The Diversity of Nonreligion

Normativities and Contested Relations

Johannes Quack, Cora Schuh, Susanne Kind

• Verlag: Routledge
• Jahr: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429589560
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Theology & Religion
• Thema: Atheism

This book explores the relational dynamic of religious and nonreligious positions as well as the tensions between competing modes of nonreligion. Across the globe, individuals and communities are seeking to distinguish themselves in different ways from religion as they take on an identity unaffiliated to any particular faith. The resulting diversity of nonreligion has until recently been largely ignored in academia.

Conceptually, the book advances a relational approach to nonreligion, which is inspired by Pierre Bourdieu's field theory. It also offers further analytical distinctions that help to identify and delineate different modes of nonreligion with respect to actors' values, objectives, and their relations with relevant religious others. The significance of this conceptual frame is illustrated by three empirical studies, on organized humanism in Sweden, atheism and freethought in the Philippines, and secular politics in the Netherlands. These studies analyze the normativities and changing positions of different groups against the background of both institutionalized religious practice and changing religious fields more generally.

This is a fascinating exploration of how nonreligion and secularities are developing across the world. It complements existing approaches to the study of religion, secularity, and secularism and will, therefore, be of great value to scholars of religious studies as well as the anthropology, history, and sociology of religion more generally.

1
Introduction

Researching the diversity of nonreligion¹

Johannes Quack, Cora Schuh, and Susanne Kind ²

Labels like atheist, freethinker, humanist, or secular refer to people who explicitly or implicitly distance themselves from certain religious traditions and ways of life or from religion as such. They refer to important but certainly not to all possible ways of being nonreligious.

The notion, “nonreligion,” signals a tension between a distinction from and relatedness to religion. Nonreligious positions thereby take different forms. Indifference to religion on the one hand and the criticism of religion on the other hand exemplify different ways of being nonreligious. The same holds for claims of independence or differentiation from religion, for neutrality, or even ignorance towards it, as opposed to aims for controlling, competing, or cooperating with religious others from a position that is not seen as religious in itself.

One locus classicus for diverging nonreligious positions is the historical debate between the secularist, George Holyoke, and the atheist, Charles Bradlaugh, on whether an attempt to ignore religion necessarily implies a denial of religion (Holyoake and Bradlaugh [1870] 1987; Quack 2011). The empirical case studies in this book analyze the religion-related positionings of and related internal discussions among humanists in Sweden, between atheists and freethinkers in the Philippines, and within a secular political party in the Netherlands.³ These case studies explore questions about when, where, and how these actors should engage with religious issues, and – for some – the degree to which such engagement implies becoming “religion-like.” For others, the question is whether they should move away from certain kinds or, indeed, all kinds of “religion-relatedness.”

A detailed discussion of these matters is not only important to better understand the socio-political debates around religion in contemporary societies; variations of this tension are also evident in academia, for instance, in the study of religion, secularity, and nonreligion (Quack 2014). Ever since its “emancipation,” the academic study of religion has attempted to move away from religion-likeness, debating what forms of religion-relatedness are permissible under, e.g., the headings of “methodological agnosticism” and “methodological atheism.” Similar concerns are explicit in the academic study of nonreligion when Matthew Engelke, as an example, argues that the notion “nonreligion” pulls us back to what we are trying to get away from: religion (Engelke 2015). Finally, the genealogy of the concept “secularity” also signals such tension, since it has been understood as both “differentiation” or “independence of religion” (what we call third space) as well as a “transformation of religion.”

To address such tensions, we conceptualize, empirically illustrate, and comparatively discuss the fruitfulness of a relational study of religion and nonreligion. The book has six chapters; in the second chapter, we introduce our conceptual frame for analyzing nonreligion: a relational approach to nonreligion. In Chapters 3, 4, and 5, we apply our concepts to three empirical case studies of organizations self-positioning as nonreligious in different ways: humanists in Sweden, organized atheists and freethinkers in the Philippines, and the secular party, D66, in the Netherlands. Against the backdrop of our conceptual frame, Chapter 6 comparatively brings together the different findings.

Taken together, the book introduces a relational study of nonreligion understood as the study of a variety of claims, contestations, and positions with respect to religion in a religion-related surrounding (German: Umfeld). It focuses on positions that seek to transform religion, reject and deny its claims, or to explicitly compete, cooperate, or criticize religion as well as on positions that aim for a degree of independence from religion, something to be overcome, and self-describing as indifferent, ignorant, differentiated from, or neutral to religion.

A relational approach to nonreligion

The idea of the project, “The Diversity of Nonreligion,” on which this book is based, emerged from previous research on organized rationalism in India with a focus on the group Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti (Organization for the Eradication of Superstition – ANiS) in Maharashtra (Quack 2012). This ethnography describes and analyzes the group’s steadfast ambition to disenchant India. Later, Quack (2013, 2014) conceptualized a more general notion of nonreligion: positions considered by relevant agents to be both distinct from but also related to religion. This relational approach to nonreligion shifts the focus from opposing religion and nonreligion to the discourses and practices that constitute a certain phenomenon as religion-related or not. The actors’ perspective and the field perspective are thereby both of importance, although they have to be distinguished analytically.

Obviously, Quack has not been alone with his interest in nonreligion; on the contrary, scholarly interest in the phenomena has constantly risen. Influential contributions on contemporary phenomena were made by, e.g., Amarasingam (2010), Beaman and Tomlins (2015), Blankholm (2014), Cimino and Smith (2014), Cotter (2015), LeDrew (2016), Lee (2015), Zuckerman (2009, 2011, 2014), Zuckerman, Galen, and Pasquale (2016). However, methodological approaches and theoretical conceptualizations in this area differ, especially as they are rooted in different scientific disciplines and traditions. This book serves to demarcate a particular conceptual position in the wider field of studies of secularity and nonreligion. We elaborate upon a relational approach to nonreligion to analyze the complex ways in which positions distinct from religion are related to religious positions. Furthermore, we explore contestations about what constitutes religion and its others. By looking at nonreligious activism with a relational approach, we gain new insights into the respective society at large and how it deals with religion. Potentially more important, this research sheds light on the different ideas about the envisioned or dreaded religious others.

One aim of the project, “The Diversity of Nonreligion,” was to identify and analyze diverse modes of nonreligion against the backdrop of their societal context. Beyond that, this book seeks to delineate nonreligion as a heuristically broad concept, which can also fruitfully be applied to, e.g., the academic study of religion, secularity, and nonreligion.

To describe distinctive modes of nonreligion, we focus on the different values, objectives, and dominant relations that characterize certain religion-related perspectives. The activism we research is motivated by different themes, including but not limited to social justice, individual liberty, truth, and rationality. Some actors are looking to counter the apparently privileged status and norm-giving role of religion while collaborating with other religious actors for that sake, while others focus on criticism and others still on competition. This is interrelated, e.g., with the question whether they see what they produce in their organizational frame (e.g., the formation of a distinct community) as a value in itself, or as a means to influence the respective society at large.

The book presents three case studies of groups that are located in different social context and that define their collective identity and self-position in relation to different religious others. We highlight both differences and similarities between groups and countries. The dynamics of distinction and relatedness central to a relational definition of nonreligion play a role in all three case studies, albeit to differing degrees.

Case studies: actors and relations to religion

Across the globe, people relate to phenomena that are commonly understood to be religious on a daily basis in their respective contexts. Some of those relations and references are very explicit, while others occur rather inconspicuously. Some might, for example, express what they understand as their nonreligious view of the world as part of larger groups, organizations, or movements. Such people and groups in the diverse settings of Sweden, the Philippines, and the Netherlands are at the center of our research.

In contemporary Sweden, the site of the first case study (Chapter 3), a self-understanding as nonreligious is no minority position. The country is commonly described as one of the most secularized countries in the world. At the same time, the traditionally dominant position of the Church of Sweden is often emphasized in the country. In this book, the ambivalent status of secularity as well as the Church of Sweden is illustrated using an analysis of the Swedish Humanist Association (SHA) and the different nonreligious positions therein. SHA members are fighting passionately over the role of humanist ceremonies in their organizational activism. Two different ideal-typical understandings of secular humanism, which some members perceive as partly contradictory, are identified in the case study. On one hand, the proponents of the concept of “life stance humanism” emphasize nonreligious social practices like humanist ceremonies as well as social gatherings as an important part of a humanist community. On the other hand, advocates of “opinion-making humanism” want to abandon or at least minimize such social humanist practices within the organization’s frame, which are part of humanist traditions in several countries, preferring instead to focus on strengthening their position as a professional and critical actor and participant in public debate and political decision-making. The debated status of the ceremonies and related issues stands for a more general debate over the identity and aims of the organization as a whole. This (re-)orientation process of the organization can partly be explained by but also sheds light on significant changes in the religious field in Sweden at large.

At almost the other side of the globe in the mainly Catholic context of the second case study (Chapter 4) on the Philippines, parliament has not only recently accepted a much-contested bill regarding reproductive rights, but the new president has also massively attacked the Church and challenged its authority. Other examples of challenges to the hegemony of Catholicism could be named: the discussion about a reproductive health bill, sexual orientation, and self-determination for example, or the already older Marxist tradition of religious critique that still echoes throughout current-day academia. More recently, two groups in Manila, partly emerging from atheist online networks, were founded to advertise free-thought as well as atheism: the Philippine Atheists and Agnostics Society (PATAS) and the Filipino Freethinkers (FF). While both are primarily comprised of atheists, the two groups have taken different paths, have different agendas in their activism, and position themselves differently in relation to the Catholic Church in particular and religion in general. These examples not only sketch a broad variety of positions opposed to the Catholic Church but also express that such opposition can take divergent directions. Accordingly, the comparison of these two organizations highlights similarities and differences when it comes to membership demographics as well as the emancipative and socio-political objectives and projects of these actors.

The third case study (Chapter 5) on the Dutch social liberal party, D66, shifts the focus from civil society actors to the field of party politics, a perspective that both fits and extends the framework that has been established in the other case studies. In its self-understanding as nonreligious, it is not religious institutions but parties with a religious base that comprise the central other for D66. The differentiation between politics and religion is central to what nonreligion means in that case. Such differentiation, on the other hand, has always been a contested notion of politics, challenged by Christian and socialist parties alike. Against the background of the emergence of the religion-related political field in the 19th century, the case study focuses on the party’s struggle against the religion-relatedness of politics. The chapter sketches the party’s emergence in the late 1960s, a time of a widespread cultural and institutional break with the pluralist-confessional past, and its successful push for a secularization of politics, state, and law in the 1990s and the early 21st century. In their most recent articulation of a moral and epistemic standpoint, they construe politics and democracy as distinct from religion. The party’s positioning as differentiated from religion matches the profile of its voters.

The questions that guide our research pertain to individuals and subgroups within the organizations at hand, the organizations themselves, as well as their broader social embeddedness and roles. Accordingly, we ask: how do actors define their activism and organizational identity? What do such groups try to achieve? How are they perceived by other actors in the respective society? What do these actors understand as religion? In what ways are actors individually as well as a group related to religion? What are the aspects and themes that inform such relatedness? What do we learn about the Philippines, Sweden, and the Netherlands in general and the role of religion in these countries in particular by researching such groups? Finally, on a much broader scale, what do we learn about the diversity of nonreligion across the globe through these actors and positions?

Religio-normativity and modes of nonreligion

The concluding chapter (Chapter 6) discusses the central themes and findings of the three case studies explored in the previous chapters in a comparative perspective and in relation to the conceptual frame that lies at their foundation. The chapter’s focus on the described groups’ diverse forms of activism provides insight, first, into the role of religion in each of the respective societies. This not only refers to the various forms of religious establishment but also to the means by which religion is experienced as carrying certain social orders and normativities – something we label “religio-normativity.” The respective activism counters both stigmatized nonreligious identities as well as conservative (religious) moralities, especially with respect to matters around sexuality and the beginning and end of life. Secondly, we discuss how debates around religion frequently function to both uphold and challenge established symbolic orders regarding notions of gender, sexuality, race, class, age, etc.

In this respect, the sixth chapter emphasizes that the divide between religious and nonreligious actors is sometimes not as clear-cut as it might look at first sight. Religious-nonreligious divides partly intersect with divides between different values and norms, and, respectively, debates about morality can also take the form of an assertion of religious orthodoxy or that of an antireligious critique. Similarly, while religion can be a carrier of emancipation and liberty, it can also conflict with the emancipation and liberty of other groups or subjects. This might lead to movements both in the name of as well as opposed to religion. Therefore, we discuss examples where non-religious actors share interests with certain religious actors, all the while opposing other actors deemed nonreligious.

Against this background, the concluding chapter underlines the conceptual arguments made in the first and illustrated in the empirical chapters of this book. Of importance here are thus the tensions between different nonreligious positions, particularly in relation to two overarching aims that we introduce in the second chapter: the aim of moving away from religion-likeness and the aim of moving away from religion-relatedness. We encounter these two moves in different empirical settings, not only in our three case studies, but also in the debate between Bradlaugh and Holyoake on whether to ignore religion means to deny religion (Holyoake and Bradlaugh [1870] 1987; Quack 2011) as well as academic debates in the study of religion concerning, e.g., ideas of methodological agnosticism or atheism (Quack 2014). In all these cases, the notion of religion is a placeholder for many different aims and arguments. The competing modes of nonreligion we observe imply a negotiation of what constitutes religion and its respective other. Indeed, struggles between competing modes of nonreligion can be framed as contestations of the borders of the religious field in the sense that what seems a mode of nonreligion to some is rendered a mode of religion by others.

Notes

1 The work on this book was generously funded by the German Research Council (DFG) as part of the Emmy Noether Project (QU 338/1–1), “The Diversity of Nonreligion.” This book was written in part with the support of a grant by the Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG) “Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities” at Leipzig University. The KFG is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

2 The Introduction, Chapter 2, and Chapter 6 of this book were jointly written by Kind, Quack, and Schuh, and all three authors have made more or less similar contributions to the different chapters. Rather than listing the authors always in alphabetical order we decided, however, to mix the order of authors.

3 The three case study chapters are excerpts from the dissertation projects of Susanne Kind, “Secular Humanism in Sweden: Non-Religious Activism in ‘One of the Most Secularized Countries in the World’” (in preparation), Alexander Blechschmidt, “The Secular Movement in the Philippines: Atheism and Activism in a Catholic Country” (submitted and defended September 2018), and Cora Schuh, “Politics of Secularity: Dutch Social-Liberalism after Confessionalism” (in preparation).