religious practice of the others’. In other words, how do we work religious toleration in a way that celebrates religious diversity but does not prevent the freedom for people to be atheist as well?

Religious Toleration? The Case Study of the Church of Scientology

Before starting this section, I will first present a case study which aims to set the underpinning of this book: whatever the religious belief, it should be able to be practised openly as a religion, as long as it does not go against the laws of a country. This case study is of a controversial nature, but is a case in point, as it helps us to understand that at the basis of religious toleration is the issue of how to define/label what religion is.

The Church of Scientology

This church is well known in the media for being the religion of stars like Tom Cruise and John Travolta. It was formed by Ron Hubbard who believed that the human mind could be greatly improved to give people greater mental agility. Hubbard, who was at the time of the genesis of the church a pulp fiction writer, first described his views on the optimisation of the brain in the May 1950 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. He then developed his ideas of a new psychotherapy in books, and in 1953, created his church.

The ideal mental state for scientologists to reach is that of being ‘Clear’. This is a state in which we are free from all the pains we have experienced in this life and in all the previous ones. All the painful experiences of current and previous lives are said to be stored in our subconscious and are called ‘engrams’. These would prevent us from functioning at our full potential in daily life.

Hubbard developed a technique called ‘dianetics’ to discover the origins of the engrams and clear them away from a person. Part of these exercises include following the indications of some type of religious manual from the church and the reading of an e-meter; a machine inspired by the lie detector. After various exercises, the scientologist is argued to be able to read his or her emotions on this e-meter and detect the unconscious pains accumulated from his or her past lives.

The courses offered are various and can be costly. As people move from one course to another one, they move a level closer to the ‘Clear’ state. As a typical initiatory religion, members have to move from one level at a time. The Church of Scientology does not offer a religion in which people can come on a Sunday morning and make a small donation. It is rather a religion which charges a specific amount of money for all the various levels required by their course.

The Church of Scientology in Australian Courts

In 1963 following complaints from health professionals, government health authorities and from the public, Scientology became the subject of an inquiry by Kevin Anderson QC. In 1965 a Board of Inquiry from the State of Victoria reported in the first paragraph of its prefatory note that ‘Scientology is evil; its techniques evil; its practices a serious threat to the community, medically, morally and socially; and its adherents sadly deluded and often mentally ill’ and that Scientology is not a religion. The Board of this inquiry sat to receive evidence and to hear submissions and addresses on 160 days. It listened to oral evidence on oath from 151 witnesses covering 8,920 pages of transcript.

Reading through this report, one can easily discover that the board viewed the church as a pseudo-science affecting the mental health of its members. In chapter 27 of the document entitled, Scientology and Religion, the board said that the church claimed to be a religion to improve their defence tactics by pretending to be persecuted because of their religious beliefs. Further, as stated in chapter 7 of its report, the board could not grasp the religious teaching of the group from a non-Christian perspective.

Scientology is opposed to religion as such, irrespective of kind of denomination. The essence of Hubbard’s axioms of scientology is that the universe was created not by God, but by a conglomeration of thetans who postulated the universe. Sometimes God is referred to as the Big Thetan. Many of the theories he propounds are almost the negation of Christian thought and morality.

It is clear from this statement (and a few others in the same chapter) that the legal system of that time did not reflect the type of autonomous judiciary system (in this case, independent from a Christian perspective) required to ensure religious freedom for minority groups as described by Richardson (2007). This lack of independence from external systems, be it religious or secularist, is demonstrated quite strongly in the conclusions of the report when describing Scientologists accounts: ‘These ardent devotees, though quite rational and intelligent on other subjects, are possessed of an invincible impediment to reason where Scientology is concerned’. A further conclusion is also worth quoting:

Though the practice of scientology has many undesirable features, such is the novelty of many of its activities that it is difficult to classify them precisely as being in breach of existing laws. That scientology practices and activities are improper and are harmful and prejudicial to mental health is evident.

In its recommendations, the board admits that invoking the criminal law in respect to past conduct of the group will be of little significance, ‘like prosecuting a bank robber for driving his get-away car against the traffic lights’.

The board then decided that ‘in order to control Scientology, it is necessary to strike at the heart of the problem’:

Hubbard claims that scientology is a form of psychology and the evidence shows it to be psychology practises in a perverted and dangerous way by persons who are not only lacking in any qualifications which would fit them to practise psychology but who have been indoctrinated and trained in beliefs and practices which equip them to do more than apply dangerous techniques harmfully and indiscriminately.

The Board envisaged a system of registration for psychologists which would prohibit the advertising and practice of psychology for fee or reward unless registered. It was of the Board’s opinion that Scientology’s qualifications should not entitle a person to register as a psychologist. It admitted that limiting the practice of Scientology would involve the surveillance of practices and conduct by persons other than Scientologists. This report led to the Psychological Practices Act 1965 (Vict.) which made the teaching of Scientology an offence. However, this Act did not apply to ‘anything done by any person who is a priest or minister of a recognised religion in accordance with the usual practice of that religion’. These provisions were repealed in 1982 (Psychological Practices (Scientology) Act 1982 (Vict.).

Later, the Church became recognised as a religious denomination under s.26 of the Marriage Act 1961 in 1973, and was then exempted as a religious institution from pay-roll tax in South Australia, Western Australia, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.

However, in Victoria in 1983, the Church faced a legal battle on the issue of being defined as a religion for tax purposes in the Church of the New Faith v Commissioner for Payroll Tax (Vic.). The court was asked to decide if the Church was a religious institution for the purpose of tax exemption. The Church was first listed as a foreign company as the Church of the New Faith Incorporated in 1969 in Victoria. When the Church of the New Faith was asked to pay taxes from 1975 to 1977, it objected on the basis that it was a religion, and thus its wages were not liable to pay-roll tax. After many rejections to this objection, the ‘corporation’/church applied for an appeal at the High Court of Australia. The court investigated whether this ‘corporation’ was, during the relevant period, a religious institution. Instead of focusing on the writing of Hubbard as was previously done (...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Tables
• Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Note
• Introduction Xers and Yers as Cohorts of the Post-1970s Generation
• Chapter 1 Religious Diversity and the Politics of Definition
• Chapter 2 Religion and Popular Culture
• Chapter 3 Religion and Modernity: Marx, Durkheim and Weber
• Chapter 4 Religion, Spirituality and the Post-Secularisation Approach
• Chapter 5 Religion and Postmodernity (Part A): Consumer Religions
• Chapter 6 Religion and Postmodernity (Part B): Hyper-reality and the Internet
• Chapter 7 Esotericism, Its McDonaldisation, and Its Re-enchantment Process
• Chapter 8 Monotheistic Fundamentalism(s) as an Outcome of Consumer Culture
• Chapter 9 Buddhism, Its Westernisation and the Easternisation of the West
• Chapter 10 Christianity: Churches and Sects in a Post-Christian World
• Chapter 11 The Multiple-Modernities of Islam?
• Chapter 12 New Religious Movements and the Death of the New Age
• Chapter 13 Witchcraft, the Internet, and Consumerism
• Conclusion What Do Sociologists of Religion in Academia Do Apart from Teaching and Marking? Their Work as Intellectuals
• References
• Index