The Roots of Millennialism

Millennialism and apocalyptic worldviews consistently appear in religion. It is important to say that not all apocalyptic groups actively engage in violence. However, there is a strong inclination for the acceptance of violence in various forms. Violence, we must understand, in the apocalyptic imagination, is not necessarily evil. The real evil is loyalty to a society and culture that are ungodly; that maintain beliefs and institutions that stand in the way of the apocalyptic transformation (Selengut, 99).

Charles Selengut, in his book Sacred Fury: Understanding Religious Violence, outlines five essential components of all Millennialist groups:

1.     The world is viewed as inherently evil;

2.     the rules, laws, and values of society are immoral and do not need to be obeyed;

3.     adherents must follow only the rules and directives of their divinely inspired leaders and prophets;

4.     the current social and political world must and will be destroyed, and

5.     both destruction and catastrophe are necessary. They will ultimately lead to an emergence of a new, redeemed world order, which will be superior in every way to current reality (101).

The dissolution of law and order is a forewarning of the approaching end time. This is a desirable transition, as the apocalyptic transformation ushers in an age of moral as well as material perfection (Weber, 43). For example in medieval times, the plague was seen as a divine punishment for the transgressions of a sinful world (Cohn, 130). In modern times, there are those who still see catastrophe, even natural catastrophes through this medieval lens, such as Pat Robertson and the like who blamed Hurricane Katrina on the tolerance of homosexuality.

The world is inherently evil. This is a more common worldview than you might imagine. Let’s take my favorite example, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, of which there are 7.65 million. Satan rebelled against god and somehow managed to gain control over the world through his manipulation of its organizations; economic, political and religious. This raises some interesting question about the nature of God and of good and evil such as: “How could Satan have possible beaten God to gain control over this world?” “How could God let this happen?” “Is he not all powerful?” Or maybe, to borrow from Mormon dogma, it is part of the plan to have Satan rule this world. God allowed this to happen as a test, a test for our immortal souls. In any case, these questions are not my focus. The point is that there is no motivation to patch up a dying world (Katz & Popkin, 158). Likewise, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not vote, frown upon higher education and retreat into their community, apart, distinct and opposed to the worldly dominion of Satan. There is a sense that conventional norms and laws are meaningless in the light of a liberated and enlightened new reality that will come to pass (Selengut, 97).

In many Christian traditions, this can also called Rapture theology, made up of evangelicals and fundamentalist Christians. In this tradition, God will raise the faithful up to heaven before the terrible events set in motion by the apocalypse. They will return shortly afterward, not having to undergo the suffering that the rest of humanity will have to endure (Selengut, 106). 

In domestic politics, a war between good and evil is taking place. Millennialists, Evangelicals and fundamentalist Christians all believe they are battling against the antichrist. They are obligated to defend Christian virtues and culture. The literature on this particular subject is vast. Suffice to say, these groups, having a deep sense of being oppressed for their faith usually take one of two options: a defensive stance or an overly offensive stance.

But of course these are the minority of Christians! Right? Many of the previous authors I have discussed would say so. They are a fringe element of their tradition, not representative and a aberration to true Christian values. However much this may or may not be true, these groups, in their unconventionality, manifest latent elements in their religious and cultural tradition that has been repressed for generations by the mainstream. Perhaps the mainstream has had to adapt to these realities of the modern world as defined by pluralism and science? Perhaps that is why these groups in particular rail against said liberal and modern ideals? I would say so. Regardless, the potency of these groups should tell us something. That these are dire problems. That we face these latent issues, repressed as a society and a culture. They refuse to compromise their traditions, they refuse to adapt and reinterpret their dogma and scripture and teachings so that they fit with secular and scientific understanding. In this way, they are dangerous. As Selengut said, “not all are militant or public, but active Christian apocalypticism gives voice to views and desires of Christians throughout the world” (Selengut, 135).

Religious criticism and evolution must come from both within and without. In addition to atheists and agnostics and nontheists, we need reform to come from insider these traditions themselves. Many such as John Greenleaf Whittier, a quaker, opposed these groups not on theological grounds but on their social impacts. He said, “The effect of this belief in the speedy destruction of the world and the personal coming of the messiah, acting upon a class of uncultivated, and in some cases, gross minds, is not always in keeping with the enlightened Christian’s ideals of the better day.” He thought that those who thought the world was coming to an end, let alone those who are actively trying to bring this about, are not likely to improve this world, let alone adapt to it (Katz & Popkin, 155). In my opinion, a vision and worldview of the end to the world is a good way of escaping its perils. It is a solution for insoluble problems and thus not a rational or effective way to navigate our thoughts and feelings on life, happiness and community.

1.     Weber, Eugen. (1999). Apocalypses: Prophecies, Cults, and Millennial Beliefs through the Ages. Harvard University Press.

2.     Cohn, Norman. (1970). The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Messianism in Medieval and Reformation Europe and its Bearing on Modern Totalitarian Movements. Oxford University Press.

3.     Katz, David S. & Popkin, Richard H. (2000). Messianic Revolution” Radical Religious Politics to the End of the 2^nd Millennium. Hill and Wang.

4.     Selengut, Charles. (2004). Sacred Fury: Understanding Religious Violence. Altamira Press.

Exclusionary Origins of Nationalism

The very basis of state building, historically, has been based on exclusion, both internal and external. In order to form a nation-state, you had to somehow manage a wide variety of different communities, values, ethnicities, religions etc. Anthony Marx, in his book Faith in Nation: Exclusionary Origins of Nationalism says, the “’collective solidarity’ of nationalism emerges when a population ‘is perceived as essentially homogenous,’ with any ‘crisis of identity’ thereby resolved” (21). In order to create such homogeneity, certain groups were favored and identified with at the expense, disadvantage, and often oppression, of other groups. When nation states were emerging, they were vulnerable and lacked widespread support. Marx says, “to avoid being disempowered or defeated by those competing groups aligning, the state may forge an alliance with one group, which is solidified by the exclusion of a different group from specified rights and reinforced prejudice of that other…states can solidify their support by transgressing the rights of one group to the advantage of the other group” (22). The ultimate goal of this exclusion was to create mass support for the nation, based on what we are not; based on creating an “other”.

Internal discord of competing groups was thus dealt with through selective domestic exclusion. “Demarcating, demonizing, and depriving ‘outsiders’ found within provides a referent that can further unify and solidify the support of the in-group” (23). Elites and/or commoners, eager to build solidarity and cohesion within their group, purposefully magnified even minor differences. “Such exclusion is evident in informal discrimination, state policies of citizenship, forced assimilation, expulsion, or eradication” of that created “other” (24). Thus nationalism has been internally exclusive along existing cleavages of race, gender, ethnicity, class and for our purposes, religion.

Marx says, “Religion…was the primary basis of mass belief and solidarity. Faith provided both a template for popular engagement, which state rulers or their opponents sought to emulate in the secular realm” (25). Religion was the perfect rift for nascent nation-states to focus on. Conflict between groups enraged existing religious passions. Religious groups were torn and pulled in varying directions. Fighting for power synchronized faith and politics. Religion became increasingly involved to nation-state building. As religious communities waged war with competing religions, it becomes more than a religious community, it become a political community (26).

Excluding others became the basis for increasing cohesion. Resulting cultural identifications then focused on secular obedience, however indirect. Regardless of secular aims, the power remained with religion. Internal exclusion, however, had external consequences. Aggravation with foreign enemies, who formed their nation-states on similar exclusionary practices, was reinforced. External enemies became extensions of the internal heretical traitors. “Repetition of this exclusionary process would and still does feed ongoing antagonisms and conflict” (32). We are of course aware of group identification and in-group/out-group dynamics. However, Marx’s work shows that religion played a central role in the early exclusionary practices of nation-states themselves. As Sam Harris so eloquently said, “religion is one of the great limiters of moral identity, since most believers differentiate themselves, in moral terms, from those who do not share their faith. No other ideology is so eloquent on the subject of what divides one moral community from another” (176).

The Origins of Religious Violence

Hector Avalos has produced an invaluable contribution to the field of religious studies in his book The Origins of Religious Violence. He presents a radical new theory to religious violence based on the creation of scarce resources. Through this theory he contrasts religious violence with secular (or nonreligious) violence and applies it to the field of international politics and foreign policy. I will briefly present an overview of his ideas.

Avalos presents two main propositions: (1) “Most violence”, he says, “is due to scarce resources, real or perceived. Whenever people perceive that there is not enough of something they value, conflict may ensue to maintain or acquire that resource. This can range from love in a family to oil on a global scale.” (2) “When religion causes violence, it often does so because it has created new scarce resources” (18). Avalos outline four main scarce resources that are created by religion: access to the divine will (particularity through inscripturation), sacred space, group privileging and salvation. I will return to how religion creates these scarce resources later on.

Avalos defines religion as a “mode of life and thought that presupposes the existence of, and a relationship with, supernatural forces and/or beings” (103). He uses an empirico-rationalist approach, which states, “unreasonable beliefs are those that neither can be verified nor are based on verifiable phenomena” (27). We define natural as that which by one or more of the five senses and/or logic. The supernatural must be unknown or unknowable. If we could detect it, it would cease to be supernatural. Avalos concludes, “if it is not natural then it is nothing more than a concept whose reality cannot be verified” (103).

As opposed to verifiable resource scarcities such as water, food and shelter, scarcities generated by religion require only belief in them in order to exist. The competition for these resources can cause conflict when the competitors need to acquire it or feel that loss of control of the resource will somehow threaten their well being (79). Religious believers can thus die or kill over a perceived scarcity that in actuality is not scarce at all. Violence predicated on the acquisition or maintenance of an unverifiable resource is simply needless. Bodily wellbeing, or life, is being traded for nonexistent gain. The scarce resources created by religion are completely manufactured by, or reliant upon, unverifiable premises. Thus, religion causes violence if and when the perpetration of violence is a logical consequence of beliefs in unverifiable forces and/or beings. “A scarce resource X created by religion may cause violence when at least one of two or more persons or groups (1) desires to acquire or maintain X, and (2) believes violence is an allowable and proper method to acquire and/or maintain X” (22).

Avalos spends time discussing previous theories of religious violence. If will briefly present his main point. “Current theories of religious violence” he says, “are still permeated by the idea that religion is essentially good and that violence is a deviation” (93). Previous theories are thus incomplete. Religious violence is seen as unrepresentative while the true religion and real god is being distorted. Avalos criticizes the claim that religious violence is a response to modernism and secularism. He says that it allows religious apologists to retain the value of religion, while deflecting the fundamentals mechanisms of violence to which all religions are susceptible. “Such militants are violent because modernism and secularization threaten the scarce resources (e.g., salvation, sacred space) that their belief systems have manufactured” (80). Similar to Rodney Stark, Regina Schwartz argued that because monotheism automatically creates a group of insiders and outsiders, the creation of outsiders is itself a violent act. Diana Edelman then argued for inclusive monotheism that acknowledges various forms of one supreme deity. This once again, is an attempt to keep the value of religion while claiming that violent religion is simply an aberration. Avalos, in regards to monotheism said, “The creation of scarce resources may occur when the adherents of a religion claim that the benefits of that religion are not or cannot be equally distributed to all human beings” (22). Outsiders are denied access to benefits provided by that one god. These benefits could be anything ranging from land to national identity. Avalos argues that the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) are all heavily dependent on violence premises in that “they all regard their scriptures as sacred despite the violence endorsed therein” (29). Religion does not always cause violence, he says, but religion is inherently prone to violence. Any theory of religious violence must address the fundamental susceptibility to violence based on the creation of scarce resources, in this case, unverifiable resources.

What are scarce resources? They can be anything from tangible resources such as food, as elaborated by those such as Amartya Sen (and within economic theory, Thomas Malthus), to power and status within families, communities and countries. Scarce resources can incite ethnic conflicts and create immigration issues. It is based in the fear of losing a valued resource or of losing control of a resource. There are economic/status based threats and cultural/symbolic threats, which would include religion and way of life. This inherently brings up geopolitics and the control of resources deemed valuable. The “militarization of space” can be seen as a direct consequence of seeing space and a precious and scarce resource (99), which I will return to shortly.

The idea that insufficiency is a major, if not the main, cause of conflict is not new. Whenever there is not enough of something that is valued, conflict is the likely result. Scarcities are related to conflict from the smaller social units to the largest sociopolitical entities. And while a broad spectrum of researchers see the importance of scarcities, none of them seems to appreciate fully how religion can create scarce resources. What unites all of the scarcities, even those that are human-made, is that they exist or can exist. Available quantities of oil can really be insufficient to meet the needs or wants of people. Love and justice can really be insufficient in a family. “But these scarcities differ in important ways from scarcities that are precipitated by religion. Those differences, we shall argue, render religion a more tragic source of violence” (100).

Religion creates scarce resources in four main ways, through inscripturation, scared space, group privileging and salvation. Inscripturation refers to the creation of a written account of what is “believed to be authoritative information about or from supernatural forces and/or beings…what readers believe to be the thoughts and actions of a deity or supernatural force” (104). Writing becomes a scarce resource when not everyone has access to the writing or the ability to read. This can be the case with many females in the Muslim world who are denied access to scriptures or cannot become imams. More importantly however, is the creation of a scarce resource based on inscripturation, that of divine communication or religious authority. For example, the Catholic Church is the ultimate interpretative authority on scripture, and Catholics follow their interpretation. A secular example would be the US Supreme Court as being the ultimate interpretive authority on the US Constitution. Avalos says, “when divine communication is believed to reside in one book or set of books, and not in all books, then a sacred canon can be considered a form of sacred space, wherein the word of deities is embodied in those texts” (106).

When some are denied access to sacred space, or cannot live in sacred space, it becomes a scarce resource. This can be best understood in a social functionalist view, religion as being a mechanism that legitimizes existing social organizations and hierarchies. Avalos explains sacred space thusly,

Let us say that population X has declared a certain bounded space was given to them by god, who communicates only with members of population X. While there may be enough physical space for the community, the space has now been made scarce solely because of the belief that a god has declared it to be his property. Any loss of life resulting from that scarcity would be completely wasteful if that god did not in fact exist/ any violence resulting from this belief would be judged wasteful and or immoral (355).

Land is scarce already. It is absurd to create a new scarcity of land by calling it “holy” on the basis of unverifiable claims.

Group privileging usually withholds economic and social benefits. “Violence may follow attempts to acquire those benefits or attempts to prevent the loss of those benefits” (109). In the case of inscripturation, not everyone can read and write therefore, elite groups had control over written information. Salvation is not available to everyone. It stipulates that anyone can receive a more permanent supernatural status or benefit by joining a particular religion. But this is not tangible or verifiable. As Avalos states, “salvation exists only insofar as people believe in it” (109); salvation, of course meaning salvation from sin, or from the ultimate destruction caused by sin. Martyrdom can also fall into this category. It is a virtual ticket to heaven that is not available to everyone. You gain supernatural boons by giving up ones life in a violent exodus. Salvation through the shedding of blood was necessary for the abolition of sin. People become saved though the violence death of the son of god. Ultimately, any notion that sacrifice is necessary for our collective health is neither empirically verifiable nor helpful for overcoming violence itself. Avalos says,

The idea that anyone needs supernatural salvation is unverifiable. The concept that god or god’s son or anyone else has to die to be saved is not only unverifiable but can be seen as a continuation of ancient violence ideas about blood magic and sacrifice that simply have no place in the modern world. The idea that god died not because it was necessary, but simply to show his love, is equally misguided. The idea that violence is an expression of love is the problem (367).

Any person, or group of persons, that threatens another’s salvation can become the object of violence. In all these cases, violence can occur “when the loss of those valued resources is thought to be imminent or when someone else attempts to acquire those scarce resources” (110).

Avalos’s main argument is based in comparative ethics, meaning “scarcities caused by unverifiable propositions form a more tragic and preventable violence” (301). Avalos claims “the lack of verifiability in religious belief ethically differentiates the violence attributed to religion from the violence attributed to nonreligious factors” (29). His argument is quite simple. What exists has more value than what does not exist. Life exists. Therefore, life is worth more than what does not exist. Accordingly, any action that places the value of life as equal or less than equal than the value of nothing is immoral. It is always immoral to kill for something that has no value. Avalos says, “since religion is a mode of life and thought premised on the existence of and or relationship with unverifiable supernatural forces and or beings, then it follows that killing for religious reasons is always immoral” (354). Expressed another way, if acts of violence caused by actual (verifiable) scarcities are judged as immoral, then acts of violence caused by resources that are not actually scarce (unverifiable) are more immoral. Religious violence is always immoral. Non religious violence is not always immoral. This is the fundamental ethical difference.

The best prospect for a nonviolent global society is a secular humanist hegemony. Violence based on verifiable scarcities is workable, violence based on unverifiable scarcities is simply unnecessary and unhelpful. Avalos presents a few solutions to this problem of religious violence. It is given in the framework of minimization, meaning that we must concentrate on “ ridding ourselves of unnecessary violence” (359). Sacred space, salvation and group privileging are not essential features of religion! His solution is to focus on those resources that people are actually lacking, food, shelter, justice and so on. “Using empirico-rationalist epistemology is the key to determining what people actually need to live” (368). Religion, in this way, is unnecessary for morality. Including god in our moral considerations does not change them, except to add another unnecessary scarce resource and layers of bureaucracy and power structures. Religion should have no place whatsoever in our moral considerations nor should it have a place in finding solutions for religious violence.

Brian Kimball - When Religion Becomes Evil

Brian Kimball’s excellent book, offers five warning signs for when religion become evil. These warning signs are: absolute truth claims, blind obedience, establishing the ideal time, the end justifies any means and declaring holy war. I will quickly present his ideas and then offer a few comparisons to the previous authors I’ve discussed.

Kimball asks, “Is religion itself the problem?” And his answer is two fold: no, and yes. Kimball, like Armstrong distinguishes between authentic religion and traditional, narrow religion. In this way, he is a religious apologist, which makes sense as he is an Baptist minister. However, don’t let this persuade you of the validity of his criticisms and arguments which are sounds and relevant. He begins his book by saying that there has been a collective failure to challenge presuppositions, to think anew and to openly debate religious concerns. This failure, he says, contributes to the disaster we see with narrow, traditional and violent religion. Many traditional ways of viewing the world and relating to others are simply inadequate. “They are becoming increasingly dangerous” (9).

Is religion the problem?

All religions are not the same. As such, not all religious worldviews are equally valid (23). Agreeing with Sam Harris and Ken Wilber alike, he says value judgments of religion are sorely needed. There are objective criteria we can use to make informed and responsible decisions about what is acceptable under the religious rubric. Freedom of religion is a wonderful thing, but equally important is freedom from the religions others wish to impose upon those who differ (25).

Asking ‘is religion the problem?’ completely depends upon our understanding of religion itself. If religion can be summed up as fundamentalist and narrow and literalist then the obvious question is yes! Religion would clearly be the problem. However, religion is more than the holy trinity of atheists makes it out to be. According to Kimball, Sam Harris seems to think there is only one way to understand and interpret sacred texts, and that is a literal understanding. Kimball, in this sense, completely agrees with Karen Armstrong; asserting that fundamentalism is the only valid form of faith is “uninformed and deceitful”. Harris also does not distinguish faith and belief. Believing X, Y and Z, does not sum up religion or religious people. However, Kimball recognizes consistently that there is a growing and dangerous proportion of the population that would fit into this category. Their exclusivist understanding and propagation of religion merely reinforces the argument that religion is indeed the problem (35). In order to answer the question ‘is religion the problem?’ accurately, we need “a broader, deeper, and more inclusive understanding of religion” (38).

Kimball briefly tries to answer his own question by saying that if religious institutions and teachings lack “flexibility, opportunities for growth, and healthy systems of checks and balances” they certainly can be, and usually are, a major part of the problem. Regardless of what people say about their love of god or their need for religion in their lives, or in the public arena, when their behavior toward the other is violent and destructive, when it causes suffering, the religion has certainly become corrupted and is in need of serious reform.

Truth Claims

Kimball says “In every religion, truth claims constitute the foundation on which the entire structure rests. However, when particular interpretations of these claims become propositions requiring uniform assent and are treated as rigid doctrines, the likelihood of corruption in that traditional rises exponentially” (49). This creates an environment for religion and religious people to become defensive and sometimes assume an offensive posture towards difference and criticism. Presuming to know god, to have exclusive rights to the correct interpretation of sacred texts, has potentially destructive consequences (55). This absolutism blocks any ability or willingness to perceive the multitude of ways, even in one single tradition, people understand and conceptualize the transcendent.

Truth claims are based on selective readings. Usually people defer to authority figures who define the Christian position on any variety of issues such as human sexuality or the physical age of the planet. Literalism, Kimball says is dangerous for two reasons:

1. Sacred texts are apprehensible and therefore sensible. Despite the notion of original or authorial intent, meaning is determined by what the reader attributes to the author. Thus, “what the reader thinks is there becomes not merely the reader’s opinion but the will of god” (67).

2.  Allegories, typologies and symbolic interpretations are avoided in favor of the pure and uncorrupted word; truth and meaning become synonymous. When the symbolic, metaphorical and allegorical nature of sacred texts is lost, and literalism predominates, it is significantly more likely that those who differ will be demonized.

The problem of truth claims is that we take the language of faith and turn them into absolute truths in our craving for certainty. Kimball goes so far as to say that “Christians who take the bible literally are either ignorant or self deluded” (66). I could not agree more. Unfortunately, we are speaking of a very large proportion of Christians and Christianity.

Blind Obedience

The limitation of intellectual freedom and individual integrity is a sure sign of religious corruption. Kimball says, “when authority figures discourage questions or disallow honest questions, something clearly is wrong” (99). There is usually strong social pressure, and familial pressure, to conform. This pressure is applied more often in terms of how the religious communities define themselves in relation to the larger social network. “Some groups physically withdraw from the perceived corrupt society around them” (100). We can see this in the case of evangelical Christian home schooling, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the like.

It is important to stress that religion and religious communities must be allowed to be bizarre and self-destructive. Religious or not, this occurs all the time. The line is crossed when the sect poses a threat to anyone other than their “freely participating adult adherents” (104).

Establishing the Ideal Time

Following the Millennialism traditions, when a hoped-for ideal is tied to a particular religious worldview and those who wish to implement their vision of the hoped-for time, presume to know what god wants not just for them but for the everyone (115).

Usually, those who can be described in this vain have a very black and white vision of the ideal time. For example, to use a familiar name, Pat Robertson has said

 “One is either following god in all aspects of life or not following god at all. One is either engaged in godly politics or is participating in the anti-god structures that now threaten the home, school, and the church” (128). Either you agree with this vision or you do not. And if you do not agree then you are obstructing its fruition. This certainty, for Robertson, and indeed many in the religious right, correlates to our political and economic systems. “He’s [Satan] gone after the government and moved it away from the more free enterprise system we’ve known and turned it into a socialist welfare state” (130). This vision can also create an attitude of exclusivism and bigotry. For example, Pat Buchanan said in 1993, “our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity” (131).

People and groups who have a political and economic blueprint based on divine mandate should be regarded with extreme caution.

The End Justifies any Means

This can be both an external and internal problem and usually results from a religious community or person taking a defensive stance from perceived threats. Externally, stemming from group identity, the “other” can be seen as an object posing a threat rather than as a person. Internally, this can manifest as “discrimination and dehumanization within the group in the form of sexism, classism, racism” (149). Religion, being patriarchal and misogynist warrants its own post and isn’t my, nor Kimball’s focus. But this can be seen in many forms familiar to us such as vigilante style justice, honor killings and female circumcision.

Protecting the institution itself can become the end that justifies any means. For example, Catholic priests and child molestation. There has been little or no recourse to the criminal justice system. These issues have been handled behind closed doors, protecting the institution of the church.

Declaring Holy War

“More wars have been waged, more people killed, and more evil perpetrated in the name of religion than by any other institutional force in human history” (168). Of course this can be difficult to separate from various political and nationalistic motivation that have usually come in conjunction with religious motivation. Nonetheless, it’s a solid statement. Declaring holy war is more likely to occur when a community of faith feels threatened by external powers. Sound familiar?

Inclusive Faith

Kimball says we are in desperate need of new paradigms, new ways of understanding particularity and pluralism. At the forefront of this struggle should be men and women of faith. Change must come from within if religion is to stop being used to oppress and dehumanize. Each tradition has its own resources and flexibility to modify its teachings and practices. To bring this change to a more pluralistic context, “believers must ask themselves how they can best function in a world in which most others don’t share the same understanding” (100).

Religious groups should not feel threatened by difference and diversity. They should look at difference as an opportunity to deepen and broaden their view. As Kimball says, “Security” does not come “from having or assuming we have all the answers” but from how one is oriented in the world. It comes from a practical response to confusion, crisis, calamity, and yes, difference. The answer Kimball says, similar to Rodney Stark, is more religion; but real, authentic and transformative religion. 

Thomas Jefferson - Quotes on Religious Liberty

In celebration of Thomas Jefferson's birthday, here is a list of his more famous quotes on religious liberty. May his ideas and immeasurable contributions never be appropriated by the religious right and their agenda for Christian dominance.

A Wall of Separation

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”

--Letter to the Danbury Baptists, January 1, 1802

The Powers of Government

“I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline or exercises...I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, its doctrines, nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting and praying are religious exercises. The enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has the right to determine for itself the times for these exercise and the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets, and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the Constitution has deposited it.”

--Letter to Rev. Samuel Miller, January 23, 1808

Presidential Authority and Religion

“[E]very one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the U.S. and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents.”

--Letter to Rev. Samuel Miller, January 23, 1808

Ending Religious Intolerance

“I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.... We ought with one heart and one hand to hew down the daring and dangerous efforts of those who would seduce the public opinion to substitute itself into that tyranny over religious faith which the laws have so justly abdicated.”

--Letter to Edward Dowse, April 19, 1803

The Inquisition of Public Opinion

“Our laws have applied the only antidote to [religious intolerance], protecting our religious, as they do our civil, rights by putting all on equal footing. But more remains to be done, for although we are free by the law, we are not so in practice. Public opinion erects itself into an inquisition, and exercises its office with as much fanaticism as fans the flames of an Auto-da-fé.”

--Letter to Mordecai Noah, May 28, 1818 (an Auto-da-fé is the public burning of a heretic)

The Reciprocal Right of Choosing

“From the dissensions among Sects themselves arise necessarily a right of choosing and necessity of deliberating to which we will conform. But if we choose for ourselves, we must allow others to choose also, and so reciprocally, this establishes religious liberty.”

--Notes on Religion, 1776

Sinful and Tyrannical

“[T]o compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern...”

--Jefferson’s “Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom,” Adopted January 1786

Civil Rights and Religion

“Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions...therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to the offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow citizens he has a natural right.”

--Jefferson’s “Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom,” Adopted January 1786

Friends of Religious Freedom

“In reviewing the history of the times through which we have passed, no portion of it gives greater satisfaction, on reflection, than that which presents the efforts of the friends of religious freedom, and the success with which they were crowned. We have solved by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government, and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving everyone to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason, and the serious convictions of his own inquiries.”

--Letter to the Six Baptist Associations Represented at Chesterfield, Virginia, November 21, 1808

Sworn Upon the Altar of God

“[The pro-establishment clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion.”

--Letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800

Preachers, Pulpits and Politics

“I suppose there is not an instance of a single congregation which has employed their preacher for the mixed purposes of lecturing them from the pulpit in... principles of Government or in anything but religion exclusively. Whenever, therefore, preachers instead of a lesson in religion [discuss]...the construction of government or the characters or conduct of those administering it, it is a breach of contract, depriving their audience of the kind of service for which they are salaried.”

--Letter to P.H. Wendover, March 13, 1815 (Unsent)

On Choosing a Pastor

“In choosing our pastor we look to his religious qualifications, without inquiring into his physical or political dogmas, with which we mean to have nothing to do.”

--Letter to P.H. Wendover, March 13, 1815 (Unsent)

Religious Hostility in the New World

“The poor Quakers were flying from persecution in England. They cast their eyes on these new countries as asylums of civil and religious freedom; but they found them free only for the reigning sect.”

--Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-1785

Religious Diversity

“Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion.... Let us reflect that [the world] is inhabited by a thousand millions of people. That these profess probably a thousand different systems of religion. That ours is but one of that thousand.”

--Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781 – 1785

It Does Me No Injury

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

--Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781 – 1785

The Most Inalienable and Sacred Right

“The constitutional freedom of religion [is] the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights.”

--Address to the University of Virginia Board of Visitors Reprinted October 7, 1822

Equality in the Eyes of Government

“I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.”

--Letter to Elbridge Gerry, January 26, 1799

The Example of History

“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.”

--Letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813

Provided for by American's United. http://www.au.org/files/images/page_photos/with-sovereign-reverence.pdf

Karen Armstrong and The Case for God

Karen Armstrong, in her book, The Case for God, doesn’t do what you think she does. Armstrong is a religious academic and historian, and a damn good one at that. She is a religious apologist, but not for the kind of religion most of us think of when we think of religion. She has just as many criticisms with religion as most atheists do including, I would say, people like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. Where they differ however is their scope in what they mean by religion in the first place. Most people’s ideas about religion are highly reductionist. Questions like “Do you believe in God”, or “Are you a Christian”, are usually easily understood and answered accordingly through common connotations and cultural assumption. Religion and God usually mean very clear things, whether is the Evangelical version or the Mormon version, there is a level of certainty in making these claims and assumptions. As we’ll see many atheists and Armstrong could not agree more in their criticism about this sort of religion. However, most atheists stop here and limit their criticism of religion to this narrow arena of understanding and praxis.

Generally speaking, mystics, yes even Christian mystics, and many eastern traditions embrace relative amounts of uncertainty and not knowing. Religion and God are understood as being metaphorical labels and symbols for that which cannot be known and cannot be spoken about by limited human minds, languages and imaginations. They speak of religion and God in a completely different way, that in Armstrong’s view is more true and authentic. Armstrong says that what religion truly is and can be is fundamentally at odds with the majority of its worldly manifestations that cling to certainty and dogma. In her view, some religion is better than others depending on the level of embrace of not-knowing. Again, here she will agree with many atheists. I will present some of her amazing ideas, then offer some of my own, including criticisms of her work.

Armstrong begins by differentiating mythos and logos. Mythos was first designed “to help people to navigate the obscure regions of the psyche, which are difficult to access but which profoundly influence our thought and behavior” (xi). Myths were not effective if people simply believed in them, they were programs of action. Religion was based around mythos. It was not something people thought but what hey did. Truth was acquired through practical action influenced by and motivated by mythos.

Religion however, went corrupt when logos began to overtake mythos. Myth was discredited and the scientific method took its place as the only reliable means of attaining truth. After this revolution, religious knowledge became theoretical rather than practical. Belief suddenly became a fundamental axiom and prerequisite of faith. Because of this transition, today we speak of believers and unbelievers as if accepting some amount of dogma is an essential activity (xv). In Armstrong’s view, this is a gross distortion of what religion is. Many of us have been “left stranded with an incoherent concept of god” (320).

We have forgotten to value unknowing. It is important to “recognize the limits of our knowledge, silence, reticence, and awe” (xviii). Religious practice must naturally entail what she calls ‘esktasis’, which can be described as a stepping outside the norm, “stepping outside the prism of ego and experience the sacred” (xiii). It necessarily involved uncertainty. This unknowing was celebrated and delighted in. In transcending the ego through religious practice, for example, we experience sadness directly, “it not longer become my sadness but sorrow itself” (xiv).

The sacred, or God, is transcendent. In the vain of Tillich and Heidegger, this is what is called the Ground of Being. The eternal Tao is the Tao that cannot be named. The Tao has no qualities, no form. It can be experienced but never seen, it is not a god. It predates heaven and earth. It is beyond divinity, neither being nor nonbeing. As Armstrong summed up, “it [is] impossible to define or describe, because Being is all encompassing and our minds are only equipped to deal with particular beings, which can merely participate in it in a restricted manner” (11). This ground is a power that is higher, deeper and more fundamental than our notions of god or gods. It transcends our limited personalities. In every religious tradition, there is a “deliberate and principled reticence about god and/or the sacred” (xviii).

Being itself, is not only the ground of being, it is also the ground of the human psyche. It is neither external nor alien to humanity. The two are connected. This is the microcosm and macrocosm, the atman and Brahman. This is how we are able to experience it…we are it! Human beings are wired to yearn for transcendent experiences, to yearn for esktasis. In this way, Armstrong argues that religion, as it should be practiced and understood will never disappear. It is a defining aspect of humanity. She says, “the desire to cultivate a sense of the transcendent may be the defining human characteristic” (9).

For Armstrong, this lasted until the rise of modernity, the rise of logos at the expense of mythos. “Before the modern period, most men and women were naturally inclined to religion and they were prepared to work at it” (10). Before modernism, people were not expected to believe in the abstract. Humanity forgot that “authentic religious discourse could not lead to clear, distinct and empirically verified truth” (21). Religion is not something provided to the masses by authority figures, it was not a notional activity. Accepting dogma on someone else’s authority completely abdicates personal responsibility. Religion did not require belief in a set of doctrines. She says, “Religious discourse should not attempt to impart clear information about the divine but should lead to an appreciation of the limits of language and understanding…it could not be accessed by rational, discursive thought but required a carefully cultivated state of mind and the abnegation of selflessness” (26). Faith was a matter of practical insight and active commitment, it had little to do with abstract belief. For example, the Buddha had little time for theological speculation and metaphysical questions. What difference would it make to discover that a god had created the world? “Pain, hatred, grief and sorrow would still exist. These issues were irrelevant” (23).

For Armstrong, modernity brought a lust for certainty. This certainty made religion more logos based at the expense of a more transcendent, unknowning based religion, which is more authentic and transformative and real. For someone who has much criticism for the reductionism of religion, she is being highly reductionist in her view of modernism. Modernism can be said in part to be a response to the tyranny and oppressive authority of religion. Nonetheless, she elevates the religion of the past and says what we see today is a distortion of a truth lost in translation.

Secularism for Armstrong has a large negative effect. She does not see it as the fulfillment of the rational ethos of the enlightenment. Secularism in her view is creating a violent and oppressive religious backlash. She says a militant religiosity, will “emerge in every region where a secular, western style government had separated religion and politics” (292-3). Fundamentalists feel under threat, they are defensive and are unwilling to entertain rival points of view be they other religions, or social issues such as evolution, homosexuality, feminism and abortion. Secularism did not create these fundamentalists. They are reacting to it.

Using her model, Armstrong critiques most atheists quite well. She says,

“Atheism is parasitically dependent on the form of theism it seeks to eliminate and becomes its reverse mirror image…all three [Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins) insist that fundamentalism constitutes the essence and core of all religion” (xvi). This may be true. However, Armstrong takes her views much further. She says, “Dawkins is not correct to assume that fundamentalist belief either represents or is even typical of either Christianity or religion as a whole…he is mistaken to assume that this is the way people have generally understood the term God (304)…Christian fundamentalists are convinced that their doctrinal beliefs are an accurate, final expression of sacred truth and that every word of the Bible is literally true – an attitude that is a radical departure from mainstream Christian tradition (294)” Does this woman live under a rock or something? Anywhere from 33% to 62% of Americans think the Bible is the literal truth of God. I know that’s quite a spectrum, but best-case scenario is 33%. That’s one third of Americans! And that is no small demographic! Refer to previous blog posts about the prominence of fundamentalist religion in the world.

I do agree with Armstrong when she says “this type of religiosity represents a retreat from god” (295). In this way, she completely agrees with atheists. She says the holy trinity (Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins) present religion at its absolute worst (306), which is also true. However, she continues saying that they are not “theologically literate,” and are intellectually conservative. “They never discuss the work of such theologians as Bultmann or Tillich who offer a very different view of religion and is closer to mainstream religion than any fundamentalist” (307). While this is also true she is false to make the assumption that notknowing religion is closer to the mainstream than fundamentalist religion. She downplays its manifestation, its influence and its power and thus undervalues the atheist and secular agendas. Atheism, for her, is just another divisive theology. She does not see its importance in the overall debate concerning sacredness. After all, what can be more sacred than a rational and well thought out critique of religion and its superstitions and dogmas?

She says the “atheist assault is likely to drive the fundamentalists to even greater commitment to creationism, and their contemptuous dismissal of Islam is a gift to Muslim extremists, who can use it to argue that the West is indeed intent on a new crusade” (308). This may also be true but it does not mean that atheism should be abandoned or discredited!

Arstrong’s conclusions and calls for action are hard to disagree with however. We do indeed need to shed a great deal of our knowledge about religion so that we can move on to new insights. Where she and I disagree is that atheism and secularism is a necessary player in this process. Faith and belief, she says, have become unfortunately fused in modern consciousness (305). Belief now exclusively means an intellectual submission to a “somewhat dubious position.” What it means to be religious or to believe in God no longer means what it used to. We are stuck in certainty. She says, “to make limited historical phenomena – a particular idea of god, creation science, family values, Islam or the holy land – more important than the sacred reverence due to the ‘other’ is a sacrilegious denial of everything that god stands for” (322). However, there is an innate desire for ekstasis, for mythos. Armstrong thinks we are entering a post-secular age. She hopes that atheist and theist alike should abandon the modern appetite for certainty. “No state of affairs is permanent, and we are now witnessing the death of the death of god.” She calls for a “negative theology”, namely a theology based in unknowing. We should drive our reasoning power to the point where we can go no further, and in this moment, we should not be frustrated but should experience a sense of “astonishment, awe and contentment.” We can turn within and become aware of otherness. Religion should be transformative with a marked effect on the personality. There is no dramatic “born-again” experience defined by intense certainty, but is a slow, incremental and imperceptible transformation.

I will return to Armstrong more when I begin discussing Ken Wilber. Most particularly, his idea of the pre/post fallacy.

William Cavanaugh - The Myth of Religious Violence

In his book, The Myth of Religious Violence, Cavanaugh attempts to address false assumptions about the dichotomy of religion and secularism, particularly in how they are perceived in accordance with violence. The myth of violence he says is “the idea that religion is a transhistorical and transcultural feature of human life, essentially distinct from secular features such as politics and economics, which has a peculiarly dangerous inclination to promote violence.” Religion, because of this dangerous inclination, must therefore be tamed by restricting its access to public power. The secular nation-state will then appear a natural result, responding to the inherent dangers of religion. First, I’ll outline a few of Cavanaugh’s points and then add some brief responses.

Throughout history it can be extremely difficult to separate religion from political life. Indeed, the very beginnings of nation-states were built on exclusionary principles based around religious belief and identity. Political and economic motivations can be inextricable intertwined with religious ideology and worldview. Portraying religion as being inherently dangerous and irrational, Cavanaugh says, is used by the secular state to justify its own forms of violence. He says, any attempt to separate religious violence from secular violence is fundamentally incoherent. The enlightenment narrative invented this assumed dichotomy between the religious and the secular. That religion is dangerous and irrational it must therefore give way to more rational, secular forms of power. In other words, in creating this vision of irrational and dangerous religion, an ‘other’ was established that legitimates coercive measures against that ‘other.’

Cavanaugh says that he is not set out to argue that religion either does or does not promote violence, but rather to analyze the political conditions under which the very category of religion is constructed. And this category has been constructed as violent, irrational and fanatical. He argues that so called secular ideologies and institutions like nationalism and liberalism can be just as absolutist, divisive, and irrational as those called religious. Claims about the violence of religion are centered on the assumption that religion is theoretically separate from secular realities like politics and economics. The myth of violence, therefore obscures the pursuits of the state. The nation-state has become a new kind of religion, appropriating the holy from religion itself to justify its own purposes. In the context of international affairs and foreign policy we can see how this plays out. If religion has a peculiar tendency to promote violence then societies that have learned to tame religious passions in public are seen as superior and more inherently peaceable that societies which have not. Policy follows suit.

Cavanaugh’s theories are in service to this vision: “In constructing artificial distinctions between religious and secular violence, types of violence and exclusion labeled secular have escaped full moral scrutiny. In doing away with the myth of religious violence, we are not, of course, thereby licensed to create new blind spots, to ignore or excuse anti secular violence [i.e. religious violence] as justifiable. We must restore the full and complete picture of violence in our world, to level the playing field so that violence of all kinds is subject to the same scrutiny. Violence”, he says, “feeds on the need for enemies, the need to separate us from them. Such binary ways of dividing the world make the world understandable for us but they also make the world unlivable for many. Doing away with the myth of religious violence is one way of resisting such binaries and, perhaps, turning enemies into friends” (230). This vision is laudable and noteworthy regardless of its validity. However, I have many, many criticisms of his ideas. A few of which I’ll describe here:

Cavanaugh’s stance is in defense of religion. He seems to adopt a radical defensiveness that the religious right seems to adopt for itself. Their tradition, their way of life, their beliefs are under attack by the liberal media, by the government itself. This completely denies the reality of how powerful religion is a force in public life. Yes, prayer is not allowed in public schools, yes abortion is somewhat legal but these are not closed issues, the debate rages on with intense vigor from the religious majority. The term “under God” is in our national anthem, “In God We Trust” is on our currency, the 10 commandments and other religious displays are present on public property like courthouses. Again, these are not closed issues. But the point I am making is that the religious voice in this country is not oppressed. A liberal, secular majority that sees them as being fanatical and dangerous is not controlling them. If that were the case, the powerful religious presence in the Republican party would be nonexistent.

Cavanaugh also uses a reductionist view of religion. The idea that religion is a label created, through the enlightenment, by the secular state, in contrast to secularism is absurd. Religion serves many more functions that those as defined in its contrast to secularism. This however will be a point I elaborate on much further when I discuss Ken Wilber. For now, lets say that his use of the term religion lacks depth.

Cavanaugh claims also do not invalidate the fact that religion is, or can be, absolutist, divisive and irrational. And as such, it warrants a certain response to these tendencies that are indeed rational! Furthermore, he seems to equate all forms of violence; that all forms should be subject to the same quantity and quality of scrutiny. While this sounds great it denies the fact that not all kinds of violence are equally dangerous. Religious violence is simply more dangerous because it is irrational and has no empirical basis for its claims. While secular violence must have a certain level of rational justification for its actions. This quality alone differentiates these two forms of violence. Nation-states do not serve the same functions as religion. To equate the two is just silly. However similar they may be in creating in-groups and out-groups and providing meaning through ideology and symbols, they do not make any claims for absolute truth, build churches, provide a system of beliefs and practices for salvation or repentance or provide supernatural meaning. In this way, Cavanaugh’s claim that secularism is a new religion is absurd and inaccurate.

However, the myth of religious violence, the idea that the dichotomy of the religious and the secular, may causes us to ignore or deny secular forms of imperialism and violence and it warrants our attention. However, it should not be used in a way to justify or defend or invalidate religious violence as a primary concern for human life and international affairs. Religious violence is real and problematic and “doing away” with the myth of religious violence will not bring to light secular forms of violence any more than a variety of other means would, such as politics, activism international law and humanitarian networks.

Nonetheless, it is a great book with a truly revolutionary contribution to the field of politics, religion and international affairs. 

Rodney Stark, One True God

In One True God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism, Rodney Stark presents many interesting ideas about how to view religion, particularly monotheism as it relates to pluralism and religious civility. Stark can be described as an apologist, meaning he defends religion saying that it has many beneficial and in fact necessary functions for human beings as individuals and for society as a whole.

I have many criticisms of Stark, particularly around his narrow view of both sociology and more importantly, religion, which is highly reductionist. His definition of religion is as follows: it “consist[s] of explanations of the meaning of existence based on supernatural assumptions and including statements about the nature of the supernatural” (15). What Stark fails to incorporate in this definition is that many religions do not occupy their time, literature and practice around answering supernatural questions. In fact, the Buddha refused to answer such questions, saying simply that they did not matter, that suffering exists regardless and that is where focus should be. But Stark does not see any value in what he calls “godless” religions. He says, “godless religions are unable to gather a mass following” (10) and thus, “for a sociologist, the godless forms of Taoism, Buddhism, or Confucianism are of very limited interest, for they exist primarily as writing, not as human activities” (12). He neglects these traditions simply because they do not fit into his model, the provide complications to not only his definition of religion but to his application of criticism to it. And to say that they do not offer a mass following is an absurd statement for a sociologist as there are over 700 million followers of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism in the world. Nevertheless, this is not the focus of his book and should not take away from the valid points he makes within his model.

Monotheism, for Stark, is inherently exclusivist. If there is only one God, then anyone who worships other gods is simply wrong. That’s a simple logical conclusion right? Well, it’s more complicated. One owes it to followers of other, false gods to show them the error of their ways; one must bring them into the light and show them the truth, not only as an obligation to oneself but as an obligation to the one true God. Another word used to describe monotheism is particularism, which is “the belief that a given religion is the only true religion” (116). This Stark says is inherent to monotheism. There are two sides to particularism: contempt for other faiths and reactions by those held in contempt. Other faiths are in competition, each espousing their version of the one true God. Each then feels attacked by the others, needing to defend and protect itself, to defend and protect truth itself. Stark then says that both internal and external conflict is inherent to particularistic religion (117).  The best example of this is heresy, a word used very little in modern times and usually used only to describe events and attitudes in the past, but however is still ever present in religious discourse however politically incorrect it seems to be. Stark says, internal and external “disputes are the normal consequences of theological study, for heresy is inherent in the act of seeking to fully understand and to reconcile the deeper meanings of scriptures and revelations within any context wherein there can be only one correct answer” (118). Monotheism, then, has two clear social aspects, to inspire conflict both internally and externally and to sustain intense solidarity within groups. In group/out group dynamics once again play an important role.

Stark’s criticisms can be applied well to international affairs. Pluralism he says, is a natural effect of the diversity of religious demand. Other things being equal, there will always be a corresponding diversity in religious supply. “However,” he says, “if there exist only a few very powerful religious groups, intense conflicts must ensue as they attempt to suppress the other(s).” The only way a religious organization can maintain a monopoly is to enlist the coercive power of the state. Sound familiar yet? Heresy, then becomes treason. Religious diversity itself, anything that attacks its power and influence, is seen as a threat to the state, to the social order as well as an attack on the one true God. Societies under threat from religious monopolies will not, and indeed, cannot develop a truly pluralistic religious situation until they must do so of their own accord and necessity. Unfortunately, this is a truly revolutionary notion for American foreign policy.

Starks conclusion is as follows: religious apathy and alienation, and more importantly, the potential for religious conflict, prevail in societies where one religious body maintains a monopoly. The answer to this, he says, is to increase level of local religious commitment and religious civility. This is done through religious pluralism, this is done through more religion, not less. This is an interesting conclusion coming from someone who points out the inherent danger of religion to be violent and inspire conflict. He did however discuss secularism a little. He cited Peter Berger’s idea of the Sacred Canopy. This idea is similar to Foucault’s idea of the Dominant Mode of Discourse. It provides meaning, plausibility and legitimacy to the norms and social arrangements to the society beneath it. Religion provides a sacred vision of the cosmos, in turn, creating a sacred canopy for those underneath its vision. How then, does this compete with other canopies created by a pluralistic socity? Stark says the sacred canopy “must not be associated with any specific religious faction but must transcend and overarch them all, thereby being immune from mutual contradiction” (246). Secularism and democracy have been infused with sacredness, ranging from the American way of life and the constitution, to the Declaration of Independence. People he says, can maintain the conventions of religious civility in a pluralistic society yet also retain full commitment to a particularistic canopy. Navigating these waters, as you can see, can become quite messy. The question must be raised: is this notion of religious civility and tolerance merely superficial to those under a particularistic umbrella? My personal answer is yes, and no. The ratio is the variable.