Routledge International Handbook of Religion in Global Society 9781138182509, 9781315646435

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of tables
Acknowledgments
List of contributors
Introduction: religion in global societies
PART I: Market and branding
1. Christian churches’ responses to marketization: comparing institutional and non-denominational discourse and practice
2. ‘The Greatest Leader of All’: the faces of leadership and Christianity in contemporary Brazil (1980s–2010s)
3. JPCC: a megachurch brand story in Indonesia
4. Rebranding the soul: rituals for the well-made man in market society
PART II: Contemporary ethics and values
5. The prosperity ethic: the rise of the new prosperity gospel
6. Islamic ethics in Muslim Eurasia: prosperity theology vs. renunciation?
7. Public morality and the transformation of Islamic media in Indonesia
8. Pious-modern subjectivities in the Palestinian West Bank: identity formations and contours between the individual and the familial, the local and the global
9. ‘We are overfed’: young evangelicals, globalization, and social justice
10. ‘Mediacosmologies’: the convergence and renewal of indigenous religiosities in cyberspace
PART III: Intimate identities
11. Saints, sinners, and same-sex marriages: ecclesiological identity in the Church of England and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark
12. When two worlds collide: Asian Christian LGBTQs coming out to parents
13. Gender politics and education in the Gülen Movement
14. Global Catholicism, gender conversion and masculinity
PART IV: Transnational movements
15. Pilgrimage, traveling gurus and transnational networks: the lay meditation movement in contemporary Chinese societies
16. Globalization and asceticism: foreign ascetics on the threshold of Hindu religious orders
17. Maya revival movements: between transnationality and authenticity
18. Defending tradition and confronting secularity: the Catholic Buen Pastor Institute
19. The globalization of the Catholic Church: history, organization, theology
PART V: Diasporic communities
20. Dialectics between transnationalism and diaspora: the Ahmadiyya Muslim community
21. Transnational religious movement: the Turkish Süleymanlı in Indonesia
22. Young Buddhists in Australia: negotiating transnational flows
23. The formation of global Chinese Christian identities
24. Church as a homeland and home as a place of worship: the transformation of religiosity among Georgian migrants in Paris
PART VI: Responses to diversity
25. Interreligious dialogue in international politics: from the margins of the religious field to the centre of civil society
26. Faith, identity and practices: the current refugee crisis and its challenges to religious diversity in Southern Europe
27. Urban public space and the emergence of interdenominational syncretism
28. ‘As local as possible, as international as necessary’: investigating the place of religious and faith-based actors in the localization of the international humanitarian system
29. Religion, national identity and foreign policy: the case of Eastern Christians and the French political imaginary
30. Religious echoes in secular dialogues: global glimpses of peacebuilding
31. City of gods and goods: exploring religious pluralism in the neoliberal city
PART VII: National tensions
32. Islam, politics, and legitimacy: the role of Saudi Arabia in the rise of Salafism and Jihadism
33. Religion and nationalism in post-Soviet space: between state, society and nation
34. Religion, nationalism and transnationalism in the South Caucasus
35. The sacred and the secular-economic: a cross-country comparison of the regulation of the economic activities of religious organizations
36. Religious identities in times of crisis: an analysis of Europe
37. Poetry in Iran’s contemporary theo-political culture
PART VIII: Reflections on ‘religion’
38. Questioning the boundaries of ‘religious’ and ‘non-religious’ actions and meanings
39. Religion in the Anthropocene: nonhuman agencies, (re)enchantment and the emergence of a new sensibility
40. Science and religion in a global context
41. Religion through the lens of ‘marketization’ and ‘lifestyle’
Index

Citation preview

Routledge International Handbook of Religion in Global Society

Like any other subject, the study of religion is a child of its time. Shaped and forged over the course of the twentieth century, it has reflected the interests and political situation of the world at the time. As the twenty-first century unfolds, it is undergoing a major transition along with religion itself. This volume showcases new work and new approaches to religion which work across boundaries of religious tradition, academic discipline and region. The influence of globalizing processes has been evident in social and cultural networking by way of new media like the internet, in the extensive power of global capitalism and in the increasing influence of international bodies and legal instruments. Religion has been changing and adapting too. This handbook offers fresh insights on the dynamic reality of religion in global societies today by underscoring transformations in eight key areas: Market and Branding; Contemporary Ethics and Virtues; Intimate Identities; Transnational Movements; Diasporic Communities; Responses to Diversity; National Tensions; and Reflections on ‘Religion’. These themes demonstrate the handbook’s new topics and approaches that move beyond existing agendas. Bringing together scholars of all ages and stages of career from around the world, the handbook showcases the dynamism of religion in global societies. It is an accessible introduction to new ways of approaching the study of religion practically, theoretically and geographically. Jayeel Cornelio is Associate Professor and the Director of the Development Studies Program at the Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines. François Gauthier is Professor of Religious Studies at the Social Sciences Department of the Université de Fribourg, Switzerland. Tuomas Martikainen is the Director of the Migration Institute of Finland, Finland. Linda Woodhead is Distinguished Professor of Religion and Society at Lancaster University, UK.

Routledge International Handbooks

The Routledge International Handbook of Global Therapeutic Cultures Edited by Daniel Nehring, Ole Jacob Madsen, Edgar Cabanas, China Mills and Dylan Kerrigan Routledge Handbook of Street Culture Edited by Jeffrey Ian Ross The Routledge International Handbook of Simmel Studies Edited by Gregor Fitzi Routledge Handbook of Counter-Narratives Edited by Klarissa Lueg and Marianne Wolff Lundholt Routledge Handbook of Art, Science, and Technology Studies Edited by Hannah Star Rogers, Megan K. Halpern, Kathryn de Ridder-Vignone, and Dehlia Hannah Routledge Handbook of Bounded Rationality Edited by Riccardo Viale Routledge International Handbook of Charisma Edited by José Pedro Zúquete Routledge International Handbook of Working-Class Studies Edited by Michele Fazio, Christie Launius, and Tim Strangleman Routledge Handbook of Digital Media and Communication Edited by Leah A. Lievrouw and Brian D. Loader Routledge International Handbook of Religion in Global Society Edited by Jayeel Cornelio, François Gauthier, Tuomas Martikainen and Linda Woodhead The Routledge Handbook on the International Dimension of Brexit Edited by Juan Santos Vara and Ramses A. Wessel; Assistant Editor, and Polly R. Polak For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/RoutledgeInternational-Handbooks/book-series/RIHAND

Routledge International Handbook of Religion in Global Society

Edited by Jayeel Cornelio, François Gauthier, Tuomas Martikainen and Linda Woodhead

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Jayeel Cornelio, François Gauthier, Tuomas Martikainen and Linda Woodhead; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Jayeel Cornelio, François Gauthier, Tuomas Martikainen and Linda Woodhead to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-1-138-18250-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-64643-5 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by River Editorial Ltd, Devon, UK

Contents

List of tables Acknowledgments List of contributors Introduction: religion in global societies Linda Woodhead, François Gauthier, Jayeel Cornelio and Tuomas Martikainen

x xi xii 1

PART I

Market and branding

17

1 Christian churches’ responses to marketization: comparing institutional and non-denominational discourse and practice Marcus Moberg

19

2 ‘The Greatest Leader of All’: the faces of leadership and Christianity in contemporary Brazil (1980s–2010s) Karina Kosicki Bellotti

31

3 JPCC: a megachurch brand story in Indonesia Jeaney Yip, Susan Ainsworth and Chang Yau Hoon

42

4 Rebranding the soul: rituals for the well-made man in market society Anne-Christine Hornborg

52

PART II

Contemporary ethics and values

63

5 The prosperity ethic: the rise of the new prosperity gospel Jayeel Cornelio and Erron Medina

65

6 Islamic ethics in Muslim Eurasia: prosperity theology vs. renunciation? Aurélie Biard

77

v

Contents

7 Public morality and the transformation of Islamic media in Indonesia Arie Setyaningrum Pamungkas 8 Pious-modern subjectivities in the Palestinian West Bank: identity formations and contours between the individual and the familial, the local and the global Ferial Khalifa 9 ‘We are overfed’: young evangelicals, globalization, and social justice Catherine Rivera 10 ‘Mediacosmologies’: the convergence and renewal of indigenous religiosities in cyberspace Laurent Jérôme

95

105

117

129

PART III

Intimate identities

141

11 Saints, sinners, and same-sex marriages: ecclesiological identity in the Church of England and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark Karen Marie Leth-Nissen

143

12 When two worlds collide: Asian Christian LGBTQs coming out to parents Joy K.C. Tong, Samuel Kang, Peter Lee and Hyo-Seok Lim

155

13 Gender politics and education in the Gülen Movement Duygun Gokturk

166

14 Global Catholicism, gender conversion and masculinity Ester Gallo

174

PART IV

Transnational movements

185

15 Pilgrimage, traveling gurus and transnational networks: the lay meditation movement in contemporary Chinese societies Ngar-sze Lau

187

16 Globalization and asceticism: foreign ascetics on the threshold of Hindu religious orders Daniela Bevilacqua

199

17 Maya revival movements: between transnationality and authenticity Manéli Farahmand vi

212

Contents

18 Defending tradition and confronting secularity: the Catholic Buen Pastor Institute Esteban Rozo and Hugo Cárdenas

226

19 The globalization of the Catholic Church: history, organization, theology Isacco Turina

234

PART V

Diasporic communities

245

20 Dialectics between transnationalism and diaspora: the Ahmadiyya Muslim community Katrin Langewiesche

247

21 Transnational religious movement: the Turkish Süleymanlı in Indonesia Firdaus Wajdi

258

22 Young Buddhists in Australia: negotiating transnational flows Kim Lam

268

23 The formation of global Chinese Christian identities Joshua Dao Wei Sim

277

24 Church as a homeland and home as a place of worship: the transformation of religiosity among Georgian migrants in Paris Sophie Zviadadze

292

PART VI

Responses to diversity

303

25 Interreligious dialogue in international politics: from the margins of the religious field to the centre of civil society Karsten Lehmann

305

26 Faith, identity and practices: the current refugee crisis and its challenges to religious diversity in Southern Europe Viviana Premazzi and Roberta Ricucci

315

27 Urban public space and the emergence of interdenominational syncretism Peter van Gielle Ruppe

326

vii

Contents

28 ‘As local as possible, as international as necessary’: investigating the place of religious and faith-based actors in the localization of the international humanitarian system Olivia J. Wilkinson 29 Religion, national identity and foreign policy: the case of Eastern Christians and the French political imaginary Alexis Artaud de La Ferrière 30 Religious echoes in secular dialogues: global glimpses of peacebuilding Xicoténcatl Martínez Ruiz 31 City of gods and goods: exploring religious pluralism in the neoliberal city Gina Lende (with Bankole Tokunbo)

336

349

362

374

PART VII

National tensions

387

32 Islam, politics, and legitimacy: the role of Saudi Arabia in the rise of Salafism and Jihadism Mohamed-Ali Adraoui

389

33 Religion and nationalism in post-Soviet space: between state, society and nation Denis Brylov and Tetiana Kalenychenko

399

34 Religion, nationalism and transnationalism in the South Caucasus Ansgar Jödicke 35 The sacred and the secular-economic: a cross-country comparison of the regulation of the economic activities of religious organizations David M. Malitz

410

420

36 Religious identities in times of crisis: an analysis of Europe Didem Doganyilmaz Duman

432

37 Poetry in Iran’s contemporary theo-political culture Maryam Ala Amjadi

444

viii

Contents

PART VIII

Reflections on ‘religion’

457

38 Questioning the boundaries of ‘religious’ and ‘non-religious’ actions and meanings Carlo Genova

459

39 Religion in the Anthropocene: nonhuman agencies, (re)enchantment and the emergence of a new sensibility Oriol Poveda

469

40 Science and religion in a global context Michael Fuller

478

41 Religion through the lens of ‘marketization’ and ‘lifestyle’ François Gauthier

488

Index

500

ix

Tables

11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4

x

Model of the gap between English society and the Church of England Relationship between population, affiliates, and governing bodies of the Church of England Model of the gap between Danish society and the Danish folk church Relationship between population, affiliates, and governing bodies of the Danish folk church

145 145 146 146

Acknowledgments

From the very start we knew that the Routledge International Handbook of Religion in Global Society would be an ambitious project. As editors, we wanted it to advance the study of contemporary religious transformations around the world. It was thus a deliberate effort to seek contributions from younger scholars and from those who are based in the Global South. From the 200 or so who responded to our call in 2017, we selected 41 proposals, which, taken together, present an exciting picture of religion in global society today. We want to honour each contributor who took the time and effort to closely work with us at various stages. This handbook recognizes not only the diversity of its authors but also the pioneering work emerging in many parts of the world. We also want to thank our colleagues at Routledge who believed and exercised tremendous patience for this project. Catherine Gray and Gerhard Boomgaarden led us through the process as we were developing it at the onset. Mihaela Diana Ciobotea made sure that it saw the light of day. We are also thankful to Robbin Dagle for his help in preparing the index. Erron Medina, our editorial assistant based at the Ateneo de Manila University, deserves full credit for coordinating closely with our contributors and ensuring that the manuscript was ready for submission. He is a young scholar who himself is already making a mark on the study of religion and politics in the Philippines. Jayeel Cornelio, François Gauthier, Tuomas Martikainen and Linda Woodhead

xi

Contributors

Mohamed-Ali Adraoui holds a PhD from Sciences Po Paris. Currently a Marie Curie

Fellow at the LSE, Adraoui has held positions at the European University Institute, the National University of Singapore, and Georgetown University. His articles have been published in International Affairs, International Politics, Journal of Historical Sociology, Mediterranean Politics, and the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. Susan Ainsworth is Associate Professor in Organizational Studies at the University of Mel-

bourne. She is an internationally recognized expert in discourse analysis, qualitative methods, older workers and gender within organizations. Her research interests also include privacy and employment, specifically with respect to new technologies such as social networking sites and social media. Maryam Ala Amjadi spent her childhood in India and writes poetry in English. She received

the ‘Young Generation Poet’ Award in the 1st International Poetry Festival in China and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship in Creative Writing by the International Writers Program (IWP) at the University of Iowa. Presently, she is a PhD Fellow in Text and Event in Early Modern Europe at the University of Kent and Universidade do Porto. Karina Kosicki Bellotti is Professor of Contemporary History of the Federal University of

Paraná (Brazil). Among her publications are the book Delas é o Reino dos Céus (Annablume/ Fapesp 2010) and chapters in The Cambridge History of Religions in Latin America and The Media and Religious Authority. Daniela Bevilacqua is a postdoctoral Research Fellow at SOAS, working for the ERC-

funded Hatha Yoga Project (2015–2020). Her research interests include Hindu asceticism and ascetic practices, analyzed through an ethnographic and historical perspective. She authored Modern Hindu Traditionalism in Contemporary India: The Ś rı̄ Matḥ and the Jagadguru Rā mā nandā cā rya in the Evolution of the Rā mā nandı̄ Sampradā ya (Routledge). Aurélie Biard is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Central Asia Program at George Washington

University’s Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies. She is also an associated researcher at the Centre for Turkish, Ottoman, Balkan, and Central Asian Studies, Paris. Denis Brylov is Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural Studies, National Peda-

gogical Dragomanov University (Kyiv, Ukraine) and an Associate Professor in the Department of Religion Studies, Kazan Federal University (Kazan, Russia). xii

Contributors

Hugo Cárdenas is a Researcher in the School of Human Sciences at the Universidad del

Rosario. Jayeel Cornelio is Associate Professor and the Director of the Development Studies Program

at the Ateneo de Manila University and an associate editor of the journal Social Sciences and Missions. He has published extensively on religious change in the Philippines, with respect to youth, politics and development. He is the author of Being Catholic in the Contemporary Philippines: Young People Reinterpreting Religion (2016) and editor of Rethinking Filipino Millennials: Alternative Perspectives on a Misunderstood Generation (2020). Alexis Artaud de la Ferrière is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Ports-

mouth. Previously, he was a Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS, University of London. He finished his MPhil and PhD at the University of Cambridge, where he also worked as Research Associate at its Centre for the Study of International Relations in the Middle East and North Africa (CIRMENA). Didem Doganyilmaz Duman is a faculty member at the Department of Political Science

and Public Administration, Izmir Democracy University – Izmir/Turkey and a research collaborator at the UNESCO Chair in Intercultural Dialogue in the Mediterranean, Tarragona/ Spain. She received her MA and PhD (Cum Laude) degrees from Universitat Rovira I Virgili (Tarragona/Spain). Her areas of research include identity politics, religion-based identity conflicts, Islamophobia, and populist politics. Manéli Farahmand is the Director of the Geneva-based Intercantonal Information Center

on Beliefs. She holds a joint PhD from the Universities of Lausanne (Switzerland) and Ottawa (Canada), for which she received the Prize of Excellence from the Vaudoise Scientific Society. She was also a Lecturer at the Universities of Lausanne and Fribourg, handling courses on contemporary religiosities and ethnographic research. Michael Fuller is Senior Teaching Fellow at New College, University of Edinburgh. He is

the author and editor of numerous books and papers in the field of theology and science. He is Vice-President for Publications of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology, a Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion, and an honorary Canon of St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh. Ester Gallo is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Social Research at the University of Trento. Her research interests include migration, gender and religion, and academic displacement and refugees. François Gauthier is Professor of Religious Studies at the Social Sciences Department of Université de Fribourg, Switzerland. Canadian-born, he bridges scholarship between French and English and practises interdisciplinarity. He is the author of Religion, Modernity, Globalisation: Nation-State to Market (2020) and co-editor (with T. Martikainen) of Religion in the Neoliberal Age and Religion in Consumer Society (both 2013). Carlo Genova is Associate Professor in the Sociology of Culture in the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society at the University of Turin.

xiii

Contributors

Duygun Gokturk is Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Sciences at the Middle East Technical University. Her research interests include the sociology of organizations, sociology of education, race, ethnicity, social class and gender, qualitative research methods and ethnography. Chang-Yau Hoon is the Director of the Centre for Advanced Research at the University of

Brunei Darussalam (UBD). He is also Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia from where he obtained his PhD. Prior to joining UBD, he was Assistant Professor of Asian Studies and Sing Lun Fellow at the School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University, where he was awarded the SMU Teaching Excellence Award and Research Excellence Award. Anne-Christine Hornborg is Professor Emerita in the History of Religions at Lund Univer-

sity. She has published on indigenous cosmologies, animism, ecology and religion, ritual practices and new spiritualities. In recent years, she has studied new ritual contexts in late modern Sweden. Laurent Jérôme is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the Université du

Québec à Montréal. His areas of expertise include anthropology of religions, aboriginal studies, co-construction of knowledge, youth culture and cultural practices, and indigenous religious traditions. Ansgar Jödicke holds a PhD in the Study of Religion from the University of Zurich and a venia legendi (habilitation) from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, where he is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences. Tetiana Kalenychenko holds a PhD in Sociology of Religion (National Pedagogical Drago-

manov university, 2018). She is currently working in the field of conflict transformation and peacebuilding as dialogue facilitator, trainer, and mediator. Samuel Kang is a PhD candidate in Intercultural Studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois. Ferial Khalifa is an independent scholar and researcher. She earned her PhD in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Manchester and her MA in Sociology from the University of Chicago. Her PhD thesis was on women’s Islamic activism in the West Bank, Palestine. Dr Khalifa’s research interests include Muslim women’s piety and agency, Islamic movements and religion, and aesthetics. Kim Lam is Research Officer for the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies. She is based in the Centre’s Youth, Diversity and Wellbeing in a Digital Age Stream. She has a background in the sociology of religion, Buddhist studies and youth studies. Currently, she is working on a range of projects relating to religious youth, social cohesion and youth wellbeing. Katrin Langewiesche completed her doctorate at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences

Sociales in France. She currently teaches at the Department of Anthropology and African Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz in Germany. She works on religious xiv

Contributors

plurality in modern societies, faith-based organizations, Catholic convents in Europe and Africa, and Islamic transnational networks. Ngar-sze Lau is currently Lecturer at the Education University of Hong Kong, and Honorary Research Associate at the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on transnational meditation and mindfulness communities in contemporary China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. She has published on meditation traditions, contemplation, and healing. Peter Lee (PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is an intercultural researcher and an

ordained Presbyterian minister. He currently works as Korea Doctor of Ministry Program Liaison Officer and Affiliate Professor of Intercultural Studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois, USA. Karsten Lehmann is Research Professor at the University of Education Vienna-Krems and

Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Systematic Theology and Religious Studies. He was a Research Fellow at the Berkley Center in 2011. Lehmann has previously held positions at the Université de Fribourg and University of Bayreuth. Gina Lende is Associate Professor in religious studies at the Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society (MF). Her PhD was on the growth and development of Pentecostalism on the African and the Latin American continent. She has conducted field work in several different regions. She is currently working on religion, gender and politics, as well as religion and humanitarianism. Karen Marie Leth-Nissen is Visiting Researcher in the Department of Systematic Theology

at the University of Copenhagen. Her research focuses on how individualization and marketing affect the national church in Danish society. Hyo-Seok Lim (PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) serves as a pastor at Bethel Korean Presbyterian Church in Maryland. He has been involved in different types of ministry for Korean youth and young adult groups in South Korea and elsewhere. David M. Malitz is Lecturer in the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University. He holds a double master’s degree in Business Administration and Japanese Studies from the Universities of Mannheim and Heidelberg, and a doctoral degree in Japanese Studies from the University of Munich. His research interests lie in Japanese-Thai relations and the history of ideas in Japan and Thailand. Tuomas Martikainen is Adjunct Professor in Comparative Religion at the University of

Helsinki, Finland. He is the author of Religion, Migration, Settlement, and the co-editor of Muslims at the Margins of Europe (with J. Mapril, A. Khan), The Marketization of Religion, Religion in the Neoliberal Age, and Religion in Consumer Society (all with F. Gauthier). Xicoténcatl Martínez Ruiz received his PhD in Religious Studies from Lancaster University. He is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Innovación Educativa at Instituto Politécnico Nacional, where he also conducts research on the philosophy of education, Indian philosophy, and peace and non-violence. xv

Contributors

Erron Medina is Research Associate in the Development Studies Program at the Ateneo de

Manila University. He is pursuing graduate studies in political science at the Department of Political Science, University of the Philippines Diliman. His research interests include politics of religion, populism, comparative politics, political communication and social theory. Marcus Moberg is Professor in the Study of Religions at Åbo Akademi University, Finland. His main research interests include the sociology of religion, religion in market and consumer society, the discursive study of religion, and religion, media, and culture. His recent publications include Church, Market, and Media (Bloomsbury 2017) and the Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Popular Music (Bloomsbury 2018). Arie Setyaningrum Pamungkas holds a PhD at the Institute of Asian and African Studies, Humboldt University. She is a faculty in the Department of Sociology, Universitas Gadjah Mada. Oriol Poveda obtained his PhD in sociology of religion at Uppsala University. He earned

his MA in Jewish Studies and Philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, and has worked on different grassroots media projects in Mexico, Israel and Palestine. Viviana Premazzi is Senior Lecturer in Cultural Intelligence and Gender and Social Policy

at the University of Malta. She is an accredited trainer in intercultural and interreligious conflict management. Roberta Ricucci is Associate Professor at the Department of Culture, Politics and Society, University of Turin, where she teaches sociology of interethnic relations and sociology of Islam. She was a Visiting Research Fellow at Princeton University, Monash University in Melbourne and the University of Western Australia in Perth and a guest Visiting Associate Professor at the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame. Catherine Rivera is a PhD candidate at the School of People, Environment and Planning,

Massey University. Her research focuses on 21st-century citizenship formation among young Christians who are involved in social justice practices. She is also a tutor at the School of English and Media Studies in the same university. Esteban Rozo is Professor at the School of Human Sciences, Universidad del Rosario. Joshua Dao Wei Sim is a historian of Christianity and Modern China. He recently graduated

with a PhD from the Department of History at the National University of Singapore, where he is currently a doctorate trainee. His dissertation was on the transnational and intellectual history of Chinese evangelicalism in the twentieth century. Joy K.C. Tong, who holds a PhD from the National University of Singapore, is currently

teaching sociology at Purdue University, Indiana. She was Affiliate Professor of Chinese Studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. She has published books, articles, and book chapters on Christianity in the US and Asia, including Overseas Chinese Christian Entrepreneurs in Modern China (Anthem, 2012).

xvi

Contributors

Isacco Turina is researcher in cultural sociology at the University of Bologna. He has worked mainly on contemporary Catholicism, focusing first on consecrated life (hermits and virgins) and eventually on the Vatican's moral doctrine on sexuality, bioethics, human mobility, and ecology. He has also conducted fieldwork on the lived ethics of radical animal rights advocates. Peter van Gielle Ruppe is Scientific Staff in the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sci-

ences (Geographic Institute) at Humboldt University. Firdaus Wajdi is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at Universitas Negeri Jakarta. He com-

pleted his PhD at Western Sydney University in 2016. He is currently coordinator of the Islamic Education Program at Universitas Negeri Jakarta and board member of the Indonesian Islamic Education Lecturer Association (ADPISI) of Jakarta. Olivia J. Wilkinson is the Director of Research at the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and

Local Communities. She has a PhD and a master’s in humanitarian action from Trinity College Dublin and Université catholique de Louvain, respectively. Her studies focus on social and cultural capital in disaster response and the influence of secular and religious values in shaping humanitarian action. Linda Woodhead MBE is Distinguished Professor of Religion and Society at Lancaster University. She has held visiting positions at Stanford University, the University of Münster, Ateneo de Manila University and the University of Ottawa. Her books include That Was the Church That Was: How the Church of England Lost the English People (with Andrew Brown), A Sociology of Prayer (with Giuseppe Giordan), Christianity: A Very Short Introduction, Religion and Change in Modern Britain (with Rebecca Catto), A Sociology of Religious Emotions (with Ole Riis), and The Spiritual Revolution (with Paul Heelas). Jeaney Yip is Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Sydney Business School. Her research is multidisciplinary and involves the study of discourse and identity in religion, consumer culture, gender and Asian contexts. She has published in Marketing Theory, Journal of Macromarketing, Pacific Affairs, Social Compass, and South East Asia Research. Sophie Zviadadze is Associate Professor at Ilia State University and the Chair of the Master Program in Religious Studies. She graduated from the Faculty of International Law and International Relations at Iv. Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, specializing in International Relations. She received her PhD in Political Science and Sociology from University of Muenster.

xvii

Introduction Religion in global societies Linda Woodhead, François Gauthier, Jayeel Cornelio and Tuomas Martikainen

Like any other subject, the study of religion is a child of its time. Shaped and forged over the course of the twenty-first century, it has reflected the interests and political situation of the world at the time. As the twenty-first century unfolds, it is undergoing a major transition along with religion itself. This handbook explores these changes. The academic study of religion was developed in a context of industrialization, urbanization, European colonialism and world war. Nation-states, some with colonial territories, were the dominant political unit at the time. Inevitably, the subject reflected this situation, even when it took a critical stance. ‘Religion’ was often identified with one of the handful of ‘world religions’ that colonial powers had helped to classify as such. ‘Primitive religions’ were also a subject of study, first by administrators and missionaries in the colonies, and later by anthropologists. Christianity and the churches occupied a particularly prominent place in the scholarly imagination, shaping how many imagined ‘real’ religion. Where Christianity was powerful, mainstream churches were still closely integrated with the nation-states in which they were located, often as established national churches. The question of ‘secularization’, whether religion was declining as people transitioned from traditional and rural settings to modern urban ones, was high on the agenda. By the start of the twenty-first century, things were starting to look very different, and the study of religion has been changing in order to keep up. Nations remain powerful as units of political power and social identity, but nation-states have been challenged by wider global forces, whether economic and cultural flows, or supranational corporations and other organizations. Some empires have collapsed, including the British and the Soviet ones, but the United States and China have retained de facto imperial power. Overall, ‘the West’ has been losing dominance, as multilateralism has replaced post-Cold War unilateralism. The influence of globalizing processes has been evident in social and cultural networking by way of new media like the internet, in the extensive power of global capitalism and in the increasing influence of international bodies and legal instruments. The flow of global capital around the world and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a small number of corporations have challenged the power of nation-states and their political institutions. In the process, the salience of national boundaries has been both challenged and reasserted, with some calling for a world without boundaries where capital and labour can move freely, and 1

Linda Woodhead et al.

others opposing such ‘globalism’. By the early twenty-first century, popular anti-globalist movements were emerging to defend the power and legitimacy of many aspects of national government. Some conservative populist movements voice nostalgia for a time when the nation-state was the locus of power and the backdrop of personal and collective identity. Now, however, all this happens against a global backdrop. Religion has been changing and adapting, too. The kinds of religion that attracted the attention of earlier generations of sociologists of religion still bore the impress of their contemporary national and colonial contexts. The insights into such religions are still valuable. But these forms of religion are now in competition with newer kinds that are integral to the challenges and opportunities of globalized societies. For example, African traditional religions that were previously stigmatized as ‘primitive’ have been undergoing revival, while everyday ‘lived’ kinds of religiosity of enormous variety have started to be taken much more seriously – as seriously, perhaps, as ‘official’ kinds of institutional religion. The pressures and opportunities of marketization and consumerism have inspired various new kinds of ‘prosperity religion’ which offer to enhance people’s material, physical, psychological as well as spiritual wellbeing, which have also come to scholarly attention. So too has the way in which women and other marginalized groups have struggled for greater influence and power and accelerated the growth of ‘alternative’ kinds of spirituality that give them a more central role. Global flows and connections have made possible all sorts of new religious linkages and alliances – the sheer scale and reach of the internet and its ability to nurture a plethora of social groups has helped facilitate this. Religion of all kinds has become bound up with many kinds of identity formation and struggle that generally have to do less with national identity than with a myriad of subcultures focused around shared interests, aspirations, lifestyles and identities. It is this new and still emerging situation that this handbook sets out to capture. It was planned in order to do so as effectively as possible. This meant re-examining the way a handbook is put together. Instead of being led by a team of established editors from the West, it has been led by an earlier career scholar from the Philippines, assisted by three other editors in Finland, Canada (then Switzerland) and the UK. Instead of commissioning authors already within the editors’ own limited networks, open calls were placed on as many lists as possible, all around the world. Early career scholars were encouraged to come forward because many will be developing new agendas in the study of religion and picking up on new phenomena. The editors devoted time to helping contributors edit their chapters, because English was a second language for so many. All chapters follow a similar template and are written in an accessible way. In disciplinary terms, the editors all owe a debt to the social scientific study of religion, hence the focus on religion in global societies. But given the book’s awareness of the geographical limitations of social science, it welcomes new topics and approaches that move beyond existing agendas. As such, it offers an accessible introduction to new ways of approaching the study of religion practically, theoretically and geographically. In bringing together a diverse group of often younger scholars from around the world, it reflects the dynamic reality of religion in global societies today.

Framework This opening, orientating chapter presents the framework of this handbook and some of the major themes arising from the chapters that follow. It helps to crystallize an emerging agenda for the study of religion in the contemporary world.

2

Introduction

‘Religion’ and the Westphalian era As Peter Beyer (2013) suggests, the political situation that shaped the academic study of religion as it came to birth can helpfully be characterized as ‘Westphalian’. At a time of growing European power, the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648 consolidated nation-states and their boundaries in an effort to bring greater peace and stability. Part of the settlement concerned religion, which was brought under national jurisdiction by the formula cuius regio eius religio (whose reign, his religion). In other words, whoever was sovereign could determine the official, national religion. Religion was defined from top-down. As the power of monarchs waned over the course of the following centuries relative to that of state governments, so the latter came to play a more central role in regulating the religious affairs of the nation. This meant that there would usually be one official ‘established’ religion in a national territory, with the treatment of other ‘minority’ religions being a controversial matter. Even when toleration was extended, these minority religions were disadvantaged relative to the official religion (which, in the case of European powers, was always Christian but could be Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox). Religions outside the West were shaped by this model too, either by the colonial powers that ruled them or by their own national governments: the nation-state shaped religion and religion shaped the nation-state. An important element of the Westphalian settlement was that religion was increasingly differentiated from other aspects of society to become a separate sphere in its own right, with its own officials, rules and boundaries. Instead of being part and parcel of state and society as it once had been – integral to education, healthcare, law and politics – it became more bounded and autonomous. This helped give rise to the idea of separate, discrete religious ‘traditions’ or ‘world religions’. For example, in India under British colonial rule, a census of religion was introduced in the mid-nineteenth century that has had a lasting influence on how people imagine and measure religion. It measured religion in terms of separate ‘traditions’ or ‘communities’ – Hindu, Muslim, Christian and so on, and has remained an important tool of governance as well as scholarship. Religious communities themselves have often accepted this approach and tried to consolidate, reform and purify themselves accordingly. In the process, religions and their leaders have entered into competition with one another, either peacefully or violently. By the twentieth century, world religions competed with one another not just within national territories but across the globe, seeking status, followers and resources. Initiatives designed to foster better relations by way of inter-religious dialogues have also developed. The differentiation of social spheres led also to the growth of the sphere of the secular. As religion separated and became more autonomous, so other spheres like politics, health and education began to define themselves as not religious – often as scientific not religious. This dichotomy between the religious and the secular became a defining feature of modernity and of the study of religion. Secularism, the ideology behind the drive to separate religion from the rest of social life, often bears the impress of its national origins. In some countries, national constitutions and ideologies are defined as secular in the sense that the state is neutral with regard to religion (as in India), whereas others are secular in an atheist and anti-religious sense, as in communist countries with Marxist ideologies that sought to curtail or destroy religion (like the old USSR and China during the Cultural Revolution). Thus the influence of the Westphalian model continues into the twenty-first century, with religion still treated by many governments and legal systems as an autonomous sphere. Some countries still have an official, state-sanctioned religion (e.g. Iran) and national identity is still closely bound up with religious identity. Others recognize a limited number of

3

Linda Woodhead et al.

official, registered and tolerated religions (e.g. China). Still others allow more of a free market in religion under the banner of ‘religious freedom’. The latter has taken on different forms especially in postcolonial societies with varying attitudes towards religious freedom (e.g. compare Singapore and the Philippines). However, by the last quarter of the twentieth century it was increasingly clear that we were entering what Beyer (2013) refers to as a ‘post-Westphalian’ era in which religion is more de-linked from both national identity as well as from old religious authorities. Instead of being structured by the nation-state, religion now takes many new forms that are less constrained by national governments and boundaries. It shifts from being a bounded sphere to something much more fluid, and starts to de-differentiate from other societal spheres, for example it creeps back into healthcare systems to offer healing and wellbeing, or it makes use of mass media and models itself on the entertainment industry – like the US televangelism of the 1980s and 1990s. At the same time, religion and ‘spirituality’ also take increasingly ‘de-traditionalized’ forms, especially in practice, while simultaneously certain groups and leaders make more intense claims to be the ‘real’ representatives of a religious tradition (the true, orthodox Christians, real Hindus, etc.) Thus ‘religion’ becomes more varied and hard to pin down, either in theory or practice. The situation is ‘messier’, to use Beyer’s word (2013: 671), and very different than when many classic works on religion were written (see also Gauthier 2020).

Globalization To speak of the current religio-political situation as ‘post-Westphalian’ is to signal that our old ways of approaching the subject are no longer adequate, and that we need new approaches to supplement them. We can go further than that, and speak not just of what was but of what is taking its place. If we can discern emerging patterns and coherence, the impression of ‘messiness’ will disappear. As the title of this handbook suggests, one useful step in this direction is to think in terms of globalization. One of the first scholars to reflect on the new importance of globalization was a sociologist who took a particular interest in what was happening to religion, Roland Robertson (1992). Early in the second part of the twentieth century, Robertson noticed that new kinds of post-national, transnational social formations – like the United Nations and the British Commonwealth – were growing in influence. He drew attention to the rise of global consciousness, a sense of all belonging to a common humanity, a single planet, a global whole. This did not necessarily mean that people gave up their old allegiances and sense of identity and belonging, but they maintained these against a wider horizon. The global now framed the local, in a way that was new and more inescapable than ever before. Robertson (1995) coined the term ‘glocal’ to capture the way in which people might still maintain situated, local commitments but against a global backdrop. He saw that the global and the local had grown in importance but the national and colonial were declining, and he reflected on the importance of religion within this change. Although still belonging to national societies, wider global horizons and connections have never been more important or contested. Since Robertson, there have been many different reflections on globalization. Despite differences and debates there is significant agreement around a broad definition that emphasizes the increased density and frequency of social interactions and cultural representations that now operate on an international or global scale rather than national or merely a local one (e.g. Held et al. 1999). Sometimes this is referred to as ‘space-time’ compression (e.g. Harvey 1989). It affects all that it touches. As Sylvia Walby puts it, 4

Introduction

‘globalization is a transformative process in which the units within the process change as well as the overall environment’ (2009: 36). It is widely recognized that globalization is not new. The ancient world was far better connected than is often imagined. Moreover, a succession of empires throughout history have pursued global territorial domination. Religion is ‘the original globalizer’ (Lehmann 2002: 299). In the past, ‘Sufi orders, Catholic missionaries, and Buddhist monks carried word and practice across vast spaces before those places became nation-states or even states’ (Rudolph and Piscatori 1997: 1). The difference today is that globalization takes new and more intense forms, affecting religion in new ways in the process. Whether one resides in Guangdong, Montevideo, Bishkek, Phnom Penh, Vancouver, Bamako, Asuncion, Davao, Maputo, Kosice, the Fijis, Cali, Nizhni Novgorod, Khartoum, Coimbra, Rabat, Perth, Oklahoma City or Bandung, the vast majority of us today live with the sentiment of being part of a connected whole that is included or excluded in, wishful or resentful about, global time and global flows. A first set of approaches to globalization that stresses increasing homogenization and the elimination of local and national differences. For example, George Ritzer’s The McDonaldization of Society (1993) highlights the global spread of fast-food culture with its standardized and standardizing practices. Everywhere you go, you can eat the same products in the same way. Similarly, shopping centres across the world look similar and feature the same brands. Global corporations strive for global dominance and push the same products, and the same modes of work and consumption are promoted everywhere. A small global elite, the wealthy ‘one percent’, has accumulated more wealth than many nations and more power than many politicians. They exploit the whole globe and its populations for profit. Finance capital moves freely across boundaries by way of electronic transactions and wage labour is employed wherever it is cheapest and most docile. Culture is spread by way of the internet and data-streaming services, resulting in an increasingly narrow and homogenized set of cultural references. Some commentators have viewed this ‘flattening’ of planet earth as a good thing, leading to economic growth and development and greater freedom for more people. Others greet it with alarm. Anti-globalization thinkers worry about growing economic inequality, the erosion in the capacity of nation-states to take autonomous action for the good of their people, the control of culture and ideas by a small number of commercial providers, the health risks like pandemics, and the challenge to freedom and democracy (e.g. Kellerman 2020). A second set of approaches to globalization places more emphasis on its many different pathways and on ‘multiple modernities’ (e.g. Eisenstadt 2002). Attention is drawn to how different countries and localities modernize in different ways and at different speeds. Some writers have emphasized the durability and resistance of differences between societies, cultures and ‘civilizations’. In The Clash of Civilizations (1998), for example, Samuel Huntington argued that there are several distinct and enduring world cultures, most of which have a religious basis. He and his followers discuss the Western, Latin American, African, Islamic, Sinic, Hindu, Orthodox, Buddhist and Japanese civilizations. All of these have been modernizing and changing, but not in the same ways. Far from their differences dissolving, they have often been heightened in the process. The example that is often cited is enduring tensions between Islam and the West. Most global flows emanate from and touch down in particular locations, and notions of territorialization and embodiment cannot be dismissed altogether (Sassen 1991). Steven Vertovec’s (2007) discussion of ‘superdiversity’ highlights how major cities have become the epicentres of cultural encounter and change. Around the world, many cities, especially in emerging economies (e.g. Dubai), aspire to 5

Linda Woodhead et al.

become global hubs (Roy and Ong 2011). In this light, while the homogenization thesis assumed a new kind of ‘Westernization’, global connections are often more complex and multi-directional. Sidestepping the influence of the West, societies elsewhere in the world have become examples and rivals with one other with respect to governance, public health and urban planning (Chua 2011). South-South cooperation now challenges the dominance of the ‘Global North’ in such areas as education and policy-making, as well as resource extraction and building of infrastructure (e.g. China’s initiatives in Africa). Nevertheless, it is increasingly clear how much resistance globalization of all kinds provokes, and as we see in the reassertion of national, local, regional and local commitments and the refusal to accept many of the ‘imperatives’ of globalization (Saul 2005).

Marketization A related approach that emerges from this book as particularly helpful for understanding religion in a contemporary, ‘post-Westphalian’ situation, is that of ‘marketization’, including the integral process of consumerization (Gauthier 2020). The links between marketization and globalization are close. Starting roughly in the 1960s in the West and affluent countries elsewhere, and then more recently in the Global South and parts of Asia, what might be called a ‘global-market regime’ arose to challenge the old Westphalian ‘nation-state regime’. This was due not only to the growing strength of capitalism in practice but also to the increasing influence of a ‘neo-liberal’ ideology that promoted the supposedly ‘spontaneous’ regulation of the freemarket as a better alternative to nation-state-driven central planning. Increasingly, the (global) market was promoted as more efficient than the state and as better able to deliver human freedom, material wellbeing and economic growth. The credibility of this view was enhanced after 1989 by the collapse of communism and the ‘triumph’ of capitalism and the free-market. Countries like communist East Germany were quickly subsumed into the market-logics of West Germany in the process of German unification. China also embraced some of the neo-liberal approach. What has happened in the decades since is the progressive colonization of all social spheres within an economic logic under the banner of ‘rationalization’, ‘efficiency’, ‘pragmatism’, ‘globalism’ and ‘economic realism’. The neoliberal advance led to a roll-back and diminishing of the power of the nationstate and a reconfiguration of its nature and function – now understood as ensuring the optimum conditions for economic growth, above all. Talk of ‘governance’ started to take over from ‘government’. This illustrates a shift in how power and authority are instituted and exercised (Gauthier, Martikainen and Woodhead 2013a). Government designates a centralized, vertical exercise of power within well-delimited hierarchies and categories, contained by the nation and its people in the case of democratic government. The concept of governance, on the other hand, was developed in the field of business administration and invokes a more horizontal imaginary with ambiguous democratic and often anti-democratic aspects (Sørensen and Torfing 2005). Governance involves a punctual, networked, pluricentric and multi-level type of regulation in which mutual trust and negotiation among interdependent actors are key (Martikainen 2013). The ideal of governance is to avoid rigid institutionalizations in favour of relatively supple institutional frameworks with ‘contingently articulated rules, norms, knowledge, and social imaginaries’ (Sørensen and Torfing 2005: 197). Presented as a participatory, value-neutral and optimizing form of self-regulation, governance is informed by the idea of the global free market and champions technical and judicial processes over supposedly arbitrary ‘top down’ political regulation. In practice, 6

Introduction

counting and measuring come to new prominence, as do compliance and regulation, with managers and experts increasing their power (Saul 2005; Graebner 2015). The impact of neoliberal reforms and practices on social services and welfare provision as well as on religion have been spectacular, and have been a factor in blurring the boundaries between the religious and the secular. For religion, marketization changes the environment in which religious institutions and authority work and introduces new ways of managing human and economic resources. Religious institutions in a Westphalian context were often bureaucratized, hierarchical, vertical and regulated by the state. Now they are often forced to downsize, rationalize their activities, develop communication strategies and branded identities, outsource administrative tasks and cast their ‘mission’ as the provision of profitable services meeting the individual ‘needs’ of spiritual ‘consumers’ in the new global-market regime. They compete for market share in a global ‘religious marketplace’. Even traditional Christian churches, for example, adopt new media and marketing language (Moberg 2017). The ideology of religious freedom that appeals to a human rights legal framework is compatible with this new regime, and is increasingly invoked by governance mechanisms and religious actors alike, the latter using it to protect their right to proselytize and remain free from state ‘interference’ (Sullivan et al. 2015). Thus religion takes on new forms and roles (Juergensmeyer 2003; Lechner 2006). In some instances, it powers movements of resistance, for example in relation to the Arab Spring. Faith-based NGOs operate in many parts of the world, like Africa, to mediate between the pressures of the global market and everyday life. In other cases, new networked, supple, charismatic, horizontal and transnational religious organizations offering consumers immediate benefits, both worldly and supernatural, have grown so much they now challenge established forms of religion and their social and political privileges. Many religious ‘enterprises’ start to look and even perceive themselves more like businesses than public sector utilities or arms of the state. Marketization involves consumerization. A consumer culture is characterised by the imperative of self-expression and therefore visibility, as individuals and collectives struggle to be recognized (Gauthier, Martikainen and Woodhead 2013b, 2013c; Gauthier 2020). Visibility becomes an imperative, and an objective in itself. Social media and a more visual culture reinforce these tendencies. Some scholars, including some in this volume, look at megachurches and Islamic movements and new modes of prosperity around the world in this light. Concentrated in Southeast Asia and Latin America, they point out how many celebrate accumulation and consumption as virtues and evidence of divine favour (Chong 2018). Modern consumption is about far more than the purchase of goods or services: it is about modernizing the self, expressing one’s identity, producing community and common values, and circulating values and symbols. Now the consumer provides the model for the subject and the citizen. Religious ‘suppliers’ have to produce attractive religious products that will appeal to consumers. Religion becomes a matter of choice more than tradition – something that has to be voluntarily entered into rather than something handed down that one is born into. Born-again Muslims, Hindus and Catholics join Pentecostals in accepting that ‘authentic’ piety must be entered into through a personal commitment and choice, well beyond the confines of the West. Thus an ethos of consumerism shapes religion from below as much as neoliberal marketization shapes it from above. As a result, much religion becomes detached from its ancient moorings in state, society, family and neighbourhood and becomes more deinstitutionalized, mediatized (transmitted through communications and social media) and 7

Linda Woodhead et al.

event-based. Nationally-shaped forms of religion cede territory to new imagined transnational and global communities such as the global Ummah, or transnational networks of ‘orthodox’, ‘Bible-believing’ Christians, or transnational communities of like-minded neopagans. Expressive-authentic religion that appeals to the subjective depths of each individual grows in importance (Heelas and Woodhead 2014). As contributions in this volume on ‘Intimate Identities’ show, cultural and consumer objects reinforce identity choices in religion, including in relation to gender and ethnicity. Religion is not just subjectivized but also projected outwards in dietary customs, rituals and visible symbols. Identity is communicated by way of symbols, signs and things that can easily be transmitted via new media. In that sense, religion increasingly becomes a matter of lifestyle. Religion is also a means by which individuals and communities push back, resisting ‘inevitable’ economic imperatives and neo-liberal logics, and creating alternative personal and collective identities, both with one another and with the gods.

Religion in global societies Taken as a whole, the chapters in this volume confirm that the processes discussed above are better understood not as a uniform and homogenizing but as uneven and with varied effects on different social institutions in different parts of the world. Religion illustrates this as well as anything; globalization provides many trajectories for religion (Juergensmeyer 2003). Part of the success of many religious global movements, like Pentecostalism, for example, lies in their ability to intertwine global tradition and networks on the one hand with local culture on the other (Lechner 2006). Many of the new religious ‘waves’ or ‘projects’ that have spread across the globe over the last century are bound up with new global processes including consumerism, advertising, branding and marketing; rapid communications; rationalization and standardization; and global flows of capital and financing. As the chapters under ‘Transnational Movements’ show, some of the most prominent examples are the rise of global Christian Charismatic revivalism (‘Pentecostalism’), global Islamic revivalism (‘Islamism’), indigenous revival movements and fundamentalism. The latter is manifest in different guises within different religious traditions, e.g. Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish and Christian fundamentalism. ‘Prosperity religion’ may also be viewed as a global wave that is adapted by different religious traditions, as may ‘spirituality’ and neo-paganism, which exhibit different cultural variants with some common features. It is easy to exaggerate how homogenous such movements are. Sometimes a term like ‘Pentecostalism’ or ‘Islamism’ obscures more than it reveals and overlooks significant differences. As many chapters show, differences and variations within these global cultural projects are often as notable as similarities. Thus the chapters in the first section (‘Market and Branding’) relate these developments to the pervasiveness of the market economy and the global connections in which they are embedded. The volume discusses the transnational character of some religious groups and dynamics – from lay meditation movements in Chinese societies to youth Buddhists in Australia (see ‘Transnational Movements’ and ‘Diasporic Communities’) – and how these have a marketized dimension. Local religious groups originating in East Asia, for example, have been successful in expanding around the world. Buddhist organizations like Soka Gakkai in Japan and Tzu Chi in Taiwan assert not only their economic power but also the achievements of the economies they represent by extending humanitarian work in places afflicted by conflict and disaster (Huang 2009; Lau and Cornelio 2015). The same can be said about the global expansion of indigenous churches, which are driven not only by 8

Introduction

a postcolonial reclaiming of what they believe to be authentic Christianity, but also by a desire to demonstrate and spread economic and divine power. Born in the Philippines, Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of Christ) and the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, for example, are Restorationist churches which now have millions of members around the world (Cornelio 2017, 2020). From humanitarian work to church planting, these global projects, enabled by the rise of aspirational middle class followers, contribute to pluralism and global civil society, following some common paths of development, but rooting them in different ways in local situations. As well as accommodating global pressures, including economic and cultural ones, the volume shows how religion can be a force for resisting and providing alternatives. Some examples involve resistance to pressures that are seen as alien, Western and/or colonial, and draw on indigenous and non-Western traditions. The Iranian revolution of 1979 was an early and influential example at a macropolitical level. (Juergensmeyer (2017) argues that fundamentalist movements have in common, despite other differences, a rejection of modern Western secularism.) Other examples include resistance to Western scientific ideas like Darwinian evolution, or sexual and gender norms such as pro-homosexuality, for example in Nigeria and Ghana, or to economic determinism and globalism, even in the USA. In Europe, the use of religious symbols, customs and practices by Muslims – like the wearing of head and face coverings by women – to secure personal, cultural and communal identity and piety has been profusely commented upon. The revival of indigenous forms of religious and spiritual practice, from traditional healing practices to neo-Heathenism, is another example that both exemplifies some aspects of globalization and resists others. As well as fostering global connections and universalism, globalization encourages difference and particularity. This is why the local, and the nation-state as a boundary marker, remain important, a point illustrated by contributions under the section ‘National Tensions’. Although this volume highlights profound changes in global society and how these affect the study of religion, we do not suggest that we are now entering a new stage in a neat evolutionary social process. That way of thinking has been deeply influential in modern, western social science: the idea that pre-modern or ‘traditional’ societies gave way to modern, industrial ones, which then gave way to post- or late-modern, post-industrial (or ‘new industrial revolution’) ones. By drawing on Beyer’s idea of a Westphalian and postWestphalian situation and highlighting globalization and marketization as essential categories for understanding it, we do not endorse the evolutionary approach. We reject the idea that there is a unilinear progression from a religious premodern phase to a secular modern one followed by a post-secular postmodern one. The studies that follow confirm that this is both too simple and too ‘colonial’ a model (as if all societies follow a template set by ‘advanced’ western ones).

A coexistence approach In taking a more global view of recent developments, what this volume actually shows is that the current situation contains sediments from the Westphalian and colonial past layered together with more recent developments, that the different phases or logics sometimes conflict and sometimes do not, and that there are important local, societal and regional differences. There is ‘coexistence’ of different pathways and trends and sediments, not a succession of neat evolutionary phases (Cornelio 2014). A co-existence approach is appropriate to the deeply pluralistic nature of post-Westphalian, post-colonial and global-market embedded societies, cultures and situations. Thus, the co-existence 9

Linda Woodhead et al.

approach is useful in making sense of religious change among the youth in East and Southeast Asia (Cornelio 2015), for example. While aspirational youth have turned to prosperity-oriented megachurches in places like Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea, they have also been attracted to the philanthropic work of new Buddhist movements in Taiwan. And yet within the region, young people have also embraced religious nationalism, some of which have imbibed violent extremism against religious minorities in places like Thailand and Indonesia. In terms of theory, these cases mean that existing meta-theories like that of ‘secularization’ or ‘industrialization’ do not have to be abandoned, for there are certain arenas in which they still apply and illuminate. But these concepts and associated theories have to be applied in a more modest way that is open to exceptions and counter-evidence and complementary processes. For example, a single locality or a single person often contains both secular and religious elements and gives support both to secularization theory and to ideas about the persistence and reinvention of the religious. Similarly, the ‘post-Westphalian’ situation does not mean that nations and nationstates have lost their salience for religion and secularity, but that it can no longer be assumed that nations are the most relevant units for case studies and comparisons, or that wider movements and variations can be ignored. In this layered, sedimented situation with important societal variations, old and new theoretical approaches can be utilized in a creative interplay, which may also give rise to new concepts, approaches and theories. Flexibility and pluralism of thought is an appropriate reflection of real-world conflicts and interplays of power, identity and belonging, in which the past and the present and ideas about the future all play a role.

Themes Besides the general framing of this volume, some additional themes also emerge from its chapters.

Secularization and pluralization From philosophy to social sciences, from Hegel to Weber, from Nietzsche to Heidegger and the Frankfurt School, secularization was long held to be a defining feature of modernity. It was assumed by many academics that some day all societies would be secular. The theory of secularization, said José Casanova, ‘may be the only theory which was able to attain a truly paradigmatic status within the modern social sciences’ (1994: 17). Today, the influence of the theory has waned. The evidence to support it has proved mixed. In Europe, Australasia and – increasingly – the US, religion (chiefly Christianity) has indeed declined. But outside these countries, and in the more global perspective of this volume, it is the vitality and inventiveness of religion which is usually more apparent than its decline. We see an increasingly plural situation in which secularity and religion co-exist not just across the globe, but in the same societies and even the same institutions and in personal lives. Pluralization has turned out to be a more helpful meta-framework than secularization. It is also the very situation to which many religious initiatives are responding. The chapters under ‘Responses to Diversity’ provide compelling illustrations in the form of peacebuilding, interreligious dialogues and faith-based humanitarian action.

De-privatization and de-traditionalization The process of social differentiation that was such an important feature of the Westphalian settlement led to the privatization of religion. As religion gradually separated from other 10

Introduction

public activities like education and medical care it was also relegated to an increasingly private realm. Some states and societies actively circumscribed the extent to which religion could enter into public life. Within a global perspective, however, it is now much clearer how patchily this process took place both within and between different countries. It has never really taken place in many parts of Asia, for example, whereas in others like Singapore, Malaysia, and China it has happened to a greater extent. In some countries, like the Philippines, a dominant religion (here Catholic Christianity) still retains many privileges and a high public presence, and in many Middle Eastern states Islam is still the official state religion. In other countries, like Russia and Turkey, religion was privatized and then, after 1989, actively de-privatized by political leaders working closely with religious ones. As several chapters show, religion is also entering into public space and de-privatizing in relation to the market, the media, leisure and healthcare. Religion has also been ‘de-traditionalizing’ insofar as it has spilled over the old Westphalian boundaries of religious denominations and ‘traditions’ (Catholic, Protestant Jewish) and ‘world religions’. As some chapters show, these identities and their supporting institutions remain important, and many political, interfaith and other arrangements and initiatives continue to legitimate them. However, for many kinds of religion and personal religiosity these categories have lost the importance they once had – to such an extent that it would not have been appropriate to structure this book around them.

Shifting religious authority What counts as authority in religion and religions is in flux. The Westphalian situation favoured male-led, hierarchical religious institutions with clear chains of command and designated representatives who could do business with the state. In reality, religiosity never fitted neatly under such authority, and ordinary people continued to shape and use religion for their own purposes. What is different today is that centralized religious authorities are increasingly losing their grip in many parts of the world. Religious leaders have less ability to enforce conformity and ordinary people have many more opportunities to claim it. New religious leaders have emerged to reshape the religious landscape across the globe – whether women developing new, less sexist, kinds of spirituality, entrepreneurial leaders establishing new kinds of prosperity religion, or charismatic Islamic teachers making use of the internet to spread their message. The internet is a medium that challenges religious, educational and cultural elites – priests, professors, journalists and editors – whose power depended on maintaining a monopoly over knowledge and cultural symbols. Now, anyone can be a cultural producer on the multitude of different platforms the internet supports, for better or for worse. Thus the authority of scripture, tradition, hierarchical office, ritual and other elements of religion are also being challenged and reconfigured. The picture is very diverse. Fundamentalism, for example, exalts scripture over all other forms of religious authority, leading to a clash with more traditional forms of authority. In other kinds of religion, charismatic forms of leadership are stealing ground from bureaucratic and traditional ones. Entrepreneurial, charismatic-led and weakly-institutionalized religious organizations are emerging whereas established religious institutions are being challenged. One area is ethics and religious virtue (Cornelio 2016). The chapters under ‘Contemporary Ethics and Values’ demonstrate the power of religious actors to reframe prosperity, social justice and public morality. Successful local leaders and initiatives can quickly go global via new networks, bypassing national structures. New actors have emerged to challenge the order in most parts of the world. Overall, these upheavals of

11

Linda Woodhead et al.

authority lead to a more unregulated, rapidly-changing situation than before, one which state authorities often find hard to regulate, or even to understand.

Everyday, lived, tactical religion Flux in religious authority is mirrored in changes in the way that we think about religion, not least in academic terms. The tendency of Western scholars to privilege Westphalian ‘official’ kinds of religion has been challenged by taking a view of religion ‘from below’ and not just from above. Feminist thought has played a major role in questioning the old approach. Nancy Ammerman (2006) and Meredith McGuire (2008) introduced the concepts of ‘everyday religion’ and ‘lived religion’ respectively, enlarging the spectre of sociology of religion’s enquiry and favouring ethnographic and qualitative methods. Woodhead (2013) puts power into the picture by talking of ‘strategic’ versus ‘tactical’ religion. The ‘strategic’ is close to the ‘official’ and covers those forms and agents of religion and secularity that operate from a position of structural and institutional power. Strategic forms of religion look outward, set rules and plan the future from a position of power. More tactical approaches act within the context dictated by the strategic, but may do so subversively and for different ends. Less powerful individuals, groups and networks exercise tactical power, sometimes very effectively. There are many examples in this volume of how the official and the everyday, the tactical and the strategic, shape one another, and sometimes come into conflict. In the process, religious change often takes place.

Identity and lifestyle Since identity is no longer firmly grounded in inheritance or tradition, nor secured within the framework of the nation, it becomes the object of a more personal and often continuous quest: Who am I? Who are we? Where do I belong? Where do we come from? Where are we going? With the advent of the internet, the scope for exploring becomes almost infinite (at least within a language group). Within an increasingly visual culture and in the context of consumerism, every outward sign and object and purchase may be the means of identityproduction. Lifestyle is about personal identities that are tied to consumer goods and practices: what you eat, drink, wear is important. In religion, outward symbols like dress, diet, visible ritual actions and so on gain new importance. The market exploits this potential, hence the rise of the ‘halal market’ and ‘Islamic banking’, sharia-friendly packaged vacations and five-star Mecca pilgrimages, for example, or the increasingly thin line between fashion and religious dress (Lewis 2013, 2015; Gauthier 2018). This can be used by new religious and spiritual communities in recruiting members across national borders, as both the rise of ISIS and of global paganism illustrates. It may also spur the growth of religiously-endorsed neo-nationalism and populism, as in parts of the former Soviet Union and more recently in western Europe and the US. Many of these movements promise a better alternative to a global, cosmopolitan identity that is widely perceived to be beneficial to a few, not the many. As many chapters illustrate, religion becomes one more possibility within the bustling marketplace of mediatized cultural identities.

Migration and movement International migrants now constitute around 3.5 percent of the world population and far more in richer or safer countries that attract inward migration. If we presume that an 12

Introduction

average international migrant has meaningful relations with five people in another country or countries, we could speculate that approximately twenty percent of the world’s population is now directly affected by international migration. There is also an unprecedented volume of global circulation for purposes of work and tourism. In 2018, the number of international tourist arrivals was around 1.4 billion. Whether inside a country or internationally, temporary, circular or permanent, the move to a new place has forced countless individuals, families, kin and other social groups to reorganize their lives. Social reproduction and relations now take place across sometimes vast distances, producing new social environments and changing old ones. Jointly with increased religious and ethnic pluralism due to diversification of migratory streams, today’s migrants face the question of reorganising their lives in their new places of settlement. Inevitable cultural and religious adaptation and change takes place, including the remoulding of the environment itself (Levitt 2004). Simple theories of cultural assimilation fail to address the multiplicity of outcomes, while they correctly point out to the persisting power of the local context. Transnational religious movements and diasporic communities have emerged across the entire globe. The networks of their connections are much more complex now and can entirely bypass the West in new South-South triangulations. Persecuted religious minorities, such as the Ahmadiyya, or Jewish groups, can now share resources across the planet, including a vibrant marriage market. Religious movements offer alternative identifications to culturally dominant ones, and provide transnational networks to perform these identities. Thus migrant second-generation youth negotiate with their elders and peers in Sydney as well as elsewhere about the correct ways of being and performing their religion, as about the relationship to the evermore socially distant country of departure. Yet, contact remains, if by no other means, then due to the social remittances they share with those who have remained. All over the world, increased religious pluralism creates a new situation and new challenges, provoking varied and often creative reactions to the issue or ‘problem’ of religious diversity (Beaman 2017).

Boundaries and Borders While nation-states seek unity within their own territories and guard their borders, the global market, increased mobility and the internet, often work across national borders and dissolve barriers. This has been encouraged by free trade and free labour movement agreements supported by transnational bodies like the EU, ASEAN, MERCOSUR, the IMF, the WTO and corporate interests like those represented at economic summits like those in Davos, Dubai and Kuala Lumpur. It is also driven by the displaced, the poor, and economic migrants. In response, boundary-crossing has emerged as a major theme in the study of religion, with advances in understanding religion’s role in ‘crossing’ not just ‘dwelling’ (Tweed 2008), in creating new ‘hybrid’ identities, in negotiating difference, and in operating within the shifting sands of a global market of unequal exchanges. The tension over borders and boundaries, and between those that wish to guard their integrity and those that wish to open then up to global trade and cultural circulation, is intense.

The religious and the posthuman – bringing the gods back in? One boundary that is challenged in the current situation is that between the religious and the non-religious. Examples discussed in this volume include pilgrimage and tourism, rituals 13

Linda Woodhead et al.

and prayer, entertainment and consumption. Increasingly, it can be hard to label such things as ‘religious’ or ‘secular’. This is related to the disintegration of the religious – and ‘religions’ – as a clearly differentiated realm, coherent in its own terms and entirely separate from the secular. Yet in some areas of the scholarly study of religion, the influence of secular assumptions remains. Nowhere is this clearer than in the great taboo that surrounds taking seriously the idea of a God and other supernatural beings in their own right. If they are to be studied, it is in terms of their social functions and correlates, as if the gods were mere epiphenomena of more ‘real’, this-worldly forces, reassuring the secular mind that religion is based on an illusion. As the final section of this volume brings out (Reflections on ‘Religion’), such assumptions are facing growing challenges, both in theory and in practice. Theoretically, the agency of non-human objects and entities is being entertained more seriously in many fields – from environmental science to science and technology studies (e.g. Haraway 2007; Latour 2007). Ideas like those of ‘Gaia’ and the ‘anthropocene’ help to decentre the human and expose a wider distribution of agency within a much longer time frame. This ‘posthuman’ or ‘nonhuman’ cultural turn, combined with a turn to everyday lived religiosity, is also starting to make it possible to take more seriously the reported beliefs and experiences of many religious people. Without slipping into confessional ‘theology’ or apologetics, these important trends challenge the encroachment of secular-based perspective and call for a renewal of the way we consider religion in global societies.

Conclusion This volume demonstrates the importance of recent transformations that concern all social spheres, including religion. The world of today is not the same as when the modern study of religion was inaugurated at the start of the twentieth century or when it developed into different disciplines later in the century. Inevitably, these periods shaped the way we understand religion, and supported certain assumptions that are now showing their limitations: methodological nationalism, the differentiation of social spheres, over-focus on official, institutionalized religion, blindness to issues of race, colonialism and gender and implicit secularism. The chapters that follow show how things are starting to change. They explore how religion takes shape today, and leave no doubt that attempts at fitting it in old megacategories like ‘world religions’ or ‘inter-national relations’, valuable though they have been, are no longer enough. Religion is enmeshed in the current contestations between local, global and national powers, playing an active role. Marketization and globalization and corollary processes of consumerism and ‘lifestylization’ are important. So too are growing changes and challenges to existing forms of ‘rational’ and ‘traditional’ power and authority, within and beyond religion. There is a need for multi-layered sensitivity, as macro, meso and micro level developments are intertwined with each other, across cultural and geographical boundaries, and as relations between the local, the global and the national are reconfigured. Religion retains many continuities with the past, but is no longer what it used to be. It is certainly not disappearing. Gods and spirits remain consequential right across the world, even if they take new forms. Religiosity can no longer be encapsulated in a set number of traditions, or a clearly differentiated social sphere, or in ideas of linear progress. The authorities that used to control and contain it are increasingly challenged by new actors and groups claiming power for themselves and their gods. This handbook shows how the study of religion is changing to take account of this new situation, 14

Introduction

a situation in which many different cultures and a more complex idea of what constitutes ‘religion’ have come to the fore, and in which scholars from across the world are increasingly making their voices heard.

References Ammerman, N. (ed.) (2006) Everyday Religion: Observing Modern Religious Lives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Beaman, L. (2017) Deep Equality in an Era of Religious Diversity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Beyer, P. (2013) Questioning the Secular/Religious Divide in a Post-Westphalian World. International Sociology 73(2): 109–129. Casanova, J. (1994) Public Religions in a Modern World. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Chong, T. (2018) Pentecostal Megachurches in Southeast Asia: Negotiating Class, Consumption and the Nation. Singapore: ISEAS. Chua, B.-H. (2011) Singapore as Model: Planning Innovations, Knowledge Experts, in A. Roy and A. Ong (eds.), Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments and the Art of Being Global. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 29–54. Cornelio, J. (2016) Being Catholic in the Contemporary Philippines: Young People Reinterpreting Religion. London and New York: Routledge. Cornelio, J. (2017) Religious Worlding: Christianity and the New Production of Space in the Philippines, in J. Koning and G. Njoto-Feillard (eds.), New Religiosities, Modern Capitalism and Moral Complexities in Southeast Asia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 169–197. Cornelio, J. (2020) The Philippines, in K. Ross, T. Johnson and F. Alvarez (eds.), Edinburgh Companions to Global Christianity: Christianity in East and South-East Asia. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 242–253. Cornelio, J. S. (2014) Is Religion Dying? Secularization and Other Religious Trends in the World Today, in P. Hedges (ed.), Controversies in Contemporary Religions. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, pp. 219–246. Cornelio, J. S. (2015) Youth and Religion in East and Southeast Asia, in J. Wyn and H. Cahill (eds.), Handbook of Childhood and Youth Studies. New York: Springer, pp. 904–915. Eisenstadt, S. (ed) (2002) Multiple Modernities. New Brunswick: Transaction. Gauthier, F. (2018) From Nation-state to Market: The Transformations of Religion in the Global Era, as Illustrated by Islam. Religion 48(3): 382–417. Gauthier, F. (2020) Religion, Modernity, Globalisation. Nation-State to Market. London and New York: Routledge. Gauthier, F., T. Martikainen and L. Woodhead. (2013a) Introduction: Religion in Market Society, in T. Martikainen and F. Gauthier (eds.), Religion in the Neoliberal Age. Political Economy and Modes of Governance. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 1–20. Gauthier, F., T. Martikainen and L. Woodhead. (2013b) Introduction: Consumerism as the Ethos of Consumer Society, in F. Gauthier and T. Martikainen (eds.), Religion in Consumer Society. Brands, Consumers and Markets. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 1–24. Gauthier, F., T. Martikainen and L. Woodhead. (2013c) Acknowledging a Global Shift: A Primer for Thinking about Religion in Consumer Societies. Implicit Religion 16(3): 261–276. Graebner, D. (2015) The Utopia of Rules. On Technology, Stupidity and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy. Brooklyn, NY and London: Melville House. Haraway, D. (2007) When Species Meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Harvey, D. (1989) The Condition of Postmodernity. Cambridge: Blackwell. Heelas, P. and L. Woodhead. (2014) The Spiritual Revolution: How Religion Is Giving Way to Christianity. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell. Held, D., A. McGrew, D. Goldblatt and J. Perraton. (1999) Global Transofrmations. Cambridge: Polity Press. Huang, C. J. (2009) Charisma and Compassion: Cheng Yen and the Buddhist Tzu Chi Movement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Huntington, S. (1998) The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order. London: Touchstone.

15

Linda Woodhead et al.

Juergensmeyer, M. (2003) Thinking Globally about Religion, in M. Juergensmeyer (ed.), Global Religions: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 3–13. Juergensmeyer, M. (2017) Terror in the Mind of God, 4th edition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Kellerman, A. (2020) Globalization and Spatial Mobilities: Commodities and People, Capital, Information and Technology. Cheltenham: Edwar Elgar Publishing. Latour, B. (2007) Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor Network Theory. New York: Oxford University Press. Lau, A. and J. S. Cornelio. (2015). Tzu Chi and the Philanthropy of Filipino Volunteers. Asian Journal of Social Science 43: 376–399. Lechner, F. J. (2006) Trajectories of Faith in the Global Age: Classical Theory and Contemporary Evidence, in J. Beckford and J. Walliss (eds.), Theorising Religion: Classical and Contemporary Debates. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 44–59. Lehmann, D. (2002) Religion and Globalization, in L. Woodhead (ed.), Religions in the Modern World: Traditions and Transformations. London: Routledge, pp. 345–364. Levitt, P. (2004) Redefining the Boundaries of Belonging: The Institutional Characteristics of Transnational Religious Life. Sociology of Religion 65(1): 1–18. Lewis, R. (2013) Modest Fashions. Styling Bodies, Mediating Faith. London: I.B. Tauris. Lewis, R. (2015) Muslim Fashion. Contemporary Style Cultures. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press. Martikainen, T. (2013) Multilevel and Pluricentric Network Governance of Religion, in T. Martikainen and F. Gauthier (eds.), Religion in the Neoliberal Age: Political Economy and Modes of Governance. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 129–142. McGuire, M. (2008) Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Moberg, M. (2017) Church, Market and Media. A Discursive Approach to Institutional Religious Change. London: Bloomsbury. Ritzer, G. (1993) The McDonaldization of Society. Newbury Parks, CA: Sage. Robertson, R. (1992) Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage. Robertson, R. (1995) Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity, in M. Featherstone, S. Lash and R. Robertson (eds.), Global Modernities. London: Sage, pp. 25–44. Roy, A. and A. Ong (eds) (2011) Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments and the Art of Being Global. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Rudolph, S. H. and J. Piscatori. (1997) Transnational Religion and Fading States. Boulder, CO: Colorado Press. Sassen, S. (1991) The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Saul, J. R. (2005) The Collapse of Globalism. London: Atlantic Books. Sørensen, E. and J. Torfing. (2005). The Democratic Anchorage of Governance Networks. Scandinavian Political Studies 28: 195–218. Sullivan, W. F., E. S. Hurd, S. Mahmood and P. Danchin (eds) (2015) Politics of Religious Freedom. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Tweed, T. (2008) Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vertovec, S. (2007) Super-diversity and Its Implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30(6): 1024–1054. Walby, S. (2009) Globalization and Inequalities: Complexity and Contested Modernities. Los Angeles, CA and London: Sage. Woodhead, L. (2013) Tactical and Strategic Religion, in N. Dessing, N. Jeldtoft, J. Nielsen and L. Woodhead (eds.), Everyday Lived Islam in Europe. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 9–22.

16

Part I

Market and branding

1 Christian churches’ responses to marketization Comparing institutional and nondenominational discourse and practice Marcus Moberg

Introduction Accelerating processes of marketization are having a notable impact on the religious field worldwide. On a broader macro-level, the rise of market and consumer society has coincided with a set of major transformations in the global religious field, including a sharp decline in institutional forms of religion, an increasing elevation of the subjective over the collective, and a growing emphasis on the experiential over reason across different types of religions and religious traditions (Gauthier, Woodhead et al. 2013, p. 4). On an institutional meso-level, neoliberal public-sector deregulations have given rise to a situation of ‘generalized religioussecular competition’ (Stolz and Usunier 2014, p. 5) as religious communities have increasingly become forced to compete with various non-religious actors in an expanded field of social agency and marketplace of ideas and lifestyle choices. While the effects of market and consumer society can be explored in relation to a wide range of religious phenomena and types of religious communities, this chapter focuses on its impact on the changing discursive practices and modus operandi of various types of Protestant Christian churches around the world. As argued by Gauthier (2015, p. 79), in an increasingly marketized social and cultural environment, institutional forms of religion that have maintained dense organizational and bureaucratic structures and the ‘characteristics of the earlier state regulatory model’ have been experiencing progressive, and indeed accelerating, decline on a worldwide scale. By contrast, the types of religions that have embraced and actively sought to adapt to currently prevalent marketized, entrepreneurial, and consumer-oriented models have fared relatively well, and even continued to grow. As will be illustrated in more detail later in relation to a few notable cases, on an international level, the independent non-denominational Protestant Christian field has increasingly become molded in accordance with market models and consumerist sensibilities. Independent Evangelical, Charismatic, and Pentecostal congregations ranging from North America and Europe to East Asia and the Global South have since long embraced

19

Marcus Moberg

advertising, marketing, and branding as tools for proselytization and church expansion. For these types of churches, new marketized realities generally appear as the taken-for-granted, natural state of affairs. Indeed, these types of churches often view themselves as players in an extended marketplace of ideas and lifestyle choices, which is also clearly reflected in their discursive practices and the ways in which they organize and present their activities and provisions. The situation with regards to long-established institutional Protestant mainline churches throughout Europe and North America remains notably different. Following decades of continuing decline, most of these types of churches are currently struggling to retain or regain their historical societal and cultural positions. Due to their high degrees of bureaucratization and historical embeddedness in national-statist structures, the impact of ongoing processes of marketization on these churches has mainly come in the form of mounting pressures, both external and internal, to adapt to new social organizational realities and new forms of ‘governance’-inspired church–state and church–third-sector partnerships. Following these developments, the orders of discourse of these types of churches have become increasingly permeated by market- and new public management (NPM)-associated discourse and terminology. Focusing on the contemporary official discourse of various types of Protestant churches in different parts of the world, this chapter aims to highlight the usefulness of viewing the accelerating marketization of the Protestant religious field as a largely (although by no means exclusively) discourse-driven process. The chapter also briefly considers some of the main ways in which marketization discourse has become materialized in actual practice across various Protestant Christian church contexts.

The ideational and discursive dimensions of market society The origins of currently prevailing understandings of the ‘market’ can be traced back to the early liberalism and classical political economy of the 18th and 19th centuries. In the liberalism of thinkers such as Smith, Mill, and Ricardo, the ‘market’ appeared as the key independent social coordination mechanism that was to facilitate individuals’ rational pursuit of their self-interest ‘without compromising the autonomy of their choices’ (Slater 1997, p. 42), thus laying the foundations for the subsequently developed notion of ‘market society.’ As explained by Slater and Tonkiss (2001, p. 8), while the notion of market exchange can be used to denote a wide range of different types of exchange, ‘thinking about modern social order in terms of “market society” implies the primacy of one mode of exchange—based on market transactions—which has come to dominate, restructure or marginalize all others.’ Such understandings of the market as a prime governing principle of the social became increasingly established during the first decades of the post-World War II era as capitalist societies were transitioning from a ‘Fordist’ economy based on the industrialized and standardized mass production of goods towards a ‘post-Fordist’ economy based on more flexible and specialized modes of production. As part of these developments, consumerism also emerged as the principal ethos, both social and cultural, of modern capitalist societies (e.g. Slater 1997, pp. 24–25), along with the consumer as ‘master category of collective and individual identity’ (Trentmann 2006, p. 2). The notion of a ‘market society’ reached its eventual full realization following the global expansion and establishment of neoliberalism in the early 1980s. Grounded in an unwavering belief in the power, efficiency, and rationality of the free, non-regulated market and the extension of market imperatives across all societal domains and sub-systems, neoliberal 20

Christian responses to marketization

restructurings of the global political economy have greatly affected the basic structure and organization of contemporary societies across the globe (e.g. Harvey 2005). While the spread and perpetuation of neoliberal ideology has been instrumental in bringing about a wide range of actual, tangible social restructurings and transformations across the world, its ideational and discursive impact on the present-day social institutional and organizational field has been equally notable (cf. Bourdieu and Wacquant 2001; Thrift 2005; Mautner 2010). It is important to recognize, therefore, how the spread of neoliberalism has gone hand in hand with an increasing perpetuation and normalization of market-associated discourse, language, and terminology across virtually all social and cultural domains and thus served to propel a general process of marketization. The concept of marketization is generally intended to capture the extended historical process whereby: [a] market logic has come to provide a means of thinking about social institutions and individuals more generally, such that notions of competition, enterprise, utility and choice can be applied to various aspects of people’s working lives, access to public services and even private pursuits. (Slater and Tonkiss 2001, p. 1) In its ideational dimensions, marketization can be understood as a largely discourse-driven process that involves the increasing permeation of market-associated language, discourse, and terminology into new social domains, including in particular domains that have traditionally been considered ‘non-economic,’ such as education, healthcare, non-profit and ideological organizations, and religion. In order for the study of religions to be able to adequately appreciate the impact of these developments on the present-day religious field, Gauthier, Martikainen, and Woodhead (2013, pp. 261–262) have argued for the need to construct a new ‘alternative paradigm for understanding religion today, outside the secularization/postsecularism episteme.’ In contrast to so-called ‘economics of religion’ approaches (e.g. new paradigm approaches and rational choice theory), such a broader alternative interpretative framework would avoid reducing social realities to economic determinants and instead be aimed at drawing our attention to ‘the noneconomic [i.e. the ideological, ideational, and discursive] dimensions and effects of market economics and their correlates in globalizing societies’ (Gauthier 2015, p. 72, emphasis added). This approach to the character and fate of religion in neoliberal market society would thus be one that underlines the role of ‘market ideas’ (Carrier 1997)—in the sense of market economics-inspired ideologies and discourses—as prime vectors of contemporary social and cultural change on the whole, including religious change.

The effects of marketization on Protestant Christian churches The new general socioeconomic environments and circumstances that have emerged following neoliberal restructurings of modern societies have brought a multifaceted set of highly significant consequences or ‘spillover effects on contemporary religion’ (Martikainen 2012, p. 180). As argued by Martikainen, as a first notable effect, we can now clearly discern ‘a growing role of economic reasoning among religions in the new political economy,’ including an increasingly ‘wide use of business-oriented practices’ such as different managerial techniques, advertising, marketing, branding, and different types of ‘organizational restructuring’ (Martikainen 2012, p. 177). Closely related to this, a second notable effect has been the degree to which religious 21

Marcus Moberg

communities have not only adapted to ‘market rationalities’ but increasingly also started to act and reconfigure themselves as businesses and commercial enterprises (Martikainen 2012, p. 178). In broader perspective, the effects of processes of marketization on the contemporary, both non-denominational and institutional, Protestant field can be viewed in light of EspingAndersen’s (1990) crude and much debated, but nonetheless heuristically useful, tripartite ideal-type distinction between three main types of post-industrial ‘welfare capitalism’ regimes: the liberal (including e.g. the United States, the UK, Australia), conservativecorporatist (including e.g. Germany, France), and social-democratic (including e.g. the Nordic countries). This typology orders societies on the basis of their respective degrees of ‘decommodification’ as it relates to principles of labor-market organization, the distribution of resources, social stratification, and social security. While liberal regimes tend to be characterized by lower levels of state intervention and a higher reliance on market forces in the creation of welfare and social security, conservative-corporatist regimes instead tend to take a middle road and develop insurance contributions-based welfare regimes. Socialdemocratic regimes are, by contrast, characterized by much more interventionist and universalist welfare and social security principles and policies (cf. Isakjee 2017, p. 6). While many societies clearly remain representative of one of these ideal types, the typology is best understood in terms of a continuum that allows for movement. Indeed, the global spread of neoliberal political economy has served to propel a general movement of all types of societies towards the liberal end of the spectrum (cf. Koenig 2005). This is also reflective of the general ways in which, as Gauthier puts it, the increasing proliferation and implementation of neoliberal ideology and policies have come to propel a ‘complex and multifarious set of processes through which economics has dislodged politics as a structuring and embedding force’ (Gauthier 2015, pp. 71–72).

Marketization in the non-denominational Protestant Christian field Primarily emerging as a response to the fundamental social and cultural changes of the 1960s, non-denominationalism has become epitomized by the spread of non- or cross-denominational neo-evangelical, Charismatic, and Pentecostal so-called ‘seeker sensitive’ churches (Miller 1997). As a particular type of religious phenomenon, non-denominationalism has since spread throughout all corners of the world, with large and growing congregations having been established throughout Latin America, African countries such as Ghana, South Africa, and Nigeria, and East-Asian countries such as South Korea. Primarily targeting the ‘unchurched,’ seeker-sensitive churches tend to emphasize the relationship between faith and personal development and success. While the teachings of these types of churches tend to lean towards the conservative side, they typically also carry the promise of fundamental life transformation and improvement through religion. Non-denominational churches have also been quick to embrace new media technologies as a central means of promotion and proselytization (e.g. Einstein 2008; Hackett 2009). Moreover, it is not uncommon nowadays for these types of churches to utilize different types of market research in order to be able to identify core publics and ‘customers,’ to gear services to niche audiences, to enhance their ‘quality’ and entertainment appeal, and to reduce the demands put on (potential) customers in terms of lifestyle, belief, and commitment (Einstein 2008; Stolz and Usunier 2014, pp. 17–18). In many notable respects, these types of churches have thus increasingly modeled and structured themselves as businesses and come to view themselves as players in an expanded marketplace of ideas and lifestyle choices. Consequently, their primary aim is to cater to the personal religious tastes and sensibilities of the individual. While the proliferation of these types of churches can be observed throughout 22

Christian responses to marketization

societies with different welfare regimes, they have in large part emanated from, and also arguably grown the most, in socioeconomic and sociocultural contexts that lean towards the liberal end of the spectrum. Houston-based Lakewood Church, one of the largest megachurches in the liberal-regime United States, provides a case in point. Singled out by Einstein (2008) as one of the most prominent ‘faith brands’ in the United States, Lakewood Church has grown exponentially since its establishment in 1959 and developed into an international multi-media ministry with a strong emphasis on the relationship between faith and personal development. Understood as ‘spiritual products that have been given popular meaning and awareness through marketing’ (Einstein 2008, p. 92), faith brands are characterized by their close association with key people such as leading personas and various types of ancillary church/ community-related products such as books, DVDs, courses, etc., all of which are marketed and advertised in highly sophisticated ways. The official discourse of Lakewood Church is heavily centered on its leading pastor, Joel Osteen, and the theme of personal achievement and success. In terms of genre and style, the official discourse of the church as found on its official website (lakewoodchurch.com) is blatantly promotional. It is aimed at making the church and its high production-value services, activities, and products as attractive as possible and to deliberately connect them to wider cultural discourses on personal development, successful living, and the ‘entrepreneurial self.’ Only very little is revealed about the actual organizational structure, strategies, or working routines of the church. This, however, is perfectly in line with Lakewood Church’s focus on providing its adherents with attractive individual provisions rather than offering any type of ‘public utility’ for which a higher degree of transparency might be required. The Melbourne-based seeker-sensitive Pentecostal-evangelical megachurch Hillsong, known for its self-produced and heavily branded own style of popular worship music, provides another good example of the increasingly close relationship between non-denominationalism and market and consumer sensibilities. Since its establishment in liberal-regime Australia in 1983, Hillsong has evolved into a transnational multi-site and multi-media ministry with local branches in several major cities around the world. Similar to Lakewood church, the teachings of Hillsong emphasize the relationship between Christian faith and both private and professional personal growth and development. For example, the congregation offers people what it calls ‘master classes’ ‘designed to speak to the leader within us all—to stretch our thinking and help us take our churches and lives forward with new innovative ideas’ (hillsong. com a). Although Hillsong is registered as a non-profit organization, it is structured like a commercial enterprise (Wagner 2014, pp. 61–63). However, apart from a brief account of its ‘Corporate Governance’ provided on its official website (hillsong.com b), the official discourse of Hillsong reveals little about internal deliberations on strategic or other organizational issues. Rather, its official discourse is highly promotional and focused on what the church can provide for the individual member or potential member. The close relationship between market and consumer culture values and imperatives and the non-denominational field also extends to non-Western contexts which constitute ‘emerging market’ societies with mixed economy regimes. Among countless examples, Lagos-based megachurch Christ Embassy (also known as Believers LoveWorld Incorporated) provides a clear illustration. Since its establishment by leading pastor Chris Oyakhilome in 1987, Christ Embassy has developed into an international (and controversy-ridden) conglomeration of churches with several million followers worldwide. The church has actively embraced a range of different types of media for the purposes of communicating its messages, as can be seen in its strong online presence, hugely popular television program 23

Marcus Moberg

Atmosphere for Miracles (Hackett 2009), and large number of church-related books by its leading pastor—all of which are internationally marketed in sophisticated ways (Adeboye 2003, p. 143). Often situated in the ‘prosperity gospel’ mold, the teachings of Christ Embassy center on the relationship between faith and social mobility and emphasize material wealth as a natural outcome of their particular vision of faithful life and living (Adeboye 2003; Hackett 2009). For example, the ‘Resources’ section of the church’s official website contains an article titled ‘Just keep growing’ that provides the following closing encouragement: If you desire to experience continual growth in every area of your life, then you must build your spirit with God’s Word. Remember that God is willing to give you much more than you could ever imagine (Ephesians 3:20). Start declaring right now, that the Word of God is growing in your finances and health the same way it’s growing in your heart. (cristembassy.org) As this example illustrates, the teachings of Christ Embassy emphasize the intimate connection between faith and both personal and material development and success. This example is also further illustrative of Christ Embassy’s official discourse more generally: it is highly promotional and geared towards individual members and potential members. As the above brief discussion illustrates, many non-denominational Protestant churches around the world have adopted and fully internalized the discourses of market and consumer society. In addition, they have consciously aimed to materialize these discourses in actual practice through configuring their services, messages, and activities in ways that correspond to the consumption-oriented sensibilities of modern individuals (e.g. Einstein 2008). Their official discourse therefore closely mirrors what these churches actually do. Moreover, they all share a drive towards continuous growth and expansion in the context of what they view as a competitive environment of religious and other lifestyle choices. Unconstrained by dense bureaucratic structures, they are free to pursue their aims, which is also clearly reflected in their individual- and consumer-oriented official discourse and its actual practical materialization. In this, their general character is thus also reflective of the broader liberal regimes in which they are embedded.

Marketization in the institutional Christian Protestant field Compared to the increasingly individual- and customer-oriented discourse of many nondenominational churches, as discussed earlier, the response of long-established institutional Protestant churches to ongoing processes of marketization have largely become expressed through an idiom of crisis and need for thoroughgoing organizational change. The response of these types of churches is closely connected to the ways in which neoliberal restructurings have brought about a range of significant changes in public-, third-, and private-sector relations, including those between church and state. While the effects of processes of marketization on the contemporary institutional Protestant field have been both multiple and multifaceted, they have become particularly visible through the ways in which these types of churches have become increasingly susceptible to NPM-inspired organizational values and criteria of organizational effectivity (cf. Martikainen 2012, p. 178; Moberg 2017). By now firmly established across liberal, conservative-corporatist, and social-democratic regimes alike, the principal objective of NPM

24

Christian responses to marketization

is to reform public-sector bureaucracies by subjecting them to a set of instrumentalrationalist private-sector measures as part of a more general effort to enhance their ‘effectivity’ and ‘performance’ (e.g. Pollitt et al. 2007). NPM has also provided the justification for, and brought about a range of, actual public-sector deregulations and new types of ‘public-private partnerships’ as part of a more general social-organizational shift from ‘government’ (in terms of state power on its own) to ‘governance’ (a broader configuration of state and other key actors, organizations, and elements in wider civil society) (Slater and Tonkiss 2001, p. 143). In many cases, these developments have entailed notable expansions in the ‘opportunity structure’ of religious organizations through opening up new areas of religious/faith-based secular partnerships and modes of cooperation (Martikainen 2012, p. 180). In the liberal regime of the United States, where state and religion have been firmly legally separated for centuries and the religious landscape has always been organized along denominational and congregational lines, the changing fortunes and discursive practices of the long-established so-called ‘mainline’ Protestant churches provide apt illustrations of an increasing adoption of market- and NPM-associated discourse and values on the part of institutional religious organizations. The US mainline churches all established dense bureaucratic structures already in the early 20th century as part of their concentrated ‘Social Gospel’ engagement in social issues and causes (Thuesen 2002). While they all continued to grow until the 1950s, the 1960s came to mark the start of a long process of perpetual mainline decline that has continued into the first two decades of the new millennium with Pew Research Center’s 2014 Religious Landscape Study documenting a decrease in mainline membership from 18.1 percent of the adult population of the United States in 2007 to 14.7 percent in 2014. In spite of their numerical decline, however, the mainline churches nevertheless retain close relationships to the core social establishment and continue to act as central participants in various forms of church-, state/government-, and third-sector partnerships (e.g. Lantzer 2012). In the words of Wuthnow and Evans (2002, p. 19), the ‘model’ for mainline church life has increasingly become ‘that of a network, or referral system.’ As a central part of these developments, the mainline churches have also become increasingly prone to adopt market-associated discourse, values, and imperatives and to reconfigure their organizational cultures in accordance with new NPM-associated criteria of organizational effectivity. Indeed, when looking at the official discourse of US mainline churches, the perpetuation of market and NPM imperatives and values is clearly visible already at a cursory glance. Above all, we find an increasing emphasis on and preoccupation with strategic thinking and the proliferation of notions and terms such as ‘cost-effectiveness,’ ‘flexibility,’ ‘total-quality management,’ ‘marketing,’ and ‘branding.’ There are also plenty of examples of the actual materialization of such discourses, ranging from the establishment of new working units such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ‘Mission Advancement Unit’ to large-scale undertakings such as the United Methodist Church’s 2001 Igniting Ministry and 2009 Rethink Church advertising and marketing campaigns (Moberg 2017). The US mainline churches therefore provide examples of churches that have remained deeply embedded in the social structures of a strongly liberal regime but nevertheless largely followed a pathway towards marketization that resembles that of public institutions. In the liberal regime of the UK, an increasing perpetuation of market-associated discourse and imperatives is also clearly observable in the changing discursive practices of the Church of England (CoE), which still retains its formal status as state church. The CoE reached its modern-time high point during the ‘Anglican decade’ of the 1950s (Davie 2015, p. 29) after 25

Marcus Moberg

which a period of radical change set in during the 1960s when traditional institutional religion, as represented by the CoE and the other traditional churches, became challenged on virtually all fronts. Based on a new realization that thoroughgoing changes were required in order to keep the church à jour with cultural developments and remain socially relevant, the CoE opted for an accommodating approach to modernity and ‘became part of the social fabric and the reigning moral and cultural ethos’ (Woodhead 2012, p. 15). Following its own experience of progressive decline and changing social status, the CoE has devised a number of strategic initiatives aimed at stemming the state of perpetual decline that it finds itself in. These include the broader Anglican and ecumenical so-called Fresh Expressions initiative, the principal purpose of which is to create new ways in which the church can reach beyond the parish level and ‘overcome the limitations of the “inherited model”’ (Davie 2015, p. 146). The Fresh Expressions initiative emerged out of a series of previous large-scale strategic undertakings such as the so-called Breaking New Ground initiative in 1994 and the Mission-shaped Church: Church Planting and Fresh Expressions of Church in a Changing Context initiative in 2004, all of which were designed to aid what the CoE has come to refer to as ‘church growth.’ As part of these initiatives, official CoE discourse has also become increasingly marked by an emphasis on strategic thinking and the heavy employment of market and NPM notions and terminology (for a more detailed discussion see Moberg 2017, pp. 102–109). Here, too, the pathway that the CoE has taken towards increasing marketization closely resembles that of other public institutions. Similar developments have also been observed on the institutional Protestant field in conservative-corporatist settings such as those of the Netherlands (Sengers 2010) and Germany (Schlamelcher 2013). In the social-democratic settings of the Nordic countries, market and NPM values and imperatives have also clearly made their way into the official discourse of the Nordic Lutheran majority churches, which all retain close structural relationships to their respective states. While the Nordic countries have all witnessed significant neoliberal public sector deregulations in recent decades and thus gradually moved towards the liberal end of the spectrum, they still retain many characteristics of the socialdemocratic model. Beginning already in the 19th century as part of their growing concerns to remain closely aligned with the political and social establishment and the everyday concerns of the population at large, the Nordic churches grew increasingly liberal, inclusivist, and pragmatic in general outlook (e.g. Kasselstrand and Eltanani 2013). They have all developed dense bureaucratic structures and continue to maintain a strong presence on every level of society. Lutheran uniformity culture has, however, been considerably weakened following steadily decreasing church membership figures coupled with accelerating religious diversification since the early 1970s. But although structural relationships between church and state have likewise been progressively weakening over a period of several decades, they still remain strong, especially at the level of administration and finances. Beginning in the early 1990s, the Nordic churches have all gradually transformed themselves into civil-service and public utility-oriented institutions and increasingly come to adopt third-sector organizational models. However, as they have traditionally been strong supporters of the Nordic welfare state model, their social work and welfare provision has traditionally been, and in large part remains, closely coordinated with that of the state and local secular municipalities. In Sweden, following new legislation and the disestablishment of the Church of Sweden (CoS) in 2000, its general order of discourse has yet increasingly become marked by an emphasis on strategic thinking and NPM imperatives. The changed legal status of the CoS has also brought some identifiable changes in its self-perception as a public institution (e.g. 26

Christian responses to marketization

Petterson 2013; Moberg 2017). For example, the CoS has increased its investments in communications and ICT and adopted a range of actual marketing practices as part of its efforts to construct one single and all-encompassing ‘Church of Sweden brand.’ As Kornberger (2010, p. xiii) reminds us, branding has developed into a ‘new management framework that turns old wisdoms upside down by conceptualizing the organization from the outside in.’ The earnest adoption of banding on the part of the CoS thereby also clearly signals a general shift from a public state organization type of mindset towards that of a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization. In Denmark, where the ties between church and state have remained the closest and strongest in wider Nordic comparison (Nielsen and Kühle 2011), the general order of discourse of the Church of Denmark (CoD) has become increasingly marked by calls for renewal and change. It is important to note, though, that as the CoD retains the status of official change church and legally remains under the authority of the Danish Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs, its official discourse consequently also remains more closely aligned with that of the Danish public administration field more generally. Denmark thus constitutes a special case where the CoD remains an integral part of the social and political establishment. As explored in detail by Rasmussen (2018), this state of affairs provides part of the explanation as to why the official discourse on the CoD, beginning in the early 1990s, has become so strongly permeated by NPM-associated discourse, values, and imperatives while simultaneously remaining strongly embedded in a public utility and ‘civil service’ idiom. One notable way in which marketization discourses have become materialized within the CoS and CoD is through the ways in which increasing investments in areas such as communication and ICT, marketing, and branding have led to the forming of new working units focusing on these types of issues as opposed to more ‘conventional’ forms of church work (Schlamelcher 2013). Another notable way is through the actual marketing and branding endeavors that have taken place and the visibility they have generated. As the above discussion illustrates, the official discourse of institutional Protestant churches in the United States, the UK, and the Nordic countries has become increasingly permeated by market- and NPM-associated discourse and organizational values. In sharp contrast to non-denominational independent churches, the official discourse of institutional Protestant churches generally continues to reflect an establishmentarian and ‘public utility’ mindset, although this may be slowly changing. Their increasing adoption of market- and NPM-associated discourse is perhaps best explained by the fact that they have maintained organizational structures that remain geared towards public, collective social engagement rather than a focus on individual needs and sensibilities. Since their continued active civic engagements largely take place through their bureaucratic structures, this makes it more likely for them to become subjected to stronger inter-organizational ideological and discursive influence and pressures to conform to new NPM-associated values and criteria of institutional and organizational effectivity (Moberg 2017, p. 76). But marketization discourses have also come to provide these churches with ready-made explanations and taken-for-granted ways of talking about ‘proper’ and ‘effective’ institutional and organizational culture, and it is to a large extent on the basis of such discourse and values that new church imaginaries are now being reconstructed.

Conclusion This chapter has aimed to highlight the various ways and degrees to which different types of Protestant Christian churches have embraced the ideational and discursive traits of 27

Marcus Moberg

market and consumer society. The discussion in this chapter has been based on the contention that actual, practical changes in the organizational structure, communication practices, and modus operandi of social institutions and organizations in general tend to be intimately connected to broader changes in discursive practices and changing institutional and organizational imaginaries. In this regard, Esping-Andersen’s (1990) typology of welfare regimes provides a general framework for understanding the broader social and political economic contexts in which such changes occur. However, as the above discussion shows, the pathways that institutional Protestant churches have taken towards increasing marketization have been largely similar across societies with both liberal and social-democratic welfare regimes. Exploring the official discourse of religious communities—whether institutional and traditional or more newly established and independent—in particular social contexts at particular points in time, provides scholars with important clues as to what actual, practical developments we might expect to see in the future. A focus on the dialectical relationship between discursive and social change thus provides scholars with a particular set of tools for the identification and analysis of some of the main ways in which broader processes of discursive change relate to, and often also translate into, religious change. More specifically, a discursive approach provides scholars with valuable tools for identifying the ways in which changing discursive practices may become operationalized as part of the construction of new imaginaries for religious agency in a broader social and cultural environment marked by market imperatives and the ethos of conspicuous consumption. In addition, it also provides tools for identifying how new discursive practices may become materialized through the actual reconfiguration of religious activities, provisions, organizational structures, working routines, etc. It remains clear, though, that a fuller understanding of the actual, practical consequences and effects of ongoing processes of marketization on the future organization, life, and practices of religious communities cannot be adequately assessed on the basis of an analysis of their official discourse alone. Future research could usefully strive to combine an analysis of the changing discursive practices of religious communities with in-depth empirical explorations of how the operationalization and materialization of market and consumer culture discourse, values, and imperatives actually play out and are negotiated in real-life situations in different types of religious contexts around the world.

References Adeboye, O., 2003. Pentecostal challenges in Africa and Latin America: a comparative focus on Nigeria and Brazil. Afrika Zamani, 11–12, 136–159. Bourdieu, P., and Wacquant, L., 2001. NewLiberalSpeak: notes on the new planetary vulgate. Radical Philosophy, 105 (Jan-Feb), 1–5. Carrier, J. G., 1997. Preface. In: J. G. Carrier, ed. Meanings of the Market: The Free Market in Western Culture. Oxford: Berg, vii–xvi. christembassy.com. Just keep growing. Available from: www.christembassy.org/?p=10895 [Accessed 8 May 2018]. Davie, G., 2015. Religion in Britain: A Persistent Paradox. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Einstein, M., 2008. Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age. New York: Routledge. Esping-Andersen, G., 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Gauthier, F., 2015. Religion, media and the dynamics of consumerism in globalising societies. In: K. Granholm, M. Moberg, and S. Sjö, eds. Religion, Media, and Social Change. London: Routledge, 71–88.

28

Christian responses to marketization

Gauthier, F., Martikainen, T., and Woodhead, L., 2013. Acknowledging a global shift: a primer for thinking about religion in consumer societies. Implicit Religion, 16 (3), 261–275. Gauthier, F., Woodhead, L., and Martikainen, M., 2013. Introduction: consumerism as the ethos of consumer society. In: F. Gauthier and T. Martikainen, eds. Religion in Consumer Society: Brands, Consumers, Markets. Farnham: Ashgate, 1–26. Hackett, R. I. J., 2009. The new virtual (inter)face of African Pentecostalism. Society, 46 (6), 496–503. Harvey, D., 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. hillsong.com a. Hillsong corporate governance. Available from: https://hillsong.com/policies/corporategovernance/ [Accessed 8 May 2018]. hillsong.com b. The experience. Available from: https://hillsong.com/conference/experience/#about [Accessed 8 May 2018]. Isakjee, A., 2017. Welfare state regimes: a literature review. IRiS working paper series. University of Birmingham. Available from: www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-social-sciences/socialpolicy/iris/2017/IRiS-WP-18-2017UPWEB18.pdf [Accessed 12 August 2018]. Kasselstrand, I., and Eltanani, M. K., 2013. Church affiliation and trust in the state: survey data evidence from four Nordic countries. Nordic Journal of Religion and Society, 26 (2), 103–119. Koenig, M., 2005. Politics and religion in European nation-states. Institutional varieties and contemporary transformations. In: B. Giesen, ed. Religion and Politics: Cultural Perspectives. Leiden: Brill, 291–316. Kornberger, M., 2010. Brand Society: How Brands Transform Management and Lifestyle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. lakewoodchurch.com. Available from: www.lakewoodchurch.com/Pages/Home.aspx [Accessed 8 May 2018]. Lantzer, J. S., 2012. Mainline Christianity: The Past and Future of America’s Majority Faiths. New York: New York University Press. Martikainen, T., 2012. Towards a new political economy of religion: reflections on Marion Maddox and Nicolas de Bremond d’Ars’. Social Compass, 59 (2), 173–182. Mautner, G., 2010. Language and the Market Society: Critical Reflections on Discourse and Dominance. New York: Routledge. Miller, D. E., 1997. Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium. Berkeley: University of California Press. Moberg, M., 2017. Church, Market, and Media: A Discursive Approach to Institutional Religious Change. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Nielsen, M. V., and Kühle, L., 2011. Religion and state in Denmark: exception among exceptions? Nordic Journal of Religion and Society, 24 (2), 173–188. Petterson, P., 2013. From standardised offer to consumer adaptation: challenges to the Church of Sweden’s identity. In: F. Gauthier and T. Martikainen, eds. Religion in Consumer Society: Brands, Consumers, Markets. Farnham: Ashgate, 43–58. Pew Research Center, 2014. Religious Landscape Study. Available from: www.pewforum.org/2015/05/ 12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/ [Accessed 17 October 2016]. Pollitt, C., van Thiel, S., and Homburg, V., eds., 2007. New Public Management in Europe: Adaptations and Alternatives. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Rasmussen, J. H., 2018. The marketization of church closures. Religion, 48 (3), 474–486. Schlamelcher, J., 2013. The decline of the parishes and the rise of city churches: the German Evangelical Church in the age of neoliberalism. In: T. Martikainen and F. Gauthier, eds. Religion in the Neoliberal Age: Political Economy and Modes of Governance. Farnham: Ashgate, 53–67. Sengers, E., 2010. Marketing in Dutch mainline congregations: what religious organizations offer and how they do it. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 25 (1), 21–35. Slater, D., 1997. Consumer Culture and Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Slater, D., and Tonkiss, F., 2001. Market Society: Markets and Modern Social Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press. Stolz, J., and Usunier, J.-C., 2014. Religions as brands: new perspectives on the marketization of religion and spirituality. In: J. Stoltz and J.-C. Usunier, eds. Religions as Brands: New Perspectives on the Marketization of Religion and Spirituality. Farnham: Ashgate, 3–25. Thrift, N., 2005. Knowing Capitalism. London: Sage. Thuesen, P. J., 2002. The logic of mainline churchliness: historical background since the reformation. In: R. Wuthnow and J. H. Evans, eds. The Quiet Hand of God: Faith-Based Activism and the Public Role of Mainline Protestantism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 27–53.

29

Marcus Moberg

Trentmann, F., 2006. Knowing consumers: consumers in economics, law and civil society. In: F. Trentmann, ed. The Making of the Consumer: Knowledge, Power and Identity in the Modern World. Oxford: Berg, 1–27. Wagner, T., 2014. Branding, music, and religion: Standardization and adaptation in the experience of the “Hillsong Sound”. In: J.C. Usunier and J. Stolz, eds. Religions as Brands: New Perspectives on the Marketization of Religion and Spirituality. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 59–73. Woodhead, L., 2012. Introduction. In: L. Woodhead and R. Catto, eds. Religion and Change in Modern Britain. London: Routledge, 1–33. Wuthnow, R., and Evans, J. H., 2002. Introduction. In: R. Wuthnow and J. H. Evans, eds. The Quiet Hand of God: Faith-Based Activism and the Public Role of Mainline Protestantism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1–25.

30

2 ‘The Greatest Leader of All’ The faces of leadership and Christianity in contemporary Brazil (1980s–2010s) Karina Kosicki Bellotti

Introduction This chapter analyzes the leadership discourses and practices based on Christian values propagated in Brazil in the past 30 years. Colonized by the Portuguese from the 1500s to the 1800s, Brazil has a major Catholic tradition, yet is well-known for its wide religious diversity, which includes native religions, African diaspora religions (Candomblé and Umbanda, mainly), Spiritism (by the late 19th century), Protestantism (also by the 19th century) and Pentecostalism (20th century). The 20th century was also marked by an influx of immigrants with Eastern and Muslim traditions, along with the introduction of New Age practices. All of these were minority religions (Dawson 2007; Schmidt and Engler 2016). Since the 1980s, Brazil has seen a sharp rise in Evangelical Christians, mainly Pentecostals, due to their direct evangelization in peripheral zones inhabited by low-income Brazilians, as well as their use of media and marketing resources (Chesnut 1997). Evangelicals were 6.6% of the population and Catholics were 89% in 1980, and in the 2010 religious census (IBGE 2010), Evangelicals reached 22.2%, while Catholics were 64.6% of the population. Initially founded by US missionaries, Evangelical churches were nationalized by the early 20th century, but the bonds with US Evangelicalism continues until today, through the media, theological institutes, and circulation of laypeople and preachers (Bellotti 2016, pp. 451–461; Freston 2016, pp. 430–450). During these 30 years, Brazil was also a developing Latin American country that entered the globalized world and economy, facing hyperinflation, recession, and social insecurities, as the consequences of 20 years of civil-military dictatorship. From 1964 to 1985 the country was ruled by the military, with the support of right-wing sectors of civil society (Skidmore 1990). Although some of these problems were overcome by the mid-1990s and 2000s, global issues strikingly affected the country. These included fierce economical competition, an increase in work hours and low paid jobs, and the ebb and flow of speculative capital. In this context, books and services teaching leadership skills based on Christian values or on Jesus Christ himself, written mainly by US authors, have appeared in the Brazilian selfhelp industry, along with advice from other spiritual and religious traditions. Reliable figures

31

Karina Kosicki Bellotti

on the sales of those books are unavailable, but more titles are placed on the market each year, as is also the case with books on Christian living, Esoterism, and Prosperity. The former theme became popular as new churches arose with the Health and Wealth Gospel. Nevertheless, in a moment of economic and social despair, the apparently timeless recipes for individual success and victory became part of the discourses and practices of Brazilian Christians. Therefore, this chapter aims to historically approach distinct guides for leadership offered by Christian means of communication to equip religious leadership with the knowhow of the business and managerial world and endow lay people with Christian leadership skills and morals. Since the media play a fundamental role in the diffusion of such discourses and practices, the theoretical frame of this study is the analysis of religion, media, and culture regarding the self-help culture and leadership studies. General aspects of such products and services will be presented to evaluate how, and what kind of, readership is addressed in such media. Furthermore, the studies on religion and economy are paramount to understanding the rise of neoliberalism and its impacts on the religious field, with the increases in consumerism, individualism, management, governance, and marketization. What kinds of religiosity and values are appreciated, and which ones are rejected when Jesus Christ is portrayed as C.E. O. or ‘The Greatest Leader of All’? As these messages are conveyed in a self-help culture, the leadership model is individually driven, referring to a direct relationship between the leader and his/her followers, and devoid of further historical and social conditions that explain the leader’s tribulations. Yet, the presence of Jesus as role model is conveyed as an alternative to an allegedly egocentric and greedy contemporary culture. As much as some of the authors wish to give an ethical model of leadership conduct, such advice calls into question whether and how a Christian-based leadership can be reconciled with the recent development of globalized and neoliberal capitalism.

Self-help literature, leadership lessons, and the American Jesus In the recent Brazilian religious field, the main battlefield has become between the media and the market, used to conquer the hearts and minds of Brazilians with effective solutions and spiritual comfort for everyday life problems. The growth of the self-help publishing industry in Brazil since the 1980s was one of the venues in which religious writers from different traditions became popular, stimulating an increasing tendency of individual religious and spiritual autonomy over the course of the 20th century. The theoretical frame of religion, media, and culture studies aims at the complex relations between media and religion. If the first studies were on the instrumental uses of media by religious institutions (Horsfield 1984), this field had lately incorporated different perspectives on both subjects (Morgan 2008; Lynch et al. 2012). By media I refer not only to the means of communication but also to the communication systems that permeate everyday life in the globalized context. Thus, media are meaning-making systems, engaged in the social construction of reality (Morgan 2008; Gauthier 2014, pp. 75–88). By religion, I refer to the religious and spiritual beliefs and practices of both individuals and social groups, related or not to traditional religious institutions. The deinstitutionalization and detraditionalization of religion enhanced religious autonomy and the media are at the very core of the reshaping of religion in terms of identity construction, consumerism, and expressions of authenticity— characteristics of the neoliberal and globalized context since the 1980s (Gauthier et al. 2016). Such processes can be observed in Brazil, and, in the main subject of this chapter, the circulation of Christian leadership discourses, refer to a media phenomenon built by 32

‘The Greatest Leader of All’

independent religious agents—writers, consultants—aimed at a wider audience. A historical approach to the relations between media and religion is useful for comprehending the trajectory of the self-help literature and the leadership lessons from the United States to Brazil. Self-help literature has been one of the most enduring popular genres and has become the primary vehicle for religious agents to convey advice from their experiential point of view, fomenting a media culture based on an individualistic and therapeutic approach to numerous types of problems. Donald Meyer (1988), Roy Anker (1999), Cohen and Boyer (2008), and Erin A. Smith (2015) demonstrate that self-help literature has roots in AngloSaxon Calvinism from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, diffused with the popularization of printed media in the United States. By the turn of the 20th century, these books focused on the adaptation of one’s personality to succeed in the urban-industrial and impersonal world of work and business. Thus came the popularity of positive thinking, mind cure, personal magnetism, among other techniques to fight daily problems and personal issues with the power of the mind and faith (Meyer 1988). To this day, this genre specializes in how to deal with emotions and thoughts, with short chapters and sentences, suggestions of application of lessons, self-reflexive questions, popular wisdom, and quotes of celebrities, scholars, political authorities, and religious leaders to give legitimacy to the author’s ideas (Illouz 2007). Since the printed media of the 19th century (Schneider and Dornbusch 1958; Meyer 1988), selfhelp literature has shaped and sold religious narratives and advice for success, victory, happiness, and self-realization within a therapeutic, experiential, and pragmatic religiosity, in cultural products like the books and Christian coaching and consulting services analyzed in this chapter. Self-help literature became popular in the 20th century, with wide distribution throughout the world. In Brazil, there has been a surge in religious publication since the 1980s. The growth of the Evangelical population has run in parallel with the increase in Evangelical publishing over the past 30 years, which sold mostly translations of US authors, such as Max Lucado, Benny Hinn, and many others. Among the themes approached by these books was leadership, which combined Christian values and lessons with the secular leadership literature. Such production in the United States bloomed by the 1980s (Rost 1991), following the rise of yuppie culture and valorization of highly competitive marketplaces, in times of nascent globalization, or what Boltanski and Chiapello (1999) named the ‘third spirit of capitalism,’ marked by neoliberalism. In his analysis of the field of leadership studies since the late 19th century, Rost (1991, p. 94) demonstrated that the language of the leadership literature came from the industrial paradigm of management and social psychology. That meant: good leadership means good management, especially after the 1980s, when US discourses and practices regarding leadership were part of a mythological narrative of the socalled enduring position of the United States as a world military, political, and economic leader. Such literature was also released in Brazil with translations into Portuguese. The leadership discourses give us a glimpse of the wider processes of globalization and neoliberalization of religion. Therefore, another theoretical frame is given by the studies on religion and economy, developed by Gauthier et al. (2013a, 2013b), which are pertinent to explaining why anyone should aspire to become a ‘leader’ and not just a manager. Since the late 1970s, in the affluent Northern Hemisphere, neoliberalism has risen as the dominant economic ideology, pushing the globalization processes along with consumerism and individualism: ‘from being embedded within the social, the political and the religious, the neoliberal age is that in which market economics are henceforth that in which other social realities are said to be themselves embedded’ (Gauthier et al. 2013b, p. 13). 33

Karina Kosicki Bellotti

In Brazil, although neoliberalism as economic politics was not implemented until the late 1990s, consumerism and individualism have long been valued as distinct expression of status, in a profoundly unequal society. According to Gauthier et al. (2013b), religion and economy are not separate spheres, although not reduced to one another. The economic changes resonate in the religious field in the form of the neoliberalization of religion, i.e., religion becomes deregulated and directed to individual consumption, providing this-worldly, experiential, and emotional solutions to everyday issues, in which freedom of choice is imperative (Gauthier et al. 2013b). This generates the paradox by which ‘deregulation’ shapes religion in novel ways, in tune with a ‘market model,’ and according to new modes of authority and authenticity that are oriented toward experience and self-realization. Neoliberalization also enacts the valorization of marketization, governance, and management. The latter is crucial to our analysis, since all the books explored in this chapter (and many more on religion and leadership) use management language and concepts to depict religious leadership. As Gauthier et al. write: Management lies at the crux of the economy, politics, society and culture (. . .) as with consumerism, management has infused social life to the point where it provides the language with which personal and social aspirations and realities can themselves be expressed. (Gauthier et al. 2013b, p. 16) Our case study shows one particular means by which this process has produced novel and intricate crossovers between economics (management) and religion that have penetrated whole strands of mainstream culture. Although managerial books and manuals have existed since the early 20th century, by the 1980s, they focused on the production of the leader, and when they appropriated the Christian symbolism to humanize the workplace, also hid the mechanisms of exploitation and profit of capitalist companies behind the religious/spiritual curtain. In this context, religious literature of leadership has been released in the United States and translated into Portuguese, prescribing lessons of leadership for church leaders, and role models of leadership for laypeople based on examples of Jesus, taken from diverse interpretations of the Gospels, mixed with concepts of leadership developed from the early 20th century onwards. Some such theories are: the great men or traits theory (leadership is explained by one’s exceptional traits), behavioral theory (leadership is determined by the sole relationship between leader and follower), and excellence theory (typical of the manuals of management, featuring CEOs; popular in the 1990s) (Rost 1991, pp. 13–36). Such theories can still be seen in both secular and religious leadership books today, as in the examples that follow. From the books of the 1990s to the leadership media industry of the early 2000s, there is a predominance of US authors in the religious field. These authors also offer courses, webinars and seminars, and consulting services worldwide, holding representation in countries such as Brazil. Especially in the Evangelical Brazilian field, the presence of North Americans in the marketplace of culture is common and welcomed as a sign of prestige. And the reason that Jesus is the primary character in such literature is also historical—not only because he is the main figure of Christianity but also due to the US Protestant transformation of his figure in the popular culture at the turn of the 19th through the 20th centuries (Prothero 2004). Since the 19th century, the figure of Jesus Christ has become increasingly devoid of his supernatural characteristics to fit human representations, becoming more a US national icon 34

‘The Greatest Leader of All’

than a deity. This strategy has helped to shape Jesus for national mass consumption, interreligious understanding (the creation of the concept of Judeo-Christian culture in the early 20th century), and missionary purposes. Jesus was the son of God made man among humanity, whose examples can be followed by anyone. The fact that his humanity was the main material for popular literature and pop culture portraits also explains this preference for his story and personality as role model (Prothero 2004).

Jesus as leadership model Before the popular portraits of Jesus as a model leader of recent decades, just a few books explored this idea. One of the first was Bruce Barton’s The Man Nobody Knows (1925), presenting a masculine representation of the Jesus of Nazareth. The servant leadership model was first developed by Robert Greenleaf in The Servant as Leader in 1970, in which Jesus is a servant leader, i.e., a humble leader who serves (and sometimes sacrifices himself for) his followers, with high moral and ethical standards. As neoliberalism advanced, the representations of Jesus as leader became popular by the 1980s and 1990s with US books like Jesus C.E.O. by Laurie Beth Jones (1996), Lead like Jesus (2005) by Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges, and The Servant—or The Monk and the Executive, by James C. Hunter (2004). Hunter’s volume has popularized the idea of servant leadership in Brazil in the 2010s, demonstrating that while religion is reshaped by economy, economy also can be conceptualized in religious and spiritual terms (Gauthier et al. 2013b, p. 9)—such are the following cases. James C. Hunter, Baptist and human resources specialist, wrote The Servant, a fictitious story of a frustrated executive who seeks refuge in a distant monastery to rethink his life. There, he finds a former and famous C.E.O. who became a monk and taught leadership based on Jesus Christ and the Golden Rule (to treat others as one would like to be treated). Although the monk is one of the main characters, his Catholic affiliation is not mentioned. The book mixes situations of daily challenges of leadership, ideas from management and social psychology theories, and lessons of a non-authoritative type of leadership that make leaders put first the needs of their followers. Although the author affirms that these lessons can be used in any type of organization, his language is permeated with management jargon, referring to business and work relations primarily. Jesus is mentioned as the main example of love and understanding, but the idea of servant leadership does not refer to any biblical passage. Hunt sustains that most problems between employees and employers in companies come from their bad relationships, yet he is silent about the capitalist nature of work relations. The application of the Golden Rule and the Servant approach to relations would bring happiness and satisfaction to all, and it would make for a better world if used in other social organizations. The contemporary world suffers from egocentrism and greed, so servant leadership would contribute to the improvement of relations between leaders and followers. Such ideas are typical of the behavioral theory of leadership in which there is only the interaction between the leader and the follower, while other variables affecting work relations, such as market demands, economic variations, and political regulations, are absent. As such, this literature conveys deeply neoliberal values and an exclusively individualist, de-socialized, and depoliticized conception of the social world. According to Hunter, in his third book, Back to the Monastery (2014), 80% of copies of his previous books were sold in Brazil, although there is no data on the profile of its buyers. Around four million copies of his first two books were sold, according to the cover of the third book, but no precise data are available. Recently, in 2016, a major public bank, the 35

Karina Kosicki Bellotti

Bank of Brazil, offered an instructional online certification course based on Hunter’s work to its employees. Also, a theater play based on the book, named The Monk and the Executive, was promoted by a human resources company called Valoriza-te (Value Yourself, in Portuguese), which staged the play for companies, universities, schools, and the general public (Monge 2018). Since 2018, the company has been offering an online course, providing the play in full HD, along with weekly lessons on leadership, such as: ‘Is authority built on service and sacrifice? How?,’ and ‘The greatest leaders were servants: Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa’ (Curso 2018). The behavioral approach to leadership is also present in Lead like Jesus (2007), by Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges. Hodges is a Christian and a human resources specialist, and Blanchard is known for his management books from the early 1980s (Blanchard and Johnson 1982), in which the leader gradually delegates more tasks to his/her subordinate, according to his/her level of expertise. According to the authors, this model was also offered by Jesus to his disciples—a practical leadership model for every organization, with the main objective of transforming followers into leaders. A new model of leadership is urgently needed, in the face of the disbelief in traditional models of leadership in society. Therefore, Jesus of Nazareth, servant of God, is the ultimate model of humble leadership, which can promote the kingdom of God based on love, justice, and service in any situation. However, the language of business and management reminds us that such goals can be translated into efficacy and excellence in organizations. It produces better results: the best service for clients and employees, overcoming incompetency, and bringing success, which would stimulate ethics and honesty. The servant leader becomes an asset to the company. As Michel Foucault (2008) observed, one effect of neoliberalism is that individuals are shaped by the entrepreneurial model, leading them to be oriented toward economic productivity and growth, as well as to style themselves as entrepreneurs. Here, the religious figure of Jesus serves to give transcendent legitimation to this neoliberalization of the self at the same time that it reframes religion and religious leadership in neoclassical economic terms. The management of emotions is also targeted by Lead Like Jesus. The demonstration of compassion by Jesus preceded the contemporary preoccupation with emotional intelligence (Goleman 2005) in organizations. In The Servant (Hunter 2004), love is not only an emotion but also something to be put into action for the greater good. It is interesting to note that emotions are welcomed to be part of the world of work, but only if controlled to be productive, rationalized. Eva Illouz (2007) defends that capitalism has instituted a new culture of emotions, an ‘emotional capitalism,’ in which ‘affect is made an essential aspect of economic behavior and in which emotional life—especially that of the middle classes— follows the logic of economic relations and exchange.’ And, according to Thomas Frank (2002), when such emotions are conveyed by a man, he is considered noble—the leader cares—but when the same emotions are shown by a woman, she is considered weak and uncontrolled. Most of the leadership books available in Brazil are written by men, referring to a male-oriented type of organization. In Jesus C.E.O. (1996), by Laurie Beth Jones, as in The Servant (Hunter 2004), Jesus sacrificed himself many times on behalf of his disciples, until he made the ultimate sacrifice on the cross. The idea of sacrifice is present in Jesus C.E.O., as Jones advises her readers that the leader should put first his followers, his employees, his subordinates, his clients—service and sacrifice go hand in hand, indicating a close relation with the post-industrial reality of work, with extra working hours taking the scarce time of leisure, to achieve excellence and productivity. One book directly associated Jesus with the Prosperity (Health and Wealth) Gospel: The Leadership Secrets of Jesus (1996), by Mike Murdock, Prosperity preacher. Jesus was an 36

‘The Greatest Leader of All’

entrepreneur who solved problems and marketed his products—salvation being the most important product—with joy and boldness. He was persecuted and misinterpreted, and yet he understood the insatiable appetite for excellence and personal development. The book carries managerial and prosperity language directed to a presumed readership of entrepreneurs (or aspiring entrepreneurs), claiming that Jesus was rich and wanted to multiply people’s finances, fulfilling the will of God. However skewed and improbable the foundations in scripture for such affirmations may be, such representations of Jesus resonate with the Prosperity Gospel, which claims that a good Christian deserves financial rewards due to his/her personal sacrifices. Exit narratives of humbleness and poverty in the Gospels, as well as any foundation for social and humanitarian interpretations, such as those found in Liberation theology and Social Gospel. These books usually don’t include explicative notes to US cultural references; neither do they provide comments of Brazilian editors about the application of these leadership lessons to the Brazilian reality. They convey the figure of Jesus as the same, today, yesterday, and tomorrow, and yet he becomes multiple according to each appropriation of his figure. He is usually portrayed with his human traits and extraordinary personality, devoid of his historical context. It’s a personal Jesus who helps readers cope with the world of deregulated work, giving a sense of self-worth to readers who wish to overcome their challenges. These books present an open interpretation of leadership, success, victory, to be imagined by each reader from his/her experience. This a-temporal characteristic is one of the main ingredients in the longevity of this genre, along with its open interpretation, and in countries like Brazil, the fact that the authors are foreign also attracts readership. Readers are also treated as individuals devoid of their historical, social, and cultural context, whose problems and solutions depend on their own actions and thoughts. There is no specific data on readership, but from the appropriations of the leadership concepts analyzed in the next section, these ideas circulate within and outside the religious communities.

Leadership services in business and Christian fields In the Christian services for the development of leadership skills available in Brazil, Christian coaches, counselors, pastors, and other specialists claim to be inspired by Jesus as a role model of leader. The Christian leadership lessons become part of a greater industry of leadership worldwide, in which the frontiers between the secular and the sacred realms are blurred, to the point where the leader is someone vested with both spiritual and material qualities. In instructional materials for MBA courses at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, one of the most prestigious business institutions in Brazil, there are modules of leadership with a historical approach to managerial studies and the latest tendencies in leadership studies (Motta 2011). The materials reinforce the idea that the leader is not a manager and must be committed to the growth of the team, allowing each member to reach his/her full potential and become a leader him/herself—in other words, to become a prophet of self-realization through entrepreneurialism. The leader must have a vision, an idea of mission, a sense of responsibility and accountability, sensibility to listen to his/her subordinates. In terms of emotional intelligence, the leader should connect emotion, reason, morals, ethics for the greater good, while bearing impeccable character and honesty, as everyone is looking up to him/her. It is a heavy weight on his/her shoulders, as the leader is deemed to be the cause of success or failure of a team or even a company. 37

Karina Kosicki Bellotti

Several Christian services and professionals aim to develop appropriate leadership skills, such as the Global Leadership Summit, promoted worldwide by Willow Creek Community Church (Global 2018), the US megachurch founded by Bill Hybels (Sargeant 2000). The summit is hosted in the United States and is a two-day event with several speakers from both religious and secular fields, such as US megachurch pastor Rick Warren and mega-rock star Bono, who share their experiences of success as leaders. In Brazil, the GLS has been broadcast since the early 2000s in partnership with Evangelical churches, along with Brazilian facilitators and translated instructional material, provided by the company Envisionar. That company also offers its own online training courses, books, and consulting services for churches, children’s ministries, and Christian businesses. The consultancy aims ‘to help churches, denominations, or organizations to identify what God wants to do [with them] and proposes practical strategies on how to execute such plans’ (Capacitação 2018). The company also sells courses to prepare leaders, whether in churches or secular organizations— in their portfolios there are many modules to be personalized by the customers (Cursos de Capacitação 2018). A growing tendency in the leadership field is Christian Coaching, which has existed in the United States since the early 2000s and among Brazilian professionals and companies since the early 2010s. On one of these services’ websites, there’s a quote from Jack Welsh, the famous General Electric C.E.O. and best-selling leadership author: ‘In the future, all leaders will be coaches. S/He who won’t develop such ability, will be automatically discarded by the market’ (Act Coaching 2018). The fact that the quotation is displayed by a coaching company—Act Coaching—with texts on Christian Coaching, is indicative of how rapidly coaching is being appropriated by Christian professionals. According to the Institute of Christian Coaching, Christian coaching is a process of helping people develop, whose practices are based on biblical teachings. The relationship between coach and coachees is based on such virtues as love, humility, and sincerity. Many Brazilian Christian coaches are certified by the International Association of Christian Coaching and by the Federation of Coaching, US organizations that provide guidelines for the work of coaches. Will Christian coaching be the final frontier of the leadership programs—until another idea of authority or power becomes the new gospel? This is a new issue, to be followed by future studies.

Challenges in the studies on leadership, media, and religion The focus of this chapter was the analysis of discourses on and practices of leadership, based on representations of Jesus Christ as a very flexible role model, which inspires Christian and secular services of leadership skills’ improvement in the contemporary global and neoliberal economy, within a management culture. This is a typical case of an intricate relationship between religion, economy, and media, in which leadership content and messages are framed by mediatic experiences—in this case, the leadership lessons conveyed by self-help books and by different social practices, like the play, the training courses, the counselling, and coaching services, in both religious and secular instances. The Brazilian Evangelical field has always been influenced by its US Protestant and Pentecostal counterparts, consuming their media, as seen in the case of the leadership industry. Thomas Frank (2002) maintains that the discourse of leadership, especially servant leadership, is ambivalent: as it preaches being in the service of others, the churches and leaders who embrace it are usually committed to church growth—multiplying leaders and 38

‘The Greatest Leader of All’

members—which puts considerable pressure on them. Further studies must be conducted to explore the impact of leadership models on the dynamics of the churches, their leaders, and their flock. This chapter therefore complements Moberg’s chapter in this handbook, which analyzes a linked phenomenon in the likes of the churches’ responses to the marketization of religion. Yet more research is needed to fully assess the breadth and complexities of such a reconfiguration of religion due to marketization and neoliberalization as we go deeper into the processes of globalization. In addition, since the leadership culture is entangled with the neoliberalization of religion, and of society as a whole, how are non-Christian religions in Brazil and elsewhere responding to such trends? If leadership is worth studying and encouraging in the religious field, more than role models, various experiences of leadership should be analyzed as historical and social facts, with their contingencies and potentialities. One particular facet must be considered: the role of women in the religious field, usually underestimated by institutional hierarchies, but with constant activity in prayer circles, healing services, pastoral care, and community services. Not only in Brazil but in Latin America as a whole, in disenfranchised areas, women deal with the problems of poverty, violence, and gender inequality. Instead of looking at constructed role models, future leadership authors could bring real-life examples of challenging leadership, preferably with transnational comparisons. In the Brazilian case, the circulation of leadership initiatives explored in this chapter shows the intertwining of secular and religious notions of leadership as neoliberal capitalism unfolds. The appeal of religious figures like Jesus of Nazareth as role models serves the purposes of religious agents to provide ethical examples of leadership, but their readership is also burdened with the weight of responsibility of becoming a leader in every aspect of their lives. The example serves to show how religion is reformatted to cater to ethics (i.e., how individuals should behave, versus collective projects and morality) as well as inner-worldly versions of salvation (self-realization, health, wealth). In addition, it shows how neoliberalism shapes religion and also how religious figures such as Jesus are somewhat ‘naturally’ absorbed in neoliberalism-drenched cultures, thereby providing it with transcendent legitimation. Another challenge for the study of contemporary religion is the relationship between leadership principles and political activism—which Christian leadership role models are present in the agenda and the socioeconomic activity of Evangelical politicians and their supporters? This becomes pertinent as large sections of Brazilian Evangelicals have supported a neoliberal and populist politician such as Jair Bolsonaro, the Christian right-wing presidential candidate elected at the end of 2018. Another challenge is the investigation of the relationship between the concepts of poverty and wealth, and the religious narratives and solutions for social inequality and inequity in the global economy—what are the actual roles taken by Christian leaders, regardless of their theological differences, in the face of social and economic inequality? Given the sacralization of the market, or ‘capitalism as religion,’ as Walter Benjamin (Löwy 2009, pp. 60–73) put it, in contemporary global societies, how—and which— religious discourses and practices may confront the serious consequences of environmental and human degradation?

Acknowledgments I am deeply thankful to Dr. François Gauthier for the suggestions, additions, and careful editing, and to Dr. Bethany Lynn Letalien for the attentive revision. 39

Karina Kosicki Bellotti

References Act Coaching, 2018. Available from: www.actcoaching.com.br/. [Accessed 15 Apr 2018]. Anker, R., 1999. Self-Help and Popular Religion in Early American Culture: An Interpretive Guide (American Popular Culture) (vol. 1). Westport, CT: Greenwood. Barton, B., 1925. The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus. New York: Grosset-Dunlap/The Bobbs-Merrill Company. Boltanski, L. and Chiapello, E., 1999. Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme. Paris: Gallimard. Bellotti, K. K., 2016. The Religious Media and Visual Culture in Latin America. In: V. Burnett-Garrard, P. Freston, and S. C. Dove, eds., The Cambridge History of Religions in Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 451–461. Blanchard, K. and Hodges, P., 2005. Lead Like Jesus: Leadership Development for Every Day of the Year. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. Blanchard, K. and Johnson, S., 1982. The One Minute-Manager. New York: William Morrow and Company. Capacitação, 2018. Envisionar. Available from: www.envisionar.com/capacitacao/. [Accessed 21 Apr 2018]. Chesnut, R. A., 1997. Born Again in Brazil: The Pentecostal Boom and the Pathogens of Poverty. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Cohen, C. and Boyer, P., 2008. Religion and the Culture of Print in Modern America. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press. Curso EAD O Monge e o Executivo, 2018. Valoriza-te Desenvolvimento Humano. Available from: https://ead.omongeeoexecutivo.com.br/portfolio-item/programa-mdlap/. [Accessed 20 Apr 2018]. Cursos de Capacitação, 2018. Envisionar. Available from: www.envisionar.com/capacitacao/cursos/. [Accessed 20 Apr 2018]. Dawson, A., 2007. New Era – New Religion: Religious Transformation in Contemporary Brazil. Aldershot: Ashgate. Foucault, M., 2008. The Birth of Biopolitics – Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Frank, T. E., Spring 2002. The Discourse of Leadership and the Practice of Administration. Journal of Religious Leadership, l (1), 7–30. Freston, P., 2016. History, Current Reality, and Prospects of Pentecostalism in Latin America. In: V. Burnett-Garrard, P. Freston, and S. C. Dove, eds., The Cambridge History of Religions in Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 430–450. Gauthier, F., 2014. Religion, Media and the Dynamics of Consumerism in Globalising Societies. In: K. Granholm, M. Moberg, and S. Sjö, eds., Religion, Media, and Social Change. New York: Routledge, 71–88. Gauthier, F. and Marikainen, T., eds., 2016. Religion in Consumer Society: Brands, Consumers, and Markets. Farnham Ashgate. Gauthier, F., Woodhead, L., and Martikainen, T., 2013a. Introduction: Consumerism as the Ethos of Consumer Society. In: F. Gauthier and T. Martikainen, eds., Religion in Consumer Society: Brands, Consumers, and Markets. London: Routledge, 1–24. Gauthier, F., Martikainen, T., and Woodhead, L., 2013b. Introduction: Religion in Market Society. In: F. Gauthier and T. Martikainen, eds., Religion in the Neoliberal Age: Political Economy and Modes of Governance. London: Routledge, 1–18. Global Leadership Summit, 2018. Willow Creek Community Church. Available from: www.willow creek.com/events/leadership/. [Accessed 15 Apr 2018]. Goleman, D., 2005. Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ – 10th Anniversary Edition. New York: Bantam Books. Greenleaf, R. K., 1970. The Servant as Leader [Online]. Available from: www.leadershiparlington.org/ pdf/TheServantasLeader.pdf. [Accessed 15 Feb. 2016]. Horsfield, P., 1984. Religious Television: The American Experience. Harlow: Longman. Hunter, J. C., 2004. O monge e o executivo: uma história sobre a essência da liderança. Rio de Janeiro: Sextante. Hunter, J. C., 2014. De volta ao mosteiro. Rio de Janeiro: Sextante. IBGE (Brazilian Historical-Geographical Institute), 2010. Censo demográfico 2010. Características gerais da população, religião e pessoas com deficiência. Rio de Janeiro: IBGE. Illouz, E., 2007. Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism. [e-book]. Cambridge: Polity Press.

40

‘The Greatest Leader of All’

Jones, L. B., 1996. Jesus CEO – com Jesus no coração da empresa – usando a sabedoria milenar para uma liderança criativa. Rio de Janeiro: Ediouro. Löwy, M., 2009. Capitalism as Religion: Walter Benjamin and Max Weber. Historical Materialism, 17, 60–73. Lynch, G., Smith, J., and Strhan, A., eds., 2012. Religion, Media and Culture: A Reader. London and New York: Routledge. Meyer, D., 1988. The Positive Thinkers: Popular Religious Psychology from Mary Baker Eddy to Norman Vincent Peale and Ronald Reagan. Middletown, CO: Wesleyan University Press. Morgan, D., ed., 2008. Key-words in Religion, Media and Culture. New York and London: Routledge. Motta, P. R., 2011. Apostila MBA – FGV. Módulo Liderança e Inovação. Rio de Janeiro: FGV. Murdock, M., 1996. The Leadership Secrets of Jesus: 58 Wisdom Keys that Can Unleash the Greatest Miracles you’ve Ever Experienced. : MA: Wisdom International. O Monge e o Executivo, 2018. Valoriza-te Desenvolvimento Humano. Available from: https://omon geeoexecutivo.com.br/. [Accessed 20 Apr 2018]. Prothero, S., 2004. American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Rost, J. C., 1991. Leadership for the Twentieth-first Century. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. Sargeant, K. H., 2000. Seeker Churches: Promoting Traditional Religion in a Nontraditional Way. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Schmidt, B. and Engler, S., eds., 2016. Handbook of Contemporary Religions in Brazil. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Schneider, L. and Dornbusch, S. M., 1958. Popular Religion – Inspirational Books in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Skidmore, T., 1990. The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil (1964–1985). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smith, E. A., 2015. What Would Jesus Read? Popular Religious Books and Everyday Life in Twentieth-century America. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.

41

3 JPCC A megachurch brand story in Indonesia Jeaney Yip, Susan Ainsworth and Chang-Yau Hoon

Introduction Marketing is a ‘pervasive social activity’ that has been broadened beyond the commercial sector to reach once public, non-profit, welfare and religious institutions and organizations (Kotler and Levy 1969). The concept of ‘branded religion’ (Twitchell 2004; Zinkin 2004) reflects this spread of marketing with some arguing that religions are basically ‘faith brands’ (Einstein 2008) that compete in a spiritual marketplace. These faith brands are ‘spiritual products that have been given popular meaning and awareness through marketing’. Like consumer products, they are packaged and produced to appeal to consumer tastes, which can be reoriented to target specific audiences or market segments. However, we approach marketing as a set of practices and discourses that reflect, produce and constitute a particular kind of society (Brownlie and Saren 1997; Morgan 1992) and the markets, organizations, consumers and consumption objects within it. Thus, organizations that employ marketing practices, including religious ones, are also engaged in a process of constructing their own identities and those of the consumers they are targeting (Appadurai 1986; Gauthier, Woodhead and Martikainen 2013; Miller 1987). In this chapter we explore the effects of marketing discourse on a type of church that has experienced phenomenal growth in the Southeast Asian region, megachurches. Megachurches are Protestant congregations of more than 2,000 people (Thumma and Travis 2007), often Pentecostal and/or charismatic in origin or style, but many are increasingly moving towards a strategy of establishing their own brand. The megachurch phenomenon itself is socio-culturally constructed and embraces discourses of ‘Americanness’ (Ahdar 2006) with ideologies of freedom and liberal individualistic notions of a person’s choice of faith. This practice of branding churches is thriving in Southeast Asia, where it is intertwined with marketing. As a business function that is ubiquitous within consumer culture, marketing has permeated religion to operate within this sphere rather than separately from it. Branding is a marketing strategy, but it is also part of management practice (Schultz, Antorini and Csaba 2005). Through brands, organizations attempt to construct a unified, coherent version of their preferred identity to communicate to external and internal audiences. In order to be recognizable, a brand needs to be sufficiently familiar and similar

42

JPCC

to what is already known to be comprehensible. On the other hand, it needs to be distinct and differentiated in order to justify its existence. Branded organizations conceive everything they say and do as potential communicators of their identity, including organizational dimensions such as leadership, personnel, architecture and design, policies, practices, product information and so on (Christensen, Morsing and Cheney 2008). Seen in this way, branding is not simply a tool of the marketing department but fundamental to the construction and communication of corporate identity, capable of affecting all stakeholders (Kärreman and Rylander 2008). Megachurches are arguably ‘branded organizations,’ where the attempt is to brand the organization as one coherent integrated entity (Ind 1997), a recognizable archetype of ‘very large Protestant’ congregational church, yet also differentiated from others. In this chapter we explore the dynamics of church branding in a case study of a megachurch, Jakarta Praise Community Church (JPCC), based in the capital city of Indonesia and how it balances its international affiliation and outlook with culturally and geographically embedded identity that resonates with an upwardly mobile, urbanized middle class in the world’s largest Muslim nation.

Context, state of the art, concepts and methods Indonesia is a large country in terms of size and population (estimated 260 million people in 2017). It is the world’s fourth largest country by population and has the world’s largest Muslim majority population. Against the backdrop of ethnic diversity, rapid economic growth and modernization in recent years, Indonesia is the world’s 16th largest economy according to McKinsey (www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/asia-pacific/the-archipelagoeconomy) and its recent growth has been predominantly fuelled by consumption due to increasing income as opposed to exporting and manufacturing. This increase in consumption is fertile ground for marketers targeting growth for their businesses. In this context of rapid economic development and expansion of consumer markets, megachurches are experiencing phenomenal growth in Indonesia (Hoon 2013). Megachurches are often Pentecostal in orientation, a non-denominational movement that emphasizes the gift of the Holy Spirit, miracles and certain spiritual experiences, particularly among young people and those aspiring to upwards social and economic mobility. They typically deliver lively worship through contemporary music and media technologies and feature dynamic preachers who convey bite-sized Christian messages that aim to address the practical daily needs of the audience. Furthermore, the Pentecostal work ethic and faith practices resonate with the norms and behaviors of post-industrial capitalism, in particular with the demands of neoliberal economies. Barker (2007) argues that the ‘prosperity gospel’ constituting the crux of many Pentecostal churches filters all economic experiences and material well-being through the spiritual lens of faith and miracles. According to this type of theology, the accumulation of capital is seen as a sign of blessings from God that ought to be celebrated, and they have a ‘cultural mandate’ to bring Christianity into the marketplace and offer churchgoers promises of self-development, prosperity and material growth (Pahl 2003). Pentecostal and Charismatic megachurches in urban Indonesia are correspondingly a ‘faith of an emergent middle class’ because their practices are able to tap into the aspirations for upward mobility (Chong 2015, p. 218). As well as class, megachurch growth in Indonesia has important ethnic and geographical characteristics. They primarily cater to an urbanized churchgoer, particularly well-to-do Chinese Indonesians. For example, Jakarta is home to the largest number of ethnic Chinese compared to other cities in Indonesia and more than 43

Jeaney Yip et al.

40 percent of the Chinese Indonesian population are Christian. A majority of Chinese Indonesians are middle class and above (Ananta et al. 2015), including the propensity for the Chinese to be ‘rich’ (Chua 2004, p. 476). It is deeply embedded in perceptions (Koning 2018) that the entrepreneurial ‘rich Chinese’ in Indonesia go to churches that promote personal success and multitude blessings, a trend also observed in nearby Malaysia and Singapore (Koning and Dahles 2009). This reflects a multitude of factors including the marginalization of the Chinese minority identity in Malaysia and Indonesia and political forces shaping their orientation towards trade and commerce in these countries. According to Koning (2018), Chinese Indonesians play a major role in leadership, membership and support contributing to growth in numbers in megachurches in Indonesia. Like their counterparts in Singapore (Yip and Ainsworth 2015), many megachurches have made a strategic choice of using a commercial rather than a religious facility such as a shopping mall, in order to bypass the onerous licensing requirements. Under the 2006 Joint Regulation of the Minister of Religious affairs and the Minister for Internal Affairs, in order to construct a place of worship, applicants need to obtain letters of recommendation from various officials and written consent from 90 members of the congregation and at least 60 members of the local community of another religion. In the absence of strong state institutions, acquiring such permits is often subject to negotiation with politico-bureaucrats who use them as a method of rent-seeking (McLeod 2010). The application for a legal permit often involves certain forms of routinized corruption, such as bribery of state officials and paying local residents for their signatures. Hence, a branded church operating in a mall in Indonesia is not just an example of religion embracing market logic (Chong 2015) but also a response to the context-specific restrictions and regulation of religion. Shopping malls provide excellent security and protection from vandalism and mob attack, as well as the convenience of a one-stop location where church members can worship, shop and dine (Gudorf 2012). While there is an existing body of literature within marketing and business that regards religious organizations as operating in a spiritual ‘market’ (Miller 2002; Zinkin 2004), our approach adopts a different orientation. Rather than seeing marketing as merely a set of actions and processes undertaken by organizations to increase customer satisfaction, brand awareness and market share, we understand marketing as a discourse and the ‘market’ as a social construction, not a pre-existing objective entity. If marketing is treated as a discourse, it becomes possible to analyze and critique the ways in which it structures, organizes, shapes and constructs markets, consumers and organizations rather than simply accepting its pervasiveness as an extension of applicability across contexts. From a discourse perspective, the market is a concept constructed by human actors who draw upon familiar ideologies and discourses. This discourse is a social process that is based on relationships and constructions that are based on the market logic. When this logic gets transferred to a context not previously involved with the market, the result is marketized discourse (Mautner 2010). Fairclough (1992) originally described this as restructuring the order of discourse based on the model of the market, an effect of marketization on discursive practices. Marketization gives rise to practices such as the sale of products and services, advertising the brand, scripting sermons with messages other than Christian theology, selecting groups of customers to cater to, and all other activities that traditionally would not have been involved in a ‘non-marketing’ context such as a church. In turn, the marketization of religion produces a subject position for the believer that incorporates consumerism, appealing to their aspirational ideals. However, there has been little analysis of the actual 44

JPCC

processes of marketization by which a church brand is constructed and even less in nonWestern contexts. Accordingly, we focus on how JPCC discursively constructs its church brand, specifically focusing on strategies the church deploys. Two authors conducted field observation in 2012, 2013 and 2017 while a collection of the church’s artefacts (music, sermons, books, church newsletters) comprised the dataset from 2007–2017 which informed the analysis of this chapter.

The JPCC brand story For Twitchell (2004, p. 24), ‘brands are made to be consumed and witnessed.’ While Christianity is a belief system, JPCC is a brand. Often dubbed as gereja orang kaya (church for rich people) and gereja artis (church for celebrities), JPCC constructs its brand using twin strategies of affiliation and mirroring, and translation. Both of these reflect transnational networks among megachurches in the region, particularly the relationship with the Australian-based Hillsong Church. Here, ‘strategy’ is taken to mean a plan of action with varying degrees of elaborateness and intentionality that is realized in various practices in the discursive construction of a brand identity (cf. De Cillia, Reisigl and Wodak 1999). JPCC started in 1996 as a ‘small prayer meeting’ with 10 people (www.jpcc.org/en/our_s tory.html). With humble beginnings in Jakarta, JPCC now draws a 12,000 congregation in two church venues. One of the venues is on the top floor of a shopping mall, Kota Kasablanka, while the other is in Wisma Nusantara as part of the annexe of the Pullman Hotel located in the central business district of Jakarta. The church arguably competes with shopping and must appeal to the middle class and its aspirations. Consistent with megachurches worldwide, JPCC is very much driven by the vision and personality of its senior pastor, Jeffrey Rachmat. As founder, he is the church’s senior pastor and was educated in the Netherlands. Another senior associate pastor, Jose Carol, joined the church in 1999 after having lived and worked in Germany for 14 years. In their account of JPCC’s history, Rachmat and Carol claim it belongs to a denomination called the Jemaat Kristen Indonesia (JKI). JKI denominationally emerged out of the Anabaptist and Mennonite traditions (www.jpcc.org/en/our_story.html). However, JPCC in its brand story development and growth neither affiliates nor identifies with this origin and openly claims it is ‘nondenominational’ (Live in Kharismatic JPCC 2014). The church added Sidney Mohede to its leadership team as the church’s network pastor, who is also the creative director of the church’s worship and was educated in the United States. These ‘Western educated’ pastors contribute to the construction of a church brand that is modern, befitting its location in Jakarta. JPCC sees itself very much as a church for the city of Jakarta and does not have intentions of ‘church planting’ or expanding to other cities. Although Indonesia is a non-English speaking nation, in Jakarta, English is often used and mixed with local languages (Tanu 2014). However, the manner and extent of English use varies with style and class. JPCC mainly uses English in its music and preaching signifying their alignment with modernity, ‘Westernism’ and upward class mobility. The church audience is predominantly young, mainly in their late teens and 20s to 30s, with few older than 50 years of age. Dress is informal and yet stylish while branded fashionable handbags are common among women. Pastors also dress either fashionably hip with leather and denim jackets, or corporate looking suited up, but always looking modern and highly presentable. JPCC is the only South East Asian (the rest are predominantly U.S. churches) counterpart with an affiliation to Hillsong Church, based in Sydney, arguably the largest non-denominational 45

Jeaney Yip et al.

megachurch from Australia whose worship music is sung globally. Hillsong itself has expanded directly into 20 countries under its own Hillsong brand and has widespread international connections and a music label that is distributed globally. Interestingly, in 2017, Hillsong opened a branch in Bali directly under its brand and leadership. This was Hillsong’s first ‘Asian’ expansion following rapid widespread growth in Europe, the United States, the UK, Latin America, South Africa and even Israel. Bali is a tropical island which is Hindu majority (rather than Muslim), but also a popular holiday destination for Australians. Hillsong has traditionally focused on ‘Western’ markets in growing its brand (its first overseas expansion was the UK) and tightly manages its brand expansion strategy which assures consistency, coherence and amplification of its church brand in both global and local settings. JPCC, rather than being a direct subsidiary of Hillsong or its local base, however, is part of a transnational network of like-minded churches, led by Hillsong. This is constructed by Hillsong as belonging to a ‘family’ of churches and people, whose members are free and autonomous but ‘belong’ together in relationships of reciprocal support and shared vision: The HILLSONG FAMILY is a group of like-spirited, forward thinking, kingdombuilding visionaries and ministries working TOGETHER for a greater cause. This group of churches and ministries are joining our ‘FAMILY’ in an effort to develop and strengthen one another—a family relationship in which to find wisdom and encouragement, spiritual accountability and support as they continue to build the church and ministry that God has uniquely called them to do. This is not the foundation or beginnings of a Hillsong ‘denomination’, nor are they ‘Hillsong Churches’. The spirit behind the HILLSONG FAMILY is empowering rather than controlling; with each of the churches listed below maintaining their own name, autonomy and identity. In trying to express what this looks like—we are simply formalizing a relationship that has already been communicated through culture, behaviour and word . . . These churches see Hillsong as their primary, but certainly not their only relationship or family. (quoted from https://hillsong.com/family/about-hillsong-family/) Hillsong’s size and market dominance in both music and church practice has resulted in many smaller churches attempting to emulate what they perceive as a successful role model. However, Hillsong’s formal recognition of some as part of their ‘family’ bestows legitimacy and market recognition on affiliates such as JPCC. This is not part of a co-branding exercise: JPCC is not branded as Hillsong-JPCC but has a separate place-based identity. Nevertheless, JPCC’s progress and development mirrors Hillsong in delivery, style and practices while translating this model for its local context. In this way, JPCC relies on its affiliation and familiarity with the Hillsong model to be successful. This includes using standardized and ‘well-proven’ methods of church practices from Hillsong such as producing an in-house music label, organizing annual, themed conferences and musicals, drawing international speakers from a global (often Hillsong) network, merchandising what is preached and crafting sermons for practical living with diluted theological underpinnings as well as featuring successful, highly presentable leaders and worshippers on stage. It regularly draws on guest speakers/pastors internationally, infusing sermons with popular culture anecdotes, humour, role-playing and the use of props on stage similar to a talk show which reconstructs a sermon to be more a form of entertainment rather than about teaching biblical theology. With sermon titles such as ‘A Better You,’ ‘Look Up,’ ‘Love Yourself,’ ‘You are Blessed,’ ‘Personal Freedom,’ ‘Living Large,’ ‘The Power of Influence,’ ‘The Secret of Building 46

JPCC

a Healthy Relationship,’ ‘Overflow,’ ‘God Wants You to Prosper,’ JPCC’s sermons promote a sense of pragmatism, a positive psychology peppered with bible verses which provide theological legitimacy. JPCC has been producing worship music since its first album launch in 1997. Under the label of True Worshippers led by Sidney Mohede, its worship pastor, they rebranded to JPCC Worship in 2011 for communication consistency and to signify that music production was synonymous with the church. Like Hillsong then, JPCC has achieved brand awareness as a church because of its music. Hillsong partnered with JPCC in its global music project in 2012 where albums are produced by translating Hillsong songs into local languages. JPCC was also one of the ‘stops’ as part of the Hillsong Worship Asia Tour in 2015. Apart from music production, JPCC operates an active women’s ministry very similar to Hillsong’s Colour Sisterhood and an annual themed conference called Treasures Women which glamorizes women empowerment in a glossy, fairy tale-like tone. The women’s ministry is led by the senior pastor’s wife, Angela Rachmat, and Hanna Carol (Jose Carol’s wife) who are both highly visible and active on Instagram (www.instagram.com/hchanna carol/?hl=en), posting pictures of pretty images, fashion, holiday pictures in Europe and exotic destinations and makan cantik (a cultural phenomenon rampant in Jakarta as a form of aesthetic eating where the intention is to be seen dining in fine and beautiful settings for the purposes of social media posting), all displays of glamorous, upper class lifestyles. Indonesians are one of the biggest users of social media (Jurriens and Tapsell 2017). In 2016, Indonesia had 76 million Facebook users, which is the fourth highest in the world, while Jakarta is being called the ‘most active city on Twitter’ (Lipman 2012). This form of visibility (physically and through social media) displays the flamboyancy of orang kaya baru (literally New Rich People in Indonesian). The pastors and their wives use social media to promote church-related events, but also they construct a public imaginary of their personal life. For example, Sidney Mohede, the church’s creative director and network pastor, has over 380,000 Twitter followers, a 300,000+ Facebook community and millions who have viewed his (and JPCC’s) YouTube performances (www.hallels.com/articles/12701/20150326/ sidney-mohede-shares-about-his-work-with-the-indonesian-church-darlene-zschech-israelhoughton-and-his-new-ep.htm). Photos of the pastors, their wives and families, celebrations such as birthdays and anniversaries, fine dining and holidays are prolific posts to elicit envy, as a form of invidious consumption. This is evidenced by the comments and responses to these posts. Through postings of positive and beautiful moments (church and personal), these visuals contribute towards the brand’s image in positioning itself as a progressive, dynamic and relevant church with leaders who lead successful, happy lives worthy of emulating. This regular visualization of success, positive appearances, beautiful settings is paramount towards brand building. Social media is also a central way the church promotes its ‘mega event’ spectaculars. Mimicking Brian and Bobbie Houston (senior pastors of Hillsong), who are also active on social media, megachurches such as JPCC and Hillsong aptly uses social media marketing in drawing their transnational ‘consumers’ to its brand and personalities. Like Hillsong, JPCC stages, packages and produces musical spectaculars (with an entryfee) such as Bun cerita dari Shangkarta and Goodbye Monotown. Christmas musicals performed by JPCC’s Performing Arts ministry (similar to Hillsong) are also part of their regular practice in supporting the spectacularization strategy. As JPCC produces and markets its own brand of church along with its merchandise, this practice is guided by the market discourse that not only elevates the sovereignty of the consumer but transforms church practice into a business-like operation that continuously produces according to market conditions. While the church service is constructed through performance that enhances the experiential aspects 47

Jeaney Yip et al.

of the ‘product,’ the church actually employs standardization practices in ‘packaging the product’ as every service is audio-recorded in order to be sold straight after each service. Given the size of the megachurch and due to the multiple church services on any given weekend, there is standardization and homogenization of structure that serves two purposes for the church. First, the standardization processes allow the church to package and market the production of its offerings whether they are church services or corporate artefacts such as its music or books. Second, the standardization conditions its consumers to become quickly familiar with the JPCC way of experiencing church as the structure of the service is not liturgical—there is no order of service printed or published, but churchgoers come to know what to expect from their previous experience of the church. A sign of ‘belonging’ to JPCC is therefore familiarity with its particular approach to staging worship, knowing what to do and when. JPCC therefore encourages repeat consumption, which is part of the marketing discourse that, on the one hand, promotes brand loyalty, but on the other, requires continued effort to ensure it occurs. JPCC achieves this through its retail operations, Insight Limited, where it sells its in-house produced church merchandise (books, packaged sermons) including other items such as fashion clothing, home furnishings, accessories and gift items. Through the Hillsong family and the increasing awareness of its own JPCC brand, the church relies on transnational networks to modernize its church services. Its speaking circuit has included ‘Western’ pastors (predominantly U.S.) such as A.R. Bernard, Rick Goodwin, Paul Scanlon, Holly Wagner, Lisa Bevere, Robbi Sonderger, Casey Treat, Paul de Jong, among others often drawn from the Hillsong network. Likewise, Jeffrey Rachmat has reciprocally spoken in Hillsong congregations. Bringing in Western pastors to its Jakarta services legitimizes JPCC as an international church brand and constructs an ‘imaginary’ for its churchgoers that they are connected to a global, transnational network. This further aligns with class aspirations of the emerging Indonesian consumers yearning for Western modernity and its associated developments. We argue that JPCC is using twin strategies to construct its own brand of church: mirroring and affiliating (with Hillsong) as well as translating the Hillsong model in a way that resonates with its Indonesian context and supports its brand story of being an indigenous, place-based megachurch. The similarities between JPCC and Hillsong are many: they both literally perform their brand identity through their approaches to worship, relying heavily on popular culture genres in their services, spectaculars and events. The use of popular music in JPCC’s church services deliberately aims to combine enjoyment and worship. In other words, it is part of the church’s practice to orchestrate, incorporate, script, produce and perform in ways with content that constructs enjoyment for the audience. However, the emulation of the Hillsong model takes on a different inflection because of their relationship as part of the Hillsong ‘family’: JPCC can claim affiliation in a way that gives its mirroring of Hillsong’s approach greater legitimacy and meaning. They can claim a similarity of outlook and approach without being derivative of, or subordinate to, the Australian-based Hillsong. At the same time, because of the unique and complex cultural setting, mere emulation of Hillsong would not be workable—it requires translation and adaptation to resonate with churchgoers in Jakarta. This allows it to maintain a sense of distinct, geographically embedded identity—a different source of legitimacy. Like identity, brands can be thought of as a dynamic set of processes continually constructed through ongoing interactions and relationships between self and others (cf. Hatch and Schultz 2002, p. 991). In the case of JPCC and its relationship with Hillsong, these processes are used to accomplish the essential components of brand identity: establishing sufficient similarity and familiarity to be recognizable; and achieving sufficient 48

JPCC

difference from alternatives, both local and global, to appeal to consumers. The two strategies used by JPCC to construct its brand story—mirroring and affiliating on the one hand and translating on the other—are each important but also intertwined. Both strategies marshal different sources of legitimacy: recognition and validation by a global leader and membership of a transnational network of megachurches that appeals to the aspirational, upwardly mobile consumer; as well as local, culturally-specific and place-based credibility that develops from its own brand story as an indigenous Indonesian megachurch.

Conclusion and future research JPCC’s brand story operates and thrives in a politically and socio-culturally complex context where Christianity is a minority religion. By disassociating with any denominations, JPCC navigated established norms surrounding denominational churches and instead constructed its brand, drawing on the model of Hillsong. It pragmatically mixes practices and ideologies that combine the most attractive facets of charismatic worship style, the prosperity teachings of Pentecostalism, the modernity of ‘Western’ speaking and speakers and the currency of consumer culture in constructing a ‘relevant’ brand that is engaging to the yearnings of urban middle-class Indonesians. Affirming what Cornelio (2008) labels as ‘postdenominational,’ we suggest that JPCC is a ‘new paradigm church’ that aspires to be more market-friendly rather than seeking or demonstrating allegiance to any denomination. Instead, the international and transnational networks fulfil a more strategic objective of guaranteeing success, growth as well as contributing to its brand appeal. JPCC constructs a church brand that is synonymous with lively music, relevant and familiar ‘feel good’ inspirational messages and offer an attractive one-stop shop for wellbeing. This strategy ensures that the offerings are not only different from traditional (especially denominational) churches but contemporarily appealing. Through discursive processes of mirroring and affiliating (with Hillsong) as well as translating the model for a Jakarta based context, JPCC locates itself in relation to transnational networks and middleclass aspirations of the ‘good life.’ This brand is constructed for competitive circulation and its practices and artefacts designed to appeal to current consumer ideals and class aspirations that reflect segments of the population in its particular geographical location. Our case study suggests a range of areas for future research. Firstly, the megachurch is a form of religious organization that is international, and was popularized in the United States. However, it has been reconstructed in diverse cultural contexts around the globe. Future studies could explore how megachurches mobilize different sources of legitimacy. In this regard, it would be interesting to explore how megachurches whose brand is strongly anchored in a particular place deal with questions of internationalization. Secondly, internationalization can take many forms. This account of JPCC illustrates how important transnational networks are to the growth and identity of religious organizations. In particular, it is important to explore how the relationship between organizations is constructed in public communication as the meaning of brand and identity is relational in nature. Thirdly, rather than being denominational or liturgy-oriented religious organizations, megachurches such as JPCC are pastor-focused. Future research could explore the dynamics of leadership within megachurches and how ‘the way leadership is done’ (Guthey, Clark and Jackson 2009) varies between and within cultural contexts. Here the concept of the ‘human brand’ (Thomson 2006) could be useful in understanding the centrality of pastors to the marketing of ministries, their products and services. JPCC is of course only one of several branded churches in Indonesia that are thriving. Comparative studies could investigate the range of similarity and variation in megachurches within this complex and dynamic environment. 49

Jeaney Yip et al.

References Ahdar, R., 2006. The Idea of ‘Religious Markets’. International Journal of Law in Context, 2 (1), 49–65. Ananta, A., et al., 2015. Demography of Indonesia’s Ethnicity. Singapore: ISEAS Publishing. Appadurai, A., 1986. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barker, I.V., 2007. Charismatic Economies: Pentecostalism, Economic Restructuring, and Social Reproduction. New Political Science, 29 (4), 407–427. Bartels, R., 1962. The Development of Marketing Thought. Homewood: Irwin. Brownlie, D. and Saren, M., 1997. Beyond the One-dimensional Marketing Manager: The Discourse of Theory, Practice and Relevance. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 14 (2), 147–161. Chong, T., 2015. Megachurches in Singapore: The Faith of an Emergent Middle Class. Pacific Affairs, 88 (2), 215–235. Christensen, L.T., Morsing, M., and Cheney, G., 2008. Corporate Communications: Convention, Complexity, and Critique. London: Sage. Chua, C., 2004. Defining Indonesian Chineseness under the New Order. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 34 (4), 465–479. Cornelio, J.S., 2008. New Paradigm Christianity and Commitment-formation: The Case of Hope Filipino (Singapore). In: A. Day, ed. Religion and the Individual: Belief, Practice and Identity. Hampshire and Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 65–77. De Cillia, R., Reisigl, M., and Wodak, R., 1999. The Discursive Construction of National Identities. Discourse Society, 10 (2), 149–172. Einstein, M., 2008. Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age. Oxon: Routledge. Ellingson, S., 2013. Packaging Religious Experience, Selling Modular Religion: Explaining the Emergence and Expansion of Megachurches. In: F. Gauthier and T. Martikainen, eds. Religion in Consumer Society. New York: Routledge, 54–73. Fairclough, N., 1992. Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press. Gauthier, F., Woodhead, L., and Martikainen, T., 2013. Introduction: Consumerism as the Ethos of Consumer Society. In: F. Gauthier and T. Martikainen, eds. Religion in Consumer Society. New York: Routledge, 1–26. Gudorf, C.E., 2012. Religion, Law and Pentecostalism in Indonesia. Pneuma, 34, 57–74. Guthey, E., Clark, T., and Jackson, B., 2009. Demystifying Business Celebrity. London and New York: Routledge. Hatch, M. J. and Schultz, M., 2002. The Dynamics of Organizational Identity. Human Relations, 55 (8), 989–1018. Heilbrunn, B., 2006. Brave New Brands: Cultural Branding between Utopia and A-topia. In: J. E. Schroeder and M. Salzer-Morling, eds. Brand Culture. Oxon: Routledge, 103–117. Hoon, C.Y., 2013. Between Evangelism and Multiculturalism: The Dynamics of Protestant Christianity in Indonesia. Social Compass, 60 (4), 457–470. Ind, N., 1997. The Corporate Brand. London: Macmillan. Jurriens, E. and Tapsell, R., 2017. Challenges and Opportunities of the Digital ‘Revolution’ in Indonesia. In: E. Jurriens and R. Tapsell, eds.. Digital Indonesia: Connectivity and Divergence. Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 1–18. Kärreman, D. and Rylander, A., 2008. Managing Meaning through Branding – The Case of a Consulting Firm. Organization Studies, 29 (1), 103–125. Koning, J., 2018. Chinese Indonesians: Businesses, Ethnicity and Religion. In: R.W. Hefner, ed. Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Indonesia. Oxon: Routledge, 177–186. Koning, J. and Dahles, H., 2009. Spiritual Power: Ethnic Chinese Managers and the Rise of Charismatic Christianity in Southeast Asia. Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies, 27 (1), 5–37. Kotler, P. and Levy, S.J., 1969. Broadening the Concept of Marketing. Journal of Marketing, 33 (1), 10–15. Lipman, V., 2012. The World’s Most Active Twitter City? You Won’t Guess It. Forbes, 30 December. Available from www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2012/12/30/the-worlds-most-active-twittercity-you-wont-guess-it/#5e7ba6b655c6, (accessed 1 May 2018). Live in Kharismatic 2014 JPCC, 2014. Program Kemitraan PKN dengan Gerakan Karismatic (Neo)-Karismatik. Available from http://kharismatik-indonesia.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/live-inkharismatik-2014.html, (accessed 3 May 2018). Mautner, G., 2010. Language and the Market Society. New York: Routledge.

50

JPCC

McLeod, R.H., 2010. Institutionalized Public Sector Corruption: A Legacy of the Suharto Franchise. In: E. Aspinall and G. van Klinken, eds. The State and Illegality in Indonesia. Leiden: KITLV Press, 45–64. Miller, D., 1987. Material Culture and Mass Consumption. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Miller, K.D., 2002. Competitive Strategies of Religious Organizations. Strategic Management Journal, 23, 435–456. Morgan, G., 1992. Marketing Discourse and Practice: Towards a Critical Analysis. In: M. Alvesson and H. Willmott, eds. Critical Management Studies. London: Sage, 136–158. Ostwaldt, C., 2003. Secular Steeples: Popular Culture and the Religious Imagination. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International. Pahl, J., 2003. Shopping Malls and Other Sacred Places: Putting God in Place. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock. Roof, W.C., 1999. Spiritual Marketplace; Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Schultz, M., Antorini, Y.M., and Csaba, F.F., 2005. Corporate Branding: Purpose/People/Process. Denmark: Copenhagen Business School Press. Tanu, D., 2014. Becoming ‘International: The Cultural Reproduction of the Local Elite at an International School in Indonesia. Southeast Asia Research, 22 (4), 579–596. Thomson, M., 2006. Human Brands: Investigating Antecedents to Consumers’ Strong Attachment to Celebrities. Journal of Marketing, 70 (July), 104–119. Thumma, S. and Travis, D., 2007. Beyond Megachurch Myths. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Twitchell, J.B., 2004. Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch, College Inc., and Museumworld. New York: Simon & Schuster. Yip, J. and Ainsworth, S., 2015. Do Business till He Comes: The Business of Housing God in Singapore Megachurches. Pacific Affairs, 88 (2), 237–257. Zinkin, J., 2004. The Roman Catholic Church as a Case Study in Global Branding. The International Journal of Applied Marketing, 3 (1), 145–167.

51

4 Rebranding the soul Rituals for the well-made man in market society Anne-Christine Hornborg

Introduction In 2003–2007 I received funding to do research in the field of ritual studies, which was an eye opener for me. Methods focusing on the process of turning a performance into a fullscale embodied experience give new ways of analyzing formalized practices. Also, the diversity of rituals opens up new exciting ways of applying ritual theories and methods in analyzing contemporary society (Bell 1997, pp. 258, 266–267; Collins 1998, p. 1; Grimes 2014, pp. 189–193). The variety of rituals allows us to find both formalized actions without commitment on the part of their participants and those with intense emotional dedication (Merton 1957, p. 131). For example, liturgical rituals can be performed as a routine, without embracing the theology embedded in them (Rappaport 1999, p. 117). Rituals may also challenge power and provide opportunities for building new identities (Grimes 1996, p. xiii). This can be done by taking part in a meaning-creating drama (Geertz 1973, p. 11). Thus rituals can play important roles in contexts that we usually do not identify as religious, which compelled me in the beginning of the 2000s to focus on a manifold of ritualized healing and coaching practices in contemporary Sweden. These practices were not performed within traditional medicine or the church. How do we explain the emergence of these practices? And how are they to be classified? The practitioners avoided such concepts as religion, rituals and soul and preferred spirituality, techniques and ‘the inner potential.’ One explanation for the need to design new rituals can be found in the restructuring processes in society. Research and statistics (SCB 2004) on sick leave and illness in Sweden show that many do not feel particularly well, despite the Swedish welfare system. The neoliberal policy in the 1990s opened up opportunities for private entrepreneurship in education and health care which were formerly under state funding and now demanded the worker to be productive and produce profit. This resulted in stress-related problems. New public management called for the need to develop the ‘human inner capital’ in order to sell oneself as a creative, innovative worker. Restructuring of workplaces, especially in health care and schools, affected primarily the health of women who are in the majority of these sectors, and where the new requirements for efficiency are

52

Rebranding the soul

more difficult to implement due to the nature of the work (SCB 2004; Theorell 2006, p. 19; Hornborg 2012a, p. 158). These structural changes gave birth to new practices. Firstly, entrepreneurs found niches where they marketed solutions to various problems generated in the 1990s. Employers invited these entrepreneurs to their workplaces since they offered activities that would improve results and foster a better working environment. Secondly, the practices did not challenge societal structures, but instead taught individuals to find personal ways of handling their shortcomings.

Designing rituals for a new soul How are formalized practices designed and a new concept of soul introduced in order to create the well-made person in market society? Market society is a global phenomenon, in which everything is possible to convert into money and business, including buying enchanted rituals for new personas. Thus the process of ‘marketization’ also embraces everyday life, which has implications for shaping religious ideas and identities. In analyzing the design of new, market-adapted practices, adopting methods in the field of ritual studies is useful (Hornborg 2012d). By focusing on the ‘ritual language’ and how intense emotions and feelings of transformation are created through performances, I saw similarities in how Pentecostal preachers and world-leading coaches like Anthony Robbins have consciously integrated ritual acts in their preaching. In these acts, happiness and feelings of fulfillment are highlighted, a state of mind which Abraham Maslow (1964) has described as ‘peak experience’ (Robbins markets himself as a ‘Peak Performer Strategist’). The new practices also reveal a clear secular prosperity theology with conversion narratives about a new, better life, including evangelistic messages for the salvation of people. In the 1990s some of the lay therapists also offered life coaching that would be marketed just as coaching. The major breakthrough in Sweden for coaching was the government’s big investment in job coaching in 2009, when three billion (SEK) were allocated in three years to coach the unemployed to find jobs. Society now needed job coaches, school coaches, yoga or mindfulness instructors who would use suitable practices to lead the unemployed, the teacher, the student, or the burnt-out individual to work out different strategies to find a job, foster a better learning environment, or be more creative and self-fulfilled at work. Clifford Geertz writes (1973, p. 11) that rituals are partly models of and for society, where the individual in the practices combines the cognitive worldview with the more ethical and emotional aspects (ethos). By dramatizing performances, participants feel engaged in the rituals. The first question thus concerns rituals analyzed here as models of society: How do they reflect society so that they feel ‘natural’ to perform? The second question concerns rituals as models for society: What visions are built into these practices to give participants hopes and intense feelings of renewal? How is branding a new concept of the soul performed?

Models of society and new forms of secular religion A prerequisite for introducing layman therapy and coaching is that there must be an openness to these practices. Frank Furedi (2004) describes today’s society as a ‘therapy society’ and it has become fashionable and natural to talk about oneself. This is enhanced by media with programs hosted by Doctor Phil and Oprah Winfrey and soap operas or selfhelp literature which put the individual in focus. The therapeutic talks on television have an 53

Anne-Christine Hornborg

effect on viewers who read their own problems into the life stories of others. The boundaries between private and public are dissolved. Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms further contribute to this process. The new rituals are modelled after this therapeutic society and today’s popular mindfulness practice is one example of how an Asian tradition (sati) is disembedded from one context and globally transformed and embedded in Western therapeutic practice (Hornborg 2014). The school is an example: Take control of your autopilot (discovering your inner freedom), Managing stress and worries . . . 10 minutes a day [with mindfulness] can change your life, mindfulness in the classroom (help students to deal with stress and worries). (fowelin.com, my translation, the target group is ‘All educational and other staff, and from preschool to high school’) On the companies’ websites former consumers act as advertisers for the products: ‘It’s great to hear staff say that they’ve become much calmer in using the methods from the mindfulness course. Just think of how such simple methods can deliver such fast and visible results’ (ibid., stated by a principal and purchaser of the course above, my translation). Advertisements promise individual redemption by offering solutions: You’ve lost the joy, the driving force and all the energy you had when you started working as a teacher . . . We help you find a working structure and provide tools for creating frames for your teaching. (reimer-coaching.se, my translation) The individual shall be creative and innovative both at work and in private life. It is no longer desirable to distinguish the private from the public. The goal is to be ‘authentic’ and ‘genuine,’ but how does this reflect the values in society? Although promising the birth of the ‘authentic me,’ the question is whether these performances only design a similar personality for all. If so, it is a model of the neoliberal persona, needed to be successful in contemporary society. We will now analyze the different characteristics of the practices that rebrand the soul.

Characteristics of the new modern rituals The first feature of the new rituals is that they clearly put the individual in focus. We can therefore classify them as individual-centered rituals (or performance-centered, Humphrey and Laidlaw 1994, p. 8), which are less regulated than the liturgical ones. Catherine Bell describes that today’s society focuses on the individual, influences the ritual style and analyzes this category of rituals as practices where ‘doctrines and ethical teaching are downplayed in favor of language that stresses highly personal processes of transformation, realization, and commitment’ (1997, pp. 189–190; see also Hornborg 2012a, p. 99, 2012b). We can see examples of this in companies’ advertisements: ‘The process is designed to suit your particular life situation’ (ninahallberg.com, my translation). A second characteristic is that rituals should realize the inner self. The soul is under construction, which means that it has an inner potential that needs to be unlocked through rituals. Cecilie Eriksen characterizes this thought figure as ‘spiritual essentialism,’ which she defines as ‘an innate inner divine core that we should find the way to and develop’ (2007, 54

Rebranding the soul

p. 81, my translation). Human life is seen as the result of a constant ‘fall from grace.’ From birth, a moment loaded with positive energy, the individual will further on create a ‘false self’ that causes suffering. Through introspection and guided journeys into the inner self, the individuals will find their essence for healing and defeat destructive powers. A coaching company expresses this as follows: ‘We will help you to find your inner passion and driving force that will make you reach the goal you want’ (springes.se, my translation). Indeed ‘potential’ is a constantly recurring key concept: Developing their inner potential gives enormous power and joy in life. It also creates a sense of trust and meaning . . . Coaching is about development, and that the company or school invests in helping the employee to find and use his or her full potential for the benefit of the company. (coachfalck.se, my translation)

A religious or spiritual practice or just a technique? Branding the soul in market society as the ‘inner force,’ ‘potential,’ or ‘authentic me,’ raises an important question. Is this designing of the soul performed as a religious or spiritual practice? Or is it just as a technique? Since there has been an intense debate in Sweden whether secular events – like school exams – can be performed in churches, questions have also been raised by some as to why it is allowed to introduce Asian traditions like yoga, which might be classified as a religious ritual, in the classroom. Therefore, a group in 2012 asked the Swedish authority for schools (Skolinspektionen) to consider yoga a religious practice, and demanded that it should not be performed in the secular classroom (dagen.se 2012). But Skolinspektionen answered (2012-10-23) that this way of performing yoga was not a religious practice, but a technique that taught pupils to focus to improve their health and well-being. The new practices are rarely classified as religious among practicing entrepreneurs, but rather often as spiritual. One entrepreneur asserts that ‘for me spirituality and religion are two, sometimes totally different phenomena. Spirituality dwells everywhere and is certainly not synonymous with Christianity, Islam, Hinduism or any other of our world religion’ (tommypalarsson.se, my translation). The references to spirituality could be a way to market courses to the workplace, since spirituality is often discussed and defined by the practitioners as a universal endeavor. It unites humanity. By contrast, religions are cultural manifestations that separate people and even become a source of conflicts (Hornborg 2012a, 2012c). Since it is embedded in human nature, there is not, according to this view, any harm in performing spiritual courses at work. Spirituality is viewed as a powerful inner energy with the capability to increase working capacity, overcome stress-related problems and empower the individual.

The problem of legitimacy The third feature of these new rituals is that leaders must demonstrate quality to legitimize their self-made business. One way of doing it is by signaling knowledge and skills through titles. These self-certified titles look similar to academic exams, but the latter cannot be used by laymen as these are protected by law (e.g. psychologist, registered psychotherapist). Diplomaed, licensed, accredited or authorized are common prefixes to coach and therapist. Many companies sell education where the buyers are offered these newly created titles that 55

Anne-Christine Hornborg

the company uses in its marketing. Another way of asserting legitimacy is to baptize companies with names associated with existing educational institutions in society, for example Health Academy, Coach Academy, Swedish Institute of Dealing with Bereavement. The quality of treatments must also be rooted in a reliable knowledge system. Companies usually refer to three sources on which their businesses are based. The first is tradition, which is often Asian, with roots in global religious movements in the 1960s and 1970s such as New age, hippie culture, Transcendental Movement and yoga (see McMahan 2009; Oliver 2014). Science and personal experience are the other two foundations (Hammer 2001, pp. 44, 87, 92, 122–124, 130–133, 169). Thus, when undergoing training to become a Certified Mindfulness & ACT Coach, one is exposed to references to Zen Buddhism: ‘Mindfulness originates in Buddhism, and especially Zen Buddhism’ (kjellhaglund.com, my translation). It needs to be emphasized that while the new rituals are Asian (like zen and yoga), they have been disembedded from the Asian context, spread globally and then reembedded in a market-adapted context. References to science also play an important role to convincingly argue for a certain practice and its performative effects (Hammer 2001, pp. 202–203, 502–502; Hornborg 2012b). A trainee is thus exposed to claims such as the following: Research shows that a number of symptoms among the participants such as pain and sleeping problems have decreased significantly. Other researchers have later demonstrated a number of other positive outcomes of the regular exercise of mindfulness: lower blood pressure, release from chronic headache, reduction of stress, improvement of fibromyalgia and increased production of the hormone melatonin. In addition, fewer symptoms could be detected in multiple sclerosis, with shorter treatment times with light treatment for patients with psoriasis and minor problems for patients with irritable bowel syndrome. (kjellhaglund.com, my translation) Important differences from research and traditional medicine are the entrepreneurs’ references to personal life experiences, crises or self-development (Hammer 2001, pp. 331–334, 504–505). The narrative of life stories is often ritualized in the practices and becomes part of the performance (Hornborg 2012a, pp. 159–162). On websites, entrepreneurs describe their experiences of not having fully lived their lives or having been burnt out or uninspired at work. But now, with the method they offer, they show how they have found their way ‘out of darkness.’ The significance of personal stories in healing from diseases has interested several researchers and they have classified them in different ways: as kinds of therapeutic narrative genres (Illouz 2008, pp. 152–156), curative stories (Winroth 2004, p. 140) or disease memoirs (Furedi 2004, p. 41). Illouz says that the therapeutic narrative genre emerges as an answer to the increasing therapeutic approach in society. She describes (2008, p. 172) how it consists of a brief summary with the essence of the story, an orientation that embeds the story in time and space. It also includes the participants, a series of events of significance for the process, an evaluation that includes the meaning of events and the narrator’s feelings about these, and then a solution. The path to happiness, self-development or success is reflected in the story, but the basic idea is that behind a successful life are sufferings, shortcomings or illnesses. The suffering is required for the healing to be initiated, and the narratives are part of the healing process because they are needed to reflect and rebuild the individual’s self-development, and thus inspire a certain design of therapeutic or coaching performance. The different individual preparations follow the ‘grand narrative,’ that is, the company’s own step-by-step models of walking from 56

Rebranding the soul

ignorance, darkness and illness, to gain insights into what opportunities are available. By following these steps, the individual takes part in the transformation of the new self that is promised by the sellers (Hornborg 2012a, pp. 114–129). This therapeutic genre often lives in a symbiotic relationship with conversion stories and includes both retrospective and prospective dimensions. The restraint lies in the fact that the past is still haunting the daily life of the individual, but a promise of a new life is also embedded in the narrative. With increased insight into the past and the search for the inner self, the individual achieves a reconciliation to find a better being-in-the world. This includes regaining good health and better self-confidence, without being lost in the past as a prisoner. The individual is redeemed, but it is also the responsibility of the individual to take full control of the new orientation (Illouz 2008, p. 184; Hornborg 2012a, pp. 188–124). These conversion stories of describing major transformation into a new self also become the driving force to be a missionary for others: Today my life is far from being perfect, but I’m more in touch with my inner, true self, I feel better, feel less stressed and enjoy much more of my life . . . I want to inspire and support you to get closer to yourself. (vipassanalivscoach.se, my translation) The ambition is important, and there is a very normative and political dimension in the stories. The ‘converted’ or healed make their life stories into a role model for others to follow, since they consider that this method has changed their condition of realizing their authentic selves (Winroth 2004, p. 140; Hornborg 2012a, pp. 118–119). The importance of personal experiences can be used as a mark against the power of traditional school medicine and its practitioners. Medical conversations can be described as being a holdback to the ‘authentic’ encounter. The boundary between the private and public roles becomes fluid and in the exercises it can even be presented as undesirable and an obstacle when the inner ‘human capital’ is to be stimulated and highlighted by the coach or therapist (Hornborg 2012a, pp. 84–86). A coach’s role in the conversation can be described as follows: Who am I claiming myself to be that I can teach you all this? Am I a person who is always happy and without any trouble? No, I am not. But I have used the techniques which I teach in the course over and over again in my life to constantly renew and improve different parts. (enkeltochroligt.se, my translation)

Quick-fix and adapted to market society The fourth feature of the new rituals is that they quickly want to awaken intense emotions of renewal. Failure to achieve the desired effects makes these rituals vulnerable. In addition to failed performances, the consumer has also invested time and money on a product that promised emancipation. Therefore, the buyer wants a guarantee for the item they will consume. Companies are aware of this, hence the promise of immediate effects: In a simple way, in just a few hours, reaching the innermost potential and clearing all blockages in a much faster, deeper and more effective way than any other existing method, was a fantastic experience. (resanterapi.com, my translation) 57

Anne-Christine Hornborg

The new rituals are market-adapted to attract buyers, both private individuals and employers. The human ‘being’ becomes a product that can be sold and bought in a marketplace and as such it fits well into the market society (Carrette and King 2008 [2005]; Hornborg 2013). ‘About us,’ ‘prices,’ ‘contact us,’ reminds website visitors where and how material goods are sold. In many cases companies follow current trends and in my research I could follow how they have quickly transformed and been recreated to better adapt to changes in the market (sometimes with the same founder but using a new company name).

Models for society: what visions are created for the new soul? To exemplify how rituals are performed in designing visions of finding the ‘inner self,’ I have chosen two individual-centered practices that have spread globally and also found their way into Swedish society. The first is a layman therapy (The Journey) and the second is performed by the above-mentioned coach, Anthony Robbins, who is often referred to in coaching practices.

‘Deep inside a huge potential beckons’ The quotation in the headline is from Brandon Bays’ book of layman therapy The Journey ([2008] 1999, p. v). The book provides guidelines on how a Journey therapy can be designed. The Journey is richly represented in many countries, including Sweden, and might also offer coaching, since this market has grown. Bays’ layman therapy emerges from her personal experience and describes how she suffered in 1992 from a cancer tumor, as big as a basketball in the stomach, but by means of an inner journey she cured herself miraculously in six weeks (Bays 2008 [1999], pp. 39–40). This is what Bays now offers others (2003, p. xi) – a method of rapid healing from both physical and psychological shortcomings like ‘depression, jealousy . . . low self-esteem . . . anxiety . . . allergies, acute asthma, eczema, cancer of many kinds, Crohn’s disease . . . arthritis, migraines and even the common cold.’ During her inner journey, Bays has intense experiences of getting in touch with the ‘Source,’ which in her descriptions assumes religious dimensions. Bays also uses the term ‘flow’ for this ecstatic state (2008 [1999], p. 63). She describes the ‘Source’ (Bays.youtube) as a ‘huge potential’ which can create all opportunities for the individual. But this potential can be blocked. Therefore, the Journey method is designed and performed in such a way that the individual can reconnect with the inner power: ‘I’d found a way to have sustained direct experience of the infinite intelligence, Source’ (2008 [1999], p. 64). Bays explains healing in a science-like way and refers to Indian doctor Deepak Chopra’s theories that strong pressure can block cells so the individual gets sick (Chopra left traditional school medicine for alternative treatments like Ayurveda). According to Chopra, cell memories can be reprogrammed by internal influence so that healing occurs. Bays is critical of traditional medicine and the doctor she first met when she was ill: ‘was not a doctor who wanted the whole picture, the real facts, which included the emotional side of things. She wanted her idea of what the facts were’ (2008 [1999], p. 31). In the Journey ritual, the therapist talks with the client in a way that awakens intense emotions. Focus is given to painful childhood experiences, which should be vented and ended with a process of forgiveness. This happens with visualization exercises and in different ‘steps,’ similar to ritual acts. In these acts, the client visualizes a trip through the body in a spaceship together with a chosen mentor. The spaceship’s fuel is ‘powered by your own body wisdom, by the part of you that makes your heart beat and your hair grow’ 58

Rebranding the soul

(Bays 2003, p. 177) and goes firstly to the place that is affected by illness. The client and mentor then enter a campfire where the client as a child is waiting. Now the perpetrator is revealed as the one who causes all the pain and illness. The adult hugs the child, a forgiveness process begins, the adult leaves the fire together with the mentor on the spaceship, which begins the healing process. The Journey therapist then wakes up the client from the session and convinces the participant that the healing process will continue on its own ‘and your cells will replicate without you even thinking about it’ (Bays 2008 [1999], p. 189). The ritual can be finished with a hug or a glass of water (Hornborg 2012d, p. 412). There is also a moment of reflexivity and evaluation that takes place after the performance. Ronald Grimes (2014, pp. 72–73) discusses the evaluation of rituals under the term ‘ritual criticism.’ In this case the therapist and the client discuss what has happened in the various stages of the Journey and evaluate the performance. This opens up for the therapist, together with the client, to further correct the client’s experiences and focus on his or her needs. The post-processing of the ritual experience may create feelings of transformation that the ‘client’ did not encounter in the ritual process itself. The framing of the ritual, with a clear beginning and end, is thus more open in these individual-centered rituals as far as the end is concerned, unlike the liturgical ones that are more strictly regulated and framed. The Journey treatment can be specifically designed for children to use in the public sector as well. Liberating Kids’ Shining Potential offers training for ‘schoolteachers, school counsellors, and children’s therapists . . . in addiction treatment centers, by abuse groups, children’s support organizations and social service organizations . . . priests, nuns, ministers, rabbis, monks, pastors and swamis from a wide range of spiritual traditions’ (Bays 2003, p. vii).

Unleash the power within! Market society demands that workers should not only use their inner potential to be more productive at work, but they should also use it for creative leadership and developing ‘human capital.’ On YouTube, we can see a clip of how coach Anthony Robbins stages his performance during one of his many public events, using color, lighting and music. His dazzling white shirt against a blue background and victory gestures give Robbins a powerful appearance and charismatic aura. He is introduced alongside the world’s various leaders such as the Dalai Lama, Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton, whom he says he has met, emphasizing his authority as a source of inspiration. People testify to his ability to change people’s lives and a newspaper article states that ‘the world cannot get enough of Robbins.’ The question is asked what character Robbins inherits and the answer is: ‘He’s got the edge – and he gets results.’ Robbins begins his event by saying that there is a moment in life when we can make a decision to pursue radical change. This can be done quickly on a weekend by performing a practice called ‘Unleash the Power Within.’ Robbins’ performance can be divided into four important acts, which can be analyzed as a ritual manual that step by step will reveal how the inner force is found and released. The first step – or ritual act – The Firewalk Experience, tells that the participant can walk on glowing coals just to show that everything is possible if there is a strong enough will. In the next act, Power of Momentum, the participant must develop a strategy for change. It is followed by act three, Breakthrough and Transformation, and the final step is Power of Pure 59

Anne-Christine Hornborg

Energy. Robbins says that energy is the foundation for everything and nothing is impossible with the help of this force. He allows several witnesses to express the major changes that have occurred with the new strategic tools he has given them. People tell about their past lives; their business was bad, their marriage was bad. But after the encounter with Robbins, they have fulfilled their lives and are successful both at work (the money flows in) and in the family. Rechaud Bell, who had stuttered from childhood, now testifies how quickly he was released from this problem. His message is powerfully expressed: ‘I was a stutterer – but now I’m Rechaud!’ His inner true self – the real Rechaud – was not a stutterer. Robbins question to the audience is: ‘Are you ready for a new start?’ The audience’s answer is ‘Yes!’ He also uses a big water gun to spray (baptize?) the audience while they lift their hands and express rebirth and joy.

What if the inner potential is not found? There is no doubt that modern rituals have structural similarities with revival movements and conversions to a new life. The strong focus on the individual reflects today’s therapeutic society and also modernity that embeds people more in abstract rather than local identities. But what happens if the ritual fails with respect to its performative effects? Robbins clearly points out that it is the individual who is to blame. The market looks the same yesterday as today, the finances as well as the family situation, but a new flow changes the conditions for the individual. It is the individual’s moral responsibility to address the personal problems. Sin will not unleash the power within. Societal criticism transforms into self-criticism and the responsibility lies in the individual, as depicted in this description about being a job coach: You have one sole responsibility as a coach and it is to ensure that the dialogue is productive, that it goes forward so that the person is given the opportunity to create the results he or she wants. The one you are coaching is responsible for everything else: the job search project, his or her life, family situation, the finances and the dog. It’s not you as coach who delivers or produces anything. It is the jobseeker’s own responsibility to achieve the goal, regardless of the circumstances. If the labor market is not favorable, the person needs to take even greater responsibility. Waiting and hoping that the conditions will be better is to become a victim of the circumstances. (haeu.se, my translation and italics)

Conclusion By using Swedish society as a case study, this chapter has discussed how the market society has affected religious language and ritual design and created a kind of secular religion with structural similarities with revival movements. New formalized therapeutic or coaching practices offered by companies or entrepreneurs have been introduced with a focus on selfdevelopment and healing, which respond to the new needs for the individual both in private life and at work. The courses and treatments in focus in this chapter have been classified and analyzed as individual-centered rituals. These rituals are specifically designed to deal with illness and foster a vision for a better life. Although religion has been kept out of workplaces in secularized Sweden, these practices have gained traction in rebranding the soul and engendering a new concept of the person. Religion and soul as orienting ideas are 60

Rebranding the soul

abandoned, and spirituality and inner potential are preferred concepts. Legitimacy for the practices refer to religious traditions (mostly Asian, adapted to global/Western society), science and personal experience. If a tradition is chosen with religious roots (for example, yoga), the practices are redefined as spiritual or a technique. Authenticity is a buzz word, referring to the pursuit of the inner self more than adherence to tradition. But a careful analysis of the ‘authentic me’ also reveals more about designing a personhood that would better fit market society, than displaying a unique or specific personality. Narratives of the practices include intense emotional transformation, which has similarities with conversion stories, including missionary ambitions to redeem others from not being released. Layman therapy and coaching activities thus reflect Swedish society’s secularization process, global influences, the therapeutic turn and structural changes in the 1990s. The process remains relevant given neoliberalism. As such these practices are models of society. The rituals also become models for the individual and society in creating and incorporating images and visions by rebranding the soul to fulfill the ‘inner self,’ which longs for redemption to become a well-made person.

References Bays, B., 2003. The Journey for Kids: Liberating Your Child’s Shining Potential. Hammersmith: Element. Bays, B., 2008 [1999]. The Journey: A Practical Guide to Healing Your Life and Setting Yourself Free. New York and London: Atria. Bell, C., 1997. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carrette, J. and King, R., 2008 [2005]. Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion. London: Routledge. Collins, E., 1998. Reflections on Ritual and on Theorizing about Ritual. Journal of Ritual Studies, 12(1), 1–7. Eriksen, C., 2007. Det guddommelige selv på arbejde. In: J. Haviv, ed. Medarbejder eller modarbejder – religion i moderne arbejdsliv. Aarhus: Klim, 81–91. Furedi, F., 2004. Therapy Culture. Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age. New York: Routledge. Geertz, C., 1973. The Interpretation of Culture: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books. Grimes, R. L., 1996. Readings in Ritual Studies. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall. Grimes, R. L., 2014. The Craft of Ritual Studies. New York: Oxford University Press. Hammer, O., 2001. Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age. Numen Book Series: Studies in the History of Religions, vol. XC. Leiden, Boston, Cologne: Brill. Hornborg, A. C., 2012a. Coaching och lekmannaterapi: En modern väckelse? Falun: Dialogos. Hornborg, A. C., 2012b. Secular Spirituality in Contemporary Sweden. Swedish Missiological Themes (SMT), 100(3), 303–321. Hornborg, A. C., 2012c. Are We All Spiritual? A Comparative Perspective on the Appropriation of a New Concept of Spirituality. Journal for the Study of Spirituality, 1(2), 247–266. Hornborg, A. C., 2012d. Designing Rites to Reenchant Secularized Society: New Varieties of Spiritualized Therapy in Contemporary Sweden. Journal of Religion and Health, 51(2), 402–418. Hornborg, A. C., 2013. Healing or Dealing? Neospiritual Therapies and Coaching as Individual Meaning and Social Discipline in Late Modern Swedish Society. In: F. Gauthier and T. Martikainen, eds. Religion in Consumer Society: Brands, Consumers and Markets. Farnham: Ashgate, 189–206. Hornborg, A. C., 2014. ‘Hitta dina inre resurser’ – mindfulness som kommersiell produkt. In: K. Plank, ed. Mindfulness: Tradition, tolkning och tillämpning. Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 177–202. Humphrey, C. and Laidlaw, J., 1994. The Archetypal Actions of Ritual. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Illouz, E., 2008. Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-help. Berkeley: University of California Press. Maslow, A., 1964. Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences (Kappa Delta Pi Lecture Series). Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press. McMahan, D. L., 2009. The Making of Buddhist Modernism. New York: Oxford University Press.

61

Anne-Christine Hornborg

Merton, R. K., 1957. Social Theory and Social Structure. Glencoe: Free Press. Oliver, P., 2014. Hinduism and the 1960s. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Rappaport, R. A., 1999. Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. SCB (Statistiska Centralbyrån), 2004. Sjukfrånvaro och ohälsa i Sverige: En belysning utifrån SCB: s statistik. Örebro: SCB: tryck. Skolinspektionen, 2012-10-23. Anmälan angående yoga i utbildningen vid grundskolan Östermalmskolan i Stockholms kommun. Dnr 41-2012:2569. www.skolyoga.se/uploads/9/0/8/2/9082645/41-20122569_beslut.pdf (Accessed 21 January 2018). Theorell, T., 2006. I spåren av 90-talet. Kristianstad: Karolinska Institutet University Press. Winroth, A. C., 2004. Vardagligt och livsviktigt berättande om hälsa och bot. In: M. Eklöf, ed. Perspektiv på komplementär medicin. Malmo: Studentlitteratur, 133–146.

Internet sources coachfalck.se. www.coachfalck.se/coachforforetag.php (Accessed 5 October 2015). dagen.se 2012-10-23. www.dagen.se/debatt/sag-nej-till-yoga-i-skolan-1.111907 (Accessed 19 June 2016). enkeltochroligt.se. www.enkeltochroligt.se/?page_id=3 (Accessed 9 December 2011). fowelin.com. www.fowelin.com/index.php/mindfulness/mindfulness-i-skolan (Accessed 5 October 2015). growing.se. www.growing.se/coaching/ (Accessed 5 October 2015). haeu.se. www.haeu.se/node/132 (Accessed 25 December 2010). kjellhaglund.com. www.kjellhaglund.com/utbildningar-kurser/lar-dig-leva-har-nu-i-mindfulness/ (Accessed 5 October 2015). ninahallberg.com. www.ninahallberg.com/resanterapi.html (Accessed 8 December 2010). remier-coaching.se. www.reimer-coaching.se/vara-tjanster/lararcoaching (Accessed 30 October 2014). resanterapi.com. www.resanterapi.com/jag.htm (Accessed 5 October 2015). sorg.se. www.sorg.se/dokument/kursbeskrivning_workshop.pdf (Accessed 26 January 2011). springes.se. www.springes.se/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4&Itemid=4 (Accessed 5 October 2015). tommypalarsson.se 2016. www.tommypalarsson.se/personligcoachrelationscoach-mening-andlighetreligion.php (Accessed 19 September 2016). vipassanalivscoach.se. www.vipassanalivscoach.se/ (Accessed 5 October 2015).

YouTube clips Bays.youtube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9cnF3Egc0w (Accessed 5 October 2015). Robbins.youtube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjm10gcqOKg&list=PL6BE9764C303DB0A6&in dex=2 (Accessed 5 October 2015).

62

Part II

Contemporary ethics and values

5 The prosperity ethic The rise of the new prosperity gospel Jayeel Cornelio and Erron Medina

Introduction A new prosperity gospel has arrived. It promotes an individualized work ethic, backed by a religious conviction that promises financial returns. We call this the prosperity ethic. It has two features: sacralizing self-help and celebrating consumption. By offering a message that combines spiritual renewal, wealth creation, and happiness, the new prosperity gospel attempts to reinvent well-being from one that is collectively attained to one that is individualist, faith-based, and work-oriented. That it sacralizes work ethic with a conviction that God wants to bless people is how the new prosperity gospel has evolved from its older version. Invoking various biblical texts as guidelines to be rich and successful, the prosperity ethic aims to ensure financial growth and freedom from debt. We argue that the prosperity ethic is the new prosperity gospel. The old prosperity gospel, as we explain below, is miracle-oriented. A message of hope for the poor, it preaches that breakthroughs are achieved through giving and positive confession. The prosperity ethic, by contrast, expects its followers to adopt practical skills related to investment and financial management. To do so follows the will of God who wants His people to be rich and happy. As a result of this emphasis, the prosperity ethic attracts aspirational middle class followers. The combination of a hopeful message for a hardworking segment is appealing to a precarious middle class given turbulent and uncertain economic situations. This chapter makes the case for the rise of the new prosperity gospel as follows. First, we will discuss the original forms of the prosperity gospel and its roots in Pentecostal Christianity and the New Thought Movement. Second, ideas about self-help will be revisited to map the current spiritual and work-oriented innovations in the practice and preaching of the prosperity gospel. Finally, we explain the prosperity ethic in terms of its features: sacralizing self-help and celebrating consumption. This section will provide some illustrations to demonstrate the differences. We propose in the end that these developments, shaped by the global neoliberal economic regime, are religious innovations that address economic insecurity and build on personal aspirations for spiritual growth and material success.

65

Jayeel Cornelio and Erron Medina

The prosperity gospel At its core the prosperity gospel is a ‘wildly popular Christian message of spiritual, physical, and financial mastery’ preached around the world (Bowler 2013, p. 3). It professes that material and spiritual provisions from God are a result of faith-driven obedience to His commandments (Hunt 2000a; Mboya 2016, p. 16). Thus faith, wealth, health, and victory punctuate its messages proclaimed in preachings, books, radio and television programs, and now social media. Oral Roberts, Creflo Dollar, Kenneth Copeland, and Kenneth Hagin are some of the names associated with prosperity preaching. While megachurch pastors tend to be its most prominent figures, their counterparts in smaller congregations are no less influential. This is how the prosperity gospel has gained traction not just in the US but also in many places in the Global South. The rise of megachurches in Southeast Asia, for example, is worth investigating in this light (Chong 2018). At the same time, Christians from different denominations one way or another subscribe to the tenets of the prosperity gospel. In this section we briefly discuss these themes and relate them to its influences in Pentecostalism and the New Thought Movement.

Faith and the spoken word Faith is the foundation of the prosperity gospel. It is an ‘activator, a power that unleashes spiritual forces and turns the spoken word into reality’ (Bowler 2013, p. 7). Faith enables victory which renders the ‘material reality as the measure of the success of immaterial faith.’ This shows a ‘special form of Christian power to reach into God’s treasure trove’ where believers can elicit physical and financial miracles. Here, the power to shape life chances through faith can be seen as a ‘negotiating’ activity between God and individuals (Machado 2010). The working assumption is that material blessings are automatically included in salvation as the rightful inheritance of Christians (Hunt 2000b). Faith, which is the means to claim blessings from God, thus becomes the central tenet of prosperity messages (Attanasi 2012). Manifesting one’s faith, the spoken declaration is vital in this regard, a principle derived from New Thought. We will come back to this point shortly. What matters at this point is that making declarations follows the ‘the law of attraction,’ which asserts that ‘human beings create their own future through their thoughts and words’ (Maritz and Stoker 2016). Criticisms, of course, have been set against these claims. Among theologians, controversies revolve around the basis for such proclamations and around the question as to whether it is self-serving or God-serving (Ma 2011). There are also a lot of scriptural debates that surround prosperity in relation to Christ’s atonement (Mbamalu 2015). Others argue that such teachings are a ‘commercialization of the gospel’ and that giving was never a prerequisite to receive blessings from God (Gbote and Kgatla 2014). The centrality of the power of the mind (or positive thinking) predominantly defines the shape of the prosperity gospel in the West. What accounts for its success around the world? For some scholars, the key to understanding its wide acceptance lies in the prosperity gospel’s functions (Hasu 2006, p. 685): (1) to satisfy human wants and needs, which God did not intend to be evil in the first place, and (2) to support church activities and evangelism. In a concrete sense, the prosperity gospel has sacralized personal desire. Applying it in one’s life can be an individualized spiritual technique to face uncertain material situations without feeling guilty about the evils of being rich. At the same time, it affords one an entrepreneurial mindset in

66

The prosperity ethic

which personal actions can unlock not only economic breakthroughs but also stable physical well-being and spiritual maturity (Haynes 2012, pp. 125–128). We will come back to this point later to propose how the entrepreneurial mindset is taking on a new form among prosperity preachers.

Roots of the prosperity gospel The prosperity gospel in the West was largely influenced by Pentecostal Christianity and the New Thought Movement (Coleman 2000; Robbins 2004; Albanese 2007; Barker 2007; Attanasi 2012, p. 3; Hutchinson 2014). Both have shaped the contents of prosperity teaching and the expectations of its followers. Pentecostal Christianity highlights the work of the Holy Spirit within individual believers. This comes with having a deep personal relationship with God. The work of the Spirit is embodied in several gifts which are accorded to the faithful such as speaking in tongues, the power of healing, and prophecy. A report from Pew Research (2006) states that compared to Christians who come from other denominations, Pentecostals tend to be more believing of the reality of the rapture, miracles, the inerrancy of the Bible, and mission. They also adhere to a ‘fourfold gospel of divine healing, personal salvation, Baptism of the Holy Spirit, and Christ’s [soon] return’ (Bowler 2013, p. 21). In addition, Pentecostalism is different from other denominations with its egalitarian church structure by challenging hierarchical and gendered spiritual or religious roles in worship (Robbins 2004, Barker 2007, p. 415). In turn, Pentecostalism has widened the opportunity for ordinary people to experience spirituality although in a more individualized form. Explanations for the spread of Pentecostalism range from theological to sociological (Kay 2013, pp. 21–23). First, Pentecostalism can spread easily because its beliefs and practices are ‘transposable’ and ‘portable,’ attributes that pose no radical threat to the default value systems of a receiving social environment (Csordas 2007, p. 261). Second, its focus on ‘power evangelism’ strengthens lay ministers who serve as a democratizing force rooted in the belief that God is working directly in the lives of individuals. Lastly, the exercise of spiritual gifts also makes people more active in discovering their own contributions, which then account for church participation and growth. Pentecostalism also has the capacity to foster personal discipline that suits the current neoliberal economic paradigm (Barker 2007, p. 408). In effect, Pentecostal churches act as an institutional alternative to state-led agencies. They do this by valuing material well-being as a result of personal salvation. Economic affluence is thus understood as a consequence of personal beliefs and miracles. Hence, the increasing number of Pentecostals rides on the progress of neoliberalism as it ‘normalizes the transnational nature of contemporary life’ (Barker 2007, p. 425). For example, preachers interpret labor migration as a holy move by God to transfer one group of believers from one place to another (Barker 2007, p. 425). From this, one can directly attribute the quality of life—which includes success and prosperity—to the kind of relationship one has with God. Spiritual mediators are no longer needed to interpret spiritual messages and to channel blessings. The other main influence of the prosperity gospel was the New Thought Movement (Bowler 2013). Some of its most influential American figures were Phineas Quimby, Norman Vincent Peale, and E.W. Kenyon. Their writings inspired the message of such preachers as Kenneth Hagin, Pat Robertson, and Oral Roberts (Coleman 2000). Influential female speakers also contributed to strengthening belief in the power of the mind and its spiritual capacities. Mary Baker Eddy and Aimee Semple McPherson were known for their 67

Jayeel Cornelio and Erron Medina

initiatives that emphasized mind-power, healing, and emotion-based preaching (McDonald 1986; Stackhouse 1988; Blumhofer 2004; Hall 2007; Maddux 2012). While they have been criticized for entering the male-dominated sphere of religion and theology, their influence cannot be discounted. For example, Eddy’s focus on healing inspired her to found Christian Science (Hall 2007, p. 81). Mary Baker Eddy’s book, Science and Health, was used in various churches since ‘Christian theology had to be practical’ (Hall 2007, p. 82). In her attempts to revive Christianity’s importance for the lost, Aimee Semple McPherson did not confine herself to any denomination. Her Pentecostal orientation centered on the belief that ‘both human need and Jesus Christ remained the same.’ In this light, the ever-present power of God in Jesus could meet the needs and desires of his children anytime (Blumhofer 2004, p. 225). Harnessing the power of the mind, New Thought is often characterized as a metaphysical religion ‘that claimed some unity of God and individual mind, with the ability to manifest change in the world’ (Hutchinson 2014, pp. 28–29). Metaphysical religion has been an important dimension of the present religious landscape of the US (Albanese 2007). Four principles underpin New Thought: the power of mind-as-consciousness, the belief in multiple corresponding cosmic worlds, the dynamism of psychic energy, and salvation based on healing and therapy (Albanese 2007, pp. 13–15). In addition, this movement emphasizes the superiority of spiritual reality over matter and the belief in the generative power of positive thought (Bowler 2013, p. 12). It teaches that the mind has the capacity to make things happen in the physical world. In effect, the prosperity gospel cannot be taken as a singular moment in the history of contemporary Christianity. It traces its roots back to the New Thought Movement and older forms of Pentecostalism. But taken together, these influences fueled individualism and sanctified people’s desire for upward mobility, which, as far as the US is concerned, materialized in the latter half of the 20th century. The result has been the unparalleled success of the prosperity gospel in the US and around the world (Bowler 2013, p. 11). Moreover, its theology took time to take shape, become coherent, and be transported around the world, with the help of influential religious groups such as the Word of Faith Ministries in Sweden (Coleman 2002, p. 8). The theological foundation is that God, through the death of Christ, has already provided all the needs of humanity including success over spiritual, physical, and economic problems (Hasu 2006, p. 679). This belief could provide means for individuals to interpret their life struggles and aspirations, thereby dismissing economics and politics as more viable viewpoints. Put differently, the prosperity gospel, for emphasizing the power of the mind, places the burden on the individual to solve problems. It enables believers to take control and manage the effects of uncertainties in their own lives. By the same token, financial misfortune and health problems are explained as a result of one’s quality of thinking.

The new prosperity gospel? In this section, we propose that the prosperity gospel is once again undergoing a process of change. Following the account above, we agree with Bowler (2013, p. 7) that it is ‘a popular religious imagination that has not yet ended.’ Indeed, as it gains traction around the world, the prosperity gospel takes on its own life with varying consequences on politics, culture, and society. For example, the conviction that God has predestined His people to become rich might be a typical story among Pentecostal churches and other denominations in Zimbabwe and other countries in the Global South (Gunda 2018). But these contexts 68

The prosperity ethic

have also fostered the undisputed role of prophets who receive direct revelations from God not only to perform miracles but also see into the future. Although supernatural aspects remain ever present, what we wish to highlight in this section are noticeable shifts that call for sociological assessments. These observations are based on our ongoing project on the prosperity gospel in the Philippines, but we see resonances elsewhere: sacralizing self-help and celebrating consumption.

Sacralizing self-help In older forms of the prosperity gospel, one’s task is to simply believe, profess, and give money to the Lord’s anointed individuals and their ministries. In this light, subscribing to the gospel is an investment in miracles (Wiegele 2005). In recent years, we notice that individual responsibility has become more pronounced in the messages of contemporary prosperity preachers (Obadare 2016, p. 4). This they do through self-help, which emphasizes practical steps to achieve individual prosperity. In the Philippines, similar market lessons combined with Christian teachings can also be observed. They deviate from the older prosperity gospel of El Shaddai preacher, Brother Mike Velarde for whom giving money is key to becoming rich (Wiegele 2005; Kessler and Rüland 2006). Chinkee Tan and Bo Sanchez provide an interesting case. They are wellknown wealth coaches and mentors who speak religious messages while teaching life lessons focusing on finances. Chinkee Tan is a celebrated preacher and mentor in the Filipino Evangelical community. His books discuss spirituality and financial freedom. On the other hand, Bo Sanchez, a Catholic lay worker, has established his own ministry called Light of Jesus Family (LOJ), which has attracted a significant number of followers. They have a weekly gathering called The Feast in a stadium in the middle of one of Manila’s most successful commercial complexes. On its website,1 the Feast is described as a Sunday assembly where people attend prayer and worship activities and listen to ‘practical Christian living’ messages. Its growth is spearheaded by other ‘feast builders’ who are also into writing spiritual books for evangelistic purposes. Bo Sanchez, as the founder, has written a number of bestselling books about financial and spiritual success. Bo Sanchez’s group, LOJ, is worth describing in detail. On its website, the group declares itself to be Catholic but also welcomes attendees from other churches. LOJ, which began as a prayer group in Manila in the 1980s, now has a global reach. The predominance of English preaching in The Feast deviates largely from the typical Sunday Mass in the Philippines. Its services are held in ‘malls, movie houses, restaurants, civic centers, offices, and homes’ to reach the ‘unchurched.’2 The group also has a publishing arm, Shepherd’s Voice. It publishes Bo Sanchez’s books and other writing, most of which tackle financial security and getting rich.3 Apart from its weekly services and publications, the group is also known for organizing spectacular events that blend spiritual growth with financial concerns. For example, in December 2018, The Feast adopted a month-long series titled ‘G: Winning the Game of Money.’ The series focused on gift (earning money), goal (purpose of having money), and grit (money management).4 LOJ also hosts the Kerygma Conference, an annual event that promises ‘an overflowing experience of change and inspiration.’ This conference partners with the most successful companies in the country and other financial organizations. Sessions focus mainly on three themes: family relations, investment and money matters, and spiritual lessons. Taken together, LOJ’s services, publications, and events are all spectacular feats that serve as avenues for Bo Sanchez to sacralize self-help. 69

Jayeel Cornelio and Erron Medina

What makes Tan and Sanchez notable is that even though they belong to different churches, both of them have transformed the prosperity message into an aspirational one filled with practical tips to achieve their life goals. Theirs is aspirational first in terms of upward mobility while aiming for a fulfilling spiritual life. Second, their message is practical as they offer specific and concrete financial pieces of advice to become successful. These rules are then justified by Biblical passages regarding wealth, money, and giving. For example, Bo Sanchez suggests investing 20–30% of his readers’ money in retail treasury bonds, mutual funds, and the stock market (Sanchez 2013). He believes that profit is encouraged in the Scriptures. He cites the Parable of Talents as an illustration (Matthew 25: 25–26). In his book, the Catholic lay preacher instructs his readers to ‘monetize’ their Godgiven gift to overcome financial difficulties. Similarly, for Chinkee Tan, to be rich demands following necessary steps. What steps does he propose? Aside from having a correct money mindset, one must learn the specific practices of the rich. For Tan, productivity can be achieved by instilling work ethic and discipline to counter procrastination (Tan 2014). In other words, a change in lifestyle must be accompanied with proper investments in knowledge and skills about getting rich. Attending seminars about financial management and reading financial literacy books are strategic investments. In effect, these authors are asking their readers to have the ‘right’ mindset to achieve prosperity. To receive blessings, practical steps must be followed like a blueprint. According to Tan and Sanchez, whom their followers consider ‘life mentors,’ it is possible to combine spiritual and financial abundance at the same time. People can have financial freedom while maintaining a good spiritual well-being. Their books are filled with themes concerning wealth and blessings, and faith and positive thinking. Indeed, the prosperity ethic espoused by Tan and Sanchez has behavioral consequences. According to Neubert et al. (2014, p. 141), ‘with confidence that their work is honoring God, people may be willing to take more risks or, conversely, to take only risks with a high likelihood of positive results’ in their work or business initiatives. What is also worth noting here is that the messengers themselves become the message. Their life trajectories exemplify what hard work, if done right, can accomplish for an individual. In her provocative work, Nicole Aschoff (2015, p. 10) refers to these individuals as ‘the new prophets of capital.’ Inspirational figures like Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, and Sheryl Sandberg criticize capitalism but do not call for its end. Instead, they want a better version of capitalism in which care of the self, among other aspirations, is emphasized. In our view, the preachers of the prosperity ethic are among these new prophets of capital. They present self-help as the means to achieving a full life, which, incidentally, is also the message of Jesus, at least according to the preachers we mentioned above. In the prosperity ethic, the full life is financially rewarding. It is, to use the name of Bo Sanchez’s gathering, a ‘feast.’ Self-help ideas are helpful in this regard as they make desirable goals in a market economy achievable for the individual (Peck 2010; Kenney 2015; Poon 2015). Self-help reading materials serve as a blueprint in transforming behavior and actions (Kenney 2015, p. 664).

Celebrating consumption The other feature of the prosperity ethic is the unapologetic enjoyment of the good life. Older forms of the prosperity gospel have been arguably about overcoming one’s circumstances by experiencing God’s ‘breakthrough.’ In this sense, one is always waiting for a miracle to happen. Confessing one’s faith and giving money are means of investing in 70

The prosperity ethic

miracles, which, at the divinely appointed time, will come soon (Wiegele 2005). By contrast, the declaration of the prosperity ethic is that life has to be enjoyed here and now. This is a nuance we wish to highlight here. The prosperity ethic teaches that God intends His people to be richly blessed. In other words, Christians must be unapologetic about prosperity and material benefits, which is ultimately tied to how Christians see themselves. Some examples are called for. Joel Osteen, who himself has written a number of books about happiness and well-being, is a forerunner of the prosperity ethic that celebrates consumption. The Texas-based preacher asserts that happiness is tied to consumption. To consume and enjoy financial prosperity is central to Osteen’s theology of money and view of the Christian good life (Mundey 2017, p. 337). Osteen’s message suggests that God wants the faithful to enjoy luxuries in life by having consumerist blessings. In Osteen’s first book, Your Best Life Now, he explains that people’s ability to feel and enjoy God’s blessings are hindered by their own orientation as unworthy and undeserving of these favors (Johnson 2018, p. 30). Hence, changing their understanding of themselves is the key to receiving God’s material and non-material favors. In effect, they are not waiting for any miracle. Miracles are for God’s people to experience now, a point that Osteen’s counterpart in Singapore, Joseph Prince, also echoes. The pastor of New Creation Church is known for his book, Destined to Reign. Although Prince asserts that he does not preach any prosperity gospel, he nevertheless proclaims that the gospel of Jesus must result in success, restoration, financial achievements, and much more. Like Osteen, crucial for Joseph Prince is one’s selfunderstanding. Believers must see themselves as capable of accessing the ‘superabundant supply of grace’ (Goh 2018, p. 197). This self-care evident in their books and preachings is how Osteen and Prince come close to the sacralized self-help genre described earlier. Similar observations are found in the South Korean context where contemporary prosperity preachers teach that God’s blessings must be enjoyed. It is ‘magical-speculative individualism’ (Suh 2019, p. 13). Here, success and prosperity are results of not only having a relationship with God but also an appreciative attitude towards His provisions. David Yonggi Cho, the famous pastor from Yoido Full Gospel Church, is known for his theology of blessings that emphasizes God’s miraculous intervention in people’s economic conditions (Ma 2011; Suh 2019, p. 12). Even in African American religious communities, research shows that the enjoyment of the good life has gained traction. This is in spite of the renewed call to revive African prophetic preaching in relation to social justice. Yet the popularity of prosperity theology has appealed more to the majority of African Americans primarily because teachings about faith, hope, and empowerment are now tied to upward mobility (Mumford 2012, p. 381). In other words, upward mobility entails the capacity to enjoy material things and afford a consumerist lifestyle. The spiritual value of faith, hope, and empowerment have been transformed in favor of the prosperity ethic.

Sociological explanations How do we account for the rise of the prosperity ethic as a new form of the prosperity gospel? In our view, the answer lies in the global market economy that affects religious life in different parts of the world, especially among those who belong to the rising (and yet precarious) middle class. One way of approaching this relationship is by recognizing how religion responds to people’s desire for upward mobility, stability, and the good life. These are questions that matter in religious societies that are at the same time undergoing massive economic shifts. This is the case in many parts of the Global South. Our immediate context is the Philippines 71

Jayeel Cornelio and Erron Medina

where we are conducting research on religious innovations and the shifts in the prosperity gospel and other forms of moral conservatism (Cornelio 2020a). It is very telling that the Philippines, for being increasingly embedded in global trade, is now projected to be among the biggest economies in the world by 2050 (Business World 2015). And yet this development leaves many far behind especially among the younger ones whose life chances are affected by varying access to education, healthcare, and other resources (Cornelio 2020b). How relevant is the prosperity ethic? Self-help books, for one, thrive by telling readers what they need and how to achieve them. The assumption is that the self ‘can be contacted, explored, and empowered with the right knowledge and technique’ (Kenney 2015, p. 664). This message gains strong acceptance especially within a market environment where achieving economic mobility is framed as an effect of individual choice and personal will (Poon 2015, p. 140). It is also in this light that sacralizing it makes self-help a more acceptable approach to life especially in religious societies that are at the same time marketoriented. Market societies demand that their citizens be fully equipped for the changing needs of the world. Making the burden heavier for individuals is the failure of the welfare model in many societies. In fact, in many parts of the Global South, it is impossible to fully implement the welfare model given that state resources are limited and exposed to corruption. In addition, market-oriented development expects people to fend for themselves through education, career planning, and financial investments. These are areas now sanctified by religion in the form of the prosperity ethic. Indeed, self-help necessarily invokes self-reliance, industriousness, and discipline (Poon 2015, p. 141). The combination of older prosperity messages and practical tips on financial literacy has gained popularity with the rise of an aspirational middle class. With the ‘correct’ mindset, the middle class is enjoined to change their attitudes (and therefore their work ethic) according to practical tips and biblical justifications for prosperity (Peck 2010, pp. 9–10). As a result, the prosperity ethic is blind to the larger social structures of inequality that may affect people, especially those who are disenfranchised from the benefits of a growing economy. The individualistic spiritual and prosperous life it fosters focuses on ‘positivity as life resource’ which compels ‘citizens to be selfconstituting and resourceful’ (Bowler 2015, p. 631). Put differently, the continuous expansion of growth-oriented churches ‘blesses’ the market environment (Maddox 2012, p. 154). As far as its believers are concerned, the prosperity ethic blurs the line between religion and the market, as is the case for megachurches in Singapore (Yip and Ainsworth 2016). Finally, the theology of consumption has become a new dimension of the contemporary prosperity gospel. The prosperity ethic, as we have been observing it, is not only about hard work that follows sound advice for career, money, and other investments. It also emphasizes the enjoyment of blessings. What is important is to make an evangelistic message through caring and making one’s own body beautiful and prosperous (Maddox 2013, p. 110). By instilling this preference for material luxuries, the ‘ideology and lifestyle of consumerism can be salvific in itself’ (Maddox 2013, p. 111). The irony, of course, is that it calls for a celebration of consumption that may not be tenable in the long run. This explains why, within the same US context, the call for self-sufficiency (and anti-welfare policies) is balanced with a message of compassion for the poor (Hackworth 2010, p. 103). These discourses for charity and compassion mitigate the crushing effect of neoliberal economics on those who cannot compete. 72

The prosperity ethic

To summarize, the prosperity ethic, in our view, is an innovation among prosperity preachers that responds to the situation of an emerging middle class in many societies (especially in the Global South). The combination of self-help and consumption matches the delicate situation of the middle class, who, while benefiting from the rising economy, also feels the anxieties of competition—locally and globally. The reason is that while the middle class might be growing in the developing world, it is also precarious given geopolitics, uneven global trade, and corruption. Moreover, even in economic powerhouses like South Korea and Singapore, countries that play a role in the rise of the prosperity ethic, their middle class is now vulnerable to fierce competition among equally educated citizens in the region and the rest of the world. It is in this light that the prosperity gospel has a natural fit for a changing global economic environment that witnesses the emergence of the new (but precarious) middle class. Clearly, the market economy is very much tied to the religious life (Moberg and Martikainen 2018). It is in this sense that the prosperity ethic as we have documented it finds continuities with the aspirational disposition of the old prosperity gospel and its origin, Pentecostalism. Taken together, these movements desired recognition for the disenfranchised. Pentecostalism and the old prosperity gospel appealed to people from the margins, in terms of class, race, and gender (Martin 2001). But what is remarkably different with the prosperity ethic is that it is not catered for the marginalized even if some of its messages might appeal to the least equipped. The reason is that the financial skills it expects from its followers demands competencies available to those who already have the resources and educational background. This is to be expected given that its messengers are themselves ‘overcomers’ of their own limitations, preachers who are successful as well in their industries. We agree with Aschoff (2015, p. 91) that these ‘prophets of capital’ advise their listeners to ‘turn [their] gaze inwards and reconfigure [themselves] to become more adaptable to the vagaries and stresses of the neoliberal environment.’

Conclusion This chapter has proposed that a new prosperity gospel is rising. We have called it the prosperity ethic. As we have spelled out, the ethic has two features: sacralizing self-help and celebrating consumption. Taken together, these features value upward mobility and invoke Biblical and Christian principles to justify practical rules to acquire wealth. The prosperity ethic differs from the old prosperity gospel. The main difference is the content. The old prosperity gospel relies heavily on the promise of financial miracle, which is activated through the power of confession and giving. The prosperity ethic, by contrast, emphasizes financial growth through self-help and other practical tips concerning investment and resource management. As a result of these emphases, the old prosperity gospel and the new prosperity ethic have attracted different audiences. The former is a message of hope for the poor. The latter works for the aspirational (but precarious) middle class. Although our work has been focused on the Philippine scene, we have drawn on illustrative cases elsewhere. It is important to note that the increasing presence of self-help ideas in achieving religiously motivated prosperity intertwines ‘spirituality, self-actualization, and stuff’ (Aschoff 2015, p. 63). By instilling concrete market techniques into the practice of spiritual prosperity, economic aspirations are fueled by spiritual dynamics through financial accumulation. All these are justified by Christian principles. Jesus, as it were, wants believers to live a full life. 73

Jayeel Cornelio and Erron Medina

We end on a critical note. The success of the prosperity gospel and its new form, the prosperity ethic, has taken place at a time when liberation theology and other convictions related to social justice have also declined. This is because the global market economy has engendered an individualistic ethos that demands agility on the part of any aspirational individual. In this sense, the preachers of the prosperity ethic we have mentioned here are all about ‘breakthroughs’ and ‘victories’ through careful planning of one’s life, aided by a theology that blesses wealth and consumption. Using the metaphors of religion and the economy, the ‘market’ has taken over the ‘kingdom’ (Nolan 2008). Does space still exist though for a theology of inequality? And what conditions might challenge proponents of the prosperity ethic to critically confront social justice (Sutterlüty 2016)? In fact, a new dilemma for the prosperity ethic is increasingly undeniable: the global disappointment over the market economy, as evidenced by the rise of illiberal regimes around the world. Recent theological reflections that revisit the communitarian elements of social teaching are promising. But their promise of ‘interrupting capitalism’ seems to be unpersuasive compared to the appeal of the prosperity ethic (Shadle 2018, p. 4).

Notes 1 2 3 4

See See See See

www.feast.ph/about/. http://feaststories.com/. https://shop.kerygmabooks.com/product-tag/shepherds-voice-publications/. https://www.feast.ph/g/.

References Albanese, C., 2007. A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. Aschoff, N., 2015. The New Prophets of Capital. Brooklyn: Verso. Attanasi, K., 2012. Introduction: The Plurality of Prosperity Theologies and Pentecostalisms. In: K. Attanasi and A. Yong, eds. Pentecostalism and Prosperity: The Socioeconomics of the Global Charismatic Movement. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1–14. Barker, I., 2007. Charismatic Economies: Pentecostalism Economic Restructuring, and Social Reproduction. New Political Science, 29 (3), 407–427. Blumhofer, E., 2004. ‘That Old-time Religion’: Aimee Semple McPherson and Perceptions of Pentecostalism, 1918–26. Journal of Beliefs & Values, 25 (2), 217–227. Bowler, K., 2013. Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel. New York: Oxford University Press. Bowler, K., 2015. Daily Grind: The Spiritual Workday of the American Prosperity Gospel. Journal of Cultural Economy, 8 (5), 630–636. Business World, 2015. PHL Economy Projected as 16th Biggest by 2050 – HSBC. accessed November 27. www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Economy&title=phl-economy-pro jected-as-16th-biggest-by-2050-hsbc&id=119247/. Chong, T., ed., 2018. Pentecostal megachurches in Southeast Asia: Negotiating Class, Consumption and the Nation. Singapore: ISEAS. Coleman, S., 2000. The Globalisation of Charismatic Christianity: Spreading the Gospel of Prosperity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Coleman, S., 2002. The Faith Movement: A Global Religious Culture?. Culture and Religion, 3 (1), 3–19. Cornelio, J., 2020a. The Philippines. In: K. Ross, T. Johnson, and F. Alvarez, eds. Edinburgh Companions to Global Christianity: Christianity in East and South-East Asia. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 242–253. Cornelio, J., ed., 2020b. Rethinking Filipino Millenials: Alternative Perspectives on a Misunderstood Generation. Manila: UST Publishing House. Csordas, T., 2007. Introduction: Modalities of Transnational Transcendence. Anthropological Theory, 7 (3), 259–272. 74

The prosperity ethic

Gbote, E. and Kgatla, S., 2014. Prosperity Gospel: A Missiological Assessment. HTS Teologiese Studies/ Theological Studies, 70 (1), Article #2105. Goh, D.P.S., 2018. Grace, Megachurches, and the Christian Prince in Singapore. In: T. Chong, ed. Pentecostal megachurches in Southeast Asia: Negotiating Class, Consumption and the Nation. Singapore: ISEAS, 181–206. Gunda, M.R., 2018. The Pentecostal Gospel of Prosperity and the Divisive Nature of Mega-Church Superstar Men of God (Prophets) in Zimbabwe. In: L. Togarasei, ed. Aspects of Pentecostal Christianity in Zimbabwe. Cham: Springer, 111–124. Hackworth, J., 2010. Compassionate Neoliberalism?: Evangelical Christianity, the Welfare State, and the Politics of the Right. A Socialist Review, 86 (1), 83–108. Hall, I., 2007. Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science. Feminist Theology, 16 (1), 79–88. Hasu, P., 2006. World Bank & Heavenly Bank in Poverty & Prosperity: The Case of Tanzanian Faith Gospel. Review of African Political Economy, 33 (110), 679–692. Haynes, N., 2012. Pentecostalism and the Morality of Money: Prosperity, Inequality, and Religious Sociality on the Zambian Copperbelt. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 18, 123–139. Hunt, S., 2000a. Dramatising the ‘Health and Wealth Gospel’: Belief and Practice of a Neo-Pentecostal ‘Faith’ Ministry. Journal of Beliefs and Values, 21 (1), 73–86. Hunt, S., 2000b. ‘Winning Ways’: Globalisation and the Impact of the Health and Wealth Gospel. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 15 (3), 331–347. Hutchinson, D., 2014. New Thought’s Prosperity Theology and Its Influence on American Ideas of Success. Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 18 (2), 28–44. Johnson, R., 2018. The Gospel and the Prosperity Gospel: Joel Osteen’s Your Best Life Now Reconsidered. Theology, 121 (1), 28–34. Kay, W., 2013. Empirical and Historical Perspectives on the Growth of Pentecostal-Style Churches in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong. Journal of Beliefs & Values, 34 (1), 14–25. Kenney, J., 2015. Selling Success, Nurturing the Self: Self-help Literature, Capitalist Values, and the Sacralization of Subjective Life in Egypt. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 47, 663–680. Kessler, C. and Rüland, J., 2006. Responses to Rapid Social Change: Populist Religion in the Philippines. Pacific Affairs, 79 (1), 73–96. Ma, W., 2011. David Yonggi Cho’s Theology of Blessings: Basis, Legitimacy, and Limitations. Evangelical Review of Theology, 35 (2), 140–159. Machado, D., 2010. Capitalism, Immigration, and the Prosperity Gospel. Anglical Theological Review, 92 (4), 723–730. Maddox, M., 2012. ‘In the Goofy Parking Lot’: Growth Churces as a Novel Religious Form for Late Capitalism. Social Compass, 59 (2), 146–158. Maddox, M., 2013. Prosper, Consume and Be Saved. Critical Research on Religion, 1 (1), 108–115. Maddux, K., 2012. The Feminized Gospel: Aimee Semple McPherson and the Gendered Performance of Christianity. Women’s Sudies in Communication, 35 (1), 42–67. Maritz, D. and Stoker, H., 2016. Does the Christian Worldview Provide a Place for the Law of Attraction? (Part 1): An Apologetic Evaluation of the Roots of This Doctrine. Verbum et Ecclesia, 37 (1), Article #1571. Martin, D., 2001. Pentecostalism: The World Their Parish. Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell. Mbamalu, A., 2015. ‘Prosperity a Part of the Atonement’: An Interpretation of 2 Corinthians 8:9. Verbum et Ecclesia, 36 (1), Article #1418. Mboya, T., 2016. Gift Challenges and Transforms Prosperity Gospel. African Ecclesial Review, 58 (1 & 2), 16–41. McDonald, J., 1986. Mary Baker Eddy and the Nineteenth-Century ‘Public Woman’: A Feminist Reappraisal. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 2 (1), 89–111. Moberg, M. and Martikainen, T., 2018. Religious Change in Market and Consumer Society: The Current State of the Field and New Ways Forward. Religion, 48 (3), 418–435. Mumford, D., 2012. Prosperity Gospel and African American Prophetic Preaching. Review and Expositor, 109 (3), 365–385. Mundey, P., 2017. The Prosperity Gospel and the Spirit of Consumerism according to Joel Osteen. Pneuma, 39, 318–341. Neubert, M., Dougherty, K., Park, J., and Griebel, J., 2014. Beliefs about Faith and Work: Development and Validation of Honoring God and Prosperity Gospel Scales. Review of Religious Research, 56 (1), 129–146.

75

Jayeel Cornelio and Erron Medina

Nolan, A., 2008. Jesus before Christianity. Quezon City: Calretian Publications. Obadare, E., 2016. ‘Raising Righteous Billionaires’: The Prosperity Gospel Reconsidered. HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies, 72 (4), e1–e8. Peck, J., 2010. The Secret of Her Success: Oprah Winfrey and the Seductions of Self-Transformation. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 34 (1), 7–14. Pew Research Center, 2006. Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Poon, A., 2015. Helping the Novel: Neoliberalism, Slef-Help, and the Narrating of the Self in Mohsin Hamid’s How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 52 (1), 139–150. Robbins, J., 2004. The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity. Annual Review of Anthropology, 33, 117–143. Sanchez, Bo., 2013. The Abundance Formula: The Four Simple Steps that Make Good People Rich. Quezon City: Shepherd’s Voice Publications, Inc. Shadle, M., 2018. Interrupting Capitalism: Catholic Social thought and the Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stackhouse, J., Jr., 1988. Women in Public Ministry in 20th-centruy Canadian and American Evangelicalism: Five Models. Studies in Religion, 17 (3), 471–485. Suh, M.-S., 2019. Two Sacred Tales in the Seoul metropolisL the Gospels of Prosperity and Development in Modernizing South Korea. Social Compass, 66 (4), 561–578. Sutterlüty, F., 2016. The Role of Relgious Ideas: Christian Interpretations of Social Inequalities. Critical Sociology, 42 (1), 33–48. Tan, C., 2014. Secrets of the Rich and Successful. Parañaque: Church Strengthening Ministry, Inc. Wiegele, K., 2005. Investing in Miracles: El Shaddai and the Transformation of Popular Catholicism in the Philippines. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Yip, J. and Ainsworth, S., 2016. ‘Whatever Works’: The Marketplace Mission of Singapore’s City Harvest Church. Journal of Macromarketing, 36 (4), 443–456.

76

6 Islamic ethics in Muslim Eurasia Prosperity theology vs. renunciation? Aurélie Biard

God does not love the arrogant and vainglorious, nor those who are stingy and who hide the benefits that God has bestowed on them . . . nor those who spend of their substance so as to be conspicuous before others. (Koran 57:23–4, 4:36–8)

Introduction The post-Soviet states that comprise Muslim Eurasia, defined as a place (space) located both in Asia and Europe (Mostafa 2013), provide a unique case for looking at the new ways in which religion and economics are coming to interact on a global scale. With the fall of the USSR, these once-isolated areas were suddenly confronted with globalization, in a process more brutal than that experienced by the rest of the Muslim world. This study rejects an insular view of the region, which has seen the same religious pluralism as anywhere else. Indeed, the opening of the Soviet borders at the turn of the 1990s allowed for new inflows and the import of foreign religious models, including proselytizing Islamic and Protestant movements, to the post-Soviet space. More often than not, these transnational movements are denounced by the local authorities as ‘sects’ that serve foreign interests, while the so-called ‘traditional’ religions— Islam (Ḥanafı̄ sm), Orthodoxy, Judaism and Buddhism—are all treated as part of a republic’s historical legacy. The goal of this chapter is to study the mutations of Islam in the wake of the fall of Communism and the integration of Muslim Eurasia into a globalized economy and culture, with a particular focus on the emergence of Islamic ethical systems that reject globalization due to its Western roots. The analysis focuses on two post-Soviet Central Asian republics with a Sunni Ḥanaf ı̄ majority, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Both speak Turkic languages and have a nomadic tradition. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan’s political situations are contrasted. Kazakhstan has had an authoritarian state oligarchy since the fall of the USSR in 1991. President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the ‘Leader of the Nation’ (Elbasy), ruled Kazakhstan for three decades before unexpectedly resigning on March 19, 2019 during a televised address to the nation. On

77

Aurélie Biard

June 9, 2019, Kazakhstan elected as president Nazarbayev’s hand-picked successor, KassymJomart Tokayev, who pledged to continue the policies of his predecessor. Kyrgyzstan’s hybrid regime, meanwhile, has seen several transfers of presidential power since independence via ‘revolutions’ or ‘coups’ against incumbent elites. Nevertheless, both states have been shown to redistribute wealth in accordance with the logic of clientelism, a reality that has discredited these states as providers of public goods. For the Kazakh and Kyrgyz populations, the abrupt transition to a market economy—in the early 1990s, both states collaborated extensively with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and ‘approved the “Western” blueprint of a free market economy’ (Botoeva 2018, p. 244)— was mainly experienced as trauma and signalled, above all, the total bankruptcy of the state and its mission. As most of society found itself impoverished, the dismantling of Soviet industries and the savage privatization of the 1990s gave rise to a new privileged class. The success of this privileged class arose from the control it exerted over the shadow economy, something deeply shocking to a population accustomed to a uniformity of lifestyles. Moreover, although Kazakhstan is far wealthier, stark economic inequality is apparent in both states. Kazakhstan, a ‘rentier economy’, whose current population is 18.5 million, relies heavily on oil, which accounts for 60 percent of its exports and more than 40 percent of state budget revenues. The country has been economically strengthened by two decades of ‘shock therapy’ and massive foreign investment in hydrocarbons. As in the rest of the region, its growth in the 2000s can be explained by the rise in consumption and the boom in the construction and financial sectors, but not by the creation of new industrial wealth or technological innovation. Kyrgyzstan (6.4 million inhabitants), meanwhile, is mired in poverty: nearly half the population (55 percent of rural dwellers and 28.3 percent of urbanites) lives below the poverty line. The problem is particularly acute in the southern regions of the country, which are overcrowded and suffer from a severe land shortage. In response, significant migratory flows—more than half a million citizens—leave the country each year, mainly for Russia and Kazakhstan, where they meet market demand for labour and send home the remittances on which Kyrgyzstan’s economy and state budget depend. In both post-Soviet republics, young people, in particular, have turned to Islam in search of values and ethical norms, which are shaped by the permanent interaction between the ‘local’ and the ‘global’ that characterizes globalization. These reinterpretations of Islam have turned it into an identity-building tool for acquiring selfworth and tend to centre on the economic (especially the acquisition of material goods and wealth). Although Islam is often thought of as a set of fixed beliefs, it is not unequivocal in meaning and orientation; it can be used for different ends. One such end is the rejection of neoliberal globalization, which is perceived as the triumph of capitalism. According to the revivalist proselytizing movement Tablighi Jama’at (in Urdu) or Jama’at at-Tabligh (in Arabic), the corollaries of consumption-based capitalism (e.g., materialism) divert the individual from ‘pure’ Islam. Key leaders of this pietistic movement in Muslim Eurasia, as Aisalkyn Botoeva points out, ‘insist that capitalism and the free market are first and foremost about idolizing the economy’ (2018, p. 254). Founded in India under British colonial rule (between 1925 and 1927), this ‘preaching group’ has grown from a local movement into a preeminent global Islamic current (Gaborieau 2000). Its annual gatherings (idj̲timā ʿ) in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh regularly attract millions of worshippers. In Western countries—especially Britain, France, Belgium and Canada—in the 1970s and 1980s, the Tabligh was often the principal religious organization in which Muslim immigrants participated (Gaborieau 2007); in more recent decades, it has lost ground to the (quietist) Salafi movement. 78

Islamic ethics in Muslim Eurasia

At the same time, Islam can equally well be used to legitimize the global market economy: new entrepreneurs from the urban middle classes of countries like Kazakhstan are giving capitalism a religious gloss. The reworkings of Islam in these two post-Soviet societies, dislocated by sudden changes linked to the collapse of the Soviet welfare state and the forces of globalization, have given rise to two ethical systems divided in their approach to the economy. In the first system, Muslim entrepreneurs who profess ‘bourgeois’ faith embrace an urban middle-class capitalist ethic, while in the second, Tablighi Jama’at militants advocate for the renunciation of worldly goods and for material and spiritual asceticism that facilitates drawing closer to the divine (zuhd) (Ingram 2011) as part of a perpetual quest for purity and personal salvation. Both Islamic ethical systems are enmeshed in the ‘local vs. global’ debate that is central to current globalization trends. To some degree, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan seem to embrace a ‘global’ Islam that is localized by being practised differently in each country. Proponents of ‘global’ Islam—in this case, the new Muslim entrepreneurs among the urban middle class in Kazakhstan’s millioninhabitant capital, Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana)—imbue it with Kazakh characteristics and the ethnic nationalism and anti-Western orientation propounded by the confessional bureaucracy (muftiyyat). They hope to reduce Islam to an ethnic national identity or even to a de-Westernized and de-Russified identity. Yet the true appeal of ‘global’ Islam is the theme of prosperity. Rooted in neo-evangelism’s prosperity gospel, it promises new Kazakh entrepreneurs wealth, upward mobility and social respectability. Consequently, ‘global’ Islam is conservative and market-oriented. It forges individuals who are well adapted to the norms of globalized market capitalism—or at least willing to conform to its dictates. At the same time, ‘local’ Islam has become a space for the production of the ‘global’. The revivalist movement Tablighi Jama’at is, paradoxically, a ‘local’ religious tradition that has provided a matrix for the creation of transnational faith communities in Muslim Eurasia and beyond. The Tabligh broadly adheres to the teachings of the Deobandi school (Arabic: Dā r Al-ʿulūm—‘House of Learning’), named after Deoband, near Delhi, in which seminary the Indo-Pakistani reformist movement was founded in 1867 (see Metcalf 1982; Reetz 2008; Ingram 2018). The Deobandi school’s theological position has always been heavily influenced by the 18th-century Muslim reformer Shā h Walı̄ -Allā h and the early 19th-century Indian Wahhā bı̄ yah, giving it a very puritanical and orthodox outlook. The syllabus is highly traditional; modern disciplines that are not relevant to a proper knowledge of Islam and can lead to sinful innovation (bidʿa) are ignored. The modern practice of Islam is studied only in order to purify it from unorthodox accretions. The Deobandi school adheres to a reformed Ḥanafı̄ Sunnism that eschews the cult of saints but accepts a purified form of Ṣūfism (Reetz 2006). It enjoins an austere practice of Islam, including female seclusion (purdah), the prohibition of music and a ban on attending cinemas (Gaborieau 2007). The Tablighi apostolate are reminiscent of proselytizing Protestant preachers: self-financing itinerant groups patrol the streets both at home and abroad, systematically going from door to door across the land, much as the Mormons do. The primary objective is to deepen the faith of those who are already Muslims and purify their religious practice. Tablighi Jama’at is much more active in Kyrgyzstan than in Kazakhstan, since Kyrgyzstan is the only republic in Eurasia not to have banned the movement. The country’s current Mufti, Maksat Hajji Toktomushev, is himself a former member of Tablighi Jama’at who drew international attention for pronouncing an anti-homosexual fatwa in 2014. In Kazakhstan, where the Tabligh is banned, Tablighis tend to go underground in order to escape state repression. It is worth remembering that post-Soviet Kazakhstan and, to a lesser extent, Kyrgyzstan have not hesitated to intervene directly and massively in the religious field by repressing so79

Aurélie Biard

called ‘bad Islam’, aptly exploiting the threat of ISIS to promote ethno-denominational identities centred on ‘good’ Islam (supposedly national, territorialized and loyal to the current regime). In a region experiencing globalization, the Kyrgyz and Kazakh political authorities promote a type of local Islam in which all pan-Islamist dimensions are marginalized and the focus is on supporting a specific Kyrgyz or Kazakh national identity. This ‘good’ Islam corresponds to a reified Kyrgyzness or Kazakhness and serves as a vehicle for the adoration of the nation and its supposed uniqueness—the ‘Kyrgyz way’ or ‘Kazakh way’. This reflects the general drift of post-Soviet politics: for the authorities seeking to legitimize their independent states, there is no better tool than the symbol of the nation, which offers the most inclusive membership and the broadest range of cultural material. Today, nationalism rooted in ethnicity tends to be positioned as a politically correct ideological framework in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan (Laruelle 2012). Yet whether we are dealing with Tablighis or adherents of a Market Islam (i.e., Market Muslims) that is morphing into ‘bourgeois’ Islam among the urban middle classes of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, this chapter argues that they are united in their condemnation of globalization, which they see as a Western imposition on the rest of the world, and in their promotion of anti-Western puritanism. Indeed, the main thesis defended here is that although these Puritanical Muslims are divided over whether they see the global market economy as legitimate, they universally consider the Western values propagated by globalization (particularly the defence of LGBTQ rights) to be corrupting influences on the individual at the micro level and society at the meso level. Puritan Islamic ethics and/or puritanical conservatism are therefore the watchword for protests against globalization-asWesternization (of lifestyles in general and mores in particular). Tablighis and Market Muslims alike deploy moral conservatism, foregrounding a reified Islamic virtue and purity that has to be protected or defended against the assaults of ‘decadent’ Western values propagated by globalization. Whether its proponents are capitalist or anti-capitalist, this morally conservative Islam stands, as Patrick Haenni reminds us, in opposition to prior forms of ‘Enlightenment Islam’ (Chebel 2004) which was both secularized and state-centric.

Context: state-of-the-art concepts and methods This chapter draws from François Gauthier’s (2017) theoretical framework, according to which current mutations of Islam (like other religions) take on the specific shapes and social location which they do as a consequence of their modelling in accord with the characteristics of what he calls the ‘Global-Market regime’. This regime has emerged over the course of the last few decades as a result of the latest phase of globalization, in which the rise of economics as a socially structuring force in global societies has acted to rearrange, reconstitute and reconfigure the institutions inherited from the former National-Statist period. For Gauthier, religion in the Global-Market regime is best understood against the backdrop of the joint rise of neoliberalism as a dominant ideology and set of policies and practices and that of consumerism as a consumption-oriented and desirable cultural ethos. Historically, these trends emerge differently depending on whether one starts from Western welfare states or Soviet-led communist states, yet both cases provide variations on a common theme. It corresponds to a profound reshaping of religion and the emergence of new Market-shaped religious phenomena. It is important to note that the ‘Market’ here is understood both as relating to economics and as the idea of a spontaneous and immanent type of social regulation.

80

Islamic ethics in Muslim Eurasia

The mutations of contemporary Islam: a marketization-informed perspective Gauthier stresses how religious phenomena in the Global-Market regime either espouse Market forms (e.g., Pentecostalism) or construct themselves against Westernization and its supposed materialism and moral corruption. In our case, we can distinguish between the emergence of an entrepreneurial and business-minded ‘Market Islam’ on the one hand, and fundamentalist currents which oppose such processes of neoliberal ‘Westernization’ on the other. While the latter proposes that Islam return to its origins, before its supposed ‘corruption’ by external influences, it contributes in practice to reshape Islam according to the new grammar of the Market regime. The notion of ‘Market Islam’ was first coined by Patrick Haenni (2005), based on his study of the moralist preacher ‘Amr Khalid in Egypt. Haenni’s notion embraces a broad spectrum of trends within Islam that are all characterized by the blending of neoliberal values (self-realization, individual productivity and performance, competitiveness, effectiveness and efficiency, empowerment, mobility, personal success and achievement) and Islamic practices, turning ‘Market Muslims’ away from collective social and political projects. Market Islam is not the prelude to the establishment of an Islamic state, but one of the vectors of the privatization of the state, even of the liquidation of the welfare state (Haenni 2005, p. 11). As for the Deobandi-affiliated Tablighi Jama’at, it is a quietist fundamentalist movement (Frykenberg 1994, p. 605) that opposes processes of ‘Westernization’. The Tabligh, as Barbara D. Metcalf points out, cultivates a mutuality and corporate identity constituted in the experience of missionary travel, ostensibly marking a contrast with mundane life and consumer society. This is a specific Islamic lifestyle (in terms of behaviour, clothing and discourse). Specifically, it is a Deobandi-inspired Sunna (the normative custom of the Prophet or of the early Islamic community) lifestyle that the Tablighis are advocating for and publicly displaying through specific practices: ‘The very image of the simply dressed, non-instrumental itinerant preacher implicitly devalues the wealth, success, and rootedness, that most of the society desperately seeks’ (Metcalf 1994, p. 717). Yet in so doing, Tablighis also partake, as we shall see, in the Global-Market model that predicts that religion is reconfigured into lifestyles: being involved in the Tabligh is indeed a born-again type of personal lifestyle choice which individuals can quit at any time without sanction (Dasetto 1988) and/or drift in and out of by participating sporadically in predication missions, in line with consumerism’s ethics of authenticity and expressivity. The Tabligh Islamic lifestyle corresponds to a mise en scène of the self that requires readily recognizable signs of identity and belonging through a distinct attire (fashion) that conveys a specific Islamic aesthetic. Through a specific type of Islamicized consumption, this lifestylization of Islam comprises a well-defined set of ethics (i.e., of guidelines as to how to live) as well as what presents itself as an alternative Islamic identity, in opposition to supposedly consumerist, materialist and amoral Western and Westernized lifestyles. The consumer-oriented religiosity fashioned by the ethics of Tablighi ‘authenticity’ turns ‘proper’ Islamic consumption into a tool for constructing expressive identities and therefore intersects with the market logics of the neoliberal age. The practices of Tablighis and Market Muslims alike exemplify the shift from largescale societal and political change to ‘narrower, more self-oriented goals of claiming and realizing individual and group identities’ (Yavuz 2003, p. 278). This shift from collective reform projects (political Islam) to individualized religiosities concerned more with ethics and identity is coupled with a lack of social contestation as well as the absence of a discourse on the growing social inequalities in both republics. These currents leave

81

Aurélie Biard

aside former demands regarding social justice, except in terms of charity (in the case of Market Muslims). Both Tablighis and Market Muslims reject state-funded welfare. During the 1970s, political Islam opposed the Western capitalist system, applying Marx-inspired critiques to a system it judged exploitative and, therefore, unfair and damaging to the disenfranchised. Today, on the contrary, Market Muslims align themselves with the market-sanctioned compassionate conservatism of US Republicans and, consequently, as Patrick Haenni (2005) observes, with the philosophical battle that underlies it: the enforcement of a new definition of modernity, emancipated from the heritage of the French Enlightenment. As for Tablighis, they can be considered, to put it somewhat provocatively, as economic ‘libertarians’ insofar as they advocate the elimination of state regulation as concerns their activities (including their trading activities). The only area in which both Market Muslims and Tablighis value state action is regarding mores and morality-related issues.

‘Puritanical’ Islam, the market economy and transnationalism in Muslim Eurasia In post-Soviet Central Asia, the relationship with Islam is structured around young people’s search for meaning in a context where more than half the population is under the age of 25 (Roche 2010). This is taking place in the midst of socioeconomic upheaval: the market economy has widened the gap between rich and poor and created new social structures that divide the winners and losers of this transformation. Key sectors of state action such as public health and education have been severely weakened. These humiliating ‘social misfortunes’—widespread and brutal pauperization, severe job insecurity and unemployment, elders’ loss of status and prestige, and the elimination of collective reference points—have spurred some citizens to emigrate, while others have turned to Islam as a means of restoring their dignity. Islam not only allegedly cures the evils that pervade modern Central Asian society, it also provides a route to self-fulfilment via a set of practices that allow the individual to (re)integrate society and even climb the social ladder. Adherence to Islamic ethical norms (akhlā q), manners and behaviour (ā dā b) may further allow for self-purification and individual reform (Arabic: islā h) that leads to not only celestial but also terrestrial salvation. The Islamic revival in Central Asia, particularly among the youth, is dominated by transnational movements such as Tablighi Jama’at and by transnational strands of the Islamic prosperity gospel. Tablighi Jama’at is committed to propagating the faith (tablı̄ gh) across state borders (see Noor 2012) and attempts to define a Muslim identity that is de-territorialized. The example of the Tabligh illustrates how neo-fundamentalism is involved in globalization, in the sense that it allows identities to ignore territories and cultures. Identities are based on individual choice and a set of markers with little content but high differential value. Islam is, for some, an opportunity for identity recomposition, which can be achieved in two ways that are mutually compatible: the construction of a local Islamized space (e.g., around a mosque) and accession to the umma, or at least to the ‘faith community’, or local and/or transnational neo-community through participation in an internationalist network such as the Tabligh. The transnational Tablighi community seeks to defend an ideal ‘niche society’ and/or global umma composed of ‘pure’ and ‘authentic’ Muslims, modelled on a fantasied ancient Medina in which everyone observes Islamic norms. Both as a sociocultural process and as an ideology, transnationalism relies on a give-and-take between a localized centre (historical or imaginary) that concentrates its resources and local communities that have become militant, such as the Tablighis. The latter, who belong to a transnational Tablighi ‘community of 82

Islamic ethics in Muslim Eurasia

faith’, are trying to ex-culture themselves—that is, they are withdrawing from the dominant culture that was once their own but has since become negative, ‘pagan’, anti-religious and destructive (Roy 2008). As for adherents of a transnational Islam adapted to the rationale of the market economy, their full participation in global consumer culture does not make them open to allegedly universal liberal Western values (cosmopolitan liberalism, religious pluralism and cultural liberalism). Evidently, therefore, it is possible to be both pro-capitalist in economics and ‘illiberal’ with respect to moral values, the rule of law and democracy, especially among young people. For this youth-led ‘illiberalism’, Gulzhigit Ermatov writes, cultural and political liberalism is, in Muslim Eurasia, to blame for ‘moral decay and degeneration in society’ (2016, p. 11). Market Muslims’ model for such a combination—which appears, at first glance, to be quite paradoxical—is Dubai, to which they refer almost systematically when they imagine an ideal society that combines modernity (more precisely, a postWestern modernity), Islam and a business-friendly environment. This has remained the case even as Dubai’s consumer-driven economy and brash business model have begun to be questioned: the city-state’s capital markets are now moribund, unlike those of Abu Dhabi, the UAE’s oil-rich capital and by far the wealthiest member of the seven-strong federation. This adulation of Dubai is connected to Market Muslims’ practices: they often migrate, take business or religious trips, or start businesses there (see Stephan-Emmrich 2017a; Mirzoev and Stephan-Emmrich 2018; Stephan-Emmrich and Schröder 2016). In their advocacy for the Islamization of mores (as opposed to their Westernization), Tablighis and Muslim capitalists promote an exclusivist and elitist puritanism with anti-Western accents. Islamic puritanism can be broadly defined as a reform project that consists of an individual and collective effort to go back to the source—that is, to the Koran and Sunna—in order to encourage Muslims to live in accordance with the norms and values of their religion. Islamic puritanism therefore seeks to restore rigid adherence to Islamic codes (Adraoui 2013). Scholarly research on Islamic puritanism has mainly focused on Salafism in the Middle East (Laoust 1932; Berque et al. 1966; Rougier 2008; Lacroix 2011), as well as its appeal to young people in Western countries (Adraoui 2013; Meijer 2014). As far as the post-Soviet space is concerned, the most important works are historical studies that explore the links between Muslim reformism and modernity (Dudoignon et al. 1997; Dudoignon 1992). Worth noting is the study of Jadidism, the 19th- and early 20th-century Russian Muslim intellectual movement that developed in response to colonial hegemony and the modern age (Khalid 1998). As for studies of ‘Puritan’ Muslims in Muslim Eurasia, they have mainly dealt, in the case of Tablighis, with the articulation between the transnationalism of Tablighi networks and their local discourses and practices, especially in Kyrgyzstan. The transnational nature of the movement has not prevented it from establishing, by the late 2000s, many connections with secular and religious authorities in Kyrgyzstan (Ismailbekova and Nasritdinov 2012; Toktogulova 2017). Pelkmans (2017) has explored both the power and the fragility of conviction in the case of Tablighi Jama’at while focusing on Tablighi techniques for making and keeping their conservative Islamic ideas relevant, believable and embodied. Discussion of Market Muslims, meanwhile, has centred on rural economic entrepreneurs’ development of an ethic of economic success since before perestroika (Dudoignon and Noack 2014). For the contemporary period, such scholars as Gül Berna (2015, 2017), Schröder and Stephan-Emmrich (2016), Stephan-Emmrich (2017a, 2017b, 2018), StephanEmmrich and Mirzoev (2016), Aisalkyn Botoeva (2017, 2018) and Alima Bissenova (2016, 2017, 2018) explore emerging Islamic businesses and lifestyles and how local actors—be they

83

Aurélie Biard

entrepreneurs, religious authorities, migrants or state officials—come to articulate different orientations of Islam in the market. The two case studies presented here are based on extensive fieldwork conducted in a Tablighi jama’at (community) in Kyrgyzstan and among Kyrgyz and Kazakh Market Muslims, using the anthropological method of total immersion, between 2007 and 2017. The first relates the story of Mollah Kudaybergen, a healer who cares for Naryn’s alcoholics, whom I first met in 2007. Since its construction in 2010, Kudaybergen has also been the imam of the new mosque built with Saudi petro-dollars. The case study also discusses the experiences of Azamat, a pious Kazakh businessman who owns a prosperous cement company in Astana, the Kazakh capital; this study was conducted in 2017. The second case study features Imam Askar, a rural migrant who became a Tablighi (Kyr. daavaci) member in Bishkek, the capital city, in the early 2000s. This material was collected in the village of Geologia, in the district (rajon) of Sokuluk, near Bishkek, where Imam Askar lives, in early 2010, before President Bakiyev was removed from power and fled the country.

From ‘global’ to ‘local’: ‘market’ or ‘bourgeois’ Islam and the Islamic Calvinist ethic In Muslim Eurasia, the Islam of the ‘disinherited’ that was prevalent among those dispossessed by privatization, shock therapy and the confiscation of wealth by oligarchs in the 1990s has morphed into a ‘prosperity theology’. In other words, in the post-Soviet area, as elsewhere, Islam has conformed or adapted to the rules of the global market and capitalist economy. This theme of prosperity is universal and is rooted in neo-evangelism. Kazakhstan is the flagship example of the development of a Market Islam that is morphing into a ‘bourgeois’ Islam among the urban middle classes of countries with rent economies in Muslim Eurasia. High growth rates throughout the 2000s allowed for the emergence of new middle classes across the country, including in the capital, Nur-Sultan (Astana) (Bissenova 2014, 2017), which has since 1998 attracted hundreds of thousands of migrants from different regions of the country. This intersected with the globalization of Islam to produce a ‘bourgeois’ variant of religious practice. Devotees of this ‘bourgeois’ Islam expect religious facts to align with their expectations and interests. These new merchants of faith, many of them preachers, legitimate their accumulation of capital under the post-Soviet patronage system by reference to a prosperity gospel, an approach that continued even in the face of the economic crisis that forced Kazakhstan to devalue its currency, the tenge, in August 2015. For pious Muslim entrepreneurs from the new urban middle classes, personal enrichment is perceived as positive—divine repayment for exemplary conduct based on the principles of Islam—so long as money is ‘properly acquired’ and purified by paying tax (zakā t corresponds to one-fortieth of an individual’s income, while ushr entails giving up to 10 percent of profits to the needy). With the notion of salvation through work, these new middle classes have invented an Islamized version of the Puritan ethic, adherents of which likewise saw the wealthy as ‘God’s favourites’. This Islamic Calvinist-type ethic combines strict piety with intense entrepreneurship, heavenly salvation and the here-and-now: for the believer, to whom prosperity is promised, the reward is immediate and visible. For this Muslim ‘pious bourgeoisie’, displaying piety is the path to middle-class status. The inculcation of Islamic values and ethics is seen as part of the process of embourgeoisement—that is, of developing bourgeois respectability as well as social and cultural capital. Even if Market Islam is carried by the urban middle classes, it tends to affect all social classes. Lower social classes do not escape this market formatting of Islam. 84

Islamic ethics in Muslim Eurasia

An example of this can be seen in the poverty-stricken republic of Kyrgyzstan, where I found that some Islamic actors put prosperity with a market logic at the centre of their teachings. Those ‘left by the wayside’ by the economic ‘shock therapy’ carried out in Kyrgyzstan in the 1990s are key targets of this preaching. Mollah Kudaybergen, for example, focuses his advocacy for a ‘return’ to Islam on alcoholics and drug addicts in Naryn, where 90 percent of the local population lives below the poverty line. Kudaybergen has opened a mosque in his own home, where he tries to first rehabilitate his patients through the rite of dem-saalù (‘breathing’ on a patient after reciting some sūras) as well as exhorting them to pray. Once patients are rehabilitated, Kudaybergen strives to (re)integrate them into society. He has even struck a deal with an employment agency to help his patients find work once they have recovered. In his work, the ‘return’ to Islam is clearly seen as the first step on the path to personal fulfilment and material success. Kudaybergen uses appeals to economic gains to engage with alcoholics and homeless individuals: When I meet an alcoholic in the street, I approach him and say, ‘Why do you drink a lot?’ I say just that and then I leave. The second time, I dress very nicely and I take a lot of money with me. I then say to him, ‘You drink a lot; if you didn’t drink, you would be like me, well dressed’, and then I show him my money. ‘You must read the namaz [pray], and if you behave well, if you do not drink, you will also have money’. Then I leave without giving him any money. The sick person is left to reflect. Some of Kudaybergen’s former patients, healed through his care and re-Islamized through his preaching, have allegedly become prosperous notables through their practice of Islam. They serve as examples to his current patients, who are marginalized and underprivileged. The process of embourgeoisement among the new urban middle classes, meanwhile, is embodied by Azamat, a successful Kazakh businessman who owns a prosperous cement company that has a quasi-monopoly on government contracts for construction in Nur-Sultan. Azamat is a devout Sunni Ḥanafı̄ Muslim, a rite that corresponds to the state-advocated ‘good’ Islam. Azamat has a private zakā t fund for helping orphans, the disabled and the needy through which he distributes his wealth, and established a free madrasa in Nur-Sultan. Through these charitable deeds, Azamat seeks to lead by example, increase his social prestige and gain bourgeois respectability. The cultivation of Islamic discipline is similarly connected to the development of civic virtue and urbanity. It is worth noting that the new urban cultural codes are loaded with references to Islam. Halal cafes are, for instance, trendy in all the big cities of the country. In Kyrgyzstan, the presence of Islam in the urban public space is even more undeniable (for instance, in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, Islamic popular literature is on sale in kiosks and big supermarkets, as are halal products, and Islamic fashion shops are sprouting up). Furthermore, in Kyrgyzstan (unlike Kazakhstan and the other republics of Central Asia), public institutions now include prayer halls. The view that the public space should be gradually ‘normalized’ by Islam-inspired values such as ‘modesty’, discretion and gender segregation is a growing tendency among the Kazakh and Kyrgyz new urban middle classes. Islam is seen, in particular by the youth, as a new code promoting individual morality and a more normative public space. The new Muslim entrepreneurs I studied in Nur-Sultan hold neoliberal economic views and support the globalized capitalist market economy, which they pair with conservative moral values. Kazakh youth as a whole are supportive of the symbols of a market economy, such as a private sector, entrepreneurship and the banking system, but not of ‘liberal’ social and cultural values, as surveys conducted by the Friedrich Ebert 85

Aurélie Biard

Stiftung confirm. Only 18 percent of young Kazakhstanis consider Western countries to be a good model of development (13 percent for European countries, and only 5 percent for the United States); 17 percent of respondents believe that Western values are becoming increasingly prevalent in society, while 69 percent agree that Kazakhstan’s culture should remain distinctive and resist outside influences and intrusions (cited in Laruelle 2018). This calls into question Nasr’s (2009, 2010) contention that Muslims who are partisans of a Market Islam are necessarily ‘liberal’ due to their legitimation of the market economy. Both at work and at home, a prosperous businessman such as Azamat adheres closely to conservative Islamic mores, implementing separation between the men and women who work in his company and maintaining gender segregation that is close to purdah (female seclusion) at home (male and female family members are, for instance, separated into two different rooms during meals and other gatherings). This conservatism is coupled with a desire to protect oneself from foreign (Western) imperialist influences, such as US movies or haram (forbidden) consumerist goods. Azamat and his family make sure their lifestyle is as ‘halal’ as possible: their leisure time and holidays are S̲ h̲ arı̄ ʿa-compliant (they vacation in Turkey and in Dubai, the favourite destination of Azamat’s wife), the family goes exclusively to the new trendy halal cafes in Nur-Sultan, and their children are educated in Fethullah Gülen Turkish schools. This conservatism also includes a nationalist, anti-colonialist opposition to Russia. As a patriotic businessman, Azamat considers it imperative to ‘produce Kazakh’ in order to compete economically with Russia. Along the same lines, he is fighting for the Kazakh language to be favoured over Russian, be it in the administration, the media or education. On this basis, Azamat welcomed Nazarbayev’s decision to shift to the Latin alphabet in 2025. This decision is indeed a very strong sign of Nazarbayev’s will to increase Kazakhstan’s cultural distance from Russia and symbolize its autonomy. The Soviet-sounding state programme called ‘Modernizing of the National Consciousness’, launched in 2017, is also a project of cultural empowerment of Kazakhstan in the face of Russia’s cultural dominance in the post-Soviet space. Thirty years after perestroika, Kazakhstan is still facing profound changes in its nationbuilding, with growing interactions between the state organs and several segments of society (Laruelle 2018). Kazakhstan offers, as Marlène Laruelle (2018) point out, a ‘multifaceted state narrative about the nation’s identity, with several competing repertoires’, and the same is true for Kyrgyzstan. In both post-Soviet republics, where there is minimal diversity of political expression, a new generation of practising Muslim businessmen/politicians are holding key positions of power. They combine both ‘nationalist-minded’ agendas and ultra-conservative values that echo the conservative laws and the anti-Western and anti-liberal atmosphere that prevails in Russia. This new generation of politicians with open references to Islam—a conservative and even rigorist Islam, not the folkloric and secularized interpretation of Islam inherited from the Soviet period—seek to justify their economic activities and gain popular support by proposing a new political discourse. It is characterized less by post-Soviet references than by Islamic values, similar to that of Erdogan’s party in Turkey before his authoritarian shift. In this new ‘post-post-Sovietism’, there is no longer a confrontation between a secular state and Islam—thus debunking the idea of a necessary dialectical opposition between the two—but a peaceful Islamization of society and state institutions through the progressive co-optation of Islam by state structures and the free market agenda. Against that backdrop, the advocates of bourgeois Islam such as Azamat display respect for political norms (they are loyal to the authoritarian regime and display respect for the 86

Islamic ethics in Muslim Eurasia

status quo) as well as for social hierarchies, arguing that money acquired through halal business (no bribes, no ribā (interest)) and economic success should be praised. This bourgeois Islam for middle classes and elites, which draws on the Ḥanafı̄ rite, could be consensual: the philanthropy of its devotees allows it to substitute for the state in guaranteeing the population access to basic public goods and services, while its conservative (even illiberal) values and its nationalist-accented anti-colonialism are popular. This bourgeois Islam could therefore be promoted as the embodiment of a new, de-Russified and de-Westernized, Kazakhness or Kyrgyzsness that combines ethnic identity, Ḥanaf ı̄ Islam and free market ideologies. This bourgeois Islam illustrates how the idea of the nation, with its links to ethnicity, can assert itself in a global context and help build indigenous/local identities. In a sense, the nation serves as a buffer between imperial forces, globalization and the local.

From ‘local’ to ‘global’: Tablighi transnational networks in Kyrgyzstan and the ethic of renunciation The Tablighi Jama’at movement is a paradoxical case where a local religious tradition has provided the foundation for faith communities worldwide. Tablighi Jama’at has transformed into a transnational entity that operates across state borders. Tablighi Jama’at is a modern movement. As Barbara Metcalf writes, it: [c]reates a voluntary, transnational society, apart from the state. It helps constitute an ideology of individualism in its radical concern with personal salvation, made possible by faithful action and in its emphasis on individual choice [. . .] Also characteristic of many modern movements is Tabligh self-consciousness about ‘authenticity’, coupled with an ideology that is increasingly expressed as an alternative to ‘the West’. (1993, p. 606) Looking at Tablighi Jama’at, it becomes clear how a local religious tradition became global by spreading a universal model of human behaviour through the imitation of Muhammad and his companions. This extends beyond beliefs to include clothing, gestures, behaviours, the rhythms of daily life and topics of conversation that exclude anything that is connected to the impure domain of ‘culture’ or refers to the diversity of cultures and civilizations—that is, to history (Roy 2008). The export-oriented Sunna expounded in the didactic monographs and textbooks written by Muḥammad Zakariyyā Kā ndhalawı̄ (1898–1982) between 1928 and 1964, which are collections of hadith, must therefore appear detached from the Deobandi school in order to present itself as universal (i.e., not tied to the South Asian cultural context). One individual who has embraced in Kyrgyzstan the Tablighi outlook is Imam Askar, a rural migrant who became a member of Tablighi Jama’at (Kyrgyz: daavaci) in Bishkek, the capital, in the early 2000s. Askar was seduced by what gives the Tabligh its universal appeal: the intensity of the personal commitment, the simplicity of the message and a tight-knit group that offers unconditional emotional support. Through religion, Askar was able to remodel his own identity, an empowering experience. Today, he is proud to see himself as a zealous Muslim preacher who ‘forbids the wrong and commands the right’ according to the Koranic injunction (see Cook 2000), rather than as a poor and uprooted migrant. In the course of his identity mutation through religion, Askar has reconstructed his view of the meaning of life and his system of ethics by internalizing the etiquette of this pietist movement. His main sources of inspiration are textbooks, with their specific hadith commentaries consulted by Tablighis for guidance, whether at home or in the mission field. 87

Aurélie Biard

Tablighis’ profound internalization of these texts—they are read in groups, often aloud, and are memorized—allows each follower to become autonomous, able to make Tabligh-aligned choices without hesitation. According to Barbara Metcalf, ‘followers attempt to live by hadı̄ th but in such a way that they aspire to internalize the written/heard texts to the point that they ideally become, in a sense, “living hadı̄ th”’ (Metcalf 1993, p. 585). Among Tablighis in Kyrgyzstan, including Askar’s jama’at, the most read and most cherished textbook or pamphlets (risā la) are the Hikā yā t-i sahā ba (Stories of the Companions). This book provides a template for individual and group behaviour by laying down two paths: one from the past, described in tradition, and one from the present, which has deviated substantially from the model set by the first (Metcalf 1993, p. 587). The text pays substantial attention to the spiritual values that dominated the Sufi milieu of the 13th century, offering detailed guidance on inculcating personal virtues—steadfastness, fear of Allah, abstinence and self-denial, piety and scrupulousness, self-sacrifice, devotion to the Prophet and so on (Metcalf 1993, p. 587)—into everyday life. For the Deobandi-affiliated Tabligh, Sufism is therefore conceived exclusively as an individualistic concern: the ‘ethical reform (islah) of the self’ (Ingram 2011). The model, based on the Deobandi interpretation of the lifestyle of the Prophet and his Companions, who are used as moral exemplifications, is intended for application to every circumstance. It comments on contemporary failures in order to inspire change: virtually every story draws a comparison between the present and the past, noting present failures to achieve a Sunna lifestyle: Those in times past lived frugally and humbly, worked with their hands, made any sacrifice to fulfil divine commands and spread the faith. They were passionate in their quest for knowledge—knowledge defined, one might note, as remembering hadı̄ th. They did not compete for worldly gains. They did not define taraqqi [progress] as it is defined today, as accumulation of worldly goods. (Metcalf 1993, p. 588) Despite the unfavourable contrasts between an idealized past and what is presented as a corrupt and decadent ‘present’, the main message of the text is that a return to the past— when people lived out the ideals expressed in hadith—is possible. Sunna, as portrayed in Tabligh-specific hadith commentaries, is a personal lifestyle choice (Gugler 2011, p. 341); a modern Sunna lifestyle can therefore be chosen and adopted in the ‘present’ and lead to moral fulfilment through the Islamization—or what Thomas Gugler more appropriately terms the ‘Sunnaization’—of one’s clothing, speech and behaviour (2011, p. 341). Individuals have the opportunity to stage their imitatio Muhammadi (Schimmel 1994, p. 90) in public space. The elements of this modern Sunna lifestyle pave the way to personal salvation: the more one adheres to the Tabligh programme, the more spiritual rewards—or ‘paradise points’ (tawab; Kyr. sawap) are gained. By living correctly in this world, individuals prepare for their salvation in the next. For the Tablighi neo-community of which Askar is part, a Sunna lifestyle means sacrificing with humility to please God. Askar therefore complies strictly with the Tabligh programme and etiquette, including such subtle embodied sensibilities as how to eat, pray and wash, in order to dwell eternally in Paradise. The pietistic movement advocates the progressive detachment of ties with this world by means of prayer—dhikr (remembrance, which corresponds in the Tabligh with the recitation of fervent prayers), ‘ilm (knowledge of God) and khuruj (lit. military expedition; ‘exit’)—which is supposed to allow the true 88

Islamic ethics in Muslim Eurasia

believer to find the serenity to which the soul aspires. Family, work, social position and material well-being are mere distractions from this goal (Kepel 1987). Indeed, ‘everything involving economic outcomes—material goods, money, and success in this life—should be secondary for devout Muslims’ (Botoeva 2018, p. 254). As success is always taken to be proportional to individual effort, Askar scrupulously carries out all obligatory and supererogatory religious rites, devoting all his time to worship. From a Tablighi perspective, the extreme poverty of Askar, his wife and their two children—occasioned by the fact that Askar does not work, except in an unpaid position as the imam of an unregistered mosque— shields them from the temptations of (over)consumption and other ills. Indeed, Askar’s younger brother, who inherited the family’s livestock, indicates that Askar lives only for daavat and namaz (prayer), following therefore what is advocated in the Hikā yā t-i sahā ba, the Stories of the Companions: ‘In fact, the Sahā ba would sacrifice the whole world for their prayer (namā z)’ (Mā lik ed., p. 60 quoted in Metcalf 1993, p. 594). Despite their sharp criticism of capitalism and the free market, most Tablighis, as Aisalkyn Botoeva points out, do not resist participating in the economy in their daily lives, even as they emphasize the need to be ready to give up profit in the name of their piety and prioritization of God. Indeed, the majority of Tablighis in Kyrgyzstan do not sacrifice their material survival as Askar does (provoking constant criticism from his wife) in order to comply strictly with the ideals of frugality and asceticism propounded by the ethics of renunciation or zudh, not least because Tablighis also insist that a ‘proper’ pious Muslim should be economically self-reliant. Such self-reliance could be achieved ‘through entrepreneurship if necessary’ (Botoeva 2018, p. 255). Tablighis in Kyrgyzstan, Botoeva explains, occupy specific economic niches: [they] actively seek ways of establishing their own private businesses, primarily in trade and agriculture (e.g., selling Muslim attire at bazaars, reselling used cars, and working plots of land). They also actively support each other through market activities, using mosques and their dava’at groups as venues for consolidating business partnerships and justifying the community-based approach to commercial activities as one means of paving the way to heaven. (2018, p. 255) Botoeva adds that some members of the Tabligh in Kyrgyzstan developed economic partnerships, ran their businesses together and ‘expressed genuine pride at their material success’ (2018, p. 255). Nevertheless, ‘such spiritualists always framed material success in terms of the freedom and ability it gave them to practice a rigorously Muslim life’ (Botoeva 2018, p. 255). Even a pietistic proselytizing movement like the Tabligh engages with marketization, since ‘marketization transforms religion into lifestyles, practices, and voluntary adhesion’ (Gauthier 2018, p. 387). This is precisely what Tablighis are doing: promoting and advertising the Sunna lifestyle in the public space—even though Tablighis like Askar refuse to participate in consumer society. Advertising this lifestyle requires that individual born-again Tablighis express their franchized ethics and identity-oriented brand of Islamic religiosity through visible, public signs, thus ‘making the specific qualities of their salvation goods visible in public spaces’ (Gugler 2011, p. 343). These public signs correspond to a specific dress code: wearing the veil for women and the Pakistani shalwar-kameez for men. The latter are also distinguished by their beard without a moustache, the cap (taqiyah) or turban on their head and the rosary and siwak stick they carry. These public signs, Tablighis hope, 89

Aurélie Biard

make them recognizable as ‘pure’ and ‘authentic’ Muslims, allowing them to draw attention and inspire others in post-Soviet Kyrgyz society to follow their example. In reality, however, they only make Tablighis look ‘backward’, ‘radical’ and potentially ‘fanatical’ in the eyes of the broader population with secular sensibilities (see Nasritdinov and Esenamanova 2018). The (re)publicization of Islam based on Tablighi understanding, which is blurring the private and public realms and thereby ‘deprivatizing religion’ (Casanova 1994), can be understood ‘as a consequence of the rise of the neoliberal world order and the spread of consumerism’ (Gauthier 2018, p. 401). Indeed, though Tablighis disdain consumerism, the public expression of their Islamic identity—through the dress code described above—is in itself a form of consumerism, echoing ‘the fashion for veiling’ as analysed by Baris Kiliçbay and Mutlu Binark Kamal in the case of Turkey (2002). It should be noted that this dress code has recently undergone a number of adjustments in order to deter suspicion from local authorities. Local media and Kyrgyz traditionalists had criticized davaachi who had returned from trips to India and Pakistan for wearing the ‘Pakistani’ dress code in emulation of what is, for Tablighis, the Sunna lifestyle. Davaachi now tend to alter their dress to suit national and local tastes. Members are encouraged to wear a chapan robe and national headgear like a felt kalpak (the traditional Kyrgyz hat), although a turban is permitted during prayers. This change in dress code has resulted in Kyrgyz Tablighis attempting to standardize and market a corporate Sunna lifestyle with an aesthetic that is half global/universal and half Kyrgyz/local. This visibility and publicization, even if frustrated, becomes political. The Tabligh has focused on ways to achieve the formation of a core of the truly faithful and the consolidation—through a body of doctrine—of a supranational cultural code. The ‘total’ faith preached by the Tabligh involves living outside mainstream society at the same time as saturating that society’s public spaces with Tablighi religious signs advertising the Sunna lifestyle. Tablighis see mainstream society as fundamentally hostile to ‘authentic’ Islam; the Tabligh therefore frames itself as a movement for the bottom-up re-Islamization of society, with the spiritual progress of individuals as its main concern. With tens of thousands of members and support in certain powerful economic circles, the Tabligh could mobilize against the Kyrgyzstani regime should it feel threatened with being banned. The Kyrgyz authorities, conscious of this, have sought to ‘ride the wave’ of Islamization and give it some direction by creating a davaat department within the muftiyyat. Particularly among the youth, they have sought to encourage an apolitical conservative re-Islamization that would help heal certain social ills (unemployment, crime, drugs, etc.) while containing the threat posed by Islamic groups that seek to oppose ‘impious’ political regimes. This effort has, in turn, allowed the government to appear friendly towards Islam and its blossoming and not as a kafir (infidel)—and therefore illegitimate—leadership in the eyes of believers (Biard 2017). Although Tablighis condemn globalization, considering it a Western imposition on the rest of the world, they are in fact perfectly adapted to it. Globalization allows for the creation of a web of regional networks that may be dispersed across the globe but which share similar logics and social representations—precisely the situation in which the numerous Tablighi jama’ats find themselves. Transnationality is decisive in the formulation of Tablighi Jama’at’s neo-fundamentalism: networks replace territory. Community life takes place in isolation within the network and not within a defined territory. It requires rupture, retreat and the organization of a space surrounding a charismatic leader (military leader or âmir in the Tablighi vocabulary) and/or a faith community (jama’at). This takes place in ‘Islamized spaces’—considered as pockets of resistance that Tablighis hope will eventually attract more 90

Islamic ethics in Muslim Eurasia

Tablighi ‘converts’—based on what Barbara Metcalf calls the ‘New Medinas’ (1996) within modern cities and villages.

Conclusion: future pathways for research These Islamic ethical systems—the Prosperity Theology from Market Islam and the Tabligh’s ethics of renunciation—whose adherents, be they capitalists or anti-capitalists, seek purity and individual virtue, both promote an elitist puritanism in the face of the supposed moral decay of the West. In order to be ‘virtuous’ Muslims, pious bourgeois capitalist Muslims and Tablighis alike must fiercely defend themselves against the decadent values of ‘Western Babylon’. A notable example is LGBTQ rights, which are considered ethically desirable in the West, whereas these groups see them as evidence of a moral laxness that corrupts both individual and society. This anti-Western puritanism links two models of Islam that appear to be economically and politically in opposition to one another, in that one seeks to embody a regionalized nation-state while the other rejects the nation-state as a horizon of meaning. Ironically, however, this anti-Western puritanism has in fact borrowed many features and themes from the object of its contempt, even imitating the conservative family values promoted by the Kremlin and the Orthodox hierarchy in Russia, conservative Catholicism in France and Evangelism in the United States. Tablighis and Market Muslims alike want to make the Prophet’s tradition, the Sunna, the norm for individual behaviour. In their view, every Muslim should imitate the ‘pious predecessors’, understood as Muhammad’s companions (the sahā ba) in Medina’s idealized first community (622–661). It is, however, difficult to bring this ideal to fruition because it is subject to a circular logic: the political can only be based on individual virtuousness, but virtue can only be fully acquired if society is truly Islamic. Life ethics and lifestyles are used to challenge globalization as a Western phenomenon, in spite of the fact that Westernization is a fait accompli. Partisans of these alternative Islamic ethical systems are themselves the products of Westernization and globalization. The societies in which they have evolved are neither ‘traditional’ nor ‘traditionalist’ but hybrid and cosmopolitan: they have already undergone authoritarian Soviet modernization. With rural exodus and emigration, traditional conviviality, respect for elders and consensus have been shed, replaced with conservative values built around Islam, especially the defence of the ‘traditional’ family. Local populations have the same values as people in any modern city: they engage in consumerism and strive for social mobility. The universes of young people, in particular, are made up of Western elements: social media, films, music, cafes and TV reality shows promising glory and fame. By rejecting a Westernization they have already internalized, Tablighis and Muslim capitalists are in fact voicing the myth of authenticity in borrowed and inauthentic language. But this does not prevent Tablighis, especially, from presenting themselves as reformers, censors and defenders against the threat of foreign influence, an influence that encourages people to abandon their sacred texts and forget their morals. The central question raised by these two case studies relates to the interactions between the state and these conservative—and sometimes competing—Islamic models. Do these Islamic movements’ critiques of Westernization extend to the contemporary Kazakh and Kyrgyz states? Whether bourgeois Muslims or Tablighis, believers in these countries do not spend their time praying: they have expectations of the political and economic system as citizens of these countries, in particular in the aftermath of the 2014 economic crisis and in a context of stark social inequality. Socioeconomic and cultural issues also haunt these 91

Aurélie Biard

Islamic communities, since a posture of pure religion without any participation in the broader society is untenable in the long run (Roy 2008), even for the ostensibly apolitical Tablighi communities (Gaborieau 1997). This raises the question of how Muslim capitalists and Tablighis, vying for recognition from the state authorities and advocating for the preservation of their interests, are entering politics and what they are demanding. It is also worth exploring how post-Soviet states are trying to channel pro-Islamic protests by condemning the corrupt and corrupting West. How do states incorporate these social demands into their visions of Islam without facing threats to their political legitimacy as secular states? Officials, whether in Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan, need to be careful not to alienate foreign and Western investors and to translate their anti-Western ideology into loyalty to the incumbent regime, along the lines of the Chechen model. Indeed, the latter implies ‘Kadyrovism’, named after the Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov (see Laruelle 2017). Kadyrovism, which promotes a hard-line pietism and is loyal to existing regimes while remaining fundamentally anti-Western—as evidenced by the 800,000-strong antiCharlie Hebdo demonstration Kadyrov led in January 2015—and puritanical, is enjoying increasing prosperity in both Russia and Central Asia.

References Adraoui, M.-A., 2013. Du Golfe Aux Banlieues. Le Salafisme Mondialisé. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Berque, J., et al., 1966. Normes et valeurs dans l’islam contemporain. Paris: Payot. Biard, A., 2017. Islam, ethno-nationalism, and transnational ‘faith community’ in Kyrgyzstan. In: P. Michel, A. Possamai, and B. Turner, eds. Religions, nations, and transnationalism in multiple modernities. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 107–134. Bissenova, A., 2014. The master plan of Astana: between the ‘art of government’ and ‘the art of being global’. In: Ethnographies of the state in Central Asia: performing politics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 127–148. Bissenova, A. 2016. Building a Muslim nation: the role of the central mosque of Astana. In: M. Laruelle, eds. Kazakhstan in the Making: Legitimacy, Symbols, and Social Changes. New York/London: Lexington Books, 211–229. Bissenova, A., 2017. The fortress and the frontier: mobility, culture, and class in Almaty and Astana. Europe-Asia Studies, 69 (4), 642–667. Bissenova, A., January, 29 2018. Fitting into a Secular Society: The Discreet Charm of Kazakhstani Muslim Entrepreneurs. Oral presentation within the Central Asia Program on “‘Bourgeois Islam’, Prosperity Theology and Ethics in Muslim Eurasia”, in the framework of the CERIA (Central Eurasia-Religion in International Affairs) Initiative, generously funded by the Henry Luce Foundation, at The George Washington University. Botoeva, A., 2017. Transnational Islamic banks & local markets in Central Asia. In: P.J. Luong, ed. Islam, Society and Politics in Central Asia. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, np. Botoeva, A., 2018. Islam and the spirits of capitalism: Competing articulations of the Islamic economy. Politics & Society, 46 (2), 235–264. Casanova, J., 1994. Public religions in the modern world. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Chebel, M., 2004. Manifeste pour un islam des Lumières: 27 propositions pour réformer l’islam, Paris: Fayard. Cook, M. 2000. Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dudoignon, S., Is’haqov, D., and Möhämmätshin, R., éds., 1997. L’Islam de Russie. Conscience communautaire et autonomie politique chez les Tatars de la Volga et de l’Oural, depuis le XVIIIe siècle. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose. Dudoignon, S.A., 1992. La réforme des institutions d’enseignement éthique, théologique et juridique dans le monde tatar et en Transoxiane, du “premier renouveau” à la soviétisation (1767–1937). Thesis (PhD). Université de Paris III.

92

Islamic ethics in Muslim Eurasia

Dudoignon, S., 1998. Communal solidarity and social conflicts in the late 20th century Central Asia: the case of the Tadjik civil war. Tokyo Islamic Area Studies Project. Dudoignon, S. and Noack, C., eds., 2014. Allah’s Kolkhozes. Migration, De-Stalinisation, Privatisation and the New Muslim Congregations in the Soviet Realm (1950s–2000s). Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag. Ermatov, G., 2016. Understanding illiberal sentiments of Kyrgyz youth. Central Asia Fellowship Series. George Washington University: Central Asia Program, 1–12. Frykenberg, R.E., 1994. Accounting for fundamentalisms in South Asia: ideologies and institutions in historical perspective. In: M.E. Marty and R.S. Appleby, eds. Accounting for Fundamentalisms: The Dynamic Character of Movements. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 591–616. Gaborieau, M. 1997. Renouveau de l’Islam ou stratégie politique occulte? La Tablighî Jamâ‘at dans le sous-continent Indien et dans le monde. In: C. Clémentin-Ojha, ed. Renouveaux religieux en Asie. Paris: École Française, 211–229. Gaborieau, M., 2000. The Transformation of Tablighi Jama’at into a Transnational Movement. In: M. K. Masud, ed. Travellers in faith: studies of the Tablı̄ ghı̄ Jamā at as a transnational Islamic movement for faith renewal. Leiden: Brill, 121–138. Gaborieau, M., 2007. Tablīghī Ḏjamā‘at. In: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs, ed. Encyclopaedia of Islam, second edition, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15733912_islam_SIM_7262 First published online: 2012, First print edition: ISBN: 9789004161214, 1960–2007 Gauthier, F., 2017. Religion is not what it used to be. Consumerism, neoliberalism, and the global reshaping of religion. London School of Economic and Political Science. Gauthier, F., 2018. From nation-state to market: the transformations of religion in the global era, as illustrated by Islam. Religion, 48 (3), 382–417. Gugler, T., 2011. Making Muslims fit for Faiz (God’s grace): spiritual and not-so-spiritual transactions inside the Islamic missionary movement Dawat-e Islami. Social Compass, 58 (3), 339–345. Haenni, P., 2005. L’islam de marché: L’autre révolution conservatrice. Condé-sur-Noireau: Éditions du Seuil and La République des Idées. Ingram, B., 2011. Deobandis Abroad: sufism, Ethics and Polemics in a Global Islamic Movement. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina. Ingram, B.D., 2018. Revival from Below: The Deoband Movement and Global Islam. Oakland: University of California. Ismailbekova, A. and Nasritdinov, E., 2012. Transnational social networks and trajectories of religious practices and discourses of Kyrgyz Dawatchis. Transnational Social Review: A Social Work Journal (TSR), 3, 177–195. Kepel, G., 1987. Les Banlieues de l’ Islam: naissance d’ une religion en France. Paris: Editions du Seuil. Khalid, A., 1998. The politics of Muslim cultural reform: Jadidism in Central Asia. Berkeley and London: The University of California Press. Kılıçbay, B. and Binark, M., 2002. Consumer culture, Islam and the politics of lifestyle: Fashion for veiling in contemporary Turkey. Europoean Journal of Communication, 17 (4), 495–511. Lacroix, S., 2011. Les islamistes saoudiens. Une insurrection manquée. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Laoust, H., 1932. Le réformisme orthodoxe des ‘Salafiyya’ et les caractères généraux de son orientation actuelle. Revue des Études Islamiques, 6, 175–224. Laruelle, M., 2012. The paradigm of nationalism in Kyrgyzstan: evolving narrative, the sovereignty issue, and political agenda. Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 45 (1–2), 39–49. Laruelle, M., 2017. Hardline Islam as a tool of the Kremlin?. Russie.Nei.Visions, 99. Ifri. Laruelle, M., February 08, 2018. Kazakhstan’s Nationhood: Politics and Society on the Move. Lecture at the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies (CERES), Georgetown University. https:// voicesoncentralasia.org/kazakhstans-nationhood-politics-and-society-on-the-move/ Meijer, R., 2014. Global salafism: Islam’s new religious movement. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Metcalf, B., 1982. Islamic revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Metcalf, B., 1993. Living Hadith in the Tablighi Jama’at. The Journal of Asian Studies, 52 (3), 584–608. Metcalf, B., 1994. ‘Remaking ourselves’: Islamic self-fashioning in a global movement of spiritual renewal. In: M. Marty and R.S. Appleby, eds. Accounting of fundamentalisms: the dynamic character of movements. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 706–725. Metcalf, B.D., 1996. New Medinas: The Tablighi Jama‘at in America and Europe. In: B.D. Metcalf, eds. Making Muslim Space in North America and Europe. Berkeley: University of California Press, 110–127.

93

Aurélie Biard

Mirzoev, A. and Stephan-Emmrich, M., 2016. The manufacturing of Islamic lifestyles in Tajikistan through the prism of Dushanbe’s bazaars. In: P. Schröder, eds. Central Asian Survey (special issue: Urban Spaces and Lifestyles in Central Asia and Beyond), 35 (2), 157–177. Mirzoev, A. and Stephan-Emmrich, M., 2018. Crossing economic and cultural boundaries: tajik middlemen in the translocal ‘Dubai business’ sector. In: M. Stephan-Emmrich and P. Schröder, eds. Mobilities, boundaries, and travelling ideas: rethinking translocality beyond Central Asia and Caucasus. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 89–120. Mostafa, G., 2013. The concept of ‘Eurasia’: Kazakhstan’s Eurasian policy and its implications. Journal of Eurasian Studies, 4 (2), 160–170. Nasr, V., 2009. Forces of Fortune: The rise of the new Muslim middle class and what it willmean for our world. New York: Free Press. Nasr, V., 2010. The rise of Islamic capitalism: Why the new Muslim middle class is the key to defeating extremism. Washington, D.C.: Council on Foreign Relations Books. Nasritdinov, E. and Esenamanova, E., 2018. The war of billboards: Hijab, secularism, and public space in Bishkek. In: M. Laruelle, eds. Being Muslim in Central Asia. Practices, Politics, and Identities. Eurasian Studies Library 9. Leiden: Brill, 233–257. Noor, F., 2012. Islam on the move: the Tabiglihi Jama’at in Southeast Asia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Özcan, G.B., 2015. Introduction: Market adaptations, interventions and daily experience: reflections on post-Soviet development in Central Asia: a multi-disciplinary perspective. Central Asian Survey, 34 (4), 409–417. Özcan, G.B., 2017. Diverging paths of development in Central Asia. Oxon: Routledge. Pelkmans, M., 2017. Fragile conviction: changing ideological landscapes in Urban Kyrgyzstan. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Reetz, D., 2006. Sûfï spirituality fires reformist zeal: The Tablîghî Jamâ‘at in today’s India and Pakistan, Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions 135, 33–51. Reetz, D. 2008. Change and stagnation in Islamic education: the Dar ul-‘Ulum Deoband after the split in 1982. In: F. A. Noor, Y. Sikand and M. van Bruinessen, eds. The Madrasa in Asia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 71–104. Roche, S., 2010. From youth bulge to conflict: the case of Tajikistan. Central Asian Survey, 29 (4), 405–419. Rougier, B., ed., 2008. Qu’est-ce que le salafisme? Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Roy, O., 2008. La sainte ignorance. Le temps de la religion sans culture. Paris: Seuil. Schimmel, A., 1994. Deciphering the signs of God: A phenomenological approach to Islam. New York: State University of New York Press. Stephan-Emmrich, M., 2017a. Playing cosmopolitan: Muslim self-fashioning, migration, and (be-) longing in the Tajik Dubai Business Sector. Central Asian Affairs, 4 (3), 270–291. Stephan-Emmrich, M., 2017b. Studying Islam abroad: pious enterprises and educational aspirations of young Tajik Muslims. In: P. Jones Luong, eds. Islam, Society, and Politics in Central Asia. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 263–324. Stephan-Emmrich, M., January, 29 2018. “Bourgeois Islam”, Gulf migration, and post-national sentiments. Oral presentation within the Central Asia Program on “‘Bourgeois Islam’, Prosperity Theology and Ethics in Muslim Eurasia”, in the framework of the CERIA (Central Eurasia-Religion in International Affairs) Initiative, generously funded by the Henry Luce Foundation, at The George Washington University. Stephan-Emmrich, M. and Schröder, P., 2016. The institutionalization of mobility: well-being and social hierarchies in central Asian translocal livelihoods. Mobilities, 11(3), 420–443. Toktogulova, M., 2017. The localization of the transnational Tablighi Jama’at network in Kyrgyzstan. In: P. Jones Luong, eds. Islam, Society, and Politics in Central Asia. University of Pittsburgh Press: Pittsburgh, 223–244 Yavuz, M.H., 2003. Islamic political identity in Turkey. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

94

7 Public morality and the transformation of Islamic media in Indonesia Arie Setyaningrum Pamungkas

Introduction The growth of media in post-authoritarian Indonesia is the result of greater press freedom established by President B.J. Habibie in 1999. Despite strict media censorship, the use of the internet in Indonesia since the mid-1990s opened up an alternative source of information for the public, especially for Suharto’s opponents (Sen 2011, pp. 1–2). All segments of the media community, including Islamic media, have moved rapidly towards more diversity and plurality, freed from the past constraints of state censorship and propaganda. The practices and symbols of Islam in the post-Suharto era are very much represented in both print, electronic, and digital mass mediated forms. This phenomenon has shaped the Indonesian socio-cultural landscape by moving it in a more Islamic direction. Islamic values and symbols are reinforced in the public sphere, and are more visible and gendered than before. In my view, the development of modern Islamic media in Indonesia is in accordance with the spirit of revivalist Islam, which promotes Islamic piety, rather than political Islam. Revivalist Islam refers to a context where Islam is manifested through expansive piety movements characterized by populist support for Islamic virtues and striking obedience towards Islamic doctrines (Lapidus 2002, p. 823). Revivalist Islam not only includes pious movements characterized by passive and apolitical spiritualism, it also resonates with radical and militant transnational Islamic movements (Hrair 1980, pp. 2–3). To go back in time, the development of the printing industry and mass press enabled Islamic sacred texts to be publicly accessible in the early 19th century, which in turn catalyzed the production of Islamic publications (Feener 2007, pp. 7–8). Historically, Islamic activism in Indonesia is not a new phenomenon. It existed in the colonial period and expanded in the postcolonial era. In the Indonesian colonial context, the Islamic press also helped to awaken the national conscience and shape the nationalist movement. In the postcolonial era, the Islamic press were inclined to support the establishment of a political constituency in the form of a nation-state. It also mediated fears about the polarization of global power during the Cold War years between the competing ideologies of capitalism and socialism, as Sukarno tended towards socialist ideas. The Masyumi (Majelis Syuro

95

Arie Setyaningrum Pamungkas

Indonesia or the Council of Indonesian Muslim Association), a major Islamic political party during the 1950s liberal democracy in Indonesia, contributed to this evolution. However, the party was banned in 1960 by President Sukarno following allegations of involvement in a coup, weakening the popularity of Masyumi and its publications. Despite the dismantling of the Masyumi party and Sukarno’s preference for secularist leftist groups, as well as active repression policies regarding ‘superstitious’ types of religion, Islam was still considered an important resource for building the national character. In this period, non-partisan Islamic media tended to echo Sukarno’s political agenda for consolidating nationalism and the critique of neocolonialism as expressed by the ‘Non-Aligned Movement’ founded in Bandung in 1955. During the political turmoil of 1965 which led to the elimination of the Indonesian Communist Party and the massacre of communist sympathizers, mass media, including the Islamic press, came under strict political scrutiny. Despite political pressures on mass media under the following Suharto regime, the industry for popular culture grew as the government shifted to a western model of industrialization and a market system for the first time. Robert Hefner (1997) emphasizes that a vast market of Islamic books, magazines, and newspapers started to develop in the late 1970s, while mosques proliferated in Indonesian towns and villages. During Suharto’s New Order regime, political Islam was restricted, as the regime promoted secular development programs similar to those employed during Sukarno’s rule. However, the government helped to promote Islamic piety in order to gain political support, especially from Islamic communities after some disputes with particular Islamic groups that ended in mass demonstrations, for instance in the case of a growing demand to regulate marriage laws in the 1970s (Pamungkas 2015). Andrew Weintraub (2011) argues that mass mediated forms of Islam have played a key role in the Islamization process in Indonesia. Amidst political changes, revivalist Islamic media are defined as seeking a balance between the market expansion of religious commodities and Islam. Shifting away from the state-centric strategies of political Islam, Islamic revivalism seeks to popularize and disseminate certain forms of Islamic teachings in order to reinforce Islamic values and practices that converge around the idea of an Islamized public morality (Pamungkas 2015). Since the diversity of Islamic media in Indonesia also represents the variety of Islamic organizations, it is important to locate their various interests with regard to their entanglements with the state. Concerns with public morality also become the focus of competing political interests that challenge the legitimate political authority (i.e. the state). This has been particularly the case in the post-Suharto era and the return, in 1998, to liberal democracy and the deregulation of the media sphere. With regard to the transformation of Islamic media in modern Indonesia, this chapter provides a study of Islamic media as an inseparable part of da’wa, with public morality as a central issue. Moreover, this chapter specifically discusses how particular themes related to public morality are generated by Islamic activism in particular historical contexts.

Theoretical frameworks: identity politics, popular culture, and the commodification of Islam Da’wa is translated as the ‘proselytization of Islam,’ ‘issuing a summons’ or ‘making an invitation.’ For many Islamic groups and organizations, da’wa is reimagined and articulated into commodified forms directed not only at religious self-healing and personalized forms of worship and practice but also towards generating social and political changes. Unlike the piety movement established in many traditional Muslim rural areas, which includes traditional forms of Sufism, the Islamic piety movement in Indonesia emerged from the 96

Public morality and Islamic media in Indonesia

Muslim urban middle classes over the course of the 20th century. The motivation to become ‘better Muslims’ has encouraged Muslim middle classes to upgrade their understanding and practices of Islam through study with a new class of religious authorities. These authorities range from scholars at state tertiary institutions and universities, to selftutored lay scholars with backgrounds in other fields like religious education, media (particularly TV and radio), and culture (Howell 2010, pp. 284–285). Most Islamic media label themselves as da’wa, which acts to label their activities as Islamic and provides a frame for their mission. The content of da’wa media aims to reinforce public morality, as the case of the role of such media in the debates leading to the introduction of the Pornography Law in 2008 illustrates. Da’wa missions involve public campaigns for Islamized and conservative moral and ethical standards and the promotion of personal discipline, and often involve the production of ‘moral panic’ around sensitive issues. Public morality issues are commonly justified through the religious obligation of amr makruf nahi munkar, or commanding the right and forbidding the wrong (see also Khalifa’s contribution in this volume). Literature about identity politics and popular culture have been successfully invested as part of this da’wa mission. It proposes religious messages as self-help resources in order to apply Islamic principles to everyday life and promote piety as a pillar of Muslim identity. In her own work on media, Birgit Meyer (2009) points out that religious media propose ‘aesthetic formations’ which connect imagination and virtues. Through viewing or reading, an audience participates and in many cases identifies with a ‘shared style’ that opens up spaces of imagination in which the subject can transpose her or himself at the same time that it integrates them into socio-religious formations. In this respect, aesthetic formations compose social formations in which the process of forming subjects merges with the making of a community (Meyer 2009, p. 3). Audiences are not purely innocent or passive actors, as modern media is active in the creation of societies and identities (Kellner 1995, p. 30). Consumers at this point have the power to alter popular culture in a cultural display of contested meanings and social values. This perspective helps to explain the motivation among Indonesian urban middle class Muslims to pursue an identity as better Muslims, because engaging with the da’wa mission and interactive media provides a vector for identity, questions of ethics (how to live), as well as creating imaginary bonds between likeminded and like-aspiring people, and therefore a sense of belonging and markers of community. They also provide a sense of spiritual immediacy; it is a form of religious action in its own right (see Howell 2010, p. 294). To get an understanding of how social formations are shaped by Islamic media, Eickelman and Anderson (2003) suggest the concept of ‘Muslim public spheres’ to account for the way in which, in Muslim majority countries, a new sense of the public is shaped by open contests over the authoritative use of the symbolic language of Islam. The rapid access to contemporary forms of communication makes it possible for Muslims to build up social connections and constituencies. In fact, new technological forms of communication have enabled a modern sense of religious and political identity that extends across trans-local horizons (Eickelman and Anderson 2003, p. 9). The notable rise in the practice of veiling for women in public can be linked to advancements in the media. It appears both as the product of intense media activity and a form of media in itself, as it is blended in with fashion and invests the public space as a symbol that is tied to the intertexuality of media discussions, publicity, opinions, and contestations. While veil wearing is not traditional in Indonesia, it is not something completely new. What is new is how the veil has become part of a self-expressive way to affirm oneself as modern for middle-class Muslims. What is modern here is that Islamic piety is coupled with a sense of cosmopolitanism and fashion 97

Arie Setyaningrum Pamungkas

that simultaneously makes a claim of piety. What is striking here is the blending of ‘Islam’ (reference to a transcendent or sacred belief) and popular culture (that is considered commercial or secular) through consumerism, that is fashion and the conspicuous commodification of Islamic symbols in everyday Muslim lives. Through these dynamics, veil wearing participates in the production of the Muslim public sphere (Brennen 1996; Jones 2007). The concept of the Muslim public sphere illustrates how Muslims build their understanding of Islam and share ideas about it across physical, cultural, and geographic boundaries. This is made possible through the fact that media allows for the visualization of ideas, which can be rapidly shared and duplicated and become a strategic part of Islamic da’wa (e.g., Eickelman and Anderson 2003; Salvatore and Levine 2005; Hirschkind 2006). The mediatization of Islamic da’wa practices includes narratives about Islam drawn from the Qur’an, and also other narratives which explain other forms of Islamic piety that Muslims find relevant to their daily life. Da’wa strategies make use of symbols, references, and rhetorical devices that use a language of Islam that is familiar to Indonesian Muslims and therefore acculturates and grounds global and transnational trends in the local culture. In the current development of Islamic media in Indonesia, Islamism has become a particularly influential ideology that values visible Islamic signs, piety, and an assiduous religiosity. Since the start of the 21st century, Islamic piety as promoted by Islamism has become omnipresent in the Muslim public sphere through commodified and mass mediated forms such as tele-preachers and Islamic-themed feature films. The Islamist cultural movement influenced by the Egyptian Muslim brotherhood of Ikhwanul Muslimin-Salafi’s (ikhwani) teachings in Indonesia initially began in the 1970s during the Suharto New Order period and expanded throughout the archipelago in the 1990s through networks of campus da’wa activists, including in some of the leading secular state universities in Indonesia. The movement translated the major ikhwani texts from Arabic into Indonesian and created an underground network for the circulation of Islamic publications. A consequence has been the adoption of ikhwani-derived Arabic terminologies into Indonesian with respect to various bodily practices and discipline. The term hijrah, which refers to strict veiling rules, is a notable example of a notion that has spilled out from the tarbiyah movement into the general public. Paradoxically, the New Order restrictions on political Islam, followed by the depoliticization of the secular campuses in Indonesia in the 1970s, had a greater impact on forming da’wa practices than official political recruitment. By shifting from outright politics into popular culture, book promotion, mediated religious sermons, and especially private religious education were key to the recruitment of da’wa activists during this period. The increasing commodification of Islam in contemporary Indonesia is also due in large measure to the socio-economic, technological, and cultural changes that have taken place in recent decades, driving the pursuit of moral certainty, spiritual enrichment, and piety as an identity (Fealy 2008, p. 16). The increasing commodification of Islam can also be identified as a result of the combined thrust of neoliberalism and consumerism. The effects of neoliberalism have been important in Indonesia regarding structural economic and political changes as well as state regulation more generally, for instance the deregulation of the media starting in the 1990s. As for consumerism, it emerged progressively in the 1970s and accompanied the formation of a new middle class in the 1980s and 1990s, leading to the ‘Asian Tigers’ economic crisis. This penetration of consumerism in Indonesian society has been accompanied by an acculturated version of what Charles Taylor calls the modern individualistic culture of authenticity, which promotes an expressive self (Taylor 1991). François Gauthier, Tuomas Martikainen, and Linda Woodhead have argued that religion has been globally reshaped within the framework of a Market type of regulation through the 98

Public morality and Islamic media in Indonesia

combined pull of neoliberalism and consumerism in particular, and the rise in importance of economics over all other social spheres in general (Gauthier et al. 2013a, 2013b; Gauthier 2014). In a recent book, Gauthier (2020) has applied this framework to the case of Indonesia, showing how media and consumerism are essential variables to consider for understanding recent religious changes in this country. The history of Islamic media and the particular destinies of da’wa missions examined in this chapter exemplify the shift from a political and state-centric type of regulation to a consumerism-driven and expressive Market one over the course of the last decades, and the consequent rise in importance of culture and social practices in the formation of a Muslim public sphere. My aim in linking the concepts of identity politics, popular culture, and the commodification of Islam is to provide an analysis of how Islamic media in contemporary Indonesia have generated a Muslim public by focusing on selected themes related to ‘public morality.’ I turn to debates that led to the adoption of the 2008 Pornography Law and the 2016 blasphemy case involving a non-Muslim political figure to illustrate these dynamics. Through these examples, I argue that neoliberalism and consumerism have had a profound impact that has shaped the ways in which Islamic moral codes have been produced, promoted, and appropriated on the whole of the political spectrum (see Fischer 2008; Rudnyccki 2009; Gauthier and Martikainen 2013a).

Da’wa strategies of public morality: the case of women’s magazines In the 20th century, during the colonial period and the birth of Indonesia as a nation-state, the Islamic press disseminated content about practicing worship, but also the interpretation of Islam regarding the social, economic, and political conditions of society as a whole, in what can be called the emergence of Islamic modernity in Indonesia. The foundation of the Sjarekat Islam (1911) and Muhammadiyah (1912) movements aimed through their publications to contribute in the transformation of traditional Muslim society into a fully modern one, namely through the reform of Islam in accordance with the principles of state sovereignty and its corollary, nationalism (Masud 2009, pp. 259–260). Claims of a ‘global Islamic revivalism’ started to emerge in the 1930s and became a source of resistance to colonialism, buttressed by the establishment of a transnational network of Muslim scholars. The da’wa strategy then aimed at constructing a sense of Muslim identity geared towards the suppression of colonialism. One finds an example of such ideas in the first Islamist magazine Madjalah Pembela Islam (The Islamic Defender Magazine) published by Ahmad Hassan and influenced by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (Feener 2007, pp. 10–14; Pamungkas 2017). Following Sukarno’s authoritative turn in the wake of the 1955 elections, this brand of political Islam was seen as problematic, leading to the dismantlement of the Masyumi party, in spite of the cultural legitimation it could provide to resistance against neocolonialism in the Cold War era (Madinier 2015; Pamungkas 2017). Similarly, the transition from Sukarno to Suharto was characterized by the establishment of a tight control over media and any criticism against the government. It included restrictions and state censorship of mass media, including the Islamic press. Although former Masyumis’ publications like the Panji Masyarakat magazine and Abadi newspaper were republished in the early days of the New Order by former Masyumi activists, both publications were banned again by the Suharto regime after the Malari incident in 1974. Both publications criticized the New Order government for embracing a free market system and allowing Japanese investments in Indonesia. Due to political scrutiny during the New Order, many Masyumi activists led by Mohammad Natsir avoided a direct confrontation 99

Arie Setyaningrum Pamungkas

with Suharto, paving the way for an alternative method of da’wa propagation through cultural activities. Natsir established a non-political organization that officially functioned as part of the Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah Indonesia (DDII) da’wa mission in the early 1970s. The DDII established relations with several non-governmental organizations in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Although the DDII promoted literature associated with political Islam, which it translated into Indonesian, the material was not easily accessible by the public during the New Order period. However, it was through such efforts that the DDII successfully generated a network of young da’wa activists in several leading secular campuses through their cultural da’wa activities (van Bruinessen 2002). The New Order government presumed that the da’wa activities were cultural, not political, and this inaugurated a new type of transnational da’wa activism that later became known as the Tarbiyah movement (Pamungkas 2015). the Arabic word tarbiyah is literally translated as ‘education.’ In fact, the da’wa movement combined its views on political Islam with mentoring techniques and thus created a hierarchical societal structure based on the members’ knowledge of Islam and their apprenticeship in mentoring sessions. Following the demise of Suharto, the Islamist da’wa party PKS (the Justice and Prosperous party) was established in 1998. In the New Order era, material promoting political Islam was disallowed from public representation. On the other hand, the New Order regime began to open up a vast sphere for the practice and discourse of Islamic piety in the 1990s. The Suharto regime began to embrace certain liberal Muslim scholars and allowed the establishment of the Indonesian Muslim Intellectual Association (ICMI) in order to benefit from their support in a period when its legitimacy, namely within the military, was eroding. Since the New Order era, Islamic media (magazines and newspapers) have tended to promote personal piety and also serve as a medium to campaign for government-related programs. Amanah, a popular Islamic women’s magazine, and Republika, a newspaper affiliated with the ICMI, are two examples. The fall of the New Order in 1998 also contributed to the decline of the nationalist discourse in popular Islamic media. Rather, it is the Islamic media who have subscribed to transnational Islamic ideologies that have enjoyed widespread public circulation, namely due to the state’s deregulation of its control over Islamism, as a side-effect of neoliberal policies and the rise of market logics in the post New Order era. Nevertheless, Islamist political journals like Sabili, Tarbawi, Saksi, Ummi and Annida were born at the peak of the Suharto period as underground (and therefore illegal) publications. They presented themselves as radical Islamic media emphasizing the importance of jihad. However, only Ummi has survived until today. This is because Ummi (literally meaning ‘my Mother’) has successfully transformed itself from a radical jihadist women’s magazine into a popular Islamist magazine with fashion and lifestyle pages and ‘People’ type content. This transformation was influenced by the impact of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and the Bali bombings that same year, namely the polemics and disputes among Muslims in Indonesia on the definition of the true meaning of jihad. Ummi is an interesting case study of the survival of a popular Islamist magazine that has adopted the pop style of a modern women’s magazine and a fully consumerized identity. The significant influence of Ummi’s efforts to push the political agenda of the Islamist party PKS is evidenced by the magazine’s role in the establishment of the Pornography Law in Indonesia in 2008. Ummi became the political mouthpiece of the PKS in disseminating discourse about pornographic activities in response to the wide circulation of print materials which featured mostly photographs of ‘naked women’ and texts about sexual intercourse in the early 2000s. On this account, however, Ummi’s concern with public morality not only addressed the issue of pornography (found in mass mediated forms), but aimed to further 100

Public morality and Islamic media in Indonesia

strengthen the normative sexual order more widely. This included a rejection of any explicit sensual, intimate, or erotic displays in public. Nudity, especially the full or partial exposure of men’s or women’s external genitals, women’s breasts and buttocks, as well as intimate kissing and any gesture imitating sexual intercourse, was seen as inappropriate. This was conveyed through narratives arguing that a law was needed to address these issues to protect the next generation of Indonesians from moral degradation. The discourse was symbolically associated with an Islamic feminine construct of Ummu Madrasa (mother of education), referencing Islamic doctrines that assign women to be the moral protectors of society. The Islamist agenda of situating women as moral gatekeepers is an inseparable part of what is called the marhalah da’wa. This refers to five strategic phases of da’wa: achieving selfimprovement (islah an-nafs); founding an Islamic family (islah al bait al Muslim); improving society (islah al mujtama); improving governance (islah al hukumah); and liberating Muslims from non-Muslim power (tahrir al watan). These goals aim in turn to return to the glory of Muslim ethical rules (rules for living) in order to produce and institute the global Umma. It is interesting that Ummi’s fully commodified and cosmopolitan matrix, with its alluring covers and features, by no means signifies a liberal attitude to sexuality; on the contrary. Ummi has proven itself to be an effective medium for propagating the da’wa movement’s project to transform public morality through the production of content related to the Islamic sexual normative order. Despite its opaque Islamist political agenda, Ummi essentially serves patriarchal capitalism, like many other secular women’s magazines, through the mediatization of commodified and conservative Islamic feminine identities. In this context, media like Ummi are actively involved in the re-stylization and commodification of Islamic activism, working towards forms of collective engagement by addressing particular market niches which it converts into putative adhesions to Islamist ideas, practices, and attitudes to morality. This includes arranged marriage programs to create the ideal Umma (Islamic polity) as well as other profit-making programs that incorporate Ummi’s fandom as cultural intermediaries assigned to advertise the consumption of Islamic goods, services, and leisure products for a larger market. Ummi has also proved its ability to cope with technological transformation by proposing a digital platform for its magazine and relaying interactive content and promotions on social media. Today, Ummi is the leading Muslim women’s magazine in Indonesia, and its Facebook fan page sported a million subscribers by the end of 2017. Ummi magazine is a new icon of pious and capitalist Muslim women.

Moral panic as da’wa strategy Another particularly effective strategy of the da’wa movement for acting upon public morality issues has been creating what social scientists call ‘moral panic’—a threat to societal values and public concerns (Cohen 1973; McLuhan 1994 [1964])—with respect to certain controversial issues, namely through social media. This is evidenced by the blasphemy case against Christian Governor of Jakarta Basuki Tjahaya Purnama, or Ahok, in 2016, ahead of the early 2017 local elections. The allegations were issued from Islamist groups such as the FPI (the Islamic Defenders Front), a vigilante organization established with support from the Indonesian army in 1998, and the GNPF-MUI (the National Movement of the Fatwas Guard), a collective organization with members from Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia and the PKS party, with the support of the MUI (Indonesian Ulema Council). Blasphemy allegations on the part of the Governor made it to public attention after a short video containing an edited version of a speech Ahok gave was published on Facebook by an Islamist social media campaigner, Buni Yani, on October 6, 2016. The edited video showed a section of an 101

Arie Setyaningrum Pamungkas

August 2016 public speech in which Ahok cited the Qur’an in support of his critique of the FPI’s support of other candidates. At first, nobody protested Ahok’s speech, including the predominantly local Muslims in the audience. However, the FPI and the GNPF MUI were successful in framing an argument according to which Ahok, as a non-Muslim, had no right to cite the Qur’anic verse and that he sought to deceive Muslims in his bid for re-election as the Governor. The campaign against Ahok went as far as a court case accusing him of blasphemy, which was widely disseminated on social media and popularized through the hashtag #BelaQur’an (Defending the Qur’an). This hashtag, generated by the GNPFI-MUI media center, facilitated access to posts about the blasphemy case that could easily be shared or copied. The media campaign about the blasphemy case eventually coalesced into a social and political movement called ‘the Action to Defend Islam’ that included serial mass protests combined with religious sermons. The largest mass protest, referred to as the 212 Action, took place during the Friday prayer on December 2, 2016 in Jakarta. The movement successfully influenced the court, which found Ahok guilty of blasphemy in April 2017. He eventually lost his position as Jakarta Governor to the hand of his competitor, Anies Baswedan, who benefited from the support of Action to Defend Islam later that spring. These mass protests also resulted in economic gain for some participants in the movement. For example, the protests helped to establish the ‘Koperasi 212,’ a Shari’a-based economic cooperative that promotes household products sponsored by members of the 212 Action. In this regard, the Islamist groups involved in the movement tried to persuade Muslim communities to develop an alternative economy in support of pribumi businesses, or businesses owned by presumed ‘native’ Muslims, to challenge the dominant role of the Chinese minority in the private sector of the Indonesian economy. Another product of the movement was the installation of tours featuring a series of religious sermons throughout Indonesia, managed by Action to Defend Islam. The religious sermons gave precedence to the call to build ‘the pribumi economy,’ spreading fear of ‘alien’ threats which coalesced anti-Chinese sentiments in Indonesia. In fact, this call was more about boycotting nonMuslim products and Chinese businesses rather than a promotion for the expansion of an ‘Islamic capitalism.’ In other words, the blasphemy case and the Action to Defend Islam movement situated the battle for hegemony over the Indonesian and Muslim public sphere in the media and economic arena, shifting the politics of Islamism away from strictly political to consumerised forms in which subjective appropriations of ‘proper’ Islamic moral codes are married to a capitalist ethic of prosperity.

Conclusion The Islamic media in Indonesia boasts its Islamic identity and relays its da’wa strategies as a ‘call’ or ‘invitation’ to practice a ‘proper Islam’ through the appropriation and expression of Islamic symbols and partaking in a consumerist Islamist culture. Islamic media in this respect is a powerful actor in the production of a ‘Muslim public sphere’ and the definition of Muslim morality. Through mediatization and consumerization (Gauthier 2020), a Muslim public is created for a ‘market niche’ that organizes around an easily recognizable Islamic identity. The transformation of Islamic media in Indonesia emphasizes public morality, especially through visible signs of personal piety. The sociological and cultural processes of incorporating da’wa strategies, public morality, and the creation of a Muslim public in contemporary Indonesia exhibit four main types of Islamist rhetoric: (1) the promotion of a formal expressive Islamic identity in the public sphere especially, through popular culture; 102

Public morality and Islamic media in Indonesia

(2) the airing of preaching and religious sermons in the mainstream electronic media and the multiplication of social media use. More specifically, popular Islamist media in Indonesia have targeted women and youth as consumers by promoting formal piety and their participation in the Islamic polity referred to as the Umma; (3) the definition and targeting of an oppositional and depreciated ‘other’ (e.g. the Chinese minority) as a critique of inherited pluralism in a multicultural Indonesian society; and (4) opaque political propaganda within religious forms of worship that make use of social media to mobilize masses for supporting particular political interests and partisan constituencies. Such types of Islamist rhetoric are in fact facilitated by the works of cultural intermediaries made possible by the development of the modern media industry and advanced digital technology, which are themselves embedded in capitalist modes of production. Mediated da’wa forms, especially since the start of the 21st century, have functioned not only as a sphere of political contest but also as a ‘display’ and means of promotion of material culture, namely through the presentation of an authentic Islam simultaneously constructed as a modern lifestyle. The mainstream media strategy which consists of inserting personal piety into the public sphere is supported by the provision of an ‘alternative lifestyle’ (to secular models of political modernity) that is legitimized by its appropriation and expression in the daily lives of Indonesian Muslims (see Gauthier 2020).

References Brennen, S., 1996. Reconstructing Self and Society: Javanese Muslim Women and the Veil. American Ethnologist, 23 (4), 259–266. Cohen, S., 1973. Folk Devils and Moral Panics. London: Routledge. Eickelman, D. and Anderson, J., 2003. New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Fealy, G., 2008. Consuming Islam: Commodified Religion and Aspirational Piety in Indonesia. In: G. Fealy and S. White, eds. Expressing Islam: Religious Life and Politics in Indonesia. Singapore: ISEAS, 15–39. Feener, M., 2007. Muslim Legal Thought in Modern Indonesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fischer, J., 2008. Proper Islamic consumption: Shopping among the Malays in modern Malaysia. Copenhagen: NIAS Press. Gauthier, F., 2014. Religion, Media and the Dynamics of Consumerism in Globalising Societies. In: K. Granholm, M. Moberg and S. Sjo, eds. Religion, Media, and Social Change. London and New York: Routledge, 71–88. Gauthier, F., 2020. Religion, Modernity, Globalisation. Nation-State to Market. London and New York: Routledge. Gauthier, F. and Martikainen, T., 2013. Religion in Consumer Society. Brands, Consumers and Markets. Farnham: Ashgate. Gauthier, F., Martikainen, T. and Woodhead, L., 2013a. Introduction: Religion in Market Society. In: T. Martikainen and F. Gauthier, eds. Religion in Consumer Society: Brands, Consumers, and Markets. Farnham: Ashgate, 1–24. Gauthier, F., Martikainen, T. and Woodhead, L., 2013b. Introduction: Consumer as the Ethos of Consumer Society. In: T. Martikainen and F. Gauthier, eds. Religion in the Neoliberal Age. Farnham: Ashgate, 1–18. Hefner, R., 1997. Print Islam: Mass Media and Ideological Rivalries among Indonesian Muslims. Indonesia, 64, 76–103. Hirschkind, C., 2006. Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counter-Publics. New York: Columbia University Press. Howell, J.D., 2010. The New Spiritualities, East and West: Colonial Legacies and the Global Marketplace in Southeast Asia. In: J.C. Liow and N. Hosen, eds. Islam in Southeast Asia: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies. London and New York: Routledge, 277–289. Hrair, D.R., 1980. The Anatomy of Islamic Revival: Legitimacy, Crises, Ethnic Conflict and the Search for Islamic Alternatives. Middle East Journal, 34 (Winter), 1–5.

103

Arie Setyaningrum Pamungkas

Jones, C., 2007. Fashion and Faith in Urban Indonesia. Fashion Theory, 11 (2/3), 211–232. Kellner, D., 1995. Cultural Studies, Identities and Politics between the Modern and Postmodern. London: Routledge. Lapidus, I.M., 2002. A History of Islamic Societies (2nd Edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Madinier, R., 2015. Islam and Politics in Indonesia: The Masyumi Party between Democracy and Integralism. Singapore: NUS Press. Masud, M.K., 2009. Islamic Modernism. In: M.K. Masud, A. Salvatore and M. van Bruinessen, eds. Islam and Modernity: Key Issues and Debates. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 237–260. McLuhan, M., 1994 [1964]. Understanding Media: The Extentions of Man. London and New York: The MIT Press (reprint). Meyer, B., 2009. Introduction. In: B. Meyer, ed. Aesthetic Formation: Media, Religion and the Senses. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 3–29. Pamungkas, A.S., 2015. The Dakwah Media in Post Suharto Indonesia: From Politics of Identity to Popular Culture (the case of Ummi). (Thesis). Humbolt University of Berlin. DOI: 10.18452/17136 Pamungkas, A.S., 2017. Membela Islam? Dakwah, Konstruksi Moralitas dan Ruang Publik Muslim dalam Sejarah Media Islam di Indonesia. In: S. Margana, S.U. Dewi Ningrum and A. Handayani, eds. Agama dan Negara di Indonesia: Pergulatan Pemikiran dan Ketokohan. Yogyakarta: Penerbit Ombak, 9–31. Rudnyccki, D., 2009. Market Islam in Indonesia. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institution, 15 (1), 183–201. Salvatore, A. and Levine, M., 2005. Religion, Social Practice and Contested Hegemonies: Reconstructing Public Sphere in Muslim Majority Societies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Sen, K., 2011. Introduction: Re-forming Media in Indonesia’s Transition to Democracy. In: K. Sen and D. Hill, eds. Politics and the Media in Twenty First Century Indonesia. London and New York: Routledge, 1–12. Taylor, C., 1991. The ethics of authenticity. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. van Bruinessen, M., 2002. Genealogies of Islamic Radicalism in Post Suharto Indonesia. Southeast Asian Research, 10 (2), 117–154. Weintraub, A., 2011. Introduction: The Study of Islam and Popular Culture in Indonesia and Malaysia. In: A. Weintraub, ed. Islam and Popular Culture in Indonesia and Malaysia. London: Routledge, 2–17.

104

8 Pious-modern subjectivities in the Palestinian West Bank Identity formations and contours between the individual and the familial, the local and the global Ferial Khalifa

Introduction: subjectivity and the new pious-modernity I cannot continue to live like other women do, without a mission in life . . . I want to be a person with impact . . . to reform society. Subjectivity is a state of mind (Allen 2002), affect, desire (Ortner 2006) and inner life (Biehl et al. 2007). It also refers to the culturally constituted meanings and ways of perception that animate the acting subject (Ortner 2006, pp. 107, 110). Subjectivity qualifies the subjects to ‘think through their circumstances and to feel through their contradiction’ (Biehl et al. 2007, p. 14). It assumes the subject’s intentionality (Allen 2002), reflexivity and agency (Ortner 2006), while remaining attentive to issues of social determination and processes of domination and resistance (Biehl et al. 2007, p. 9). The focus on subjectivity since the 1980s in the human and social sciences is part of a paradigm shift from ‘evolutionary reasoning and methodological positivism to agency and . . . context-bound interpretation of modernity and self’ (Göle 1996, p. 6). With respect to the study of Muslim women and societies, this has meant moving away from ‘universalistic master-narrative of modernization’ towards more particular ‘articulations between modernity and the local fabric’ (Göle 1996, p. 7). In her seminal study of the Islamist veiling movement of female university students in Turkey in the 1980s and 1990s (the ‘Turban Movement’), Göle does not so much explore how secularism replaces religion, following a universal model of modernization/secularization, but rather decodes Turkish constructs of modernity (ibid.). Göle observes that by veiling themselves, lower- and middleclass young Islamist women on Turkish university campuses were distinguishing themselves both from ‘traditional uneducated women’ and their mothers, whose traditional religiosity

105

Ferial Khalifa

was seen as lacking in ‘knowledge and praxis’ (1996, pp. 4–5). It lacked, in other words, intentionality and reflexivity. Göle concludes that in their adoption of the turban instead of the scarf, these women were not reproducing tradition as much as they were actively ‘shift[ing] from traditional to modern realms of life’ (1996, p. 4). In short, these women were constructing their own brand of pious and modern subjectivities. Likewise, in her ethnographic study of Lebanese Shi’i women’s everyday practice of Islam, Lara Deeb ‘clothes’ terms like ‘Islamization’ and ‘Islamism’ by seizing them in their local contexts (2005, p. 5), unravelling how women’s everyday practices are ways of debating and conciliating between modern and pious definitions of the private and public self (2005, p. 6). Deeb argues that these everyday practices construct an ‘ideal womanhood’ that is both modern and pious, producing a new meaning of what it is to be modern in which modernity and secularity, as well as materiality and spirituality, are enmeshed rather than opposed. This chapter explores some of the contours of this new form of female subjectivity whose pillars are to be both pious and modern in the context of the Palestinian West Bank. It does so through the example of the life story of a particular dā ʿiya (a Muslim woman preacher) known as Dā ʿiya Nur who voluntarily practices da’wa (calling). Women’s Islamic activism in the Palestinian West Bank dates to the late 1960s, yet proliferated during the 1990s. These developments occurred at the same time as a global human rights discourse replaced Palestinian national politics as a major discursive trope, following the Oslo Accords. This chapter argues that these transformations are to be read as being closely linked to the new geopolitical conditions created by the collapse of communism and the rise of neoliberalism and the massification of ‘post-Cold War consumerism’ across the Muslim Middle East (Haenni 2005, p. 11). It was also linked to the decline of political Islam in favor of ‘The New Islamism of the Middle’ and what Patrick Haenni calls ‘Market Islam.’ Ethnographic fieldwork for this chapter was conducted in the Palestinian West Bank during the summers of 2010 and 2011. During my fieldwork, I participated in two women’s weekly piety groups, which met in mosques, and conducted 20 in-depth interviews with dā ʿiyat (women preachers). This chapter is based on my interview with senior Dā ʿiya Nur. I decided to interview Dā ʿiya Nur because she was renowned for her well-attended weekly public piety meetings, which were especially popular in the late 1990s.

Senior Dā ʿiya Nur’s socio-cultural repertoire of piety and the contours of the new Islamic modernity Senior Dā ʿiya Nur was born in the early 1950s to an urban middle-class family in the Palestinian West Bank, where her father owned a handcraft workshop. In the early 1970s, she earned a diploma from a West Bank teacher training college. She then accepted a teaching position, which she enjoyed tremendously, confessing in retrospect having ‘given to her students from her very blood.’ After marrying a West Bank businessman who was sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, her husband asked her to give up her teaching job to take care of their children, because in his family ‘women were not to take a job [outside the home].’ After her youngest daughter turned six, Dā ʿiya Nur resisted her husband’s directive and insisted on studying Islamic law (shariʿa). She argued that she ‘could not live like a lost person (shakhs ̣ d ̣ā ͐ iʿ), without a mission in life, like other women did,’ and that she ‘wanted to have an impact, to reform society.’ Dā ʿiya Nur enrolled in a distance learning program in Islamic law, completed a degree in Islamic jurisprudence and started preaching in private homes to women in her area. 106

Subjectivities in the Palestinian West Bank

In the 1990s, a businessman offered his locale for free to accommodate the growing attendance at her home piety sessions, enabling her to reach a wider audience. Dā ʿiya Nur was proud that more than 100 women from all social classes and professional categories, including retired teachers, physicians, lawyers and stay-at-home mothers, would come to hear her. In addition to Quranic readings, a typical weekly meeting discussed community health concerns, such as water shortages, nutrition, food safety and storage, as well as personal status laws on divorce and child custody. Dā ʿiya Nur’s long years of preaching to women in private homes and later in a public hall made her a senior dā ʿiya, yet also drew her attention to the numerous social problems in the Palestinian West Bank. She listed some of these problems: Fathers hindering the marriage of their working daughters in order to benefit from their paid salaries; parents making their clever boys leave school and send them instead to work in order to earn some more money; divorcees with child custody and inheritance problems. Dā ʿiya Nur frames those problems in (Islamic) human rights terms, describing them as ‘issues of rights and duties (h ̣uqū q wa-wā jibā t).’ According to her, the moral categories which define the licit and the illicit (al- h ̣alā l wa-l-h ̣arā m) are meant to safeguard those rights, but because of the public’s ignorance of these categories, the rights of many people, especially those of women and children, are violated. She affirms being ‘so concerned that people understand those issues of rights and duties, [especially that] many women are ignorant of their rights.’ Her answer to such challenges is pro-active and empowering: ‘if you [a woman] have a right, go for it.’ In interview, Dā ʿiya Nur insists that her religiosity was unlike her father’s, ‘who worshipped in private and had no [social] impact,’ as well as different from her husband’s, who was sympathetic to the gender stance of the Palestinian Brotherhood, and whose religiosity was ‘propelled by his fear for ʿird ̣ (honour).’ ʿIrd ̣ (honour) in Middle Eastern society is a cultural code that defines women in terms of their sexuality and considers them a threat to social order unless under the supervision of a male subject who controls their conduct. Honour therefore reflects the male desire to control the female body and sexuality to ensure female modesty (see Abu Lughod 1999, pp. 85–110). But rather than submitting to this code of honour which limits her role to the private sphere, Dā ʿiya Nur envisions herself as a social entrepreneur with a public aim and mission to reform society. Against the traditional masculine authority of her husband and the Islamic Brotherhood, Dā ʿiya Nur draws on her identity as a Muslim woman entrepreneur and neoliberalism-inspired Islamic ethics (see Atia 2012) to carve out for herself a public space through daʿwa. Examples of such ethics are entrepreneurship, personal progress, self-development, hard work and commitment, having preached for years for free. Dā ʿiya Nur’s framing of the social and moral status of women in the Palestinian West Bank in Islamic human rights terms parallels the rise of global human rights discourses that started to prevail there in the mid-1990s. Dā ʿiya Nur’s redefinition of a Muslim religiosity also resonates with the 1990s shift in the Middle East from the political Islam of the 1970s towards what Patrick Haenni calls ‘Market Islam’ and its insistence on individual piety rather than state-centered large-scale social change as a result of global economic and political changes from nation-state ideologies towards neoliberalism and consumerism shaped realities. Dā ʿiya Nur’s mode of religiosity indicates a non-political, bottom-up moral reform approach to social change. With her modern education in Islamic law, she holds an intermediate position between an older and more traditional generation of women preachers from the 107

Ferial Khalifa

Palestinian West Bank who were active in local urban piety groups as early as the 1950s, and the younger generation of the politically active (Islamist) women of Hamas. Finally, Dā ʿiya Nur’s insistence on her right to work and public visibility through da’wa echoes central gender problematics which many Islamic reform movements have addressed since the late nineteenth century. In the next section, I will discuss these Islamic reform movements, focusing on the Muslim Brotherhood and The New Islamism of the Middle. The section will highlight these movements’ approaches to social reform and gender, stressing how these contributed to the formation of women’s pious-modern subjectivities in the Palestinian West Bank, through its local Brotherhood.

Modern top-down and bottom-up state-oriented Islamic reform movements and their gender stances Modern Islamic gender ideology dates back to late nineteenth- and early twentiethcentury Islamic scholars and reformers who, in response to increased Westernization, called for the modernization of the Muslim world and for a reform in Muslim women’s conditions without abandoning Islam. Mohammad ‘Abdu (1849–1905) articulated the rationale for this call, arguing that Islam granted women their rights before the West but had been ‘at fault in the education . . . of women’ and for not sufficiently acquainting them ‘with their rights’ (Ahmed 1992, pp. 139–140). Al-Tahtawi (1801–1873), Jamal alDin al-Afghani (1839–1897) and Mohammad ‘Abdu stressed the value of education for both sexes. Al-Tahtawi recommended that girls be granted ‘the same education as boys,’ because ‘this was the practice in the strongest nations’ (Ahmed 1992, p. 133). When, following their 1882 occupation of Egypt, the British restricted government education, Mohammad ‘Abdu established charities and ‘private committees’ to attend to the education of ‘both sexes’ (Ahmed 1992, p. 138). Mohammad ‘Abdu also stressed the need for a reform in ‘marriage practices’ that kept women back (Ahmed 1992, p. 139), and al-Tahtawi associated such ‘reforms’ against the social norms that ‘oppressed’ women with ‘national renewal’ (Ahmed 1992, p. 134). The reform agenda of these late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Islamic scholars remained at the heart of the ‘modernization project’ of their twentieth-century successors, the Muslim Brotherhood (Abu Lughod 1998, p. 243). Founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, the Brotherhood was soon to become a regional Islamic movement with strong popular appeal. However, from its beginnings as a moral reform movement intended to spread the ‘correct understanding of Islam’ (Soage 2008, p. 22), the Brotherhood quickly became a main source of political opposition to the Egyptian state. Violent attacks on public places were attributed to the Brotherhood, and in 1948, the Brotherhood was accused of the murder of Prime Minister Mahmood al-Nokrashy Pasha (1888–1948). The Brotherhood’s founder and political leader Hassan al-Banna was assassinated shortly thereafter, and it was believed that the Egyptian state’s security apparatus was responsible. In 1966, the Brotherhood’s political leader and ideologue Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) was executed, following the attempted assassination of President Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasser. The high cost of the state-oriented, top-down approach to social change promoted by both Hasan al-Banna and later Sayyid Qutub turned the Brotherhood into a dangerous contester of the state and thus led to its ban and the expulsion of its leaders from Egypt. Among those expelled from Egypt in the 1960s was Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who developed the tenets of The New Islamism of the Middle. This current emerged in the 1980s and 1990s in response to militant Islamism and was shaped by both the ‘successes and 108

Subjectivities in the Palestinian West Bank

failures’ (Baker 2003, p. 3) of the Islamic Brotherhood. The aim of The New Islamism of the Middle was to design an Islam-based authentic brand of modernity which stood at arm’s length of both Western-style state-centric secularism and revolutionary political Islamism. For al-Qaradawi, the spirit of Islam does not favor extreme positions as much as a middle stance between the strict and literal application of Islamic law (Shariʿa) and its abandonment (see Stowasser 2009, p. 181). After Qutb’s death, his legacy on the Arab East’s Brotherhood (Egypt, Syria and Jordan) distinguished it from its counterpart in North Africa (Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria). The Brotherhood in the Arab East regarded Islamic doctrine and political party as inseparable. In contrast, the Brotherhood in North Africa regarded Islamic creed and an Islamic political party as distinct entities. Islamic creed represents Islamic faith and community; an Islamic political party, however, represents numerous ethnic and religious groups assembled within a single entity (Muhrram 2016). Politically, the Brotherhood in North Africa was pragmatic, relaxing its stance on the implementation of Shari’a in exchange for a place in the political representation of power. Unlike state-oriented Islamic movements such as the Iranian Islamic Revolution, Islamic movements in Tunisia and Morocco in power after the 2011 elections did not announce the establishment of an Islamic state nor ‘seriously attempt at reviewing the existing legislation . . . on religious [Shari’a] grounds’ (Abdel Ghafar and Hess 2018, p. 2). These political differences between bottom-up and top-down Islamic movements mirrored different gender stances. When in the late 1970s Iranian women’s political participation in the Iranian revolution gained momentum, Ayatollah Khomeini (1902–1989), the political and spiritual leader of the Iranian Islamic Revolution, endorsed Iranian women’s participation in the Iranian revolution as Islamic ‘religious duty’ (Kian 2014, p. 188). However, once in power, Khomeini endorsed a paradoxical stance on gender in which ‘true Muslim women’ were to be active in the public sphere but ‘docile’ and ‘dependent on their husbands at home’ (Kian 2014, pp. 192, 189). Furthermore, after the establishment of the new Islamic republic, inequality between Iranian men and women was institutionalized, as Islamic law (Shari’a) became the republic’s primary source of legislation (Kian 2014, p. 190). A sequence of codes subsequently curtailed women’s rights in both the public and private spheres (ibid.). Salient among these codes was the Islamic dress code, which made the veil compulsory for ‘the entire female population of Iran’ (ibid.). The gender stance of the traditional Brotherhood was more conservative than that of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Islamic scholars. Perhaps the best explanation of this difference is Ayubi’s observation that the latter scholars ‘were striving to modernise Islam,’ while the former ‘were striving to Islamicise modernity’ (1991, p. 231). As the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna was an advocate of women’s participation in the communal base of the Brotherhood, but he recommended that a woman only be educated ‘with that which she requires to fulfil the mission and duty that God created her for: to take care of her home and her children’ (Al-Banna 1988, p. 11). In contrast, al-Tahtawi considered equal education for both sexes necessary for ‘harmonious marriages’ and acceptable for women to enter men’s professions when necessary (Ahmed 1992, p. 136). He also considered ‘women’s intelligence [as] . . . in no way limited to matters of the heart but . . . extending to the most abstract ideas’ (ibid.). Based on the rationale that Islam forbids the mingling of sexes, al-Banna insisted that women be prohibited from work and political participation (1988, pp. 19, 18), and even preferred that they pray at home (ibid.). Despite drawing inspiration from al-Banna’s adherence to an Islamic form of modernity, The New Islamism of the Middle disagreed with al-Banna on those grounds. For example, al-Qaradawi allowed women’s education, 109

Ferial Khalifa

work and political participation, on the basis of a non-textual and pragmatic interpretation of Islamic Law. In arguing for women’s political participation, al-Qaradawi proposed that the Islamic principle of guardianship (al-qiwā ma), which dictates that men are responsible for the women in their lives, applies only to the husband’s role in the domestic sphere, not to the public or political spheres (Stowasser 2009, p. 203). Islamists in North Africa had similar gender positions. Al-Ghannoushi, for example, has denounced the restriction of Muslim women’s education to basic reading and writing because of the corruption of the ‘education milieu’ (2012, p. 74). He also opposes the view that women should not participate in public life and work outside of the home on the grounds that the outside world is corrupt. Instead, al-Ghannoushi argues that women should be empowered to navigate the corrupt world within an Islamic framework (2012, p. 80). Likewise, al-Turabi wants women to participate in public life and even believes in a woman’s right to assume the political leadership of her country. Al-Turabi similarly holds that Muslim women can even lead men in prayer, can marry ‘People of the Book’ (Christians and Jews) and that the Islamic veil was not meant to cover the head—all views which al-Qaradwi firmly rejected. How did the traditional Brotherhood and The New Islamism of the Middle shape piousmodern subjectivity? To come back to Dā ʿiya Nur, her rejection of the Brotherhood’s conservative views of women, which her husband endorsed, led her to embrace the more progressive views of The New Islamism of the Middle. In order to better understand how these views were shaped, the following section further describes the composition of the Palestinian West Bank’s Brotherhood and how their traditional ideas about gender came to be.

Palestinian West Bank’s traditional Brotherhood and their gender stance The Brotherhood’s presence in Palestine dates to the mid-1940s, when branches of the Egyptian organization were established in several Palestinian cities, including Haifa, Jaffa, Hebron and Nablus (‘Uwaysi 1998, pp. 153–168). However, after the annexation of the Palestinian West Bank to Jordan after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the Palestinian West Bank’s Brotherhood became part of the main Brotherhood party organization in Jordan. The Palestinian West Bank Brotherhood’s ideas on gender, therefore, were influenced by those of its counterpart in Jordan. According to Abu Hanieh, unlike Egypt’s Brotherhood, which has integrated women activists into its organization since the early 1930s, in Jordan, variations in the social structure (e.g., tribalism) and Jordanian Brotherhood’s conservative interpretation of Shariʿa did not allow for a similar model of women’s participation to emerge (2008, p. 89). In fact, the Brotherhood in Jordan argued that women’s integration into the Islamic movement went against acceptable Islamic norms, and Jordanian women were not accepted into the Brotherhood until the early 1990s as a consequence (Abu-Hanieh 2008, p. 92). Robinson observes that Gaza Strip Islamists were political activists and that those in the Palestinian West Bank were more philanthropic (2003, pp. 120–122). The Gaza Strip’s Islamists, who came from poor families, were younger. They developed their political activism on university campuses and directed their activism against the Israeli occupation. Palestinian West Bank’s Islamists, however, were older. They came from urban and uppermiddle-class merchant backgrounds and advocated a bottom-up approach to social change through charity work and Islamic preaching in Palestinian West Bank’s mosques and Quran teaching centers. Their financial relations with affluent Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait helped them sustain their moral reform mission and welfare programs. The 110

Subjectivities in the Palestinian West Bank

traditional Islamists of the Palestinian West Bank and their support of women’s Da’wa activism nurtured Dā ʿiya Nur’s approach to moral reform. Few Palestinian West Bank women engaged in militant actions against the Israeli occupation during the second Palestinian uprising (2000–2005) on behalf of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and other Islamist groups, limiting female militant activism in time and scope. Political and militant Islam in the Palestinian West Bank quickly subsided as the Palestinian second uprising gave way to the penetration of consumerism and neoliberalism deep within the fabric of society.

The global context and its regional and local processes: neoliberalism, consumerism and the rise of market Islam According to Gauthier, the last half of the twentieth century has seen consumerism and neoliberalism progressively transform societies and culture worldwide, including religion (2018, p. 382). As a ‘set of business and managerial ideologies,’ practices and policies, neoliberalism emerged as a dominant force within world politics at the tail end of the 1970s (Harvey 2005). This is before translating into Structural Adjustment Programs led by the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) meant to ensure an efficient transition of previously stateowned services into the market economy over the course of the 1980s and 1990s. Politically, the neoliberal revolution has acted as a shift from a ‘government’ type of governmentality, that is of a vertical, top-down, bureaucratized and nation-driven and state-enforced kind of regulation, to a ‘governance’ type of governmentality, that is a civil society-centered, bottom-up, horizontal and supposedly non-coercive, partnership and punctual type of regulation ‘involving non-state actors and organizations’ as well as the state (Gauthier 2018, p. 398). In order to react and adapt to these changes, Gauthier notes how religious institutions (e.g., churches, but also bureaucratized religious movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood) started reforming their ‘structure and functions’ according to neoliberal business management principles (2018, p. 399) and began to perceive and present themselves as ‘entrepreneurs’ (2018, p. 390). These processes are observable in the Palestinian West Bank, becoming particularly prominent over the course of the 1990s and the turn of the millennium, considerably changing the social, cultural, economic and political environment within which Islam in particular, and religion in general, have evolved. In this same period, the Palestinian West Bank transformed to become a consumer society, with consumption as a prevalent and desirable ethos. The expansion of consumption as a practice that entails identity, community and meaning (Gauthier 2018, p. 387; Douglas and Baron 1978) started changing the modern notion of the autonomous self from the ‘rationalist’ to the ‘reflexive’ (Lury 2011, p. 29), even well outside of the confines of the Western world, driving individuals to express themselves through life patterns and consumption choices. Although individualistic and individualizing, Gauthier insists on the ways in which the emerging consumer culture of global society is ‘paradoxically intensely social’ because an expressive brand of individualism is in ‘continuous need for a community . . . actual or virtual, to recognize and validate these ever-constructing identities’ (2018, p. 401). This characteristic is important, as it has allowed the changes brought about by the penetration of consumerism to develop in non-Western societies and cultures where social bonds are still profoundly enmeshed in more traditional and honor-based forms of extended familial bonds. This is why the processes which Gauthier calls marketization have changed religion into ‘lifestyles, [experience-based] practices, and voluntary [forms of] adhesion’ (Gauthier 2018, p. 389) also in regions such as the Palestinian West Bank. 111

Ferial Khalifa

It is against such a backdrop of the joint rise of neoliberalism and consumerism that one can understand Patrick Haenni’s (2005) claim that the Middle East has seen the rise of Market Islam. Based on Haenni’s analysis, Gauthier (2018, p. 405) notes how Market Islam moves attention ‘away from collective, politically oriented projects towards individualistic, practical concern . . . linked to economic performance [and] introduces [within Islam a novel brand of] prosperity theology in which material affluence and individual success are interpreted as signs of baraka (grace).’ Gauthier moreover observes that the rise of Market Islam has made it imperative for Muslim women to ‘express their religious identities publicly . . . through clothing . . . i.e. through consumption’ (2018, p. 404). Rather than signifying the perdurance or return of political, mediaeval or traditional Islam, these new Muslim women’s Islamic life-style choices point towards ‘a new synthesis of Islam and modernity’ (Haenni 2005) in ‘post-Cold War consumer capitalism’ (ibid.). The evolution of Islamism in several Middle East societies illustrates this shift from political Islam to Market Islam. In Egypt, Bayat observes that by 1997, the ‘complex’ Islamist phenomenon, of which the Muslim Brotherhood, with its grassroots organizations and groups, and militant Islamism, which was particularly strong in the southern part of the country during the early 1990s (2007, p. 136), had subsided because of state crackdowns and the spread of personal piety movements. Islamic media, including fashion and leisure magazines, publicized an Islamic lifestyle that was especially appealing to upper-middle-class women such as the ‘New Rich’: a class which was the product of the economic opening (infitā ḥ) policy of Egypt as of the late 1970s. For this category of Egyptians, personal piety and Islamic lifestyles eased the anxieties caused by their new affluence, the fluidity of the global world and the multiplicity of life options by providing access to signs of piety and conformity with Muslim morality, without sacrificing their desire to partake in the flows of modernity in its global-capitalist form. As another example, Turkey’s economic liberalization program (1980–1993) created new ‘opportunity spaces’ for Islamic groups to advance their ‘Islamic ideas and practices’ (Yavuz 2004, p. 270). Kiliçbay and Mutlu (2002) note that Turkish entrepreneurs have identified the market of women’s Islamic fashion as a high growth potential and opportunity-rich segment in which economic interests and social status could be harmonized with the Islamic faith (2002, p. 503). A Turkish Islamic fashion industry flourished as a result, leading to both the incorporation of global brands into mainstream women’s consumption and the Islamization of the consumer culture. Kiliçbay and Mutlu show how the emergence of such a specifically Islamic type of consumerism shifted the meaning of Turkish women’s veiling. This practice henceforth developed along three complementary forms: ‘hybrid’ veiling, first, which expresses Turkish women’s Islamic identity, social status and aspirations, as well as their taste for modern fashion (2002, p. 507); more traditional veiling (Tassatur), secondly, consisting of a scarf covering the head in a way that reproduces inherited ways of expressing the Islamic code; and political veiling, thirdly, which covers the head and shoulders and asserts the public presence of political Islam (2002, p. 503). In the Palestinian West Bank, neoliberalism and consumerism gained momentum after the Oslo Accords. Political and militant Islam in the Palestinian West Bank waned as the second uprising ended and was replaced by a striking transformation in West Bankers’ modes of consumption and lifestyles. The construction of new Palestinian towns (e.g., Rawabi and al-Rihan), the extension of most Palestinian West Bank’s cities and towns, facilitated by flexible lending policies driving a thriving construction sector, and the growing number of banks, shopping malls, hotels, coffee shops, restaurants and brand-fashion stores, all attest to this sudden and profound transformation. 112

Subjectivities in the Palestinian West Bank

These developments were accompanied by a boom in Islamic dress, food, medicine, investment banks, private schools, leisure activities, sociability practices and life rituals (e.g., weddings). Islamic dress stores such as Hijabbi (‘my veil’), Jilbabi (‘my Islamic ‘dress) and alZiyy-al Islami (‘Islamic dress pattern’) proliferated. They reflect the preferences of middleclass women who want to express their Islamic identity not necessarily through their mothers’ traditional scarf, which partly covers the head, nor through political veiling, a long dress with a long white veil that covers the head and shoulders, but through a ‘hybrid’ form of Islamic dress, designed by international, Turkish and local brands. In 2013, a branch of the London-based Islamic Design House was established in Ramallah, the centre of the Palestinian Authority, thus turning Ramallah into a major brand city among those of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Jordan. These transformations were accompanied by a shift from Palestinian national politics to a global human right discourse, discussed in the section that follows.

From national politics to a global human right discourse in the Palestinian West Bank The failure of neoliberalism’s Structural Adjustment Programs in the 1980s and 1990s modified the neoliberal development agenda from sole market enablement to include the issue of human rights, which did not naturally flow from the latter as planned. This readjustment moved the focus towards measures meant to invigorate civil society and promote good governance, corruption limitation, poverty reduction and participation (Merz 2012, p. 52). In the Palestinian West Bank, a global human rights discourse emerged with the conclusion of the first Palestinian uprising in the early 1990s. Through international aid, this discourse contributed to shape the local development agenda and national politics, and had an effect on the constitution of Palestinian subjectivities. A growing Palestinian dependence on international aid after the Oslo Accords intensified this process. For example, external financial aid to West Bank and Gaza was ‘until the end of the 1980s, a regional matter’ (Challand 2009, p. 80), provided by financial sources from the PLO, the Jordanian-Palestinian Joint Committee, the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, and the Islamic Development Bank (Da’na 2014, p. 130). However, after the Oslo Accords, according to the Palestine Economic Policy Institute, Western external foreign aid to the West Bank and Gaza increased by over 600 percent between 1999 and 2008, while NGO funding increased by over 500 percent over the same period (Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute 2007). The expansion of the NGO sector was so pronounced that by 2001, over a third of all existing NGOs had been established after the Oslo Accords (Challand 2009, p. 80). Most significantly, the highest external aid to NGOs (30%) went to those involved in ‘rights-based’ undertakings (Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute 2007). Growing reliance on international aid altered Palestinian NGOs’ local development agenda from rural development to rights-related agendas, such as gender, environment and civil society (Da’na 2014, p. 132). International aid, with its peace-related development agenda, ‘narrowed [the] Palestinian political space’ (Da’na 2014, pp. 129–130) as a consequence, and shaped subjectivities (Merz 2012, pp. 50, 52). Therefore, while ‘positive neoliberalism’ started molding ‘societies and subjectivities’ in the mold of ‘enterprise and individualism’ (ibid.) globally, in the Palestinian West Bank, it caused a weakening of the Palestinian ‘collective national resistance movement by replacing political mobilization with civic engagements’ (Hanafi and Tabar 2005, p. 30). Thus, training workshops and advocacy campaigns addressing the rights of Palestinian women, children, the poor, the disabled and 113

Ferial Khalifa

other vulnerable groups increased as of the late 1990s. The election of the first Palestinian Legislative Counsel (PLC) in 1996 and the anticipation of a Palestinian state at the end of the five-year transitional period, as projected by the Oslo Accords, intensified NGOs’ rightbased advocacy. Women’s NGOs believed that it was their chance to introduce legal reforms regarding Palestinian women’s conditions, based on the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). It was in this euphoric climate of human rights activism that the Palestinian Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC) established the two-year project entitled ‘Palestinian Model Parliament: Women and Legislation.’ It identified ‘provisions discriminatory to women’s rights’ in Palestinian law and proposed they be amended by the PLC (Welchman 2003, p. 42). In 1998, the project proposed to amend the Personal Status law as concerns the minimum marriage age as well as the conditions of divorce, guardianship, polygamy and child custody. The project argued that the proposed amendments were in line with the international human rights law and the CEDAW (Welchman 2003, p. 47), both ratified by the Palestinian Authority. Although it brought unprecedented attention to Palestinian Personal Status law, the project was met with heated opposition. Shari’a court judges and seventy Shari’a-college instructors, university deans and imams signed a memorandum urging the PLC to reject the draft law (Welchman 2003, p. 49). The memorandum argued that ‘most of [the suggested] provisions [were] in explicit violation of God’s Book and the Prophet’s Sunna and the consensus (ijma’) of the Muslims’ (Welchman 2003, pp. 52–53). When a sub-committee of women was appointed to advise a general committee on drafting a unified personal status law for both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the Deputy Chief of Justice argued that it be limited to women with expertise in and a commitment to fiqh (Islamic law) (Welchman 2003, p. 47). Women believing in ‘sources of authority’ outside the fiqh, such as the women of the Model Parliament, were therefore cast as not qualified for inclusion (ibid.). With the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000, the Palestinian Model Parliament project was suspended. Yet this public debate among Palestinian secular and Islamic groups about the amendment of the Palestinian personal status law, as well as its resonance in the Palestinian West Bank community enabled Dā ʿiya Nur to articulate her pious-modern-ness in terms of (Islamic) human rights. As an example, she framed the problems of women and children in the Palestinian West Bank as violations of their human rights, but she also grounds these rights in the Islamic legal tradition. The following illustrates how these rights are understood as being Islamic based on Dā ʿiya Nur’s pious-and-modern viewpoint. In his comparison of Islamic and modern human rights conceptions of the term ‘right,’ Mossa notes that Islam stresses three kinds of rights: God’s (h ̣uqū q Allah), individuals’ (h ̣uqū q al‘ibā d) and those which are a mix of both (hybrid) (2000). The first stress a Muslim’s religious duties to God, the second to others (i.e., secular, civil rights), while the third emphasizes a combination of secular and religious rights. Mossa suggests that in Islam, ‘devotional and civil rights have the same moral status’ (ibid.). Based on Tuck’s (1979) distinction between active and passive rights, Asad (2003, p. 30) concludes that modern human rights are based on active rights: rights of the individual as such. Passive rights stress rights as reciprocal and interpersonal obligations (h ̣aqq and wā jib). Given this distinction between ‘global modern’ and Islamic notions of rights, it is interesting to note that Dā ʿiya Nur defines Islamic rights as both reciprocal (i.e., passive) and hybrid. That is, she defines Islamic rights as a mixture of one’s religious duties to God and one’s civil and reciprocal obligations to others. She thus conveys a notion of rights as a moral obligation not only in terms of ‘ibā dā t (worship) but also in terms of muʿā malā t (worldly, pragmatic affairs). In casting Islamic rights as hybrid, Dā ʿiya Nur creates a pious-modern-ness 114

Subjectivities in the Palestinian West Bank

that transcends (and challenges) the secular/religious dichotomy at the basis of the liberal conception of modern polity. In advancing that one’s civil rights (e.g., the rights to education, health, work and safety) are not separated from God’s rights, she stresses the enmeshment of the religious and the secular, an essential theme for her pious-modern subjectivity.

Conclusion This chapter has discussed the formation and contours of pious-modern subjectivities among Muslim women activists in the urban Palestinian West Bank. Through the analysis of the life story of senior Dā ʿiya Nur, whose long years of preaching to women in private homes during the 1980s and in a public hall during the 1990s, made her a senior dā ʿiya proud that more than 100 women from all ages, social classes and professional categories, including retired teachers, physicians, lawyers and stay-at-home mothers, would come to hear her. A typical weekly meeting which she used to head consisted of a Quran reading session and a discussion of community health concerns, such as water shortages, nutrition, food safety and storage, as well as personal status laws on divorce and child custody. In her preaching, she also drew her attention to the numerous social problems in the urban Palestinian West Bank. The chapter has also highlighted the gender dynamic in Dā ʿiya Nur’s familial and marital settings that shaped these contours. The contributions of the global and regional contexts are clear: the global shift from nation-state regimes to neoliberalism and consumerism; the shift in the Middle East from political Islam to personal piety and Market Islam; and the rise of a global human rights discourse. These regional and global shifts and processes have been taking place in the Palestinian West Bank since the late 1990s. In addition, international foreign aid was a catalyst in shifting Palestinian national politics from political mobilization to civic and human-rights based activism, while neoliberalism, consumerism and Market Islam transformed the Palestinian lifestyle from below.

References Abdel Ghafar, A. and Hess, B., 2018. Islamist parties in North Africa: a comparative analysis of Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt [Online]. Washington D.C. and Doha: Brookings Doha Center Analysis Paper, 22. Available from: [Accessed 20 May 2019]. Abu-Hanieh, H., 2008. Women and politics from the perspective of Islamic movement in Jordan [Online]. Amman, Jordan: Friedrich-Ebert- Stiftung. Available from: [Accessed 4 August 2018]. Abu Lughod, L., 1998. The marriage of feminism and Islamism in Egypt: selective repudiation as a dynamic of postcolonial cultural politics. In: L. Abu Lughod, ed. Remaking women: feminism and modernity in the Middle East. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 243–270. Abu Lughod, L., 1999. Veiled sentiments: honour and poetry in a Bedouin society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Ahmed, L., 1992. Gender and women in Islam: historical roots of a modern debate. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Al-Banna, H., 1988. The Muslim woman. 2nd ed. Beirut: Dar al-Jil. Al-Ghannoushi, R., 2012. The Woman between the Quran and Muslims’ reality. Amman: Dar al-Shurouq. Allen, A., 2002. Power, subjectivity, and agency: between Arendt and Foucault. International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 10 (2), 131–149. doi:10.1080/09672550210121432. Asad, T., 2003. The formation of the secular, Christianity, Islam, and modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Atia, M., 2012. “A way to paradise”: pious neoliberalism, Islam, and faith-based development. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 102 (4), 808–827.

115

Ferial Khalifa

Ayubi, N., 1991. Political Islam: religion and politics in the Arab world. London: Routledge. Baker, R., 2003. Islam without fear: Egypt and the new Islamists. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bayat, A., 2007. Making Islam democratic, social movements and the post-Islamist turn. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Biehl, J., Good, B., and Kleinman, A., eds., 2007. Subjectivity: ethnographic investigations. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Challand, B., 2009. Palestinian civil society: foreign donors and the power to promote and exclude. London: Routledge. Da’na, T., 2014. Disconnecting civil society from its historical extension: NGOs and neoliberalism in Palestine. In: S. Takahashi, ed. Human rights, human security, and state security: the intersection. Oxford: Praeger, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC, 117–138. Deeb, L., 2005. An enchanted modern: gender and public piety in Shi’i Lebanon. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Douglas, M. and Baron, I., 1978. The world of goods. Towards an anthropology of consumption. New York: Basic Books. Gauthier, F., 2018. From Nation-State to Market: the transformations of religion in the global era, as illustrated by Islam. Religion, 48 (3), 382–417. Göle, N., 1996. The forbidden modern: civilization and veiling. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Haenni, P., 2005. L’islam de Marché. L’Autre Révolution Conservatrice. Paris: Seuil. Hanafi, S. and Tabar, L., 2005. The emergence of a Palestinian globalized elite: donors, organizations and local NGOs. Jerusalem: Institute for Jerusalem Studies. Harvey, D., 2005. A brief history of neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press. Kian, A., 2014. Gendered Khomeini. In: A. Adib-Moghaddam, ed. A critical introduction to Khomeini. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 170–192. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511998485.010. Kiliçbay, B. and Mutlu, B., 2002. Consumer culture, Islam and the politics of lifestyle: fashion for veiling in contemporary Turkey. European Journal of Communication, 17 (4), 495–511. Lury, C., 2011. Consumer culture. 2nd ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Merz, S., 2012. ‘Missionaries of the new era’: neoliberalism and NGOs in Palestine. Race and Class, 54 (1), 50–66. Mossa, E., 2000. The dilemma of Islamic rights schemes. Journal of Law and Religion, 15, 185–215. Muhrram, R., 2016. Political Islam: the difference between the Arab East and West. Middle East Online. Available from: [Accessed 18 May 2019]. Ortner, S. B., 2006. Anthropology and social theory: culture, power, and the acting subject. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute., 2007. Economic and social monitor. 16. Ramallah. Robinson, G. E., 2003. Hamas as a social movement. In: M. Tessler and Q. Whiktorowicz, eds. Islamic activism: a social movement theory approach. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 112–139. Soage, A. B., 2008. Ḥassan al-Banna or the politicisation of Islam. Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 9 (1), 21–42. doi:10.1080/14690760701856374. Stowasser, B. F., 2009. Yusuf al-Qaradawi on Women. In: Graf and Skovgaard-Petersen, eds. Global Mufti: the Phenomenon of Yusuf al-Qaradawi. London: C. Hurst & Co., 181–213. Tuck, R., 1979. Natural rights theories: their origin and development. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ‘Uwaysi, al-Fattah A., 1998. The Muslim Brothers and the Palestine question 1928–1947. London and New York: Tauris Academic Studies. Welchman, L., 2003. In the interim: civil society, the sharʿi judiciary and Palestinian personal status law in the transitional period. Islamic Law and Society, 10 (1), 34–69. Yavuz, H., 2004. Opportunity spaces, identity, and Islamic meaning in Turkey. In: Q. Whitorowicz, ed. Islamic activism: a social movement theory approach. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 270–288.

116

9 ‘We are overfed’ Young evangelicals, globalization, and social justice Catherine Rivera

Introduction Generational transmission of religious knowledge and practice is a common way that religions around the world ensure their continuance (Ward 2013). Research by scholars of religion suggests that youth in western countries, where Christianity has historically been predominant, increasingly prefer to identify as either ‘spiritual but not religious,’ or as not having any religion at all (Pratt 2016; Putnam and Campbell 2010; Ward 2013). This seems to indicate that generational transference of religious beliefs is not as effective as in the past. Amongst those young people who do stay connected with their natal family faith, such as the majority of participants in my research, there are changes taking place that are challenging established religious praxis and theology around a number of issues, in particular those pertaining to social justice. This chapter focuses on young, Millennial evangelical Christians and why they want to be involved in social justice work, which often takes place on short-term trips (STTs) overseas. The young Christians who take these trips are often encouraged by their leaders to experience ‘God’s global heart’ (Baillie Smith et al. 2013), and have their worldview expanded from the local to the global through becoming ‘world-changers’ (Hancock 2014). Evangelical world engagement throughout the 20th century emphasized conversion and ‘saving souls,’ often combined with charity work (Bebbington 1989; Bielo 2011; Elisha 2011, Ryan 2013). Yet amongst Millennial evangelicals, who are globally engaged and technologically savvy, interest in trying to convert others is fading and there is a rise of interest in social justice (Bielo 2009; Jian Lee 2015; Markham 2010). The internet, especially social media, is a driving factor for this change through connecting people on an unprecedented scale. This topic has relevance because the change in emphasis from conversion to social justice is already causing a shift where evangelical groups spend their money, of which they have a lot, often millions of dollars (Elisha 2011; Hoffstadedter 2011; Swanson n.d.). Evangelicalism is a movement within Christianity, mainly amongst Protestants, and is an ‘international, trans-denominational community with complicated infrastructures of institutions 117

Catherine Rivera

and persons’ (Marsden 1984, p. ix). It crosses many denominations and is intertwined with Pentecostalism, Christian Fundamentalism, and the Charismatic movement (see Armstrong 2000; Coleman 2006; Coleman and Hackett 2015). The most common definition of Evangelicalism comes from historian David Bebbington and includes four main defining characteristics. These are: a strong focus on reading the Bible, an emphasis on Jesus’s death on the cross as atonement for sin, converting non-Christians through evangelism and mission work, and helping others through action (Bebbington 1989). Evangelicalism is rooted in 17th-century German Lutheran Pietism, which emphasized action-based Christianity, and a ‘transformed heart’ (McGrath 2005). The focus on being active was framed as taking God’s love to the poor and downtrodden (Dormor et al. 2003; Olsen 2007). Many evangelicals in 18th- and 19th-century Britain and the USA did this by starting social movement campaigns including outlawing the slave trade, the temperance movement, campaigning against child labour, and for union rights and penal reform (Armstrong 2000; Luhrmann 2012; Wallis 2008). In the early 20th century some Protestants formed the Christian Fundamentalist movement, partly as a reaction against evangelical social movements, complaining that they distracted the Church from its most important goal; learning the Bible and getting people’s souls saved so they could go to heaven (Armstrong 2000; Luhrmann 2012). Fundamentalism gained traction in evangelical Churches and much of the social justice work they had undertaken previously stopped (Armstrong 2000; Noll 1994). In the 1960s there was a push to get back to ‘action-based’ Christianity through the Charismatic movement, a group of Protestants who had been influenced by Pentecostalism (Coleman 2006; Stetzer 2013; Yong 2015). The Pentecostal movement started in California in 1901 and emphasizes supernatural experiences such as healing, prophesy, and experiencing the Holy Spirit (Yong 2015). During the 1970s, the countercultural ‘Jesus People’ movement, also situated in California, combined Pentecostalism with a more modern and contemporary form of charismatic Christianity based around catchy and upbeat praise and worship music. Influential evangelical denominations such as Calvary Chapel and The Vineyard grew out of this period (Butler Bass 2012; Luhrmann 2012; Ward 2013). Since the mid-1980s western evangelicalism has been strongly influenced by a group of US Christians called ‘the Moral Majority’ movement, founded by conservative pastor Jerry Falwell (Coleman and Hackett 2015; Harding 2001). Based in Christian Fundamentalism, the movement has been successful in moving many evangelicals worldwide to the political right, and emphasizes ‘moral values,’ epitomized in anti-abortion and anti-homosexuality campaigns (Bielo 2014; O’Neill 2014; Whitehead and Baker 2012). Just how politically right-wing US evangelicalism has become was highlighted in the 2016 US election as over 80% of white evangelicals voted for Republican candidate Donald Trump (Smith and Martinez 2016), arguably the most ‘un-Christian’ candidate to ever run for US President. In response to conservative evangelicalism there has been a rise in progressive evangelical activism, particularly in the USA (Bruinius 2017; Lovett 2018). Movements like Rev. Jim Wallis’s ‘Sojourners,’ are drawing on evangelicalism’s past engagement with social movements to challenge evangelicals to take a stand against the politically conservative Christianity that has come to define evangelicalism in the eyes of many (Wallis 2008). Other popular Christian progressive activists, authors, and teachers include Shane Claiborne of the ‘Simple Way’ Monastic Community, Rev. Nadia Boltz-Webber from the Evangelical Lutheran Church, author Rachel Held-Evans, and Franciscan friar Richard Rohr who founded the New Mexico based ‘Centre for Action and Contemplation.’ Numerically there are currently more conservative Evangelicals than progressive ones. This is mainly due to 118

‘We are overfed’

demographics, as most conservatives are concentrated amongst the Boomer generation (Jones and Cox 2016; Wuthnow 2012). However, through the use of blogs, podcasts, social media, books, and conferences, liberal progressivism is growing amongst evangelicals under the age of forty (Bruinius 2017; Gasaway 2014).

From conversion to social justice As well as being an academic and a researcher, I have spent a considerable part of my life involved in evangelical churches in New Zealand. My father and grandfather were pastors and charismatic, evangelical church culture was my ‘norm’ growing up. My background has given me first-hand knowledge of this particular religious setting, which was useful when conducting research on young evangelical Christians and social justice. Often evangelical engagement with those outside church circles, especially on an international scale, has entailed missionary work. This meant ‘proclaiming the gospel,’ usually through preaching or trying to engage others in conversations about God. Charity work was also encouraged, but missionaries were not meant to be aid workers. Unlike mainline Protestant denominations such as Anglicans or post Vatican II Catholics, who are more comfortable challenging structural injustices, for evangelicals the emphasis has been on individual salvation, getting to heaven when you die, and taking as many people as possible with you (Choi-Fitzpatrick 2014; Coleman 2014; Mostert 2014). Knowing evangelicalism’s strong emphasis on ‘saving souls,’ I was curious to hear a young leader in a church service in 2011 declare to the congregation that he felt he didn’t have the right to go overseas and tell people what they should believe. Instead, he encouraged church members to get involved with ‘justice-based’ projects, such as building houses with Habitat for Humanity. I then heard that an evangelical organization I had previous contact with now had a training school based on Christianity and social justice issues. Students would learn about trade aid, human and sex trafficking, child soldiers, and the role of economic policies in global inequalities. I began to wonder about this change in emphasis from evangelism based on verbal proclamations to social justice work. STTs with a focus on service work are becoming more popular amongst Christian youth. If the Christians going on these trips are not keen on converting others, what are they doing instead? Why the shift in focus? Has there been a change in theology? Or is it something else? Could it be that the cultural ‘flows’ of globalization have more power to reshape evangelicals and their institutions than they realize?

Globalized Millennials and social justice Millennials are generally considered to be the generation born between the early to mid-1980s up to end of the 1990s (Strauss and Howe 2000). Sometimes maligned as narcissistic, inward focused, and addicted to technology (Milkman 2017; Twenge and Campbell 2012), other research suggests that Millennials are in fact more civically engaged than their predecessors from Generation X, and more likely to be progressively liberal in their political and social worldview (Eagan et al. 2015; Milkman 2017; Smith 2013). Evangelical Millennials, although generally more conservative than their peers, have considerably more liberal attitudes towards gay marriage, LGBTQ rights, and climate change than evangelicals from the Boomer generation (Diamant and Alper 2017; Dillon 2015; Harper and Kennely 2009). Another attribute of many western Millennials is that they are more likely than the generations before them to show awareness that they are not only citizens of a nation state 119

Catherine Rivera

but also of a global community (Pew Research Centre 2014). The move from a local to more globalized identity can be explored through the concept of global citizenship. Global citizenship is a contested term (Jorgenson and Shultz 2012); however, it generally refers to the rights and responsibilities one has that go beyond the borders of a political state to an imagined global community (Baillie Smith et al. 2013; Oxley and Morris 2013). A ‘good’ global citizen is one who is empathic to other cultures (Brunell 2013), acknowledges different worldviews (Oxley and Morris 2013), embraces cultural diversity (Reysen and Katzarska-Miller 2013), and is aware of social justice and human rights issues (Fanghanel and Cousin 2012; Propst 2014). The ‘social justice’ aspect of being a global citizen refers to the idea that some groups and individuals have gained societal advantages at the expense of others, and that this needs to be corrected (Miller 1999). It is about providing fair distribution of rights, resources, and opportunities (Cramme and Diamond 2009). Whilst social justice has most often been associated with the nation state through welfare programmes, the concept is now being tied to mitigating the effects of globalization on the world’s poor. Principles of social justice, such as those outlined in the 1948 UN Declaration on Human Rights, are taken to be applicable universally (Banai et al. 2011).

The shaping of Christian Millennials Globalization is an intrinsic part of our planetary makeup in the early 21st century, which affects economies, the environment, immigration patterns, and communication technology amongst other things. Globalization is not new. Many historical empires, including the Romans and the Spanish Conquistadors, have increased contact between different parts of the world. However, the current version of globalization that started after World War II has connected the world on a scale unprecedented in history (Rhoads and Szelenyi 2011). As such, the Millennial generation in many societies lives a type of life unthinkable for their great-grandparents. The interplay of global and local is intertwined throughout a single day; chatting on Messenger with a friend in London, a video conference at work with the Sydney office, and home in the evening to a debate on US politics on Twitter. What are the effects of this explosion of global ‘flows’ on Millennials? Does it make them more open to diversity, more accepting of others, or more inclined to consider themselves ‘global’ as opposed to ‘local’ citizens? What happens when religious beliefs are mixed into this bricolage? To investigate these questions, I set off to conduct anthropological research in 2015 amongst a group of young people taking part in a Christian social justice training school in New Zealand, which I will refer to as ‘The Course.’ The Course was run by an international Christian organization and consisted of three months of lectures and a two-month trip to Southeast Asia where the students put into practice the ideas and principles they had learned. At the end of the practicum period, the students returned to New Zealand for a short debriefing and then flew home to their own countries. At The Course I sat in on two units of the course lectures, and generally ‘hung out’ with the students and staff. I also recorded interviews with thirteen females and one male, aged between 17 and 34. Questions and topics covered in the interviews centred on why the participants were interested in social justice, and how their faith shaped their views on world engagement. There were two participants from Denmark, six from the USA, and one each from Singapore, Germany, Switzerland, England, India, and Canada; surprisingly there were 120

‘We are overfed’

no New Zealand students. The international makeup of The Course made it a great place to observe globalized evangelicalism up close in one physical location. My research participants were interested in global issues and felt that actions of social justice were a way to address inequality and injustice. They were also Christians, mostly with evangelical leanings. The religious/faith aspect of their identities formed a specific type of global citizen that negotiated continually between an inner world of experiencing God through spiritual practices such as prayer, and then taking his love out into a ‘broken’ world through actions of social justice such as helping human trafficking victims or advocating for orphaned children. They interacted with these types of social justice issues through the internet, and people they met on STTs.

Digital technology and the internet In the early 21st century, the internet is changing institutional Christianity in a number of ways. Digital technology can be a ‘threat to offline authority’ (Campbell 2013, p. 6), since it allows people to browse and in essence ‘pick and choose’ between different sources of spirituality. These sources are outside of conventional religious supervision, such as a pastor or priest (Campbell 2013; Lewis 2016). Although Christian institutions and churches are increasingly involved in social media, there are still attempts to keep control of the medium by censoring what goes on their social media platforms, or removing divisive material (Lawrence 2015). Nevertheless, social media such as Facebook and Twitter are very hard to restrict, and enable the bypassing of traditional religious ‘gatekeepers’ by taking opinions and information directly to the computer screens of Christian Millennials. Although the students I interviewed were not trying deliberately to get around their church leaders, they had moved to online sources to learn about human trafficking and other social justice issues that were not discussed in their churches. The amount of material that is available to Christian Millennials through the internet has the effect of making local church pastors or leaders redundant as sources of information or authority on these topics. The internet was the first place my research participants went to learn about faith and social justice issues, participate in activism, and how they found out about The Course in New Zealand. Rose said, ‘I look at the internet and read blogs and stuff. I don’t really read books. I like to research stuff, so if I hear about something I’ll google it and I’ll skim through.’ Similarly, Brooke followed many of her favourite social justice organizations through Facebook and other social media: ‘I’ve got a ton of different organizations I follow, probably about 60 different organizations; their postings, blogs.’ Social media did not just inform the students, they also used it as a way to make their family and friends aware of global issues. Rae mused that ‘I would say a lot of what I know comes through social media, that’s a really big tool that people use. It’s the one I use when I want to get the word out about something.’ During lectures the students were given website addresses to learn more about social justice issues like child soldiers and fair trade, and were reminded to share them on their social media accounts to raise awareness. The majority found The Course through its website after searching for keywords such as ‘Christian social justice.’ Brooke said, ‘I found it online. I just googled and it was one of the first ones that came up. New Zealand, that’s awesome.’ April had a similar story, ‘I just typed in “justice” and looked up all the locations that came up.’ The fact that April is Swiss and Brooke is American, and that The Course was in New Zealand, was not a problem. It didn’t matter where in the world they had to go to learn about social justice, travelling

121

Catherine Rivera

made it even more interesting, evidenced by Adele’s observation that ‘I wanted to go to New Zealand because it looked so beautiful, and I really wanted to learn about justice.’ Another point to note about religion and digital technology is the way religious groups present themselves on the internet and are influenced by the visual emphasis of digital communication. Gauthier and Uhl (2012) note that religious websites, like all other websites, are competing for attention in a crammed digital landscape, which means that relevant graphics, music, and moving visuals are important. When examining the website of the Vatican they observed that the emphasis is on the Pope himself, instilling ‘a personalised rapport between the individual and the Pope, while Jesus and God . . . are virtually absent’ (Gauthier and Uhl 2012, p. 58). Similarly, I found during my research that some of the most popular Christian websites used by the students to learn about the social justice issues they were interested in concentrated on connecting the viewer with the issue rather than Jesus or God. An example of this is the website of ‘A21 Campaign,’ the organization most often mentioned by the students I interviewed. A21 is a non-profit organization that campaigns against human trafficking. It is run by evangelical Christians and its founder is a former pastor from an Australian evangelical mega-church. Students such as April and Brooke had learnt about human trafficking through this website. When examining A21’s website, one would be hard pressed to identify them as specifically Christian. There are no Christian symbols, such as crosses, and the language used is more akin to the human rights movement. As Gauthier and Uhl found when examining the Vatican’s website, there is an emphasis on visual experience to learn about human trafficking, rather than the Christian beliefs of the A21 staff. Experiencing vivid depictions of the injustices going on in the world through the internet can make ‘over there’ seem much closer to home, and in a sense de-territorialize issues of social justice. It is at this point that many Millennials, like my participants, want to get out and ‘do something.’

Interactions with ‘the other’ in a transnational world Many Christian organizations send large numbers of young people on STTs overseas (Trinitapoli and Vaisey 2009). Participants take part in activities such as working with children, painting or building structures, teaching English, or working with local churches. It is estimated that by 2006, 1.6 million Christian Americans annually were taking part in STTs (Priest et al. 2006), and numbers have continued to increase (Hancock 2014, Howell 2009). As Robert Priest et al. (2006, p. 434) point out, ‘American pastors and their congregations are amongst the most “overlooked globalizers” of our world.’ These trips are often the first time young western Christians visit a developing country and it makes a lasting impression, spurring people to want to change the poverty that has so shocked them. Most of The Course students had already travelled outside their home countries. Some of this travel was on STTs, other travel was personal or through their employment. April had spent a year in the USA as an exchange student, Cathy had been to China on an STT, and Dora had backpacked through a number of countries. Other participants had been to Mexico, Vietnam, Laos, South Africa, Kenya, and Ghana. Vicky was raised in Singapore, went to university in Scotland, and then worked for the UN in 27 different locations as a doctor. Often it was through travel that the students had come face to face with victims of injustice. Mary was deeply affected by her experiences in Mexico: 122

‘We are overfed’

I got to see first-hand what human trafficking looked like and got to walk through and talk with some of the prostitutes. That just wrecked me completely, I was sixteen or seventeen at the time and for me I’ve always lived my happy little life. Here I was standing in the middle of a Mexican street and it was happening right there. Educational institutions, such as universities, were another place where students had interacted with people and ideas that contributed to a globalized worldview. Adele made friends with Middle-Eastern refugees at her European university: My heart really broke for those people and the injustices they deal with. We are living in a good country. We have welfare and money enough to protect them and are still saying no and making their lives horrible and they live in fear of what is going to happen next. It changes everything when they become your good friends. Kim studied law and international politics at her US university, which led her to travel to three African countries for research on the effects of AIDS on family formation. Spending this time overseas had made her aware of many global issues such as corruption, western imperialism in aid work, and the downside of orphanages.

Changes in belief and practice Digital engagement, overseas travel, doing The Course, and home country contact with ‘the other’ contributed to changes in religious beliefs and practices that the students had learnt in their churches and families, especially since most of them were brought up in the faith. One of those who had changed their views was Greg who told me that when he was growing up ‘we used to be really afraid of this thing called the “social gospel” . . . for the society that I’m from they think if you start thinking about people’s physical needs you’ll forget about the spiritual needs.’ However, doing The Course had changed his viewpoint: [n]ow I’m starting to think ‘oh yeah, Jesus wants us to make a difference in the world’ and it’s good to feed people and to set them free from human trafficking, it’s not an unspiritual thing to do, it’s really good . . . it’s actually what Jesus wants. Acquiring more knowledge on social justice issues had made some of the students frustrated with the lack of teaching about social justice and a continuing emphasis on conservative morality in their churches. Rose said, ‘I was always asking “why aren’t we talking about social justice issues in the church?” . . . Some churches are still super conservative, like if you mentioned the word “homosexuality” they’re like “arghh, blasphemy.”’ In a similar vein, Greg said, ‘in my church we teach about how to deal with abortion and all that stuff but there’s not a lot of focus on justice, or doing justice.’ Cathy forcefully pointed out: [t]hat is my gripe with the church. I explained to them there are twenty-seven million trafficking victims around the world and we are Christians sitting right here. They keep talking about Christ dying on the cross, they keep talking about salvation. It’s important but I think we are overfed with that. Other students such as Dora and Alice said they felt that many of their Christian friends lived in a church ‘bubble’ and didn’t know much about social justice. Their comments 123

Catherine Rivera

indicate that whilst awareness of social justice is growing in evangelical churches, these students still feel that they are in the minority. It is through attending training like The Course, or going to large events organized by evangelical youth-orientated organizations, that young evangelicals are able to interact with other Christians interested in social justice issues. April had been to one of these events in the USA, ‘Passion Conference,’ along with 35,000 others, where three million dollars was raised for anti-human trafficking organizations (Malhotra, n.d.).

‘Right’ beliefs vs ‘right’ action Thinking critically about world issues that are right before their eyes had made many of the students more comfortable with uncertainty regarding what were ‘correct’ beliefs. Mary reflected that ‘this course has made me think a lot more, I feel that I have less certainty . . . I don’t know everything, I’ll never know everything.’ It has been noted that younger Christians interested in social justice are more ambiguous regarding the importance of ‘right beliefs,’ but more strident as to ‘right actions’ (Butler Bass 2015; Markham 2010). Proper theology was not as important as the right and correct actions that God wanted them to take to stop injustices. Rather than only listening to sermons and discussing theology, the students were interested in acting on social justice issues and helping others through practical action such as the biblical command to ‘feed the hungry and clothe the naked’ outlined in Matthew 25. Cathy told me during our discussion: The Bible says God defends the cause of the fatherless, the widow; he loves the foreigner residing amongst you and he gives them food and clothing. God does that, and we have God in us, are we doing that? Are we? The students on The Course were told they needed to have practical skills to offer people experiencing injustice; good intentions were not enough. The emphasis is on what Jesus did, and said to do, rather than on theological intricacies that didn’t have much ‘real-world’ application. As progressive Christian author Brian McLaren states: ‘actions speak volumes about God that could never be captured in a text or a sermon’ (McLaren 2006, p. 171).

Conclusion: a new reformation? What the future could look like Encounters overseas contribute to the formation of what a good Christian global citizen should look like and can reinforce the understanding that God is global, international, and supra-cultural; that ‘the gospel and the message that binds us together transcends culture’ (Baillie Smith et al. 2013, p. 129). Brooke echoed this sentiment during her interview: ‘that’s why I love The Course, because you’re with so many people from so many different cultures, different minds, different hearts, you can come together.’ These Millennials interacted with a world that extended far beyond their hometowns. There are a number of areas where globalized, evangelical Millennials could potentially change institutional Christianity. Firstly, the way that knowledge is formed and interacted with, especially on social justice issues, has moved its locus away from local church congregations and their leadership. It was noticeable during the research process that it was not the influence of local church congregations that were forming the student’s ideas on social justice, but rather influences from outside their faith communities. These ‘struggles for control of mediation’ 124

‘We are overfed’

(Cannell 2006, p. 17) between the ‘world’ and the Church are nothing new but are being exponentially heightened by new technologies such as the internet and social media. Rather than using their churches as a source to learn about social justice, young Christians are using a different knowledge ‘grid.’ For the students in my research this grid consisted of a combination of ideas from social humanitarianism learned at university and on the internet, and personal, emotional connections with marginalized victims of injustice at home and during STTs overseas. These experiences with people from different ethnic groups and religions extend beyond national borders and can lead Christians who see themselves as global citizens to question theology that emphasizes ‘hard truth,’ and beliefs. Secondly, having a focus on action rather than ‘saving people from their sins’ has the potential to challenge one of Bebbington’s core traits of evangelicalism: evangelization. Many younger Christians already take a dim view of traditional missionary work, associating it with colonialism and promoting westernized cultural values (Hartz 2018; McLaren 2006). The god the students wanted to take out into the world was not a wrathful being who smites sinners; the emphasis was on a god that is broken hearted over injustices and wants people to have a good life now, rather than waiting for heaven. Emphasizing God’s goodness has led some evangelicals to focus on ‘prosperity’ teaching; that God will give personal health and material wealth to Christians who believe and have enough faith. However, my participants talked more about holistic, community wellbeing than about economic wealth for individuals. Salvation encompassed the whole of a person and their society, and not just one’s individual, eternal soul. This indicates a change in an important theological concept, which is where God’s kingdom dwells. Rather than trying to save people for the kingdom hereafter, emphasis moves to helping others experience God’s good life here on earth. During my interviews there was hardly any mention of heaven or hell, a trend also noted by Markham in his research on young evangelicals interested in social justice (Markham 2010). For them, being God’s ‘hands and feet’ (Butler Bass 2015; Hancock 2014) and helping the global poor becomes the main emphasis for how they engage with the world, rather than trying to convert people. In conclusion, the students involved in my research felt strongly that it is not enough anymore to wait for heaven for the exploited to get the justice they deserve; there are tools available in the here and now to remedy social justice issues. Through using social media, they could raise awareness of social justice issues. They can also jump on a plane and go to places where these things are happening, such as Cambodia or Thailand, where human and sex trafficking is perceived to be rife, and try to stop these practices. After all, if one is a global citizen, then the whole world is God’s. There is evidence, including my own research, which indicates social justice practices are growing amongst young evangelicals. Further research is required to ascertain how widespread the phenomenon of young evangelicals and their interest in social justice actually is, and whether evangelical social justice engagement is not just ‘charity’ or evangelization under a more fashionable name. Evangelicalism is a widespread and global phenomenon. As such, researchers need to take into account cultural, ethnic, and denominational differences when trying to define what constitutes evangelical social justice. What is clear is that not all evangelicals are conservative, and there is a change of direction that is moving younger evangelicals in a more politically progressive direction in western countries. As generational change takes place, Millennial evangelicals have the potential to reengage institutional evangelicalism with practices of social justice that they lost at the beginning of the 20th century. Then a new reformation will indeed be on the cards for this branch of Christianity. 125

Catherine Rivera

References Armstrong, K., 2000. The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. London: Harper Collins. Baillie Smith, M., Laurie, N., Hopkins, P., and Olson, E., 2013. International volunteering, faith and subjectivity: Negotiating cosmopolitanism, citizenship and development. Geoforum 45, 126–135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2012.10.010 Banai, A., Ronzoni, M., and Schemmel, C., 2011. Social Justice, Global Dynamics: Theoretical and Empiricial Perspectives. Florence: Taylor and Francis. Bebbington, D., 1989. Evangelicalism in Modern Britian: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s. London: Unwin Hyman. Bielo, J. S., 2009. The ‘Emerging Church’ in America: Notes on the interaction of Christianities. Religion, 39 (3), 219–232. Bielo, J. S., 2011. Emerging Evangelicals; Faith, Modernity, and the Desire for Authenticity. New York:NYU Press. Bielo, J. S., 2014. Act like men: Social engagement and evangelical masculinity. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 29 (2), 233–248. Bruinius, H., 2017. Amid evangalical decline, growing split between young Christians and church elders. The Christian Science Monitor. Available from www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2017/1010/AmidEvangelical-decline-growing-split-between-young-Christians-and-church-elders Brunell, L. A., 2013. Building global citizenship: Engaging global issues, practicing civic skills. Journal of Political Science Education, 9 (March 2015), 16–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/15512169.2013.747833 Butler Bass, D., 2012. Christianity after Religion. New York: Harper One. Butler Bass, D., 2015. Grounded: Finding God in the World. New York: Harper One. Campbell, H., 2013. Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds (H. Campbell, ed.). New York: Routledge. Cannell, F., 2006. Introduction: The anthropology of Christianity. In: F. Cannell, ed. The Anthropology of Christianity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1–50. Choi-Fitzpatrick, A., 2014. To seek and save the lost: Human trafficking and salvation schemas among American evangelicals. European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, 1, 1–21. Coleman, S., 2006. Charismatic Protestant Identity. In: F. Cannell, ed. The Anthropology of Christianity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 163–184. Coleman, S., 2014. Pilgrimage as trope for an anthropology of Christianity. Current Anthropology, 55 (December), S281–S291. https://doi.org/10.1086/677766 Coleman, S., and Hackett, R., 2015. Introduction: A New Field? In: S. Coleman and R.J. Hackett, eds. The Anthropology of Global Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism. New York: NYU Press, 1–40. Cramme, O., and Diamond, P., 2009. Rethinking Social Justice in the Global Age. In: O. Cramme and P. Diamond, eds. Social Justice in the Global Age. Malden: Polity Press, 3–20. Diamant, J., and Alper, B., 2017. Though Still Conservative, Young Evangelicals Are More Liberal than Their Elders on Some Issues. Available from www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/04/though-still-con servative-young-evangelicals-are-more-liberal-than-their-elders-on-some-issues/ Dillon, M., 2015. Christian Affiliation and Disaffiliation in the United States: Generational and Cultural Change. In: S. Hunt, ed. Handbook of Global Contemporary Christianity: Themes and Developments in Culture, Politics, and Society. Leiden: Brill Online Books and Journals, 346–365. Dormor, D., McDonald, J., and Caddick, J., 2003. Anglicanism: The Answer to Modernity. London: Continuum. Eagan, K., Stolzenberg, E. B., Bates, A. K., Aragon, M. C., Suchard, M. R., and Rios-Aguilar, C., 2015. American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2015. Los Angeles, CA: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA. Elisha, O., 2011. Moral Ambition; Mobilization and Social Outreach in Evangelical Megachurches. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Fanghanel, J., and Cousin, G., 2012. ‘Worldly’ pedagogy: A way of conceptualising teaching towards global citizenship. Teaching in Higher Education, 17 (1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2011.590973 Gasaway, B., 2014. Progressive Evangelicals and the Pursuit of Social Justice. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Gauthier, F., and Uhl, M., 2012. Digital shapings of religion in a globalised world. Australian Journal of Communication, 39 (1), 53–71.

126

‘We are overfed’

Hancock, M., 2014. Short-term youth mission practice and the visualization of global Christianity. Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief, 10, 154–180. Harding, S., 2001. The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Harper, F., and Kennely, S., 2009. Greening our faith: Putting belief into action. Anglican Theological Review, 91 (4), 619–625. Hartz, S., 2018. The surprising ways the church is failing Millennial missionaries. Available from www. saritahartz.com/the-surprising-ways-the-church-is-failing-millennial-missionaries/ Hoffstadedter, G., 2011. Religion and Development: Australian Faith-Based Organisations. Canberra: AFCID (Australian Council for International Development). Howell, B. M., 2009. Mission to nowhere: Putting short-term missions into context. International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 33 (4), 206–211. Jian Lee, D., 2015. Why the young religious right is leaning left. Time Magazine. Available from http:// time.com/4078909/evangelical-millennials/ Jones, R., and Cox, D., 2016. America’s Changing Religious Identity: Findings from the 2016 American Values Atlas. Washington, DC: Public Religion Research Institute. Jorgenson, S., and Shultz, L., 2012. Global Citizenship Education (GCE) in post-secondary institutions: What is protected and what is hidden under the umbrella of GCE? Journal of Global Citizenship & Equity Education, 2 (1), 1–22. Lawrence, E., 2015. Evangelicals, social media, and the use of interactive platforms to foster a non-interactive community. Saeculum Journal; University of St. Michael’s College, 10 (1), 38–45. Lewis, B., 2016. From Pokémon Go to Hashtags: How Digital and Social Media Is Changing the Church. Religion and the public Sphere [online]. Available from http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionpublicsphere/ 2016/07/from-pokemon-go-to-hashtags-how-digital-and-social-media-is-changing-the-church/. Lovett, I., 2018. Politics in the pews: Anti-trump activism is reviving protestant churches—At a cost. Available from www.wsj.com/articles/trump-in-the-pews-politics-is-convulsing-mainline-churches1525445467?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 Luhrmann, T., 2012. When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. New York: Vintage Books. Malhotra, R., n.d. Passion 2013 donates over $3 million to fight human trafficking. Available from www. christianpost.com/news/passion-2013-donates-over-3-million-to-fight-human-trafficking-88101/ Markham, P., 2010. Searching for a new story: The possibility of a new evangelical movement in the U.S. Journal of Religion and Society, 12, 1–22. McGrath, A., 2005. A Very Brief History of Christian Belief. In: A. McGrath and J. Packer, eds. Zondervan Handbook of Christian Beliefs. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 12–19. McLaren, B., 2006. A Generous Orthodoxy. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. Milkman, R., 2017. A new political generation: Millennials and the post-2008 wave of protest. American Sociological Review, 82 (1), 1–31. Miller, D., 1999. Principals of Social Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Mostert, J., 2014. The social justice debates in psychology and theology: Thoughts on ‘turning the world upside down.’ Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 33 (2), 127–138. Noll, M., 1994. The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans. O’Neill, K. L., 2014. City of God: Christian Citizenship in Postwar Guatemala. Columbia: University of California Press. Olsen, R., 2007. Pocket History of Evangelical Theology. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. Oxley, L., and Morris, P., 2013. Global citizenship: A typology for distinguishing its multiple conceptions. British Journal of Educational Studies, 61 (3), 301–325. Pew Research Centre. 2014. Young Adults Less Patriotic. Available from www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/ 03/07/millennials-in-adulthood/sdt-next-america-03-07-2014-3-08/ Pratt, D., 2016. Secular New Zealand and religious diversity: From cultural evolution to societal affirmation. Social Inclusion, 4 (2), 52. Priest, R. J., Dischinger, T., Rasmussen, S., and Brown, C. M., 2006. Researching the short-term mission movement. Missiology, 34 (4), 431–450. Propst, L., 2014. Promoting local community and global citizenship through collaborative curriculum building. Radical Pedogogy, 11 (2), 104–113. Putnam, R., and Campbell, D., 2010. American Grace; How Religion Devides and Unites Us. New York: Simon and Schuster.

127

Catherine Rivera

Reysen, S., and Katzarska-Miller, I., 2013. A model of global citizenship: Antecedents and outcomes. International Journal of Psychology, 48 (5), 858–870. Rhoads, R., and Szelenyi, K., 2011. Global Citizenship and the University. Global Citizenship and the University: Advancing Social Life and Relations in an Interdependent World. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Ryan, S. J., 2013. A wolf in sheep’s clothing? A missiological examination of the United States evangelical adoption and orphan care movement. Missiology: An International Review, 42 (4), 412–424. Smith, A., 2013. Civic engagement in the digital age. Pew Internet & American Life Project, 1–11. Available from www.ca-ilg.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/pew_civicengagementinthedigitalage.pdf Smith, G., and Martinez, J., 2016. How the faithful voted: A preliminary 2016 analysis. Available from www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/ Stetzer, E., 2013. Understanding the Charismatic Movement. Available from www.chrisitanitytoday.com/ edstetzer/2013/october/charistmatic-renewal-movement.html Strauss, W., and Howe, N., 2000. Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing. Swanson, E., n.d. Nine Game-Changers for Global Missions Trends that Shape the Future Nine Game-Changers for Global Missions Overview. Dallas: Leadership Network. Trinitapoli, J., and Vaisey, S., 2009. The transformative role of religious experience: The case of short-term missions state. Social Forces, 88 (September), 121–146. Twenge, J., and Campbell, S., 2012. Who Are the Millennials? Empirical Evidence for Generational Differences in Work Values, Attitudes and Personality. In: E. Ng, S. Lyons, and L. Schweitzer, eds. Mangaing the New Workforce: International Perspectives on the Millennial Generation. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1–18. Wallis, J., 2008. Seven Ways to Change the World; Reviving Faith and Politics. Oxford: Lion Hudson. Ward, K., 2013. Losing Our Religion? Changing Patterns of Believing and Belonging in Secular Western Societies. Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers. Whitehead, A., and Baker, J., 2012. Homosexuality religion, and science: Moral authority and the persistence of negative attitudes. Sociological Inquiry, 82 (4), 485–509. Wuthnow, R., 2012. The God Problem: Expressing Faith and Being Reasonable. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Yong, A., 2015. Evanglicals, pentecostals, and charismatics. Fuller, (2), 56–60. Available from https://full erstudio.fuller.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Issue-Two.pdf

128

10 ‘Mediacosmologies’ The convergence and renewal of indigenous religiosities in cyberspace Laurent Jérôme

Introduction In Canada the 1960s marked a turning point for indigenous peoples. Their aspirations and conceptions of the world have since then been expressed in academic research, films, political actions, as well as spiritual and religious choices. Despite ever-growing interest, the contemporary religious practices and representations of the indigenous peoples of Canada remain poorly understood. Indigenous religious traditions are plural and diverse and are ceaselessly reformulated through the development and reinforcement of numerous networks, including, increasingly, through digital communication technologies. Religion is an important factor in the social and political reconstruction of these peoples, and remains closely linked to contemporary processes of identity and cultural affirmation and to the definition of national and transnational indigenous identities. Indigenous affirmation movements have gained further traction through the use of social network sites and media coverage of the Idle No More movement, for instance (Jérôme 2015; Sioui Durand 2014; Tupper 2014; Wood 2015). Today, these processes take on various forms: dictionaries and interactive online training courses on indigenous languages, mapping apps, virtual museums, heritage protection websites, videogames inspired by traditional mythologies, spiritual and religious websites, and so on. All these manifestations remain consistent with traditional indigenous knowledge while illustrating the contemporary cultural shifts affecting the religions of indigenous societies. By exploring new creative platforms, they have created hyperspaces for indigenous celebration and resurgence (Simpson 2011, 2017) through text, art, videogames and virtual worlds. This chapter explores the diversity and complexity of indigenous religious dynamics, as well as some examples of the process of indigenization of virtual worlds through the very particular case of the management of death and mourning in socio-digital networks. What does religious diversity entail in these virtual worlds? How is the relationship with the ancestors expressed? What are the functions played by the concepts of territory, solidarity, reciprocity and relations with non-humans?

129

Laurent Jérôme

Indigenous religious landscapes: the complexity, diversity, and tradition of ‘networking’ Talking of indigenous spiritualities or religions represents a major challenge for both researchers and indigenous peoples alike, mainly because of their diversity. The colonial histories of the indigenous peoples of Canada and Quebec share numerous points in common with those of the United States or Australia: the creation of reserves, the confiscation of territory, deplorable material conditions (some communities still have no access to running water or electricity), profound social problems, the consequences of sometimes violent processes of assimilation, as well as Christianization. Secondly, the historical sources that give access to pre-colonization practices and representations are essentially those left by the first explorers or missionaries. Although rich in detail, they are marked by an ethnocentrism typical of the colonial period and suffer from the absence of the viewpoint of the indigenous peoples themselves concerning their own practices and traditions. Thirdly, and I return to this point later, we can observe that the term religion has no equivalent in indigenous languages. In Atikamekw (the language of one of the ten First Nations of Quebec), the term utilized for religion is aiamihe, which literally means speech. Finally, what constitutes indigenous tradition is an object of debate. For some, indigenous traditions have been reappropriated and thereby distorted beyond recognition (the theme of cultural appropriation as cultural theft, for instance in neo-shamanism). For others, indigenous traditions are believed to have completely disappeared in the wake of assimilation policies and Christianization. On this issue, Laugrand and Delâge (2008) argue that it would be mistaken to believe in the complete disappearance of the precolonial ancestral indigenous value systems and practices. They are rather subjected to profound reconfigurations today. They are used in healing processes and are solicited within new forms of resistance, as Jean-Guy Goulet (2000) has reported among the Lakota, who refuse to allow the presence of tourists and media in their ceremonies. Such dynamics are shaped by a historical context marked by successive and radical ruptures with the ancestral ways of life, the transition from nomadism to a sedentary lifestyle, and the influences of Catholicism and other Christian denominations, including Evangelicals and Baptists. The following factors combine to reshape indigenous religious landscapes: 1.

130

Heightened exchanges with other Canadian First Nations are highly influential and contribute to formalize and normalize certain practices and representations, such as the pow-wow, which are large gatherings where dances and songs are performed (Buddle 2004). Other examples include the ceremony of the first steps, the sweat lodge, tobacco offerings, the medicine wheel as well as drumming, all of which have become defining features of a new Pan-Amerindianism, which breaches transnationally across North America and even beyond, in Central and South America. Shunning the term ‘religion,’ which is associated negatively with Christianity, the term ‘spirituality’ (whether Pan-American or traditional) is sometimes used to describe the larger religious systems in which these practices are embedded (Bousquet 2007; Doran 2005; Fontaine 2006). Rituals play several roles: they help to maintain social relations with the non-human world, to ensure maintenance of the order of the universe in which humans and non-humans cohabit (e.g., the sweat lodge as a ritual of communication), to guarantee protection from non-human entities (e.g., through the use of tobacco offerings), as well as to heal. In historic and ethnographic sources on the Algonquian, for instance, one finds abundant

‘Mediacosmologies’

2.

3.

references to practices such as the ritual festival makushan, the shaking tent rituals, the sweat lodge as well as scapulimancy (reading porcupine shoulder-blade bones), all of which are linked to hunting and communication with the spirit-world (Armitage 1992; Brightman 2002[1973]; Flannery 1939; Hallowell 1976; Speck 1977[1935]). Among these, the sweat lodge and the vision quest have been the object of a formidable renewal and reappropriation within neo-shamanic circles (Brault 2005; Bucko 1998; Csordas 1999; Prins 1994; Waldram 1997a, 1997b). The settling process combined with the rise of a new Pan-Amerindianism has produced new forms of knowledge transmission: everywhere in Quebec, Canada and the United States, spiritual gatherings occur which are based on traditional medicine (Adelson 2000, 2001). It is increasingly common in indigenous communities that encounter ‘professional’ ritual officiants whose main activity consists in accomplishing spiritual retreats (isolation, fasting) and performing rituals for indigenous, nonindigenous and mixed publics. This is a relatively new phenomenon, as is their new legitimacy to perform and revive ‘ancestral’ traditions which are constructed through a mixture of handed-down and retrieved knowledge (including from ancient missionary sources and academic scholarship) as well as contacts with other indigenous peoples. Some of these officiants travel across Canada and the United States, but also increasingly to South America (Peru, Bolivia and the Amazon especially). The opposite is equally true, since numerous South American ‘shamans’ or ‘healers’ are invited to perform rituals in the Amerindian communities of the North, in a network of exchange and reciprocity. Finally, the historical influence of the Catholic and Protestant Churches and the rapid expansion of Pentecostalism on indigenous religious systems needs to be considered (Laugrand 1998; Servais 2005; Westman 2008). Through the intermediation of its missionaries, the Catholic Church advocated the eradication of certain practices, both within the public spheres and in the more secluded context of the hunt camps. Today Catholicism and Protestantism are weighed down by their involvement in indigenous boarding schools and other practices of assimilation, even though many elders remain devotees. Amerindian spiritual practices are heavily influenced by mainline Christianity, while Pentecostalism is a recent yet very significant actor (Tanner 2005; Bousquet 2007). Not only have indigenous groups developed resistance strategies in response to the missionaries, they have also rethought their worldviews by appropriating diverse dimensions of Christianity.

Overall, though, there has been a significant process of rejection of mainline Christian denominations (the ones that were involved with the state in pursuing assimilation), especially among younger generations. During a field trip to Kangiqsujuaq in the semiautonomous Inuit region called Nunavik (Jérôme and Kaine 2014), I met Father Jules Dion, of the Oblate order. He spoke of the different religious movements in the village and recalled how he gradually found himself alone in Nunavik: There have been Catholic missions in most of the villages: Kuujjuarapik, Puvirnituk, Ivujivik, Salluit, here, Wikenbé, Quaqtaq, and Kuujjuaq. All these villages had resident priests, two per village. And then after a while, twenty years, for example in Ivujivik, there were no more conversions. There were no Inuit asking to become Catholic. So they closed the mission. In Salluit, it was the same. Puvirnituq too. Quaqtaq too. Here the mission has remained open because there are Catholic Inuit. In the other villages, 131

Laurent Jérôme

there are none. So three-quarters of the time, I have been alone. That is to say, during the first years, there were one or two of us, in Quaqtaq. But later, since 1960, without doubt, I have been alone. In November 2011, a few months after my stay in Kangiqsujuaq, I invited seven Inuit representatives to select objects from the collection in the Quebec Museum of Civilization Quebec and explain their choice. Mattiusi Iyaituq, a celebrated contemporary Inuit artist, chose one of his own sculptures on display. After he presented the context in which the sculpture was made, an exchange on shamanism took place between him and another Inuit present, providing an insight into the debates that animate Inuit society today on the question of shamanism: Shamanism was very important in our past. Before Christianity was introduced in our culture, shamanism was bad. Because Christians said shamanism is bad. Many shamans were doctors, they told the hunters: if you go there you will see such-and-such animal. You will kill one, two, or three. And so they would come back with what the shaman had said. Because the shamans were able to travel by air without planes, they were able to transform into a bird, a seal or whatever . . . and they were able to travel unnaturally to places we cannot visit today. As I want to keep the culture from my past alive, I’ve made many shamanistic sculptures, but never bad shamans. LK, a forty-year-old Inuk, was keen to respond: I have a comment about that, not necessarily a question because I think shamanism is viewed by the Inuit in a sort of ambiguous way. In fact, some Inuit, in the more religious (i.e., Christian) sector of our society, say that shamanism is bad, whether they were good or not, it’s not from God, so it’s considered bad. So they think we should not learn about shamanism because it was banned. I think it’s time, like Mattuisi is saying, for us Inuit to also learn more about our past before Christianity; so we can learn about our real true values, those we still have today, which come from that period. We talked about food this morning, how it was used to guide people’s conduct, it comes from that time. Good or bad exist in both shamanism and Christianity; good and bad exist side-by-side in Christianity too. So, I don’t think Christianity should trump shamanism. I think shamanism should now start to return on equal terms in our society. This relationship to shamanism among the Inuit is reminiscent of the processes of encounter between traditional religious systems and those of religions other than Christianity. Concepts such as dualism (Armitage 1992) and syncretism (Goulet 1998), which have been used in academic literature, mask the complexity of the interactions between indigenous traditions and Christianity. In my view, Laugrand’s (2002) use of the concept of reception in the case of the Inuit is more appropriated as it emphasizes the ways in which Christianity, which was in many cases imposed on indigenous peoples, has in the end been appropriated and integrated into the Inuit and other indigenous traditional religious systems. In such a complex and moving context of interaction which has moved in the last decades from colonial to post-colonial, concepts such as ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’ have certain heuristic limits. In order to avoid these limitations and open a less normative space of interaction with indigenous realities, researchers have tended to adopt the use of the concept of cosmology, which is increasingly used by indigenous peoples themselves across the Americas. 132

‘Mediacosmologies’

‘Mediacosmologies’: forces, powers, and animism in virtual mode In the transfer of the term ‘cosmology’ from an emic to an etic meaning, scholars refer to a conception of the world that organizes space and time, structures rituals and stories, carries the memory and voices of the ancestors, and frames practices of linkage and reciprocity with the land and the entities dwelling in it (Ingold 2000). In the frame of this contribution, ‘indigenous cosmology’ refers to a conception of the world based on the multi-various relations which bond all beings in the universe in a web of obligations and responsibilities, whether human or ‘non-human’—an indigenous category that includes beings classically known as ‘spirits,’ for example animal spirits and other spirits present in nature (Kohn 2013; Poirier 2016). As Van Woudenberg tells us, the oral traditions of the Wabanaki, for example, speak of ‘the interconnection between all people in the universe,’ including the earth and the land, which are considered living and ‘sacred’ beings (2004, p. 76). Following Laugrand (2013a), I argue that cosmologies are first and foremost constructed, sustained and passed on via embodied interactions. In this chapter, I also use the term mediacosmology, first suggested by the Kanien’kehá:ka intellectual, curator and artist Steven Loft (2014). In an article, Loft emphasizes the idea of a technical, scientific, relational, ritual and communicational continuity between traditional indigenous systems and the virtual world. Rather than emphasizing incompatibility between the digital realm and the ancestral traditions of indigenous peoples, Loft echoed a trend within these communities, which have massively converted to the use of the internet and cell-phones, by considering the new virtual world as a new arena in which to translate, renew and update indigenous conceptions and practices. For instance, digital means of communication could be used to rekindle and maintain extended kinship ties as well as relations with humans and nonhumans more generally,1 namely through the sharing of stories on social media, creating a new space for the construction and dissemination of collective memory. In an interesting twist of history, the internet and social network sites have emerged as spaces that can and have been invested in ways that enable the voices of ancestors to be heard and indigenous stories and memories to be transmitted, as well as being tools of communication and mediation between time, space and even worlds (De Largy 2013; Wachowich and Scobie 2010; Warschauer 1998). In accordance with Loft’s perspective, the indigenous peoples of Canada make abundant use of the internet and social media, and smartphones are the first consumer object, even in very remote areas, such as the Great North. Facebook, in this respect, is the main social media platform used in indigenous communities. What follows is a categorization of the different ways of appropriating, engaging in and even inhabiting (in Ingold’s sense of dwelling) in digital worlds, through the example of rituals around death and grief.

Practices and knowledge linked to death and mourning Death is only a stage in the great circle of life. It strengthens the spiritual relationship with the ancestors while ensuring a consolidation of our relations with the younger generation. (Gilles Ottawa, NIKPIS, 2002, cited in Nikatcikan, L’Héritage) Death can take diverse forms, as we are reminded by the anthropologist Louis-Vincent Thomas, a specialist in the study of death and dying. It can be physical, mental, biological, social, cultural and/or spiritual. For Thomas, these different forms are a point in common in 133

Laurent Jérôme

Western societies: ‘The theme of the cut is always found. Thus the dead and the mourners are physically and socially rejected from the world of the living’ (Thomas 2003, p. 9). The indigenous peoples and anthropological studies of non-Western societies have taught us, however, that the dead often still have much to do in the world of the living, and that the living do not lack creativity when it comes to remembering the deceased. In numerous indigenous societies, the dead become ancestors and participate actively in balancing the world of the living. This is what Gilles Ottawa, an autodidact researcher originating from the Atikamekw community of Manawan (Central Quebec) wished to emphasize in the thought cited above. Death is not an end, but a stage; it is not nothingness, but a sensory experience with the ancestors; it does not cut off the world, but ensures a continuity with the following generations. Considering that mourning and death in numerous societies are subject to rituals that highlight the body, what happens to this bodily dimension in a space often described as ‘virtual’? How do socio-digital networks operate in continuity with the indigenous cosmologies experienced and expressed in everyday life, particularly in relation to death and mourning? What is the place of the body in indigenous funerary rites? Many interlocutors cite the importance of gathering around the deceased at the moment of displaying the body in the houses. The dead person is considered a voyager. This gathering of the family is essential since it allows their emotions to be expressed through prayers, songs, anecdotes and the sharing of food. The body of the deceased thus gathers the bodies of the living, who dress and shoe it, preparing it for the voyage west, considered a departure that requires considerable attention. Like other groups from the Algonquian linguistic family, the Atikamekw perceive the person as having a body (wiaw) and a soul (atcakw). The two are intrinsically linked in the conception of the person (iriniw). The soul is considered to be a significant entity endowed with an autonomous power regardless of the context of expression: the person, non-human entities or the invisible world (animals, plants, rocks, spiritual entities, the journey of the soul after death, dreams). Other ritual stages and gestures are essential to the preparation of this voyage. The preparation of the grave, for example, is an important responsibility, generally assigned only to men. The ritual gestures surrounding death and mourning all revolve around the idea of a continuation of the person’s life beyond his or her physical presence: preparation for the journey, the wake, meal, songs, prayers, the use of a black ribbon for a year afterwards to materialize the absence of the deceased . . . All these gestures constitute a desire to affirm the presence of the person through his or her body and soul despite death. But what becomes of these ritual gestures and practices in cyberspace?

Materialization of absence More than a support tool, Facebook can become as space for bringing together the deceased, the bereaved and their circle of relations (friends and family), like the domestic space can be at the moment of the display of the body. Facebook is also a means by which the bereaved person can share images (photos, texts) of the ritual gestures made to pay tribute to the memory of the deceased person and materialize their presence. People thus share images of plates and food for the deceased, the black ribbon hanging on a chair or a candle on which the name and photograph of the deceased are found. This sharing of images of ritual gestures performed in everyday life shows how mourning and the accompaniment in death that takes place in the ‘actual’ world is extended into digital space and socio-digital networks. This is equally the case of the photomontages made in homage of the deceased, which give rise to new visual creations. 134

‘Mediacosmologies’

The socio-digital networks also emerge as places of creativity in which numerous indigenous users invest during mourning. Following the death of William Mathieu Mark in 2015, a respected Innu elder and drummer originally from the Unamen Shipu community (Quebec), messages of condolences and support were posted on Facebook. Numerous photomontages, leading to a reconfiguration of the indigenous image, were placed online and widely shared. In one photomontage, a young Innu man created especially for the socio-digital networks an image that linked four important dimensions of Innu cosmology (North Coast of Quebec), namely the forest (Nutshimik), the territory (Nitassinan), the light (awac) and the drum (teueikan), with the face of the deceased elder in the background. The territory is an omnipresent theme in the photomontage memorials created to honor the deceased. The photomontages form part of a new visual culture in the indigenous context, fostered by the possibilities for sharing them on socio-digital networks. The references to material culture (the drum) and immaterial culture (relations to the territory, the drum’s communicative power) are associated with the images of the deceased, whose presence on socio-digital networks is in keeping with a fundamental principle of indigenous cosmologies in relation to death: the dead, having become ancestors, still have much to do in the world of the living. While the creation of tribute pages is a common practice on Facebook, in an indigenous context this practice results in the writing of original texts in the indigenous language. These tribute pages foster the development of a new visual culture, founded on one of the ancestral principles of figuration, combined with the technological possibilities of fusion and references to themes like territory, forest and the drum (teueikan).

The body and the expression of emotions on socio-digital networks But how is a central part of these rituals and this relation to the body, namely the expression of emotions, expressed on the socio-digital networks? Emoticons were created to encourage the expression of joy, laughter, anger or sadness. For a long time, the proposed aesthetic was based on representations of the Western body, uniform, white. Increasingly, though, emoticons have been created to better reflect the ethnocultural diversity of the users of Facebook and sociodigital networks in general. Aware that the development of emoticons was related, for example, to African American minorities, and following the current movement of decolonization of knowledge and images in indigenous environments, one company is engaged in a process of creating culturally adapted emoticons. Indigicons (Indigenous+Emoticons) was thus born from the desire to culturally anchor the digital expression of emotions from an indigenous aesthetic perspective: a ‘stereotypical Indian’ face with braided hair and feathers, is used to express different emotions. Marked by anger, sadness, tiredness or laughter, this face is also depicted with devil horns or an angelic halo; shaved and tattooed, it becomes a warrior and serves to express political struggle. Numerous other emoticons have been created: the emoticon of the raised fist, for example, is used to express resistance, while the image of the drum or the bear paw are employed to refer to the sacredness of certain objects of material culture or relations to certain animals. This reappropriation of digital visual culture, which involves a large degree of standardization and stereotyping, can be considered a political gesture embedded within broader strategies of media recognition, but also in the current processes of indigenous identity affirmation. In these creative acts, it is important not to underestimate the role of an essential dimension of indigenous cosmologies, namely that of humour and self-mockery. The aesthetics of some of these emoticons, like the features of this ‘Indian’ face that seems to be taken from a comic strip from the 1960s, or those of the bloodthirsty warrior, make it 135

Laurent Jérôme

possible to mock the enduring prejudices of the majority society concerning indigenous peoples, which oscillate between pessimistic views linked to suicide and social problems and the romantic view of the ‘Indian of Nature’ living under a tipi. Through these emoticons, it is also possible for indigenous people to reappropriate a self-image and practice self-mockery by playing on the myth of the ‘vanishing Indian’ (the brave and proud Indian ready to die) which has long marked the history of artistic representations of indigenous people and continues to fuel clichés and prejudices concerning indigenous peoples in the United States and Canada. A political act aimed at reappropriating digital space through a more representative image, this project is also an act of affirmation promoting a greater visibility and awareness of indigenous cultures in digital space.

Digital space as domestic and ritual space? The engagement in digital worlds seems to be a strategy favored by numerous indigenous groups worldwide to preserve the vitality of their cultures, their heritage, their cosmologies and their relations with the religious sphere (Jérôme, Biroté and Coocoo 2018; Jérôme and Veilleux 2014; Lewis 2014; Lumby 2010). This strategy is aimed in particular at processes of transmitting local knowledge to young people evolving in the contingency of cultures that, with social networks like Facebook, tablets and smartphones, are now becoming largely digital (Laugrand 2013b; Laugrand and Luna-Penna 2013). For indigenous peoples, it is a question of affirming their specificity within a global culture, inscribing their approach to identity in a spirit of socialization and sharing with the contemporary world (Alexander et al. 2009, p. 240). Here the affirmation of identity and culture does not involve the preservation of existing worldviews or knowledge, but the appropriation of digital space in order to share and enrich their identity. Warschauer thus suggests that the internet constitutes an excellent network for exploring identity (Warschauer 2006, p. 154). The ability to circulate anonymously or to embrace fictive identities allows young users to experience what is specific to them. The case study of Singleton et al. (2009)—conducted in Western Australia with indigenous young people frequenting an information technology skills development program—also reveals the affirmative potential of such an approach to appropriating these technologies. Mastering technological media allows young people to develop agency (Singleton et al. 2009, p. 405). The appearance of indigenous cultures within digital media can also be read as a process of these nations regaining power in the face of a global world, the former becoming participants of a shared space where their social, political and cultural concerns are now visible (ibid., p. 406). The internet and new media in general are thus becoming a new space of creative and transformative resistance (Iseke 2002; Jérôme and Veilleux 2014) in the sense attributed by Ortner (1995). The internet has emerged as a complementary initiative (Ginsburg 1994, 2018; Ginsburg and Myers 2006), inspired and nourished by existing heritage initiatives and projects (museums, cultural centres). The success of the enterprise of transmission through information technologies (or other media like comic strips) seems to reside in the process itself of constructing these new spaces. Two elements appear to be essential here: self-determination and the respect for local cosmologies. The anthropologist Naomi Adelson, a specialist in health and the concept of healing in indigenous contexts, draws a parallel between social networks (more specifically the internet) and their ritual dimension in her exploration of the creation of neologisms linked to these new technologies. In the North Cree dialect, she recalls, the word for computer is kaamsinaastaahthich, a term that can be translated as ‘what the shadows write by themselves.’ The term is almost identical to the word for film, aahtikaashtaahtihch, ‘what the shadows play 136

‘Mediacosmologies’

by themselves.’ In Atikamekw, by comparison, the word for computer is Kinokepitcikan, ‘the thing that remembers for a long time.’ The internet is designated by the term Kice kinokepitcikan, ‘the big thing that remembers for a long time.’ It is well-known that indigenous languages are descriptive of the actions and things (here the machines) whose logic or operation they aim to render comprehensible. But Adelson reports that another term is utilized among the Cree of Whapmagoostui to trace the connection between computers, and more specifically the internet, and a very powerful ancestral form of communication. Adelson tells us that some Cree elders jokingly call the internet a contemporary form of kusaapihchikin, the shaking tent, a shamanic communication ritual that has today disappeared (Adelson 2012, p. 268). This analogy speaks volumes about the power that these Cree elders may attribute to digital networks and new technologies, beyond any religious affiliation. It also shows the potential for renewal of indigenous religious traditions. Thus it matters little whether people are primarily linked to the Pentecostal, Catholic, traditionalist or Evangelical movement, they will use the internet and socio-digital networks to express and manage their grief, but also to maintain relations with the ancestors and the dead. Far from influencing or serving to recruit followers, the socio-digital networks are perceived as a new strategy for sharing and for community relations in a form complementary to other kinds of large gatherings, like the spiritual gatherings, retreats to the territory, masses or pow-wows.

Conclusion At international level, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN 2007) establishes a universal framework for respecting the rights of indigenous peoples. Articles 12, 25, 34 and 36 relate more specifically to indigenous spiritualities, since indigenous peoples are recognized to have the right to ‘practice, develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions’ (Art. 12), to ‘maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally owned and otherwise occupied and used lands’ (Art. 25), to ‘develop and maintain their . . . spirituality’ (Art. 34) as well as to ‘maintain and develop contacts, relations and cooperation, including activities for spiritual, cultural, political, economic and social purposes, with their own members as well as other peoples across borders’ (Art. 36). But how can we comprehend such complex universes, which make and unmake themselves continually, under the influence of multiple movements, sometimes successive, more often simultaneous? Catholicism, Pentecostalism, the Evangelical and Baptist Churches, traditions and neo-traditions, exchanges with neighboring groups, all participate, whether through rejection or affiliation, in shaping indigenous conceptions of the past and present world. They maintain specific knowledge, such as that linked to managing grief and death. Like many indigenous groups and communities throughout the world, the indigenous peoples of Canada and Quebec maintain, weave or consolidate networks of exchanges with other Nations in Canada, the United States and more recently South America thanks to the internet and socio-digital networks. Since the 2000s, the moment when internet connections spread to the communities, the networks expanded. Some Mapuche leaders (Chile) organized to travel and give lectures in Wemotaci (Atikamekw, Quebec); some Atikamekw travelled to Chile or Peru to better understand the local perceptions and uses of the coca leaf. Regular exchanges were organized between spiritual leaders, as in the case of Ricardo Tsakimp, a Shaur healer from Ecuador living in Sucua, in the province of Morona Santiago, who has visited Atikamekw and Innu communities in Quebec several times. While these exchanges between indigenous groups are not new, they take on a whole other dimension in the current context of development of socio-digital networks. 137

Laurent Jérôme

Note 1 Here I am referring to all the non-human entities with whom humans interact in indigenous cosmologies and ontologies (game, fish, bodies of water, plants, ancestors, astral bodies, spirits, etc.).

References Adelson, N., 2000. ‘Being Alive Well’: Health and the Politics of Cree Well-Being. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Adelson, N., 2001. Gathering knowledge: reflections on the anthropology of identity, Aboriginality, and the annual gatherings in Whapmagoostui, Quebec. In: C. H. Scott, ed. Aboriginal Autonomy and Development in Northern Quebec and Labrador. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 289–303. Adelson, N., 2012. Reflecting on the future: new technologies, new frontiers. In: K. Burnett and G. Read, eds. Aboriginal History: A Reader. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press. 264–275. Alexander, C.J., et al., 2009. Inuit cyberspace: the struggle for access for Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d’Études Canadiennes, 43 (2), 220–249. Armitage, P., 1992. Religious ideology among the innu. Religiologiques, 6, 64–110. Bousquet, M.-P., 2007. Catholicisme, pentecôtisme et spiritualité traditionnelle? Les choix religieux contemporains chez les Algonquins du Québec. In: C. Gélinas and G. Teasdale, eds. Les Systèmes Religieux Amérindiens et Inuit: Perspectives Historiques et Contemporaines. Quebec and Paris: Muséologie In-Situ and L’Harmattan. 155–166. Brault, E.R., 2005. Sweating in the Joint: Personal and Cultural Renewal and Healing Through Sweatlodge Practice by Native Americans in Prison. Thesis (PhD). Department of Religion, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN. Brightman, R.A., 2002 [1973]. Grateful Prey: Rock Cree Human-Animal Relationship. Regina: University of Regina. Bucko, R.A., 1998. The Lakota Ritual of the Sweat Lodge. History and Contemporary Practice. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Buddle, K., 2004. Media, markets and powwows. Matrices of Aboriginal cultural mediation in Canada. Cultural Dynamics, 16 (1), 29–69. Csordas, T.J., 1999. Ritual healing and the politics of identity in contemporary Navajo society. American Ethnologist, 26 (1), 3–23. De Largy, H.J., 2013. Remediating sacred imagery on screens: yolngu experiments with new media technology. In: Australian Aboriginal Anthropology Today: Critical Perspectives from Europe. Paris: Musée du quai Branly. Doran, A., 2005. Spiritualité Traditionnelle et Christianisme chez les Montagnais. Paris: L’Harmattan. Flannery, R., 1939. The Shaking-tent rite among the Cree and Montagnais of James Bay. Primitive Man, 12, 11–16. Fontaine, J.-L., 2006. Croyances et Rituels chez les Innus, 1603–1650: L’Univers Religieux Traditionnel des Tsjafennut. Quebec: GID. Ginsburg, F., 1994. Creating a discursive space for indigenous media. Cultural Anthropology, 9 (3), 365–382. Ginsburg, F., 2018. The indigenous uncanny: accounting for ghosts in recent indigenous Australian experimental Media. Visual Anthropology Review, 34 (1), 67–76. Ginsburg, F. and Myers, F., 2006. A history of indigenous futures: accounting for indigenous art and media. Aboriginal History, 30, 95–110. Goulet, J.-G., 1998. Ways of Knowing: Experience, Knowledge, and Power Among the Dene Tha. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Goulet, J.-G., 2000. Cérémonies, prières et médias: perspectives autochtones. Recherches Amérindiennes Au Québec, XXX (1), 59–70. Hallowell, A.I., 1976. Ojibwa ontology, behavior and world view. In: A.I. Hallowell, ed. Contributions to Anthropology, Selected Papers of A.I. Hallowell. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 357–390. Ingold, T., 2000. The Perception of the Environment. Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge. Iseke, J., 2002. Aboriginal and indigenous people’s resistance, the internet, and education. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 5 (July), 171–198.

138

‘Mediacosmologies’

Jérôme, L., 2015. Les cosmologies autochtones et la ville: sens et appropriation des lieux à Montréal. Anthropologica, 57 (2), 327–339. Jérôme, L., Biroté, C. and Coocoo, J., 2018. Images de la mort et ritualisation du deuil sur les réseaux socionumériques: des usages de Facebook en contexte autochtone. Frontières, 29 (2). https://www. erudit.org/en/journals/fr/2018-v29-n2-fr03541/ Jérôme, L. and Kaine, É., 2014. Représentations de soi et décolonisation dans les musées: quelles voix pour les objets de l’exposition C’est notre histoire. Premières Nations et Inuit du XXIe siècle (Québec)? Anthropologie et Sociétés, 38 (3), 231–252. Jérôme, L. and Veilleux, V., 2014. Witamowikok, ‘dire’ le territoire atikamekw nehirowisiw aujourd’hui: territoires de l’oralité et nouveaux médias autochtones. Recherches Amérindiennes au Québec, 44 (1), 11–22. Kohn, E., 2013. How Forests Think. Toward an Anthropology beyond the Human. Berkeley: University of California Press. Laugrand, F., 1998. L'évangélisation sans missionnaire: l'apostolat des prosélytes inuit dans l'Arctique de l'Est canadien. Mission (Ottawa), 5 (2), 163–194. Laugrand, F., 2002. Mourir et renaître: la réception du christianisme par les Inuit de l'Arctique de l'Est canadien (1890–1940). Quebec: University of Laval Press. Laugrand, F., 2013a. Pour en finir avec la spiritualité: l’esprit du corps dans les cosmologies autochtones du Québec. In: A. Beaulieu, et al., ed. Les Autochtones et le Québec: Des Premiers Contacts au Plan Nord. Montreal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal. 213–232. Laugrand, F., 2013b. ‘Divines entreprises’ sur la toile. La nébuleuse évangélique et pentecôtiste chez les Autochtones du Canada. Histoire, Monde, Cultures Religieuses, 27, 101–126. Laugrand, F. and Delâge, D., 2008. Introduction. Traditions et transformations rituelles chez les Amérindiens et les Inuits du Canada. Recherches Amérindiennes au Québec, XXXVIII (2–3), 3–12. Laugrand, F. and Luna-Penna, G., 2013. Isuma.tv ou la Babel du Grand Nord: religions, images autochtones et médias électroniques. Recherches Amérindiennes au Québec, 43 (2–3), 31–47. Lewis, S., 2014. A better dance and better prayers: systems, structures, and the future imaginary in Aboriginal new media. In: S. Loft and K. Swanson, eds. Coded Territories: Tracing Indigenous Pathways in New Media Art. Calgary: University of Calgary Press. 49–77. Loft, S., 2014. Mediacosmology. In: S. Loft and K. Swanson, eds. Coded Territories: Tracing Indigenous Pathways in New Media Art. Calgary: University of Calgary Press. 170–186. Lumby, B., 2010. Cyber-indigeneity: urban indigenous identity on Facebook. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 39 (S1), 68–75. Ortner, S.B., 1995. Resistance and the problem of ethnographic refusal. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 37 (1), 173–193. Poirier, S., 2016. Ontologies. Anthropen.org. Paris: Éditions des Archives Contemporaines. Prins, H., 1994. Neo-traditions in Native Communities: sweat Lodge and Sun Dance Among the Mic Mac Today. In: W. Cowan, dir. Papers of the 25th algonquinist conference. Ottawa: Carleton University. 383–394. Servais, O., 2005. Des jésuites chez les Amérindiens ojibwas: Histoire et ethnologie d’une rencontre, XVIIe-XXe siècles. Paris: Éditions Karthala. Simpson, L.B., 2011. Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back. Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence, and a New Emergence. Manitoba: ARP Book. Simpson, L.B., 2017. As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance (Indigenous Americas). University of Minnesota Press. Kindle Edition. Singleton, R.R., et al., 2009. Youth empowerment and information and communication technologies: A case study of a remote Australian Aboriginal community. GeoJournal, 74 (5), 403–413. Sioui Durand, G., 2014. Un Wendat nomade sur la piste des musées. Pour des archives vivantes. Anthropologie et Sociétés, 38 (3), 271–288. Speck, F.G., 1977 [1935]. Naskapi. The Savage Hunters of the Labrador Peninsula. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Tanner, K., 2005. Economy of grace. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Thomas, L.-V., 2003. La mort. Paris: PUF. Tupper, J., 2014. Social media and the idle no more movement: citizenship, Activism and Dissent in Canada. Journal of Social Science Education, 4. https://doi.org/10.2390/jsse-v13-i4-1354. United Nations. 2007. United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. United Nations. Van Woudenberg, G., 2004. Des femmes et de la territorialité: début d’un dialogue sur la nature sexuée des droits des autochtones. Recherches amérindiennes au Québec, 34, 75–86.

139

Laurent Jérôme

Wachowich, N. and Scobie, W., 2010. Uploading selves: inuit digital storytelling on YouTube. Études/ Inuit/Studies, 34 (2), 81. Waldram, J.B., 1997a. The Way of the Pipe: Aboriginal Spirituality and Symbolic Healing in Canadian Prisons. Peterborough: Broadview Press. Waldram, J.B., 1997b. The Reification of Aboriginal Culture in Canadian Prison Spirituality Programs. In: M. Mauzé, dir. Present Is Past. Some Uses of Tradition in Native Societies. Lanham: University Press of America. 197–214. Warschauer, M., 2006. Technology and Indigenous Language Revitalization: analyzing the Experience of Hawai’i. Canadian Modern Language Review, décembre. Westman, C., 2008. Understanding Cree Religious Discourse. Doctoral thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta, Edmonton. Wood, L.J., 2015. Idle No More, Facebook and Diffusion. Social Movement Studies, 14 (5), 615–621.

140

Part III

Intimate identities

11 Saints, sinners, and same-sex marriages Ecclesiological identity in the Church of England and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark Karen Marie Leth-Nissen

Introduction In Danish popular understanding, ‘saints’ are people who are already active in church and part of a tight community. In this understanding, we perceive ‘saints’ as special and stronger Christians. They are active in church and attend worship on Sundays. Most of both the English and the Danes visit church less often, if ever. Societies include both the minority active in close church communities, and the majority going from occasional use to no use of the church at all. This chapter discusses whether the old majority churches want to keep on being churches for all people in their societies, even those who might not feel related to church. The churches’ reactions to the public debates on same-sex marriages in church show which factors are crucial in determining the future course of an old majority church intertwined with society. Citizens in the countries of Northern Europe are on average positive towards same-sex marriage (Lindberg 2016). Attitudes towards same-sex marriages have also changed in Britain. Siobhan McAndrew shows using British Social Attitudes data (1989–2014) that resistance towards same-sex marriages in Britain has fallen from 70 percent among people identifying with the Church of England in 1989, down to less than 30 percent in the same group. Among people identifying with ‘no religion,’ the same numbers have fallen from 50 percent resistance to 10 percent in the same period (British Religion in Numbers, 2017). In Denmark, 68 percent of the population supports same-sex marriages in church (YouGov/ Centre for Church Research 2015). The public debate on civil same-sex marriages in several countries (Bóasdóttir 2012) has raised a new complex of problems for churches. The gap between popular and official church understanding of human sexuality challenges the two old national churches of England and Denrmark. Since the Reformation, we see an intertwinement of these majority churches and their nation states (Christoffersen 2006). The churches are covering their countries through geographical parishes. The Church of England has a territorial presence through its 12,557

143

Karen Marie Leth-Nissen

parishes and 16,000 parish churches.1 Likewise, the Danish folk church is an established church present in the whole country, having 2,123 parishes and 2,354 church buildings.2 Every parish in both countries has at least one parish church and most often a churchyard surrounding it. The parishes and their ministers serve the whole community. We call these churches by law established churches (Christoffersen 2006). Given their embeddedness in nation states, one might expect the Church of England and the Danish folk church to adapt to societal changes. With same-sex marriages, the churches chose another path. The churches’ reactions reveal their view on how to be a proper church today; they reveal their ecclesiological identities. I place the churches on a continuum going from ecclesial to societal church, using sociologist of religion Linda Woodhead’s concepts of ecclesial and societal church. Woodhead’s concepts are helpful in explaining the consequences of the churches’ decisions on same-sex marriages. The processes described here show how the Church of England and the Danish folk church negotiate their ecclesiological identities, and who has the power to pull the church in an ecclesial or societal direction. I work in a method combining Hegstad (2013), Percy (2010), and the new Nordic wave of ecclesiology and ethnography (Leth-Nissen 2018). Data for the analysis include qualitative source studies (2010–2016), as well as quantitative data on church attendance and lay engagement in church. The Church of England reacted to civil same-sex marriages in the way Woodhead (2016) predicted, increasing a clerical and authoritarian identity. The responses and briefings of the church show how the Church of England is pulling in an ecclesial direction, thus widening the gap between the British society and the Church of England. The Danish folk church has negotiated same-sex marriages in church for decades, setting inner-church unity over the church–people relationship. Parliament functions as the formal Synod of the church and it settled the matter by introducing same-sex marriages in the church in 2012. The lengthy debate has most likely wounded the church’s relationship to the people.

Context, state-of-the-art, concepts, and methods The Church of England: power structures and change The gap between the Church of England and British society has been widening since the start of the 20th century. In 1917, a court judgement ruled that the law of England was not Christian. In 1919, Parliament made a partial disestablishment of the Church of England when it placed Church legislation (Canon Law) in the Church Assembly (Brown and Woodhead 2016, p. 51). The Church Assembly transformed into the General Synod in 1970 and has three Houses, the House of Bishops, the House of Clergy, and the House of Laity. Peers elect the bishops and clergy for the two clerical houses. However, Parliament kept control of canon law, as all three Houses of Parliament need to agree to pass new measures.3 Thus, Parliament is sovereign and works as the actual governing body. The Anglican Communion is taking part in informal negotiations on change, too. The highest body of the Communion is the Primates meetings, comprising the ‘chiefs,’ the archbishops or equivalents from the 39 provinces of the Communion. Almost every decade, the Archbishop of the Church of England calls a Lambeth conference for discussion on church matters relevant to the whole Communion. The Primates meetings and the Lambeth conferences has no binding authority on member churches.4

144

Saints, sinners, and same-sex marriages

The debate on female ordination widened the gap even further. A 1975 report found that there were no theological constraints to female clergy. For years, Church of England preferred tradition and male headship to the equality for women, following developments in society. The Church of England accepted female deacons from 1987, and female ministers from 1992, with the first ordination in 1994 (Shaw 2014). The church accepted female bishops in 2014 (Encyclopedia Britannica 2017). The debate on homosexuality widened the gap, too. A power struggle during the 1980s between the church parties of the liberals and the conservative Evangelicals left the conservatives in power. As a result, the Church of England continued to ignore the needs of homosexual people for recognition by the church (Brown and Woodhead 2016, p. 56).5 In 1991, the bishops used a new distinction in their own statement on homosexuality. Homosexuality was acceptable for lay people. However, active homosexual clergy was intolerable and only celibacy would make homosexual clergy able to stay in church (Shaw 2014, p. 348).6 Table 11.1 shows how the values gap has widened between society and the Church of England. During the same period, there has been a declining use of rites of passage. With baptism as the example, the English baptized half their children in the Church of England in around 1900. Today the figure is around 12 percent.7 Affiliation is down to 28 percent of the population, with 1.7 percent of the Electoral Roll as formal members. Sunday attendance is around 1.3 percent (Table 11.2). These examples show that the relationship between English society and the Church of England is unstable. The power of changing the church’s direction lies with the General Synod of the Church of England and it has until now favored inter-church unity over staying a societal church. Within the Communion, a widening gap between liberal and traditionalist views of homosexuality is threatening to split the Communion. From 2008, alternative Anglican bodies claimed to represent the ‘true Anglicans’ who condemn homosexuality (Sachs 2017, p. 113).

Table 11.1 Model of the gap between English society and the Church of England.

English society Church of England

Values in 1900 Conservative, patriarchal Conservative, patriarchal

Values in 2012 Liberal, equality Conservative, patriarchal

Table 11.2 Relationship between population, affiliates, and governing bodies of the Church of England. Church of England General population8 Affiliated to the Church of England9 Electoral Roll members10 Sunday attendance11

Number 62,756,200 17,571,736 1,044,800 827,200

Percentage 100% 28% 1.7% 1.3%

145

Karen Marie Leth-Nissen

The Danish folk church: power structures and change In the Danish constitution of 1849, the church went from being the church of the King to being ‘the Danish folk church, governed by law’ (Christoffersen 2017). The Ministry of Church Affairs administers the daily business of the church and brings forward new developments. As church legislation is part of the Danish body of common laws, the Parliament initiates and passes new legislation for the church. Thus, the Danish folk church has no synod. When issues are strong in the public debate both inside and outside the church, the Minister of Church Affairs names a committee for a report on the matter, with members representing various church parties and other stakeholders as the clergy’s union, the bishops, university theologians, and the parish councils. Through the 20th century, the folk church has followed the general developments of society. Parliament approved female ordination in 1947, and in 1948, the Danish folk church was the first church to ordain a female minister (Præstholm 2014, p. 93). However, the issue of homosexuality has haunted the Danish folk church for decades. Homosexual clergy experienced hardship, and the church has debated the issue in the open since the 1970s (Præstholm 2013). In 1989, Denmark became the world’s first country to approve legal civil partnerships.12 Then, the possibility of having same-sex marriages sparked a major debate among the three church parties, which has been going on ever since (Table 11.3). The Danish folk church still has 77 percent of the population as formal members, with baptism as the ritual turning you into a member. Some 64 percent of infants are baptized (2015). The Danish folk church accepts that the people are not active in church and have no obligation of activity connected to membership. Church attendance is around 2 percent, around 114,000 per Sunday (Table 11.4).13 The examples show that the relationship between the people and the church is rather stable in Denmark.

Method I am inspired by the descriptive ecclesiology of theologian Harald Hegstad in his The Real Church (2013), seeking the ‘real church’ instead of the ‘ideal church.’ I follow theologian

Table 11.3 Model of the gap between Danish society and the Danish folk church.

Danish society The Danish folk church

Values in 1900 Conservative, patriarchal Conservative, patriarchal

Values in 2012 Liberal, equality Increasingly liberal, equality

Table 11.4 Relationship between population, affiliates, and governing bodies of the Danish folk church. The Danish folk church General population Formal members of the Danish folk church14 Sunday attendance

146

Number 5,706,100 4,388,000

Percentage 100% 76.9% 2%

Saints, sinners, and same-sex marriages

Martyn Percy’s pursuit of the implicit theology of the church (Percy 2010, p. 4). Percy argues that we must research ‘the hybridity of culture and theology’ within the church (2010, p. 7). I conduct comparative ecclesiology as in many of the new approaches on ecclesiology and ethnography, using document sources, quantitative statistics, and survey data. The method in the field comprises a rather broad social sciences approach and makes room for experiments.15

Theory: the concepts of ecclesial and societal church For the analysis of the churches’ reactions to debates on same-sex marriages, I use Woodhead’s (forthcoming) concepts of societal and ecclesial church. Woodhead describes the churches as societal churches (forthcoming) in her analysis of the changes in the seven old majority churches of Northern Europe. Building on theologian and philosopher of religion Ernst Troeltsch’s (1911) concepts of ‘church type’ or ‘sectarian type’ of Christianity, Woodhead views church as a cultural institution in a national setting, and places churches on a continuum between societal and ecclesial church. A societal church focuses on being the salt of the earth, being present everywhere for everybody. It has a national presence in places, institutions, and, above all, in existentially open situations. Societal church wants the church to come to the people. In contrast, ecclesial church focuses on being the light of the world, and emphasizes tradition, order, a congregational church, and church attendance. Ecclesial church wants the people to come to the church (Woodhead forthcoming). A societal church is tied to the state, the nation, and the society. Both the Church of England and the Danish folk church have exceptional positions in the states as the by-law established churches. By name they connect to the national identity as they are ‘of the nation’ (Church of England) or ‘of the people’ (Danish folk church). Earlier, being a citizen meant being baptized (Leth-Nissen 2018, p. 7; Woodhead forthcoming). The two churches connect to their societies through many ‘insertion points’ as chaplains in various sectors as prisons, military, schools, and health, or through a multitude of local community events having the local church as a driving force or participant (Woodhead forthcoming; LethNissen 2018, p. 14). The Church of England has 1,415 chaplains (Report on Church of England chaplaincy 2014, p. 8). Chaplains make up 11 percent of all the clergy (2014).16 In Denmark, out of 2,200 full-time minister positions, one-sixth are chaplains in schools, hospitals, the army, and more (Leth-Nissen 2018, pp. 107–108). With more pluralism, we gain a differentiation of cultural identities and a following de-differentiation of secular and religious spheres. Woodhead has described how the churches react to the individual-level tendency to mix religion, becoming ‘increasingly clerical and authoritarian’ (Woodhead 2016, p. 46). Woodhead concludes that societal churches who try to be ecclesial ‘end up alienating their core support’ (Woodhead forthcoming).

Substantive discussion The question of same-sex marriages evoked heated debates within the organizations of both the Church of England and the Danish folk church.

The Church of England: the price of inter-church unity In Britain, Parliament introduced civil partnership under Common Law in 2005, and in 2012, the government wanted to introduce equal access to marriage for same-sex couples. The British government consultation on same-sex marriages in 2012 stated that the 147

Karen Marie Leth-Nissen

government did ‘not think that the ban on same-sex couples getting married should continue.’ A listening exercise had found that same-sex couples suffered in the then situation and this was the basis of the consultation (Equal marriage: a consultation 2012, p. 1). The Church of England responded, as did 228,000 others. This was the highest number of responses to a government consultation ever, and a majority of the responses wanted religious same-sex marriage to be possible, even though the consultation proposed only a civil same-sex marriage (Equal marriage: The Government’s response 2012, p. 6). After discussions in the Archbishops’ council and the House of Bishops, the Church of England’s response came from the Archbishops, and it recommended that the government left the issue and stayed with civil partnership only (Church of England response 2012). In the response, the Church of England emphasized that there is no ban on same-sex marriages.17 The arguments of the response had ethical, biblical, judicial, and procreational aspects, the strongest argument being the judicial, as Canon Law cannot be in conflict with Common Law. In Canon Law, marriage is between a man and a woman (Canon B30). The Common Law (Marriage Act 1949) says all residents of a parish, ‘irrespective of his or her religious affiliation’ has the right to marry in the parish church (Church of England response 2012, p. 6). Canon Law cannot be contrary to the laws of the realm. Thus, a new law redefining marriage would force Canon Law to change. On top of this, the Church of England feared a court case on discrimination if the Bill passed in this manner. If same-sex marriage were to be allowed for all, then religious same-sex marriage would also be allowed for all (Church of England response 2012, p. 8).18 Thus, the Church of England argued, the proposal had to change to protect the church. The other arguments argued that this legislation would harm ‘the common good’ of society and that marriage is about complementarity and children. Instead of rejecting equal marriage, the government drew up a bill for reading in the Houses of Parliament. The government’s response stated an explicit respect for Canon Law although the Parliament is sovereign to Canon Law. To protect the Church of England and other faith communities from conducting marriages against their theologies, the government introduced a ‘quadruple lock.’ The ‘lock’ has four elements: A) No religious organizations or individual ministers can be compelled to conduct same-sex marriages or let these happen on their premises. B) They can only do so if they expressly opt-in to the possibility of conducting same-sex marriages. C) Amending the Equality Act of 2010 ensures that religious organisations are not discriminated. D) Exempting the Church of England and Church of Wales in the law to avoid conflict between Canon Law and Common Law (Equal marriage: The Government’s response 2012, 17–18). The Church of England tried to influence the MPs of the House of Commons and House of Lords by directing briefings to the MPs before the second and the third Readings in the Houses (Church of England Third Reading Briefing 2013). The briefings insisted on the ‘quadruple lock’ in the legislation as crucial to protect the Church of England, but aimed at a full rejection of the bill. Church of England failed, and both Houses approved the bill on 16 July 2013. It received Royal Assent by the Queen the following day. The whole process shows that the Church of England wants to prescribe how people should live their lives. The response and briefings contain arguments that date back to 1900. 148

Saints, sinners, and same-sex marriages

By then, the Church of England was a major influencer. English society and the Church of England built on the same foundations of patriarchal values and paternalism. Thus, the Church of England was at ease with keeping up and celebrating the lives of the English people (Brown and Woodhead 2016, p. 69). As ministers and bishops cannot be active homosexuals (because of the Higton motion), chances are that the share of homosexual clergy is lower than the average in the population. If so, a vote in favor of same-sex marriages in the General Synod may be even less likely. The House of Laity comprises lay people who are all Church of England members on the Electoral Roll and are voted in by their local deanery synod.19 Thus, the House of Laity comprises the church’s active people and not the broad Anglican laity. For a comparison of the active laypeople and the broad laity, the share of lay members on governing boards of the Church of England amounts to 150,300 or 0.2 percent.20 The connection between the Church of England and the people is not strong. Lay people have a low influence on the direction of the church. These lay people are special from the general population, since they are active in the church. The Church of England’s governing bodies have the power to change the church, but they only represent a small group of the affiliates and an even smaller share of the general population. The responses and briefings on same-sex marriages from the Church of England show that the church still perceives itself as a major influencer. However, the government seems to have long seen that the church is not present in people’s lives anymore, and made their decisions in accordance with this. The ‘quadruple lock’ seemed like a way of silencing the Church of England. The data on use of church, affiliation, and power structure show that the Church of England is becoming a more ecclesial church, providing activities for only a small faithful group of people. This takes all the power out of the ‘common good’ argument of the Church of England because of the contradiction between having ecclesial characteristics and caring for the common good of society. Here, the Church of England seems split between a previous societal identity and a still more ecclesial identity. Although the Church of England moves in an ecclesial direction, the Anglican Communion still struggles with the issue of homosexuality. The Episcopal Church of USA issued a ritual for same-sex marriage in 2016. As a reaction, the Anglican Communion suspended the Episcopal Church at the Lambeth Primates conference in 2016.21 The suspension emphasizes the challenge of being a church in a Western context but part of a global communion.

The Danish folk church: the price of inner-church unity Denmark has had a civil partnership act since 1989, and for years, the bishops and the church parties have debated the possibility of a blessing in church. The Danish bishops formed a committee in 1995 and produced a report in 1997 on blessings and civil partnerships. Here they state that civil partnership differs from marriage. An explicit argument against a church ritual for same-sex couples was the broad national and church resistance (Report of the committee of the Minister of Church Affairs on Danish folk church and civil partnership, 2010, p. 27). All organizations of the conservative church party ‘Inner Mission’ criticized the bishops’ committee and formed a counter-committee. Their counter report, also from 1997, found no biblical theological foundation for blessings or prayer for same-sex couples (ibid., p. 28). In 2005, the bishops still found no common agreement on the issue. A group of six bishops with the Bishop of Greenland issued 149

Karen Marie Leth-Nissen

guidelines for blessings of civil partnerships. This group of bishops emphasized that after the harsh debate of the recent years the church had to speak up on this issue. With their issuing of the guidelines for blessings, they wanted to distance themselves and the church from condemnations of homosexuals (ibid., p. 27). The discussion on same-sex marriage in church was an issue in Parliament from 2004. The political parties discussed whether to make a law for same-sex marriage in church before the church asked for it, or to wait for the church to ask (ibid., p. 29). In 2009, the Minister appointed members for a committee on same-sex marriages. He chose the members from amongst the largest stakeholders in the Danish folk church. The committee represented all church parties (Inner Mission, The Grundtvigians, and Tidehverv). Besides these, members were theological advisers from Aarhus University and the University of Copenhagen, and representatives of the National Association of Parish Councils, the ministers’ association, and the bishops (ibid., p. 6). In their 2010 committee report, the arguments on the issue were several. Biblical interpretation supported the tradition that marriage is between a man and a woman. The committee acknowledged that the patterns of family life are changing (ibid., p. 32).22 A sociological argument was the increasing popular perception of same-sex couples, also among clergy of the Danish folk church (ibid., p. 34). The report discussed the theological aspects of the unity of the church. As the official creed of the Danish folk church, the Augsburg Confession states that the true unity of the church rests on ‘the gospel rightly preached and the sacraments duly administered’ (CA VII). Thus, a majority of the committee found that homosexuality falls outside the Confession. Thus, diverging stances on the issue will not harm church unity (ibid., p. 34). The majority declared that same-sex partnerships do not have a Christian past and tradition, but they would not declare homosexuality a sin. A same-sex partnership should be within the teachings of the Bible and be possible to integrate the theology and the church. The Bible and the tradition says that a marriage must be between a man and a woman. Thus, a gender-neutral ritual would harm the perception of marriage (ibid., p. 34). The 12 members could not reach an end agreement. In the Ministerial report of 2010, nine members agreed that a blessing of a civil partnership should be possible in church. Six members wanted same-sex partnerships to be possible in church through a new ritual parallel to the marriage ritual. Eleven members agreed that marriage should still be between a man and a woman, while same-sex rituals should be partnerships (ibid., pp. 36–39). The following consultation showed that half of the bishops favored the church blessing, half a legal binding ritual.23 In March 2011, the Minister of Church Affairs from the political Conservative party prepared a bill based on the report. He aimed at a parallel ritual, not a change of the whole marriage law, since this was the wish of the church.24 In October 2011, the power of Parliament changed to the Social Democrats, the Socialistic Folk Party, and the Radical Party. The new government’s platform said, ‘The government will lift the ban on marriage of homosexuals in the Danish folk church.’25 In parallel to the English case, the word ‘ban’ was controversial since it has never been a ban but just not a possibility. When the Minister of Church Affairs lined up a proposal, it was for a change of the whole marriage law and went beyond the report and consultations. On the proposal, he held a public consultation on the Parliaments’ promises.26 Following this, the Minister drew up a bill and on 12 June 2012 Parliament approved the law (Law no. 532 of 12/06/2012), together with new legislation guaranteeing the church ministers their individual freedom to refuse to perform the ritual.27 Four days after, eight out of ten bishops issued guidelines for rituals for both same-sex marriages and blessings (Præstholm 2014, p. 115). 150

Saints, sinners, and same-sex marriages

The reluctance in taking a stand may have made many people lose their patience with the folk church. The withdrawals from church reached a new high in 2012 with over 21,000 members resigning. Some 12,000 of these left church before the approval of the law and they may have left in haste.28 It also disturbed the unity of the church although only seven ministers left the church after the new law. The process shows that Parliament has the power to keep the folk church societal. Lay people on the governing boards of the folk church amount to 12,922 or 0.2 percent of the general population and have no direct influence on the direction of the church.29

Conclusion This chapter has shown how issues on human sexuality challenge on one side, the unity of a global church community such as the Anglican Communion. On the other side, the issue challenges the bond between a national church and its population. The changing liberal attitudes towards homosexuality are at the core of this dilemma, as the changes are more evident in the Global North than in the Global South (Bóasdóttir 2012; Lindberg 2016). In this case, the introduction of same-sex marriage in Britain caused a decade-long struggle between church parties in the Church of England. The British population favored the introduction of same-sex marriage and hoped for the church to introduce it, too. In the end, the Church of England chose to keep peace with the Anglican Communion and not challenge the member churches of the Global South. Instead, the Church of England further alienated the church from the British people and widened the already considerable gap between people and church. The Church of England pulls in an ecclesial direction, wanting the church to be the light of the people. There is a risk that the British population with this development has given up on the Church of England and ignores any light it might try to shine. In Denmark, the Danish folk church is closely connected to Danish society, and has no formal bonds to other church communities outside Denmark. As in Britain, the Danish population favored the introduction of same-sex marriage in church. However, the bishops and the church parties favored inner-church unity over staying a societal church, and would not recommend establishing equal marriage. Thus, the folk church hesitated and harmed its relationship with the general population. In 2012, Parliament passed legislation making equal marriage possible in church and a majority of the bishops issued guidelines for same-sex marriage in church the following week. Here, the absence of a church synod keeps the Danish folk church in line with Danish society as Parliament takes the heavy decisions on behalf of the church. Although innerchurch discussions had been heated on the issue, things calmed down once the legislation had been passed by Parliament. The Danish folk church stayed a societal church, wanting to be the salt of the earth. The case also shows that in high-profile issues, the Danish people have the power of the Danish folk church, as the synod is actually the Parliament. This makes sense, as 75 percent of the Danish population are members of the church. On same-sex marriage, the theological arguments of the Church of England and the Danish folk church were the same during the processes of 2010 to 2013. The arguments said that marriage according to the Bible and tradition is between a man and a woman. Thus, the church cannot redefine marriage and same-sex couples should have a parallel ritual not called marriage. In the end, it was not theology, but the difference in power structures and power of the church parties that turned same-sex marriage into a reality in the Danish folk church but not in the Church of England. 151

Karen Marie Leth-Nissen

The Danish folk church is weak in relation to the people. This keeps its ties to the people strong. The Church of England is stronger in relation to the British people and chooses unity in church over unity with the people. This wears down its ties to the British people. Further research on the issues of church identity and power structures should look into whether the Church of England is changing towards an ecclesial church. Because of a shift in power between the church parties, the General Synod was instrumental in stopping same-sex marriages in the Church of England, as it has directed the Church of England on the issue on homosexuality since 1987. Further perspectives to explain the power shift in the Church of England would include analyses of resolutions of the Lambeth conferences of 1978, 1988, 1998 and 2008 as well as an analysis on the cases of openly homosexual ministers Gene Robinson and Jeffrey Johns. It would be fruitful to examine also the issues of polygamy and divorce, which Lambeth agreed the member churches could treat as local issues. At the same time, research into the agency of church ministers would add new aspects to our knowledge on the future of the Church of England. Within the 2012 debate on samesex marriages, the actors were the Parliament, the General Synod, and the Anglican Communion. How do church ministers relate to the discussions and decisions, being the direct representatives of the church to the British people? Because of the governance structure of the Danish folk church, the church parties did not have the power to stop a change in the marriage law. Further questions for research in the Danish folk church would clarify whether the folk church for the sake of inner-church unity pulls towards a more ecclesial church. Further research should analyse the 2015 committee report on governance models for the folk church and compare it to synodal governance models in the other Northern European majority churches.

Notes 1 2014. Church of England Statistics for Mission 2014, 3.12. 2 Parishes in 2013. Homepage of National Association of Parochial Church Council Members www.menighedsraad.dk/menighedsraadene/fakta-om-folkekirken/ [Accessed 4 March 2016]. Church buildings in 2015. Ministry of Church Affairs https://wiki2.org/en/Church_of_Den mark [Accessed 7 March 2016]. 3 The House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the House of Bishops. 4 www.anglicancommunion.org/structures/instruments-of-communion/primates-meeting.aspx [Accessed 21 April 2018]. Besides the Lambeth conferences and the Primates meetings, the Communion has the Anglican Consultative Council, which comprises members of the laity, archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons, and is held almost every three years. 5 Church activists took the House of Laity hostage. It then turned into the forum of a crucial debate on homosexuality. The Higton motion on homosexuality was passed, stating that sex can only be between a man and a woman, that homosexuality is a sin, and that church leadership should be exemplary in all matters including sexual morality (Brown and Woodhead 2016: 56). In 1989, the Osborne report was dismissed as being too liberal and was never published. It had only done what the resolutions of Lambeth 1978 and 1988 asked for (Shaw 2014: 348). But the Higton motion had changed the scene. 6 The document is called ‘Issues in Human Sexuality.’ 7 Page 27 figure 10. www.churchofengland.org/media/1477827/2010_11churchstatistics.pdf [Accessed 19 November 2016]. 8 2014. Population of England, Wales, and Scotland put as one, as the YouGov data provided for affiliation is based on this population. Total is 62,756,200. National Office of Statistics www.ons. gov.uk/ andwww.gov.scot/ [Accessed 11 March 2016]. 9 28 percent said they were affiliated to the Church of England in a 2015 YouGov survey (YouGov Woodhead 2015). Population is the total, as the YouGov data provided for affiliation is based on the population of England, Wales, and Scotland. National Office of Statistics www.ons.gov.uk/ and www.gov.scot/ [Accessed11 March 2016]. 152

Saints, sinners, and same-sex marriages

10 2014. Statistics for Mission. 11 2014. Statistics for Mission (Report on Church of England Chaplaincy 2014:15) provided data for Sunday attendance in October 2014 in the Church of England: 827,200. 12 www.retsinformation.dk/Forms/R0710.aspx?id=59485 [Accessed 19 November 2016]. 13 Stable rate for many years set at 2% (Iversen 2014, p. 128). Population (2016) 5,707,251. National Statistical Office. http://danmarksstatistik.dk/da/Statistik/emner/befolkning-og-befolkningsfrem skrivning [Accessed 12 March 2016]. Two% is 114,145. 14 2016. National Statistical Office. http://danmarksstatistik.dk/da/Statistik/emner/befolkning-ogbefolkningsfremskrivning [Accessed 12 March 2016]. For a comparison of the different membership models of the Church of England and the Danish folk church, see Friis Jensen and Leth-Nissen (forthcoming). 15 For a thorough overview and discussion on ethnography and ecclesiology (see Leth-Nissen 2018, pp. 53–54). 16 When you use figures of clergy full-, part-time-, and self-supporting clergy. 17 www.churchofengland.org/our-views/marriage,-family-and-sexuality-issues/same-sex-marriage/samesex-marriage-and-the-church-of-england-an-explanatory-note.aspx [Accessed 29 February 2016]. 18 ECtHR art. 12 on the right to marry and art. 14 on no discrimination. 19 Admission to the Roll is accepted for persons who are baptized, 16 years and up, residing in the parish in question, and declaring to be a member of the Church of England. If not a resident of the parish, being a regular worshipper in the parish church is an alternative way of admission. Being on the Roll ensures eligibility as well as voting power for the Parochial Church Council. Church Representation Rules, part 1. www.churchofengland.org/about-us/structure/churchlawlegis/ church-representation-rules/part-i.aspx#ba2 [Accessed 22 March 2016]. 20 2014. Calculation has been done with the kind help in both method and data of Bernard Silverman, Professor of Statistics, University of Oxford; Dr. Bev Botting, Head of Research and Statistics, Archbishops’ Council; and Louise McFerran, senior statistical researcher at the Archbishops’ Council. All details available from author. 21 www.archbishopofcanterbury.org//articles.php/5658/read-the-communique-from-the-primates-ofthe-anglican-communion [Accessed 29 February 2016]. 22 Within the Danish folk church, views go from biblical literalism to a liberal and culture-open theology of marriage (Report on Civil Partnership 2010, p. 33). 23 www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/stigs-foerste-hovedpine-homo-vielser?rss=true [Accessed 18 November 2016]. 24 www.b.dk/nationalt/per-stig-moeller-homovielser-skyld-i-kirkeflugt [Accessed 18 November 2016]. 25 Page 66 in Helle Thorning-Schmidt’s Government’s Platform: www.stm.dk/publikationer/Et_Dan mark_der_staar_sammen_11/Regeringsgrundlag_okt_2011.pdf [Accessed 18 November 2016]. 26 14 May 2012 www.altinget.dk/kalender.aspx?id=12302 [Accessed 18 November 2016]. 27 www.retsinformation.dk/Forms/R0710.aspx?id=142282 [Accessed 18 November 2016]. 28 Statistics Denmark figures on withdrawals www.km.dk/folkekirken/kirkestatistik/ind-og-udmeldel ser/arkiv/ [Accessed 18 November 2016]. The high number of withdrawals could also be because in March the same year it became possible to withdraw via email. 29 2013. Homepage of National Association of Parochial Church Council Members www.menigheds raad.dk/menighedsraadene/fakta-om-folkekirken/ [Accessed 4 March 2016].

References Bóasdóttir, S. A. 2012. Same-Sex Marriage: A Burning Issue in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland. In: A.-L. Eriksson and G. Gunner, eds. Exploring a Heritage. Eugene and Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 97–114. Brown, A. and Woodhead, L. 2016. That Was The Church That Was. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Christoffersen, L. 2006. Intertwinement: A New Concept for Understanding Religion-Law Relations. Nordic Journal of Religion and Society, 19 (2), 107–126. Christoffersen, L. 2017. Fri og lige adgang til Vorherre. In: N. H. Gregersen and C. Bach-Nielsen eds. Reformationen i dansk kirke og kultur 1914–2017, III. Odense: Southern Denmark University Press, 195–228.

153

Karen Marie Leth-Nissen

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2017. Church of England. www.britannica.com/topic/Church-of-England [Accessed on 24 April 2018]. Friis Jensen, P. and Leth-Nissen, K. M. forthcoming. Understanding belonging to church: The cases of Church of England and the Danish folk church. In: L. Woodhead and H. R. Iversen eds. The Persistence of Societal Religion. The Old National Churches of Northern Europe. Hegstad, H. 2013. The Real Church: An Ecclesiology of the Visible. Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers. Iversen, H.R., 2014. Hvorfor forstår vi kirkestatistik, som vi gør? Historien om den danske kirkestatistik. In: M. V. Nielsen and H. R. Iversen, eds. Tal om kirken. Undersøgelser af Folkekirkens aktivitets- og deltagerstatistik. Publikationer fra Det Teologiske Fakultet 57. København: Det Teologiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet, 115–128. Leth-Nissen, K. M., 2018. Churching Alone: A Study of the Danish Folk Church at Organisational, Individual, and Societal Levels. Thesis (PhD). University of Copenhagen. Lindberg, J. 2016. Renegotiating the Role of Majority Churches in Nordic Parliamentary Debates on Same-Sex Unions. Journal of Church and State, 58 (1): 80–97. Percy, M. 2010. Shaping the Church, the Promise of Implicit Theology. Explorations in Practical, Pastoral, and Empirical Theology. Farnham: Ashgate. Præstholm, B. H. 2013. From Breaking News to Old News. Studia Theologica - Nordic Journal of Theology, 67 (2): 128–143. Præstholm, B. H., 2014. Kønfrontation?: Køn, kultur og forandring i nyere dansk teologi. Unpublished thesis. Aarhus: Institut for Kultur og Samfund, Afdeling for Teologi, Aarhus Universitet. Sachs, W. L. 2017. Sexuality and Anglicanism. In: J. Morris ed. The Oxford History of Anglicanism, Volume IV. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 93–116. Shaw, J. 2014. Conflicts within the Anglican Communion. In: A. Thatcher ed. The Oxford Handbook of Theology, Sexuality, and Gender. Oxford University Press, 340–356. Troeltsch, E. 1911. The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches. New York/Evanston: Harper and Row. Woodhead, L. 2016. Intensified Religious Pluralism and De-Differentiation: The British Example. In Society, 53 (1): 41–46. Woodhead, L. forthcoming. The Surprising Resilience of Churches of Cool Trust. In: L. Woodhead and H. R. Iversen eds. The Persistence of Societal Religion. The Old National Churches of Northern Europe.

Sources British Religion in Numbers, McAndrew, S., 2017. Attitudes to Homosexuality. www.brin.ac.uk/fig ures/attitudes-towards-gay-rights/clements-figures-attitudes-to-homosexuality-01-2017-f9/ [Accessed 27 April 2018]. Church of England Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill. Commons Report and Third Reading Briefing. 2013. www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/uploads/13.05.16%20Marriage%20%28Same%20Sex% 20Couples%29%20Bill%20Commons%20Report%203rd%20Reading%20CofE%20Briefing.pdf [Accessed 23 April 2018]. Church of England response to Government consultation on same-sex marriage. 2012. www.churcho fengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-11/GS%20Misc%201027%20government%20consultation% 20on%20same%20sex%20marriage.pdf [Accessed 21 April 2018]. Church of England Statistics for mission. 2014. www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-11/ 2014statisticsformission.pdf [Accessed 23 April 2018]. Equal civil marriage: a consultation. 2012. Equal marriage: The Government’s response. 2012. Law no. 532 of 12/06/2012. Law on changes to the law on marriage and divorce, law on legal consequences of marriage, and on lifting the law on civil partnership. Marriage (Same-sex Couples) Act. 2013. Report of the committee of the Minister of Church Affairs on Danish folk church and civil partnership. 2010. 1–67. Report on Church of England chaplaincy. 2014. www.rcc.ac.uk/downloads/todd-slater—dunlop-2014report-on-church-of-england-chaplaincy.pdf [Accessed 19 Nov 2016]. YouGov/Centre for Church Research. 2015. Dataset on Church Use and Life Style. http://teol.ku.dk/cfk/ undersoegelser/ [Accessed 27 April 2018].

154

12 When two worlds collide Asian Christian LGBTQs coming out to parents Joy K.C. Tong, Samuel Kang, Peter Lee and Hyo-Seok Lim

Introduction There is a bourgeoning literature on religion and queer sexuality. Most of this literature focuses on the negotiation between a Christian’s sexual and religious identities (Beagan and Hattie 2015; Comstock 1996; Ganzevoort et al. 2011; Liboro 2014; Rodriguez and Ouellette 2000; Thumma 1991; Wilcox 2003, 2009). And even though there is a growing attention on LGBTQs from non-Western culture, studies on queer Christians have rarely prioritized them, particularly Asian.1 This might be due to the misperception that the number of LGBTQs remains small and insignificant among Asians, whether in the USA or worldwide. But these perceptions are not necessarily true. In the USA, according to a Gallup survey in 2012, 4.3% of Asians identified as LGBT, compared to 3.2% of white Americans who identified as LGBT.2 In Asia, although LGBTQ rights are still limited in most countries, a 2019 survey by The Economist3 found that 45% of respondents in the Asia-Pacific believed that same-sex marriage is inevitable in the region. The lack of understanding of Asian Christian LGBTQs, both in the USA and the global society, has perpetuated stereotypes about the group and their same-sex realities. On the one hand, it is assumed that the experience of white Christian LGBTQs can be generalized to the entire Christian community and that there is no need to differentiate between the racial experience and sexual identification of different groups. On the other, when thinking about Asian Christian communities, we assume them to be “supra-homophobic,” meaning that if the LGBTQ individuals among them ever came out, they would face multiple marginalizations. But both of these assumptions need to be verified through empirical studies. Studies show that religion, sexuality, and culture do not exist in isolation; they are social categories dependent on one another for meaning (Collins 1998; Crenshaw 1989; King 2000). To understand the intersectional relationships of these categories, we need to examine how, and in what ways, culture influences the experience of Christian LGBTQs. This chapter aims to serve two purposes. Focusing on Asian Christian LGBTQs in the USA, its first aim is to provide descriptive information on the coming out experiences of Asian American Christian LGBTQs. Second, it systematically analyzes parental responses

155

Joy K.C. Tong et al.

towards the coming out of their child and its effects on the parent–child relationship. We will focus our investigation on one particular event, that is, coming out to parents, as highlighted by our participants and by studies (Marrow 2006) as the most difficult, yet most significant, of all coming out events. In-depth interviews with 35 Asian Christians in North America, most of whom live in the USA, are the data source for this study.

Background of the study: Confucianism, Christian faith, and coming out to parents The term “Asian American” encompasses 43 different ethnicities and over 100 different languages and dialects (Cousins 2014). Asian Americans are from different class backgrounds, religious beliefs, and life experiences, too. While numerous differences exist among them, they are distinctive as a social group and share some similar cultural values and morals.4 It happened that most of our participants, who were recruited through a snowballing method, traced their roots to East Asia, that is, China, Taiwan, Korea (also Vietnam and Singapore), which share general cultural similarities deeply rooted in Confucianism.5 We will provide a brief discussion about Confucian values with respect to family and sexuality that might affect our participants’ coming out experience.

The influence of Confucianism on family life Confucianism provides a distinctive set of values that define the characteristics of family and of the good life. It promotes family harmony and social solidarity over an individual’s wellbeing and defines a successful life as one that fulfills one’s obligations in a set of hierarchical relationships of which family is the center. Parents see children as reflections of themselves and they are expected to invest everything in their children (Hom 1994; Li and Orleans 2001). In return, children obey their parents and protect the family’s name over the life span. To that end, it is a duty of children, particularly sons, to get married and have children of their own blood. Same-sex relationships are clearly problematic because they not only prevent individuals from fulfilling their most important duty as children but also disrupt the Confucian order of gender norms. It is no wonder that studies show that Asian Americans are the ethnic group that is most opposed to gay marriage in California.6

The influence of Christian faith Evangelical Christianity has become immensely popular among many Asian immigrants in the USA, especially Koreans and Chinese.7 Many are drawn to ethnic churches as they provide a community that identifies with immigrants’ cultural heritage as well as helps keep their children from “immoral” influences of US culture (Chen 2006; Zhan 2002). Often, ethnic churches selectively teach cultural values that conform to the Christian tradition and reproduce gender and age-based hierarchies (Carnes and Yang 2004; Chong 1998; Min 2003). Studies (Chong 1998; Zhou and Bankston 1998) have found that second-generation Asian Americans who are more religious are also more likely to embrace ethnic identity and traditional values. Cultural and family values are preserved through ethnic churches, though now reinterpreted with biblical justification. Shrake (2009) shows how Korean American churches embody a synthesis of Confucian practice with fundamentalist theology8 when addressing the issue of homosexuality. 156

When two worlds collide

Coming out to parents Disclosure to parents always poses difficult and complex issues for LGBTQs. Asian traditional values have made the already challenging coming out appear almost insurmountable. A recent survey of a large multicultural sample of LGBTQs found that Asian Americans were the least likely to be out to their parents compared to the rest of the US population (Grov et al. 2006), a result that echoed earlier studies on Asian Americans (Chan 1989; Chung and Szymanski 2006; Fong 2002). In a “post-closet” age, when coming out is assumed to be more common and less difficult for most Americans (Seidman et al. 1999), Asian Americans continue to see coming out to parents as “the biggest personal issues” (Fong 2002). “The clash of values” between parents and their gay child results in parents disowning their child, refusing to acknowledge their child’s sexual orientation, avoiding the subject of sexual orientation altogether, or not wanting anyone to know, including family members (Kahn 1997; Leong 1996; Liu and Chan 2003). While reconciliation between parents and their child can occur over time, it is usually a long and difficult process (Chung and Szymanski 2006; Li and Orleans 2001; Yang 2007). Paradoxically, for families that reached eventual reconciliation, it was the strong Asian family values that helped to make this happen (Han 2001). Little is known concerning the lived experience of Asian American LGBTQs who identify as Christian. Their religious commitment might make their experience different. This research is an attempt to capture their voices.

Methods In 2015, we9 interviewed 35 LGBTQ individuals of Asian descent who identified as Christian and resided in the USA or Canada. Twenty-seven of them identified as gays and lesbians, four bisexual, two transgender, one pansexual, and one asexual. Ethnically, 22 were Chinese (from mainland China, Taiwan, and Singapore), 6 were Korean, 2 were Vietnamese, 2 were Filipino, and 3 were half-Asian. The majority of them were in their twenties and thirties. More than half were in a same-sex relationship, including three who were engaged and six who were married. In terms of their family’s religious affiliation, 18 participants had parents that attended conservative/evangelical and mostly ethnic churches (5 were children of pastors/ missionaries), 2 had parents that attended mainline Christian churches, 8 had parents that attended Catholic churches, and 2 had parents that attended Adventist churches. We recruited our participants through personal connections and LGBTQ online groups. We also contacted a few Asian American LGBTQ activists, and through their help, some interviewees were contacted. All the interviews were conducted either face to face or over an online video conference. The interviews lasted about 75 minutes. Each interview was semi-structured with five topics that covered family relationships, religious involvement, community, cultural/ethnic identity, and sexual experience. We recorded each interview and transcribed them. We identified common themes and used NVivo to facilitate our coding and analysis of the data. As expected, self-reported data has both advantages and limitations. It allows participants to tell their stories freely, but it also contains bias. We should see our interviewees’ stories as a reflection of their interpretation of past events. The goal of this study was not to make an argument about their experience, but to provide a contextual and detailed description of how cultural and religious values mixed and affected LGBTQs’ coming out to their parents.

157

Joy K.C. Tong et al.

Findings To tell or not to tell: reasons for (non-)disclosure to parents Most of our participants came out to their parents, and they did so after college or after securing a job. Eight of them (about 23%) still had not come out to their parents—three were in their twenties, three in their thirties, and two in their forties. In contrast to the average age of coming out to parents for general Americans, which is 19 years old (Arnett 2014) or even 14 (LaSala 2010), our interviewees are obviously late bloomers. Their delay in coming out was not because they did not have a stable romantic relationship with a queer partner, neither was it because, as suggested by Troiden (1989), they were uncertain about their sexual orientation. Many had come out to friends and siblings and some had been in a committed same-sex relationship for a while.

Reasons for not coming out to parents Our study showed that the greatest obstacle associated with not coming out to parents was the fear of bringing shame to the family. Many came out to their parents only after they had achieved certain milestones in their career. This attempt, which is quite distinctly “Asian,” is consistent with the achievement-oriented mentality of Asian culture. They hope their professional certificates or job titles will save their parents’ face in front of relatives and prevent others from seeing their parents and themselves as an “ultimate failure.”10 Roger, a physician, recalled that he “didn’t make any moves until I finished my training and my fellowship and I had a job . . . Then I was like 31.” Also a physician, Fred waited until he found a job in Chicago before he came out to his parents. John, a lawyer, said he kept postponing his coming out until he was admitted in law school. Upon counting, Keith, a 40-year-old MBA student, said that at least four of his Asian American gay friends were, like him, still in the closet. In his words: In the Asian context you date the ideal, your ethnicity, makes the mom really happy. And then second tier is a different Asian ethnicity, right? And then there’s like whites, Hispanics, and blacks. So below that into the ground of hell is being gay. It doesn’t matter what ethnicity. Gay is worse than anything else. It is the ultimate dishonor and shame to a family name. Keith’s half-joking comment was harsh, but it revealed the fear that many Asians hold in regards to coming out to their parents.

Reasons for coming out to parents Given the high costs for coming out, the majority of our respondents (77%) were nonetheless out to their parents. Although a few were pushed out by siblings or “caught” by their parents, most had made an effort to come out to their parents. Their reasons were varied, but the most common reason was they wanted to be “authentic and true” to their sexual identity. Many decided to come out because living a lie and a split life was stressful and disheartening. Also, they did not want their parents to discover the fact through others. When the cost of keeping closeted is sufficiently high and hiding is no longer optimal, many come out to their parents.

158

When two worlds collide

Parental response to coming out The responses of parents were varied, but they can be categorized into four major types.

Disapproval Among our interviewees that have disclosed to their parents, all but three said that at least one of their parents has reacted intensively negatively upon their coming out. Many parents were greatly distressed, going back and forth from denial to anger to blaming their child, themselves, and others. Often, in pain and tears, they asked their child, as Oneida’s11 mother did, “How can you do this to me?” or Hannah’s father, “Why do you do this to me?” These questions reveal their perception that their child has selfishly chosen a lifestyle that is wrong and sinful, as most parents assumed that “same-sex attraction is a problem that a Chinese or Korean family would not have.” Believing that their child had been led astray by Western culture, Asian parents often made many attempts to “correct” the child. Some resorted to Asian family honor, as with Hannah’s father, who pleaded with her to “make a sacrifice for the family, make a sacrifice for Cathy [her six-year-old cousin], think about her and how this affects her.” Some resort to spiritual intervention, as Lewis’s parents who performed exorcism on him, and Sue’s parents, who resort to parental authority that “we know the Bible better than you . . . and so what we think is what God thinks,” which according to Sue, “shut me back into closet.” Some resort to guilt induction, as with one respondent’s mother, who attributed her ovarian cancer to her lesbian daughter as a punishment from God.

Silence Silence is a typical way for Asians to sustain a state of peaceful coexistence within the family, even if it is only superficial. Pastoring a large Chinese congregation in Chicago, Pastor Andy recalled how his church remained silent when one of its youth leaders came out publicly. Although church leaders discussed the issue in meetings, they remained silent in public. Andy said, “From our tradition, we prefer to keep it silent. The more you talk about it, it will snowball, and you’re opening a can of worms.” Calvin’s experience illustrated the silent treatment: My dad didn’t say much and still hasn’t said much regarding this. The only time he has said something was when he had prostate cancer and thought he was gonna die. That was the only time when I actually heard him saying anything to me about it. He basically asked me how the guy that I was dating treated me. In some Asian families in the USA, the silence is a result of a history of very little parent–child communication, which is due partly to the language barrier. John commented, “we never talked about our faith to each other . . . because my parents, all their spiritual vocabularies are in Mandarin and none of mine is in Mandarin.” No doubt the communication would be more awkward if it was about one’s sexuality. As Hom and Ma (1993) suggest, many Asian American LGBTQs have difficulty verbalizing their gay identity to their parents because they do not share the language and reference of their immigrant parents. Even if they speak their parents’ language, their “mother tongue” does not give them the language to express their sexuality adequately (Lim 1996).

159

Joy K.C. Tong et al.

Empathetic The two most supportive parental responses that we gathered from our interviews were from Henry’s mother and John’s father. Henry recalled his coming out to his mother, during which his Vietnamese mother responded, “I don’t know what you mean when you say you are gay. But if you teach me, I will learn to understand.” In John’s case, he thought his conservative parents would disown him if he disclosed to them. He had planned a trip for his parents’ 30th wedding anniversary, and in his mind, “It was like the last good times that we had together and then after that I figured I’d basically come out to my parents and then, you know, that is the end of that chapter.” But, to his surprise, his father, who was a church elder, said, “I trust that whatever you do, you feel that there is where God leads you to.” None of our participants said that their parents welcomed or affirmed their homosexuality. Not many responded like Henry’s mother. Even in John’s case, his father continued to believe that homosexuality was wrong although he respected his son’s decision. Several of our respondents’ parents showed various degrees of empathy during or after their disclosure in an effort to keep the parent–child relationship. Amy described her father replied to her coming-out email in a “very kind and accepting way.” Her father’s empathetic attitude had opened a door for both to have a conversation about her sexuality. However, Amy was aware of her father’s struggle, as she said, “Over time, it is kind of obvious that it was a big struggle for them [parents] to comprehend and deal with it.”

Acceptance A pattern that we found in our data is that, over a period of time, many parents come around to accepting their child’s sexuality, acknowledging that being gay is not a choice neither is it a preference that can be changed or a phase that will go away. Asian culture values a son more than a daughter as a son is responsible for preserving the family name. Thus, men typically face more difficulties in gaining their parents’ acceptance towards their same-sex sexuality than women. With this in mind, we selected stories of three gays to illustrate the gradual but significant increase of parental acceptance towards their same sex attraction. Roger’s father was an example, “My father took about two years before finally meeting him [his Asian boyfriend] . . . Our parents have gotten to know each other a little bit, and we actually spent Christmas together last year.” Fred, who recently became engaged, said although his parents were still uncertain about attending his wedding, they had progressed to discussing a topic that was more advanced than the wedding. “She [mom] is bothering me, being, ‘When are you going to have your own genetic kids?’ And no longer being, ‘When can I set you up with a date?’ . . . I can’t imagine her asking me this five years ago.” And Lewis’s parents, who performed exorcism on him when he first came out to them, attended Lewis’s wedding, although they refused to be part of the ceremony: They love us but they are unable to say that we are [a] married couple because they are very committed evangelicals. I think what has changed over the years that they see the humanity and the substance of our relationship, but cannot bring themselves to use the word “marriage.” Now, my parents call Henry up on his birthday and give him a present. That’s about as close as it gets.

160

When two worlds collide

Effects of coming out on the parent–child relationship Closer relationship Even though coming out created tensions in most Asian families, several participants mentioned that their relationship with their parents had eventually become closer compared to before their coming out. One example was Amy, who said that over many discussions with her parents about her thoughts and struggles, she noticed a new dynamic emerging in her family, “The first year was a bit of just kind of getting to know each other again and feeling safe again . . . then there is like the whole process of healing.” In Max’s case, the healing began from the inside. “[Before coming out] I projected my anger toward my family members. I always had anger with them. But now my attitude toward them became different. And the relationship became different, became loving.” Fred shared a similar experience, “My relationship with my parents has actually improved a lot . . . as a teenager I knew that I wouldn’t fit in with what my parents want. Because of that, I acted out.” Coming out could open a window for both the Asian parents and the LGBTQ child to process their emotions and face past conflicts, then probably to restart their interactions in a positive way. Surprisingly, there are more fathers than mothers who reacted tolerantly when they first discovered their child’s same sex attraction. We also found that more father-child relationships were said to have grown stronger after disclosure, although many were closer to their mothers before disclosure. As in the case of John, who came out to his parents at the end of his first year in law school, “My mom was sort of shocked and she was unhappy. But my dad was very surprisingly [kind] towards me.” John did not have a good relationship with his father before he left for college. Then a year later he came out to his father. Instead of causing stress in the newly established father-son relationship, the painful but honest disclosure had brought both closer together, offering them an opportunity for dialogue. As Han (2001) finds in his study, Asian fathers are normally less involved with child-rearing, and thus when the child is in “trouble,” such as coming out, the fathers feel less responsible for it than mothers. This might explain why their handling of their child’s disclosure is generally less emotional, making them more accessible to their child during the turmoil of coming out.

Intentional separation Some parents wanted their child to remain in the closet, at least at certain times and within their Asian communities. Yet, exactly how the line separating “coming out” from “closeted” is drawn is different in each family. Fred’s parents set the line of coming out between his immediate family in the USA and his extended family in Asia. Although he was getting married soon, his mother requested that the news be kept only within the immediate family. John’s mother wanted the line to be drawn between his friends and her friends. This was tricky as John and his parents attended the same church; most of his friends’ parents knew his parents. So, the deal was, “I would only talk [disclose] to those friends that promise to keep it from their parents.” In Hannah’s case, the line was drawn between “your life with her” and “your life with us.” When the two worlds collided, this created a “pressure zone” for all—when Hannah’s girlfriend visited her home during the previous Thanksgiving, her parents did not step into the living room where Hannah and her girlfriend were hanging out, but kept to themselves in the kitchen the whole time.

161

Joy K.C. Tong et al.

The separation of the two worlds can persist for decades. Kelly came out to her parents 25 years ago, but so far, her mother and her two siblings still have not been ready to accept her girlfriend. In Kelly’s words, “When I’m by myself my family and I are very close. But when I have a partner then three of them kind of go away. That’s sad for me and for them.” The impassable barrier was clear to Kelly: the life based on her sexuality versus the one in which she lived with her family and their expectations.

Estranged relationship In some cases, the event of coming out caused a deterioration in the already tenuous parent–child relationship. John’s parents discovered his same-sex orientation and threatened to disown him. A few years later when he came out publicly to the ethnic church to which both his parents and he belonged, the fissures grew deeper in the family. His parents avoided engaging: They rather just not discuss it [gay issue]. As soon as it comes up they want to change the subject. I’ve sort of orphaned myself from being emotionally dependent on my parents, wanting them to be the kind of parents that understand me and that empathize with me. John was obviously hurt by his parents’ reaction. But he might not have known the level of humiliation that his parents experienced in their Chinese church because of his disclosure, including rumors and criticism about their parenting, their character, and their faith. Pastor Andy, who served in the Chinese church that John’s family attended, said in our interview, “Most people in the church and in the community would think that if John suppressed his same sex desire, get married, have sons and daughters, it will be an honoring thing to do.” By disclosing his sexual identity, John has, from an Asian cultural perspective, shown to the world that he and his parents have failed—moral, social, familial, personal, all at once. This would turn into one deep wound that could take years to heal.

Conclusion Through in-depth interviews with 35 Asian Christian LGBTQs in the USA, this chapter focused on Asian parental reactions towards the coming out of their child and its effects on the parent–child relationship. Given its limited scope, the results should not be seen as representative of Asian LGBTQs in general. But they could provide a glimpse on the challenge of coming out in families from Confucian-influenced culture worldwide. There are several findings that we found to be salient. First, contrary to the common assumption that Asian Christian LGBTQs would most likely stay in the closet, we found that a majority of our participants had come out to their parents. Yet, consistent with other studies, our participants generally indicated a strong struggle in disclosing their sexuality to their parents and had delayed as much as they could in doing that. One main reason responsible for this is their fear of bringing shame to their parents. To compensate their parents for the shattered dreams and reputation, many have waited until they were financially stable or had achieved certain milestones in their career before coming out to their parents, hoping that their achievements would make their coming out more bearable for their achievement-oriented parents. Second, surprisingly, besides disapproving and keeping silent, the two most familiar patterns of Asian parental reactions against a family conflict such as coming out (Lee 2015), there were parents who were reaching out to their child or even accepting their 162

When two worlds collide

sexuality. Although none of our participants said that their parents welcomed or affirmed their homosexuality, about one-third of our participants said that, over a period of time, ranging from years to decades, one or both of their parents came around to accepting their sexuality. Third, although coming out creates tensions in most families, as expected, several participants mentioned that their relationships with their parents had eventually become stronger and closer. Interestingly, there were more fathers than mothers who reacted in a tolerant way during or after their child’s coming out. Maybe this is because fathers’ handling of conflict is less emotional, which, ironically, due to the typical Asian father’s more distant relationship with their child, has made them more accessible than mothers to their child during the turmoil of coming out. We also found a significant number of parents who wanted their child to remain in the closet within a certain community, especially their ethnic community. They wanted to draw a line between their child’s life based on his or her sexual identity and the one in which he or she lived with them. As long as the line was kept accordingly, the parent–child relationship seemed to work well. Also, we found that some family relationships became seriously estranged or damaged by the event of coming out. As part of the larger discussion of religion and sexuality, this chapter aims to add the voices of the understudied population of Asian LGBTQs. Through these stories of 35 individuals, we have shown the importance of culture in explaining Christian behaviors. Given the limitation of our study, a study of a wider demographic of Asians is needed to make a more general case about the effects of cultural values on Christian LGBTQ individuals.

Notes 1 There are a few notable exceptions (Lee 2015; Tannenbaum 2013), in particular, Cheng (2013). 2 4.0% of Hispanics and 4.6% of African Americans identified as LBGT. 3 Pride and Prejudice: assessing progress in Asia Pacific. May 29, 2019 https://eiuperspectives.economist. com/strategy-leadership/pride-and-prejudiceassessing-progress-asia-pacific?utm_source=MediaOutReach. 4 The Rise of Asian Americans, 2013. Available at www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/06/19/the-riseof-asian-americans. 5 Besides Confucianism, East Asian families are also influenced by Buddhism and Taoism to various degrees. But since Confucianism is more crucial than other beliefs in defining the nature of relationships within the family, we will only focus on Confucianism. 6 The National Asian American Survey 2013 shows that 73% of Korean Americans disapproved of same-sex marriage, followed by Filipino and Vietnamese Americans. The Chinese were slightly more opposed (49%) than in favor (41%). 7 The religious identities of Asian Americans are quite varied. According to the Pew Research survey, most Koreans (61%) were Christian, about a fifth of Chinese Americans (22%) were Christians, most Filipinos were Catholic, and a plurality of Vietnamese were Buddhist. In total, 26% of Asian Americans were unaffiliated, 22% were Protestant (13% evangelical; 9% mainline), 19% were Catholic, and the rest were Buddhists, Hindus, etc. 8 According to the Pew Forum, 94% of Asian American Evangelical Christians believe that the Bible is the “Word of God,” and 52% believe that the Bible is “literal, word for word.” 9 The team included seven PhD students taking the course on Qualitative Research Methods along with the instructor for the course. 10 Kim 2004. Kim writes that, in the Korean American Christian community, coming out would be “quite literally, the ultimate failure—moral, social, and personal all at once. It would nullify everything good that I have done and would stand as the single mark upon me.” 11 As requested by Oneida Chi, we used her real name in this chapter.

163

Joy K.C. Tong et al.

References Arnett, J. J., 2014. Presidential address: The emergence of emerging adulthood: A personal history. Emerging Adulthood, 2 (3), 155–162. Beagan, B., and Hattie, B., 2015. Religion, spirituality, and LGBTQ identity integration. Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling, 9 (2), 92–117. Carnes, T., and Yang, F., 2004. Asian American religions. New York: New York University Press. Chan, C., 1989. Issues of identity development among Asian-American lesbians and gay men. Journal of Counseling and Development, 68 (1), 16–20. Chen, C., 2006. From filial piety to religious piety: evangelical Christianity reconstructing Taiwanese immigrant families in the United States. International Migration Review, 40 (3), 573–602. Cheng, P., 2013. Rainbow theology: bridging race, sexuality, and spirit. New York: Seabury Books. Chong, K. H., 1998. What it means to be Christian: the role of religion in the construction of ethnic identity and boundary among second-generation Korean Americans. Sociology of Religion, 39 (3), 259–286. Chung, Y. B., and Szymanski, D. M., 2006. Racial and sexual identities of Asian American gay men. Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling, 1 (2), 67–93. Collins, P. H., 1998. Toward a new vision: race, class, and gender as categories of analysis and connection. In: R. F. Levine, ed. Social class as stratification. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 231–247. Comstock, G. D., 1996. Unrepentant, self-affirming, practicing: lesbian/bisexual/gay people within organized religion. New York: Continuum. Cousins, L., 2014. Encyclopedia of human services and diversity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Crenshaw, K., 1989. Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989, 139–167. Fong, T., 2002. Contemporary Asian American experience: beyond the model minority. New Jersey: Pearson Education. Ganzevoort, R., Van Der Laan, M., and Olsman, E., 2011. Growing up gay and religious: conflict, dialogue, and religious identity strategies. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 14 (3), 209–222. Grov, C., Bimbi, D. S., Nanin, J. E., and Parsons, J. T., 2006. Race, ethnicity, gender, and generational factors associated with the coming-out process among gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals. The Journal of Sex Research, 43 (2), 115–121. Han, S., 2001. Gay identity disclosure to parents by Asian American gay men. Thesis (PhD). New York University. Hom, A., 1994. Stories from the homefront: perspectives of Asian-American parents with lesbian daughters and gay sons. Amerasia Journal, 20 (1), 19–32. Hom, A., and Ma, M. Y., 1993. Premature gestures: a speculative dialogue on Asian Pacific Islander lesbian and gay writing. In: E. Nelson, ed. Critical essay: gay and lesbians of color. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 21–51. Kahn, A., ed. 1997. The many faces of gay: activists who are changing the nation. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Kim, M., 2004. Out and about: coming of age in a straight white world. In: A. Han and J. Hsu, eds. Asian American X: An intersection of 21st century Asian American voices. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 147. King, D. W., 2000. Body politics and the fictional double. Bloomington, NA: Indiana University Press. LaSala, M. C., 2010. Coming out, coming home: helping families adjust to a gay or lesbian child. New York: Columbia University Press. Lee, D. J., 2015. Rescuing Jesus: how people of color, women, and queer Christians are reclaiming evangelicalism. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Leong, R., ed. 1996. Asian American sexualities: dimensions of the gay and lesbian experience. New York: Routledge. Li, L., and Orleans, M., 2001. Coming out discourses of Asian American lesbians. Sexuality and Culture, 5 (2), 57–78. Liboro, R. M., Jr., 2014. Community-level interventions for reconciling conflicting religious and sexual domains in identity incongruity. Journal of Religion and Health, 54 (4), 1206–1220. Lim, L. L., 1996. The gay erotics of my stuttering mother tongue. Amerasia Journal, 22 (1), 172–177. Liu, P., and Chan, C., 2003. Lesbian, gay and bisexual Asian Americans and their families. In: L. Zhan, ed. Asian Americans: vulnerable populations, model interventions, and clarifying agendas. Boston, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 89–104.

164

When two worlds collide

Marrow, H. B., 2006. Negotiating gender, generation, work, and community: Brazilians in the United States. Congress of the Latin American Studies Association San Juan, Puerto Rico 15–18 March 2006. Min, P. G., 2003. Immigrants’ religion and ethnicity: A comparison of Korean Christian and Indian Hindu immigrants. In: J. Iwamura and P. Spickard, eds. Revealing the sacred in Asian and Pacific America. New York: Routledge, 125–142. Rodriguez, E., and Ouellette, S. C., 2000. Gay and lesbian Christians: homosexual and religious identity integration in the members and participants of a gay-positive church. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 39 (3), 333–347. Seidman, S., Meeks, C., and Traschen, F., 1999. Beyond the closet? The changing social meaning of homosexuality in the United States. Sexualities, 2 (1), 9–34. Shrake, E., 2009. Homosexuality and Korean immigrant protestant churches. In: G. Masequesmay and S. Metzger, eds. Embodying Asian/American sexualities. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 145–156. Tannenbaum, C. N., 2013. Gay, Asian, and religious: the search for religious community by queer Asian Americans. Thesis. The College of Wooster. Thumma, S., 1991. Negotiating a religious identity: the case of the gay evangelical. Sociological Analysis, 52 (4), 333–347. Troiden, R., 1989. Gay and lesbian identity. New York: General Hall Inc. Wilcox, M., 2003. Coming out in Christianity: religion, identity, and community. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Wilcox, M., 2009. Queer women and religious individualism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Yang, T., 2007. Coming out process among Asian gays and lesbians. Thesis (Master’s). California State University, Long Beach. Zhan, L., 2002. Asian Americans: vulnerable populations, model interventions, and clarifying agendas. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Zhou, M., and Bankston, C., 1998. Growing up American: how Vietnamese children adapt to life in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

165

13 Gender politics and education in the Gülen Movement Duygun Gokturk

Introduction The historical roots of the Gülen Movement (GM) go back to the Nur (Light) Movement, which was established by Said Nursî (1877–1960) in the nineteenth century, during the Ottoman Empire, in response to the state’s gradual Western-oriented transformation. After Nursî’s death in 1960, the Nur movement split into factions and the GM was the most prominent one in Turkey. M. Fethullah Gülen (1938–), a follower of Said Nursî and called hocaefendi (esteemed teacher) within the community, is the leading figure of the GM. During his early years, as a religious functionary, he noticed the importance of education in the development of the Islamic faith and in acquiring and cultivating Islamic virtues. Similar to Nursî, Gülen initiated his education project through the first male-only ‘religious summer schools . . . where hundreds of students received Islamic education’ (Balci 2003, p. 152). In the following years, these summer camps were transformed into ış ık evleri (houses of light), dormitories, schools, dershane (private tutoring courses), and universities, as the essential sites and instruments of Gülen’s Islamic activism. In these spaces, the community aimed to institute religious practices and regulate the everyday lives of students by applying them to disciplinary pedagogical forms, and accommodating family life and roles. The GM has been analyzed as a form of relationship between the state and religion (Turam 2007), or as an actor in civil society (Turam 2007; Yavuz 2003), or in terms of more recent pragmatic accommodation to neoliberal restructuring of the state and market relations (Hendrick 2013; Tugal 2017). A different range of studies is concerned with the Movement’s pedagogical project (Agai 2007; Ç obanoğlu 2012; Tee 2016). What is missing is an analysis of women’s role and involvement in the Movement. Based on an eight-month ethnographic work at one of the Movement’s high schools, this chapter examines the community’s gender and pedagogical discourses through two interrelated themes: first, the role of a prominent persuasive pedagogical discourse within the community, known as ‘commending right and forbidding wrong’ (emr-i bi’l ma’rûf neyh-i ani’l münker); second, a focus on the sisterhood institution, an informal mobilization network in the GM. This chapter considers cultural norms within the GM by examining how everyday religious pedagogical practices and gender discourses of the community are grounded in discourses of moral and social order. I show that regular patterns of micro-level practices 166

Gender politics, education, Gülen Movement

create a gendered cultural habitus that is learnt via repetition and embodied dispositions within the pedagogical process. Thus communal practices play an active role in creating ‘a set of systems of durable, transposable dispositions’—what Pierre Bourdieu calls habitus, the result of conscious or unconscious practices and thoughts (Bourdieu 1990).

The rise of the Gülen Movement In Turkey, with the establishment of the republican regime in 1923, the public visibility of religion became a controversial issue. Under the umbrella of single-party regime, the Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (People’s Republican Party, CHP), until 1950, ‘sought to remove religion from the public and social realm’ and reduced it to ‘a matter of individual faith and prayer’ (Gözaydın 2009, p. 1215). In the following years, the CHP regime established the Diyanet İş leri Bakanlığı (Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs) to consolidate religious culture under the state-led policies and institutions. Meanwhile, the religious segments of society sought to overcome the dichotomy between the secular state and religion. In line with this, the emergence of the Demokrat Parti (Democratic Party, DP) in the 1950 elections became part of the solution to the current dichotomy. But the main opposition bloc with a religious character emerged in 1970 with the formation of the Milli Görüş Hareketi (National Outlook Movement, MGH) (Hendrick 2013). In those years, the GM started to flourish under the guidance of M. Fethullah Gülen, an associate imam in İzmir province of Turkey. By the late 1970s, Gülen was delivering public sermons to large crowds and the Movement’s education project was activated through Gülen’s lectures at summer camps, so-called ‘houses of light.’ At the end of 2013, the ruling party in Turkey (AK Party) decided to close down the dershane sector, the main site in recruiting GM students (Ugur 2017). In the wake of a failed coup of July 15, 2016, the conflict escalated into a permanent impasse, the government linking the coup leaders to the GM and defining it as the ‘Fethullah Gülen Terror Organization (FETÖ).’ The failed coup revealed the powerful presence of Gülenists in the military and other state institutions such as legal courts, the police, education, and health. In the aftermath of July 15, 2016, the government declared a state of emergency, which ended in July 2018, during which thousands of employees were dismissed over suspected links with terror groups. The GM has dedicated its energy to ambiguous political activism through integrating its mobilization strategies and networks into the state institutions—such as by focusing its efforts in military, legal, health, and edcation units, as part of its ‘self-described non-political mobilization’ (Yavuz & Koç 2016; Hendrick 2013, p. 55). In her ethnographic study, Turam (2004) indicates that the growing influence of the GM is mainly observed in more secular countries in Central Asia and the West, including the USA (Turam 2004), rather than in the Arab-Muslim world and Iran. In this context, the GM aims to ‘reconcile Islamic faith and ways of life with a secular institutional milieu’ (Turam 2004, p. 261). In Turkey, with the election of the AK Party in November 2002, the political atmosphere became charged with ‘conservative democratic’ directions that enabled the GM to develop an apparent relationship with the AK Party (Turam 2004) and play ‘the most influential player in the AKP-led passive revolution’ (Hendrick 2013). This relationship enabled the GM to promote itself in public and private spheres of society. Meanwhile, the Movement concentrated on connecting to the market economy for the sake of expansion—in mass media, private education, trade, finance, and charity networks (Hendrick 2013). First, the GM created its own education institutions and media outlets to cultivate its loyal adherents, becoming ‘the leading private producer of “Turkish Islam”’ 167

Duygun Gokturk

(Hendrick 2013, p. 24). In a second phase, the GM contributed to the global market economy by producing goods and services and playing an active role in creating the conditions of their own reproduction (Hendrick 2013). At the same time, the GM paid close attention to mobilization techniques at the micro level and started to institutionalize various local communication networks. The main organizational strategies active in local networkswere schools, student dormitories, apartments, and the sohbet meetings (conversation/ reading circles) (Hendrick 2013). During a conversation with one of the community teachers, she explained to me the reasons behind the emergence of the GM: The Hizmet movement was the result of imposed restraints on religious practices and difficulties of maintaining religious integrity in the public sphere . . . There was a demand for the movement . . . The conflict between my religion, Islam, and modernization [was also a crucial reason for establishing the Hizmet] . . . [Through the Hizmet], faith transformed from imitation to recognition. Thus, the GM succeeded in playing a role in society by reframing the cultural program of modernity, gradually establishing a social change without contestation from the secular state structures, and through forming and consolidating its cultural hegemony in public and private spheres. During our conversations, one of the community teachers said that ‘this community was the result of the weakness of the faith in society’ and that Islam ‘was politicized as the ideology of cultural self-preservation and opposition to colonial rule,’ in opposition to the modernity project (Karpat 2001, p. v). This counter-hegemonic cultural program was activated through political and civilian mobilization—mobilization in ‘parliament, the presidency, the state apparatus and education, business, media, and public relations’ (Hendrick 2013, p. 25). In other words, the GM consolidated its power in the state and civil society gradually. It came into conflict with the state, its institutions (e.g. military) as well as with the AK party only in recent years, and very much because of its success in consolidating its power.

An institutionalized pedagogical model This section is an in-depth discussion of (1) emr-i bi’l ma’rûf neyh-i ani’l münker as a hegemonic pedagogical discourse and (2) of the institution of sisterhood as a pedagogical medium in the GM. Foucault (1995) argues that the art of government involves the art of self-government, connected with morality; the art of properly governing a family, which belongs to the economy; and the science of ruling the state, which concerns politics (p. 91). In the GM, preserving a continuity between these categories is ensured by emr-i bi’l ma’rûf neyh-i ani’l münker, which is ‘concerned with the maintenance of public morality’ (Mahmood 2005, p. 59). The community’s pedagogical institutions become active sites for this by establishing a normative-disciplinary network that deploys teaching methods for the cultivation of a desirable human character with certain habits and attitudes. In this context, the principle of emr-i bi’l ma’rûf builds new networks of governmentality within the community. The word ma’rûf means ‘what is known, recognized, and accepted’ whereas münker means ‘what is not recognized and approved’ (Çağ rıcı, nd). This is mentioned in a number of places in the Quran, for instance the surah Ā l ʻImrā n (The Family of Imran) and surah At-Taubah (The Immunity). It addresses ‘a community calling to good, and enjoining and actively promoting what is right, and forbidding and trying to prevent evil’ (in appropriate ways). For 168

Gender politics, education, Gülen Movement

the GM, the most efficient way of fulfilling this approach is to know one’s interlocutors, avoid debates, develop negotiations, and show tolerance. This offers a moral structure that regulates everyday social life and its institutions. The principle goes beyond forbidding wrong and commending right. It helps maintain public and communal morality and construct moral behavior. It is associated with a ‘duty of rescue’ (Cook 2001), of which one of my interviewees speaks in the following way: The primary role we play in this school as teachers is to help students in saving their spiritual values and life. In doing so, we prefer not to appear in the foreground, and taking into consideration Hocaefendi’s recommendations, we prefer not to highlight the perfection of the Hizmet movement. The principle emr-i bi’l ma’rûf neyh-i ani’l münker plays a crucial role in mediating the relation between students and community teachers and it activates a well-ordered solidarity network which, in turn, makes possible particular ways of relationality and supports a strong patronage system. The GM school I observed was a boarding school, where students lived in dormitories and female teachers played special attention to their needs and concerns. In their relations with students, they employed images of motherhood or sisterhood to exert their authority, while simulataneously enabling the community to transfer familial virtues of loyalty, harmony, chastity, trust, intimacy, care, and respect. The use of these quasi-familial forms and relations bothered some of these students at some point, as they felt that ‘their private lives and areas are violated.’ Thereby, they were uncomfortable with the communal model of family relations and friendship. The duty of rescue infiltrates into the lives of community members and inserts itself through multiple practices, such as a specific manner of caring, restless motivation, and individualization. This reminds us of the profile of a shepherd in reference to a pastoral type of power (Foucault 2009). Thus, an inquiry into the role of emr-i bi’l ma’rûf neyh-i ani’l münker directs us to the practices accumulated and retained through the principle and the emotional patterns and dispositions embedded in it.

Sisterhood: creating female habitus In the school, quasi-familial forms and ties are key resources that secure communal relations. Organized around family-based bonds and relations, the school institutes ties of devotion and inspires community members to pursue a life in accordance with the virtues of communal life. It welcomes nuclear family-based micro interactions, authority patterns, intimate relations, and patronage networks. Each unit or microstructure harbours a variety of emotions that are ‘tied to an economy of action that follows from the experience of that particular emotion’ (Mahmood 2005, p. 140) and ‘aligns individuals with communities—or bodily space with social space—through the very intensity of their attachments’ (Ahmed 2004, p. 119). In the GM, these attachments are designed to ensure communal coherence and solidarity. For instance, one of the female teachers indicated that if her husband were not a member of the GM, it might be challenging or impossible to stay and be active within the community. In his writings, M. Fethullah Gülen (2013) emphasizes the importance of arranging marriage as follows: Marriage cannot be random people of a certain level obliged to get married. While for women getting married is vacip (obligatory), for others marriage can be mekruh (revolting 169

Duygun Gokturk

and inappropriate in the sight of the God). Without taking into account all these things, if a person establishes a conjugal bond only considering the physical needs they cannot contribute to the future of society. (pp. 42–48) Therefore, selecting a partner and establishing conjugal bonds become necessary conditions for the vitality of community. This also ties the movement to the market. As Hendrick (2013) remarks: [a]lthough its goals are anchored on a conservative, faith-based social identity, and although its methods are often non-transparent, GM actors are reliant on the market for their continued expansion and are thus best presented as products of, rather than as a fundamentalist reaction to, the processes of neoliberal globalization. (p. 9) In this equation, family, as a mobilization unit and as a neoliberal formulation, plays a central role due to its potential to shape the socially conservative and progressive character of the community and promoting ‘Turkish ethnic pride as equally constituent of twenty-first-century Turkish national identity’ (Hendrick 2013, p. 21). Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus involves a coordination between ‘outward behaviors (e.g. bodily acts, social demeanor) with inward dispositions (e.g. emotional states, thoughts, intentions)’ (Mahmood 2005, p. 136). Bourdieu also places a strong emphasis on the transfer of habits. Thus, the formulation of communal habitus depends on acquiring the communal habits that take root through the assiduous cultivation of emotional and rational practices. In this context, the principle of emr-i bi’l ma’rûf neyh-i ani’l münker is noteworthy since it is regulated by a variety of recurrent performances in a school setting, which serve to fix specific communal habits in one’s character. According to Gülen (2013), an ideal societal model institutionalizes motherhood as the primary role of women in the communal order, and constitutes female virtues and practices in accordance with this model. In one conversation, a female teacher notes: In terms of disciplinary methods, I prefer to use emotional alternatives rather than aggressive ones. As ladies, we are responsible for mobilizing male students’ emotional intelligence. Another informant admits that ‘since I am married, I can act comfortably in my relationships with my students . . . When you are married students cannot fancy you. That is why unmarried women teachers should be more careful.’ In terms of participating in the school’s decision-making process, one female teacher shares that: [d]ue to the participation of both male and female teachers in these meetings, I do not feel comfortable. I would be more comfortable if it is organized only among women teachers. Certainly, being an unmarried woman constrains me from participating. I am more cautious during those meetings to protect my chastity and honor. Female teachers’ practices are guided by the emr-i bi’l ma’rûf norms and diffuse into the others’ lives to construct and transmit a communal habitus. Patterns of familial life and relations are central to this.

170

Gender politics, education, Gülen Movement

The transfer of familial bonds, emotions, and associated protocols into a pedagogical medium blends familial roles and pedagogical ones. During the fieldwork, it was difficult to separate an image of family-oriented life and school life within a pedagogical medium. For instance, one aspect of this alliance includes recognition of familial roles that are essential in crafting the web of dependent bonds (Donzelot 1979), ties of affection which mask forms of communal hierarchies through tying them up with intimate relations. In the community, this is characterized through certain familial roles, such as sister (abla) and brother (abi) roles. The resultant structure transfers familial virtues in ways that are capable of securing communal order and solidarity. In the movement, the model of sisterhood strongly shapes gender discourses and behaviors. Involvement, for one, is in service to communal values, which enables female teachers to develop intimate, familial-like relationships with female students. The other way is a form developed among female teachers which reveals gerontocratic authority and practices of communal patriarchy. Both forms of sisterhood are governed by the discourse of gender segregation, which is predicated upon the principles of fıtrat as the most central reference in building gendered acts within the community circles. The community teachers provided a common definition for fıtrat: God-given characteristics. The concept of fıtrat stands for an intrinsic natural tendency or disposition which can be considered as a discursive space where gendered practices are deepened and emotions are enhanced. One of the female teachers, who is in her mid-twenties and lived in the movement’s houses in her undergraduate years, noted that: My religious sensibilities are part of my fıtrat. I believe that the innate characteristic of fıtrat is Islamic, and then it can be converted into the other religious orientations. Since one’s fıtrat is one’s God-given characteristics, I think that men are not emotional; we are more emotional than men are. This difference is related to fıtrat. A male teacher, who was involved in the community in his high school years, asserted the following: Fıtrat of men and fıtrat of women are different but complementary to each other, fıtrat of women is different, but it found itself with the help of fıtrat of men. (Gokturk 2017, p. 9) When I directed the question of fıtrat to ‘the most experienced sister’ in school, she explained that: Fıtrat is a proper persona that fits to the ideal of creation . . . There is a difference between fıtrat of women and men. Women face some difficulties in life because of their emotional character. In daily life, men’s agenda is busy with the issues of power, social status, and pride. (Gokturk 2014, p. 120) The institutionalization of fıtrat functions as a regulatory apparatus that affects bodily practices and forms socially and communally contingent norms, thereby producing and consolidating communal forms of power structures (Gokturk 2017). As one male teacher states, ‘by nature the community is masculine, and the masculine attributes of the community make it powerful, or [if] the community [is] powerful, then its nature is masculine’ (Gokturk 2014, p. 105). Nevertheless, Fethullah Gülen was opposed to the interruption of women’s university education due to the headscarf ban, which was issued following the 1980 coup d’état. According to Gülen, ‘wearing a headscarf is füruat, a secondary issue in comparison to the 171

Duygun Gokturk

primary aspects of Islamic faith’ and the public presence of women, as part of the Movement’s mobilization strategies, is essential (Akbulut 2015). This pragmatism was also evident in the comment of a biology teacher, who said that: I am trying to be neutral when teaching the subject of evolution. I warn students about this: you should learn evolutionary theory in order to answer the questions asked during the national entrance exam, but you do not have to believe in that. In summary, a frictionless integration of a series of characteristics of family life and power relations into the movement’s habitus has a pivotal role in consolidating and mobilizing its norms, reshaping the discourses of solidarity, organizing a pastoral type of pedagogical model, and accumulating recognition in the forms of gendered and religious power within changing modern contexts.

Conclusion This chapter has examined how discourses on womanhood within the GM are institutionalized within communal circles through integrating quasi-familial chains of authority and a set of practices into a pedagogical domain. These practices bring together the private and public spheres and help the GM to achieve a non-confrontational interaction between them. In a school setting, this alliance is activated through an overlap between the teacher and the sister (abla) roles. For instance, as teachers GM women loyally observe the Ministry of National Education (MNE) curriculum. But in the role of sister they are active in the reproduction and maintenance of community habitus. The sisterhood model exemplifies techniques of self-governing and self-disciplining by ‘pursuing a set of values linked to personal work discipline, family relations, and communal solidarity’ (Gokturk 2014, p. 175). Thus a hegemonic form of conservative sisterhood supports female power and authority and cooperates with male counterparts to consolidate gender complementarity. Female teachers are able to develop intimate, familial-like relations with students and govern their souls and lives. By employing images of sisterhood and brotherhood (or motherhood and fatherhood), the communal life creates personae that are ‘powerful but not punishing, moral guardian[s] but never distant or unengaged, threatening but always loving, tough-minded but emotionally vulnerable, self-sufficient but forever in need of human companionship’ (Cucchiari 1990, p. 692). Both sisterhood and brotherhood are governed by the discourse of gender complementarity that is predicated upon the principles of fıtrat. We have seen how the discourse of emr-i bi’l ma’rûf neyh-i ani’l münker (commending right and forbidding wrong) plays an important role in governing historically sedimented pious practices. As a final remark, this research opens a space for a discussion of the difficulties of participant observation in ethnographic research. Drawing on my field experience with the GM, I admit that one of the methodological difficulties concerned my position as a researcher in the community and to the views that community members developed about it. Although I was aware of the controversial position of the Movement in Turkey before doing fieldwork, I soon realized that there are more complex local relations and negotiations that I had not known about. Some felt that a proper representation of the community could not be achieved without being a community member or a sympathizer of the Movement. I observed reluctance on the part of some of the female teachers to cooperate with me, and those who did generally kept a respectful distance between us. Thus the role of the researcher is mediated through the norms of a tight-knit movement with clear gender norms. 172

Gender politics, education, Gülen Movement

References Agai, B., 2007. Islam and education in secular Turkey: State policies and the emergence of Fethullah Gülen. In: R. W. Hefner and M. Q. Zaman eds. Schooling Islam: The culture and politics of modern Muslim education. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 149–172. Ahmed, S., 2004. Affective economies. Social Text, 79 (22/1), 117–139. Akbulut, Z., 2015. Veiling as self-disciplining: Muslim women, Islamic discourses, and the headscarf ban in Turkey. Contemporary Islam, 9 (3), 433–453. Balci, B., 2003. Fethullah Gülen’s missionary schools in Central Asia and their role in the spreading the Turkism and Islam. Religion, State & Society, 31 (2), 151–177. Bourdieu, P., 1990. The Logic of Practice. Translated by Richard Nice. California, CA: Stanford University Press. Çobanoğlu, Y., 2012. Altın Nesil” in Peş inde Fethullah Gülen’de Toplum, Devlet, Ahlak, Otorite. İ stanbul: İ letiş im Yayınları. Cook, M. E., 2001. Commanding right and forbidding wrong in Islamic thought. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Cucchiari, S., 1990. Between shame and sanctification: Patriarchy and its transformation in Sicilian Pentecostalism. American Ethnologist, 17 (4), 687–707. Donzelot, J., 1979. The policing of families. London: Hutchinson. Fethullah Gülen, M., 2013. From seed to cedar: Nurturing the spiritual needs in children. New Jersey: Tughra Books. Foucault, M., 1995. Discipline and punish: The birth of prison. New York: Vintage Books. Foucault, M., 2009. Security, territory, population: Lectures at the College de France 1977–1978. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Gokturk, D., 2014. Women teachers at the Gülen community school in Turkey: an ethnographic study. Thesis (PhD). Purdue University. Gokturk, D., 2017. Ethnographic account of a pedagogical project: Sisterhood institution in the Hizmet Movement. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 39 (5), 654–668. Gözaydın, İ. B., 2009. The Fethullah Gülen movement and politics in Turkey: A chance for democratization or a Trojan horse? Democratization, 16 (6), 1214–1236. Hendrick, J., 2013. Gülen: The ambiguous politics of market Islam in Turkey and the world. New York: NYU Press. Karpat, K., 2001. The politicization of Islam: Reconstructing identity, state, faith, and community in the late Ottoman state. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mahmood, S., 2005. Politics of piety. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Melucci, A., 1980. The new social movements: A theoretical approach. Social Science Information, 19 (2), 199–226. Mills, C., 2007. White ignorance. In: S. Sullivan and N. Tuana eds. Race and epistemologies of ignorance. Albay: State University of New York, 13–39. Tee, C., 2016. The Gülen Movement in Turkey: The politics of Islam and modernity. London: I&B Tauris. Touraine, A., 2002. The importance of social movements. Social Movement Studies, 1 (1), 89–95. Tugal, C., 2017. The uneven neoliberalization of good works: Islamic charitable fields and their impact on diffusion. American Journal of Sociology, 123 (2), 426–464. Turam, B., 2004. The politics of engagement between Islam and the secular state: ambivalences of ‘civil society’. The British Journal of Sociology, 55 (2), 259–281. Turam, B., 2007. Between Islam and the state: The politics of engagement. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press. Ugur, E., 2017. Islamists and the politics of democratization: Evidence from Turkey. Contemporary Islam, 11, 137–155. Yavuz, M. H., 2003. Islam in the public sphere: The case of the Nur movement. In: M. H. Yavuz and J. Esposito eds. Turkish Islam and the secular state: The Gülen Movement. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1–8. Yavuz, M. H. and Koç, R., 2016. The Turkish coup attempt: The Gülen Movement vs. the state. Middle East Policy, XXIII (4), 136–148.

173

14 Global Catholicism, gender conversion and masculinity Ester Gallo

Introduction Within studies of global religion, gender has remained somehow marginal, particularly in sociological and anthropological work. Pioneer studies focus on women in relation to migration and transnationalism, but rarely adopt a more relational approach that includes an analytical angle on men and masculinities. The aim of this chapter is to explore how membership within a Catholic transnational movement produces changes in gendered family relations and in models of masculinity. It focuses on the peculiar role played by men’s conversion to principles such as chastity, vulnerability and family sacrifice in the spreading of a new global model of Western-centred Catholicism. It takes as a case in point the European Catholic reformist movement known as the Neocathecumenal Way (henceforth NCW), focusing specifically on laic missionary men within the movement. The NCW selects (mainly) European missionary families to evangelize abroad. In doing so, their aim is twofold: to create new NCW communities within existing parishes, and to strengthen global connections between the Roman centre of Catholicism and its worldwide realities. Two elements of the NCW make it particularly interesting for the study of religion in global societies. First, the movement successfully brings about the Vatican’s aim to reassert itself as a contemporary transnational public actor. It does so by actively engaging with the economic, political and social areas of concern—such as those related to family, gender, migration or the environment—where the Catholic Church seeks to fulfil its pastoral mission (Ferrari 2006). Importantly, this global engagement has to contend with the ‘progressive disentanglement’ of Catholicism from ‘its traditional sites and civilization’ (Geertz 2005, p11), and with the development of new religious institutions, understandings and experiences across the globe (Van der Veer 2001; Hüwelmeier and Krause 2010). At the same time, however, the transnational mission envisaged by the NCW also aims at realigning the multivariate expressions of this religion to its Roman Catholic centre. Second, the transnational mission of the NCW reveals ongoing changes in the traditional global dimension of the Catholic Church. While the NCW is partly integrated within the traditional structures and hierarchies of the Catholic Church, it also assigns importance to charismatic leaders and to grassroots missionary initiatives. It overcomes the classical distinction between the

174

Catholicism, gender conversion, masculinity

centralized nature of Catholic transnationalism and the more flexible and decentralized spontaneity of Protestant and Charismatic ones (Rudolph 1997; Coleman 2000; Levitt 2003). Gender plays an important role in the global mission of the NCW, which rests on the principle that global evangelization is better promoted by laic families who ‘enflesh’ in their daily lives ‘the reality the Church seeks to communicate’ (cf. Himes 2006, p. 17). Families in mission actualize an archetypical form of Christian diaspora (Gallo 2016a): an ‘early Church’ comprised of travelling subjects who ‘function as the seed to disseminate the message of Jesus’ while remaining loyal to the holy centers (Baumann 2000, p. 319; Levitt 2003; Gallo 2016b). The NCW missionary model refers less to a ‘de-sexualized’ male or female religious actor and more to men and women en famille, who are considered to be more successful in spreading reformed Catholicism globally. Members’ subscription to various principles regulating sexuality, marriage, reproduction and parenthood publicly translates Christian teachings into concrete forms of exemplary conduct. In the NCW ethos, the fact that these principles become tangible in the everyday conduct of ‘ordinary’ men and women, make religious norms more plausible and attractive to future converts. The chapter argues, first, that the project of creating a reformed global (Catholic) society through missionary activities rests on a gender conversion: both men and women are required to undergo a deep transformation in terms of their identity and family relations, and to make this transformation available and debatable publicly. Second, it suggests that men’s transnational religious activities, in particular, foster a specific model of globalization: not so much a multidirectional process that opens up spaces for syncretism and cross-cultural understanding of religion, but as a centre-periphery expansion from a (European) centre to countries that are considered geographically and substantially ‘distant’ from normative Catholicism.

Debating gender in global religions This chapter responds to the need for a more relational approach to gender within contemporary studies of transnational religious flows, and of the role played by religiously informed models of femininity and masculinity in the development of a global society (Boyd et al. 1996; Krondorfer and Hunt 2012; Fedele 2013; Gallo 2018). By focusing on the NCW, the present analysis brings to light ongoing changes occurring in the gendered organization of transnational missionary activities, and explores the role played by religiously informed models and experiences of masculinity in the framing of a global society. The link between gender and religion has received little attention, and limited studies focus on femininity (King 2005; Woodhead 2007). Scholars note that within the framework of secularization theory on the privatization of religion, men are seen to engage with the rational logic of the public sphere while de-identifying with religion, while women tend to nurture the flame of religious tradition in the domestic sphere (Cannell 2006; Woodhead 2007). However, such analyses—in focusing on why men are not religious—do not explain why religion may attract men across different contexts or historical periods (Thompson and Remmes 2002; Werner 2011), or how global religions inform and are shaped by understandings and experiences of masculinity. From a different but related perspective, within recent studies of global Christianity, there is a tendency to take the consolidated structures of the Catholic Church for granted (Casanova 1997; Gallo 2016a), while most attention is paid to the decentralized and spontaneous features of Protestant and Charismatic globalizations (Coleman 2000; Hann 2007). This may result from the fact that Catholicism is generally assumed to be an expression of ‘institutionalized transnationalism,’ in which a centralized and hierarchical organization spreads through the sending of official religious representatives (Levitt 2003). However, the NCW promotes 175

Ester Gallo

important changes in the globalization of Catholicism today, insofar as it entrusts laic missionaries with the authority and responsibility usually associated with priests or nuns. It also partly seeks to decentralize the decision-making processes involved in transnational evangelization, shifting them to some extent away from traditional institutions (like the Vatican, the National Episcopal Conferences, or the parishes) and towards NCW leaders and missionary members. Religiously informed gender norms are pivotal in the transnationalization of missionary activities and in the related project of shaping the contours of a global (Catholic) society. Studies of colonialism have yielded valuable insights into the interplay between gender and religion in global societies. Scholars have highlighted how the globalization of Christianity deeply redefined the gendered family norms of colonized peoples according to a ‘universalist’ model of Christian morality (Comaroff and Comaroff 1991; Rafael 1993; Gallo 2017). More recently, however, modern circulations of people, money, media and technology have contributed to transform religion ‘from below,’ partly reversing the traditional flow from ‘the West to the Rest’ (Beyer 2003; Hüwelmeier and Krause 2010). Transnationalism today paves the way for renewed models of gendered participation in congregational life and global society (Fedele 2013; Gallo 2016c). As Maskens (2015) notes, membership of globalized religions not only fosters men’s search for spirituality but also their embeddedness in domestic life. Global religious consciousness ‘should not be considered uniquely as a cognitively cultural system’ but involves physical and material activities (Coleman 2000, p. 5), through which members’ religiosity and gendered identities are transformed. This chapter highlights how the renewed transnationalization promoted by the NCW arises from the movement’s critique of traditional gendered forms of Catholic evangelization, and of the global society it seeks to create. The NCW sees ‘traditional’ missionary activities as too distant from the everyday concerns of ordinary people, and unnecessarily tolerant of the socio-cultural variety of gendered family ideologies and relations. The movement both draws and departs from the global church envisaged since the Second Vatican Council, also known as Vatican II (1962). The latter, at least in principle, assigned legitimacy to a global society that was inspired by universal Catholic principles yet also embedded in specific socio-cultural contexts. It acknowledged that this contextual variety presented opportunities for a global renaissance in Catholic religiosity (Wogman 2000). In contrast, the NCW reasserts new universal orthodoxies that challenge the contextual variety of a global Catholic society, as well as the existence of different gendered family cultures. By actualizing what could appear to be a neo-colonial form of Catholic globalization, the NCW also challenges the fluidity, dynamism and syncretism often associated with contemporary global societies. As such, the study of the interplay between gender and religion within NCW transnationalism is highly relevant to the broader understanding of the (traditional) tension between the universal and localized nature of the Church from a contemporary viewpoint.

Context and methods The NCW was founded in 1964 by Kiko Arguello and Carmen Hernandez, as a response to Vatican II. The NCW advocates for the need to move beyond the official celebration of orthodoxy towards the transposition of norms into good practice, and for the restoration of the institutional credibility of the Catholic Church. Its project reflects a dual concern: to re-evangelize Europe vis-à-vis the challenges posed to native Christian churches by secularization and immigrant religions (Gallo 2016b), and to realign world Catholicism with its Roman ‘centre.’ Although it was initially viewed with suspicion by the Vatican,

176

Catholicism, gender conversion, masculinity

its Official Statute was recognized in 2008. The NCW is today a powerful grassroots movement within mainstream Catholicism, with a membership of around a million. There are at present no studies of the NCW and access to its official documents is difficult, however. The analysis in this chapter draws on 35 semi-structured interviews conducted from 2011 onwards in Italy (Perugia and Rome), the UK (London), Turkey (Izmir and Antakya) and India (Bangalore) with NCW lay national leaders, priests, families in mission and parish-based members. The field locations were selected to facilitate research across three distinct types of places: those where the movement is strongly rooted and ‘closer’ to a majority-faith tradition (as in Italy); those where the NCW speaks to other Christian majoritarian denominations (as in the UK); and those where Catholicism coexists with non-Christian majority religions (as in Turkey and India).

The global dimension of the NCW In the early 1960s, Vatican II placed renewed emphasis on the Catholic Church as a transnational actor concerned with humanitarian issues (Casanova 1994) and addressed the family as the primary concern of global Catholic evangelization. Seeking to more closely address people’s everyday concerns (Himes 2006), Vatican II conceived of gendered domestic relations as the locus for the true development of the Christian personhood. Since then, this approach has continued to drive the Church’s involvement in questions concerning marriage, procreation, abortion, homosexuality and new reproductive technologies, within and beyond the nation state. The NCW well exemplifies the postconciliar ethos in promoting a reformed global Catholicism by making gendered family relations a central concern—and an agent—in its evangelizing mission. The ‘return’ to pre-marriage chastity, high birth rates within marriage (with procreation being seen as one of the most important conjugal aims), heterosexuality and inter-family solidarity are among the principles the NCW aims to foster through the formation of capillary parish networks worldwide. Families in mission are sent by the NCW to set up small communities within pre-existing parishes abroad. Once in the receiving destination, they set up weekly meetings with parishioners where they debate key political issues relating to family unity, sexuality and reproduction, conjugality and parenthood, and offer wider teachings on the movement’s values and purposes. Classical courses in preparation for birth, baptism and marriage take place alongside more modernist discussions about sexuality (including homosexuality), reproduction (and new technologies that may be involved in this), adoption (e.g. by single parents) and divorce. Rather than simply dismissing these topics as ‘sinful’ or ‘private,’ discourses of sex, the unorthodox family, and science and technology are contested ‘from within.’ To this end, gynaecologists, doctors and scientists belonging to the movement are actively involved in supporting Catholic ideas on reproductive politics and gender relations. Each NCW parish in Europe is encouraged to generate new families in mission. By caring for those people who have not yet been reached by ‘the message,’ it is believed that a higher degree of religiosity can be achieved. Further, families in mission primarily promote intra-Catholic conversion, as opposed to the conversion of non-believers or those of other faiths.

Gender conversion and transnational missions An important element that emerges from interviews with laic missionary men is the role of conversion to the NCW in supporting their engagement with transnational evangelization. 177

Ester Gallo

Entering the movement is both a personal act of self-transformation and a commitment to a global social change. The global society that gendered conversion seeks to communicate is centred on the family—crucially, however, it is centred on the family as a normative public model, as opposed to the family as a private domain for the nurturing of religiosity. As discussed in the previous section, it upholds and promotes religiously informed values such as chastity outside of marriage, procreation within marriage, male and female sacrifice, and exposure to uncertainty and vulnerability—all goals that can be achieved through the equal participation of men and women in domestic and public religious life. Gender conversion aims at creating a global society through concrete personal and family journeys and through the material, spiritual and emotional support offered to missionary families by ‘local’ NCW parishioners who stay ‘back’ in Europe. Overall, it requires the development of a ‘new man,’ whereby the family, the locality and the global society are threaded into a common mission of reform. It expects men not only to ‘experience new gendered models as “good men”’ (Burchardt 2018, p. 55), but to act to bring societies worldwide closer to renewed Catholic orthodoxies. A brief look into the meanings of conversion is useful here. Entering the NCW demands a break with past ‘false’ and ‘banal’ expressions of Catholicism and requires a change in the self en-famille. As in the context of global Pentecostal Christianity studied by Maskens (2015), religious conversion is primarily a gender conversion, insofar as it marks a move from ‘old men’ to ‘new men.’ The NCW distances itself from some of the features identified with ‘traditional’ hegemonic masculinity—for example careerism, authority, a public-oriented social life and disengagement from domestic tasks. It prompts men to rework imbalances in the sexual division of domestic labour, and condemns authoritative expressions of masculinity in the home (see also Aune 2010). The NCW gendered critique revisits the asymmetry between the value placed on pre-marriage chastity among women, in particular, and the traditional Church tolerance of freer male sexuality and adultery. The NCW ascribes great importance to abstinence before marriage for both men and women: this is seen as sending an exemplary message in a secularized society where sexuality is deemed to have been commodified. The global nature of the NCW is significant in driving men’s gender conversion. In turn, the embracing of new gender models underpins their vocation for transnational evangelization, as illustrated by the discussion below. This was part of an interview with Tommaso (37), who currently lives with his family in India: ESTER:

You have always been a member of a parish in Rome, what has changed now? The Church has always been global . . . but normal parishes carry on their own life, in a provincial way. Before I entered the NCW I had no sense of really belonging to something bigger. Here parishes are interconnected worldwide—they help each other, they carry out common projects, they work to create better families. So you feel you are changing and yet also part of a wider mission.

TOMMASO:

Gender conversion is thus both an outcome and an engine of the global nature of the movement: by promising missionary men the chance to play an agentive role in building a reformed society, it also offers greater scope for personal transformations. While the NCW subscribes to the traditional emphasis placed by Catholicism on the community, it also draws from Protestant valorizations of individual agency. As a result, the movement recognizes the importance of well-articulated grassroots initiatives and values personal charisma and initiative. Although it makes decisions about missionary families, it is the latter who put themselves forward for transnational religious work. Missionary families depend on their activities and goals from the NCW headquarters, with NCW leaders required to mediate 178

Catholicism, gender conversion, masculinity

between Vatican representatives, National Episcopal Conferences and receiving parishes in relation to evangelical activities. Parts of the Catholic establishment within and beyond Europe view the transnational religious work of such missionaries as an untameable force that eludes institutionalized control. At the same time, however, the establishment supports the development of a capillary network of NCW communities because of its success in mobilizing devotees transnationally in relation to specific political projects, such as the regular World Youth Days, more occasional events such as the Protest Day against New Reproductive Technologies (which took place in Madrid in 2009) or, more recently, anti-gender campaigns in Europe. Conversion requires the convert to detach him or herself from previous allegiances (Gallo 2016a), a radical change that becomes particularly fraught with tensions when men decide to enter into missionary activities. On the one hand, transnational missions require the renunciation of previous lifestyles and professional activities. This often leads to open conflict with non-NCW family members, who may condemn NCW couples for exposing themselves and their children to uncertainty and/or the danger of religious fundamentalism. On the other, missionary men become fully dependent—both materially and emotionally— on the network of NCW parishes. The latter engage in transnational activities in a variety of ways: for example, parishes sustain missionary families abroad through regular self-taxation; they dispatch regular packages containing sacred readings, food items or other supplies; and parish members are often sent abroad for temporary periods to offer free childcare, domestic support and spiritual comfort. As mentioned previously, the movement also sends doctors, scientists, social workers and family counsellors to destinations around the world in order to support the NCW discourse through scientific arguments. In terms of the longstanding transnationalism of the Catholic Church, the NCW has introduced the relatively novel idea that evangelization must be carried out through the ‘extraordinary’ sacrifices of ‘ordinary’ men (and women) in order for the expansion of Catholicism to also succeed in creating a moral order. Personal gendered transformation is expected to become a symbol of true religiosity and to have an impact on society well beyond the limits of the person, the community and the nation-state. The popular NCW saying that ‘the Way is for distant ones’ well exemplifies the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ dimensions of conversion: a relational change from within, alongside a wider geopolitical project of expansion. These two layers of conversion are often entangled in men’s accounts of their missionary roles, and are braided into the concrete organization and functioning of transnational activities.

The limits of transnational missions: exposure, failure and conflict The problems that missionaries encounter in translating NCW teachings into practice cement a sense of collective sacrifice, but also raise dilemmas. Missionary men experience a double break in their gendered relations and identities once they decide to ‘go global’. Firstly, they are often stigmatized by non-NCW kin and friends for sacrificing ‘real blood relations’ in favour of strangers in distant locations, and may be targeted as bad sons and irresponsible fathers. Their evangelical commitments demand that they prioritize certain ties over others, and create ambivalences in the transnational dimension of family life: thus, they strengthen the global interconnections between missionary families and parishes but create fissures in ‘external’ social ties. Sacrificing pre-existing ties is a trope through which missionary men make sense of their global mission: a symbol of their distance from the ‘ordinary’ phenomenology of Catholic life. Secondly, men who become laic missionaries often lose their ‘traditional’ roles as family breadwinners. Missionary activities allow men to gain a new standing vis-à-vis NCW communities—something that can potentially 179

Ester Gallo

compensate for the sacrifices made in terms of leaving professional positions, financial security or family support ‘behind.’ However, difficult encounters with receiving societies can frequently lead to evangelical failures, which can also make it necessary for missionaries to return to their home parishes. Men’s evangelical failures often result from the tensions generated by the public dimension of evangelization. Gender conversion not only requires men to be oriented towards the domestic needs of the household (Fedele 2013) but also requires that models and experiences of male domesticity are shared in public. Men are expected to carry out evangelical activities in public places such as parks or squares, and to attract a wider audience within and beyond the parish. The fact that evangelization touches upon ‘private’ concerns related to sexuality, conjugality, reproduction and parenthood while simultaneously aiming for a highly public form of visibility has been a source of conflict within the Catholic community in different contexts. These conflicts reveal an opposition between the global society project envisaged by the NCW and, the persistent—if not growing—relevance of national religious institutions in defending culturally inflected ideas and norms of Catholic belonging. The universalist ambition of the NCW, combined with its Western nature, exposes laic missionary men to critiques, derision and ostracism from ‘ordinary’ non-missionary men and women, as well as from religious representatives. Receiving Episcopal Conferences and parishes, for instance, may clash with the Vatican or the NCW in relation to evangelical activities carried by out by ‘white missionaries.’ In Bangalore (South India), the NCW is often criticized by the Indian Episcopal Conference because its teachings (such as the promotion of higher birth rates) are inimical to national projects around reproduction and public health. Public evangelization in South India is also subject to legal sanctions under the Forced Conversion Law: indeed, in 2010, a number of NCW members were arrested and accused of practising proselytizing activities. In the same year, the NCW was banned by the Japanese National Conference of Bishops, which considered the movement’s teachings to be incompatible with the national culture and family values. Prior to this, the Archbishop of Tokyo had publicly accused the Vatican of giving priority to the directions set by the NCW headquarters in Rome and marginalizing the views of national religious authorities. In 2013, NCW missionaries in Antakya (a multi-religious city on the border between Turkey and Syria) were publicly attacked by local religious and civil society representatives after the NCW criticized the Church there for its tolerance of inter-faith marriages and unofficial polygamy among local Muslim families. Preaching Catholic purity and normative superiority was considered a risky endeavour in a context where local religious and government authorities work for inter-faith dialogue between a (majority) Muslim population and minority Jewish, Greek Orthodox and Catholic communities. In all of these cases, missionary families were ‘called back’ by the NCW under Vatican instructions. The return from the missionary destination is viewed by missionary men as an abdication from the project of a global Catholic society. Men experience the problems arising from transnational religious work as personal failures, which become a deep source of insecurity in relation to the foundations of their own conversions.

Conclusions This chapter has discussed how gender and religion are entwined within contemporary projects of building a global (Catholic) society. Transnationalism has characterized Christian expansion (and religious expansion in general) in different ways through history (Comaroff and Comaroff 2001; Van der Veer 2001; Levitt 2003). The analysis of the contemporary role that religion plays in framing a global society should therefore consider how the new 180

Catholicism, gender conversion, masculinity

builds on the old, and how the transnational nature of religious flows has changed in the process. Transnational flows not only lead to changes in the understanding of religion but also transform the practices and relationships through which religion is lived in the everyday. Indeed, the assumed transcendent nature of Christianity has channelled a distinctive disjuncture between its supposed immateriality and the worldliness of gendered family life (Cannell 2006; Keane 2008). However, as the analysis here has shown, gender is an important dimension of religious expansion. There is a need to foster analyses of religion in the context of globalization by discussing how models and experiences of femininity and masculinity are transformed by transnational religious flows and, in turn, how they influence popular beliefs and lives across borders. At a broader level, the interest of the NCW lies in its innovative post-Vatican II role in promoting changes in the transnational work of evangelization—from a centralized and hierarchical network of religious institutions (at supranational, national and local levels) towards the gradual introduction of more grassroots and fluid forms of global religious expansion. Gender conversion holds relevance for an articulated understanding of the complex global organization of the NCW, and of its evangelical mission. While the importance ascribed to gendered family models draws from the global ethos of Vatican II, it also draws from the more recent acknowledgement of the unsuccessful nature of the attempts made by the established Catholic Church to move closer to the concerns of ordinary people worldwide. Normative positions are less attractive to people if promoted by transcendent religious figures; they become more credible at a global level if they are instead put forward by men (and women) who witness the vision of a reformed global society through their own daily lives. Influenced by a post-conciliar religion that aimed to be at once ‘modern and public’ (Casanova 1994, p. 9) in shaping a global society, gender conversion prompts men to engage with political questions related to worldly affairs of domesticity, reproduction, sexuality and overall family life well beyond their local and national horizons. The expansion of the NCW beyond Europe seeks to bring lay missionaries closer to different Catholic realities worldwide. At the same time, however, it assigns new importance to Roman Catholicism as the centre of orthodoxy and authenticity (cf. Ferrari 2006). This chapter argues that gender conversion is key to transnational missions and highlights both its private and public dimensions: becoming a member of the NCW is both an act of personal self-transformation and a commitment to a global mission. It further argues that—at least in principle—the global society envisaged by the NCW leaves little space for the fluidity, creativity and syncretism usually associated with globalization. Instead, NCW transnationalism is centred around the spreading of new religious and gendered orthodoxies that are intended to realign families to a specific model of ‘the family.’ This family model is based on the NCW critique of secularized European societies, but it is also constrained by the movement’s limited dialogue with the cross-cultural varieties of Catholicism that are officially valued by the modern church. In recent decades, the transnationalization of Catholicism has meant not just the increasing internationalization of Rome but also the rising importance of the National Conferences of Bishops (Casanova 1997). This has contributed to growing tensions between global religious movements, the Vatican and Episcopal Conferences in single sovereign states, and must be taken into account in analysing the tensions between the NCW’s contextual and universal globalizing aims. Gender and family are national concerns for societies that are the objects of evangelization, partly in relation to projects of national development and modernity. In different receiving contexts, religious and political authorities are concerned with what is perceived to be an ‘invasive’ and ‘culturally insensitive’ religious approach to gender and family. They subscribe with reluctance to a project that runs the risk of re-enacting colonial

181

Ester Gallo

logics of conversion and assimilation, even as it connects Catholic believers with the holy centre of Rome.

References Aune, K., 2010. Fatherhood in British Evangelical Christianity. Men and Masculinity, 13 (2), 168–189. Baumann, M., 2000. Diaspora. Numen, 47 (3), 313–337. Beyer, P., 2003. De-centering Religious Singularity. Numen, 50 (4), 357–386. Boyd, S., Longwood, W.M., and Muesse, M.W., eds., 1996. Redeeming Men. Louisville: Westminster JK Press. Burchardt, M., 2018. Saved from Hegemonic Masculinity? Current Sociology, 66 (1), 110–127. Cannell, F., 2006. Introduction. In: F. Cannell, ed. The Anthropology of Christianity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1–50. Casanova, J., 1994. Public Religion in the Modern World. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Casanova, J., 1997. Globalising Catholicism and the Return to a Universal Church. In: S.H. Rudolph and J. Piscatori, eds. Transnational Religion and the Fading States. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 121–142. Coleman, S., 2000. The Globalization of Charismatic Christianity: Spreading the gospel of prosperity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Comaroff, J., and Comaroff, J.L., 1991. Of Revelation and Revolution. Vol. I and II. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Comaroff, J., and Comaroff, J., eds., 2001. Millenial capitalism and the culture of neoliberalism. Durham: Duke University Press. Fedele, V., 2013. The Diasporic Islamic Masculinity and the Reformulation of European Islam. Nòmadas, 39 (3), 1–23. Ferrari, L., 2006. The Vatican as a Transnational Actor. In: P.C. Manuel, L.C. Reardon and C. Wilcox, eds. The Catholic Church and the Nation-State. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 33–49. Gallo, E., 2016a. Diaspora by Design? Conversion and Belonging in Contemporary Global Catholicism. Diaspora, 19 (1), 51–73. Gallo, E., 2016b. Introduction: South Asian Migration and Religious Pluralism in Europe. In: E. Gallo, ed. Migration and Religion in Europe. Comparative Perspectives on South Asian Experiences. New York: Routledge, 1–28. Gallo, E., 2016c. A Suitable Faith. Catholicism, Domestic Labour and Identity Politics among Malayalis in Rome. In: E. Gallo, ed. Religion and Migration in Europe. Comparative Perspectives on South Asian Experience. New York: Routledge, 249–266. Gallo, E., 2017. The Fall of Gods. Memory, Kinship and Middle Classes in South India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Gallo, E., 2018. Religion, Masculinity and Transnational Mobility: Migrant Catholic Men and the Politics of Evangelisation. In: B. Yeoh and B. Brown, eds. Asian Migrations and Religious Experiences. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 177–199. Geertz, C., 2005. Shifting Aims, Moving Targets: On the Anthropology of Religion. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 11 (1), 1–15. Hann, C., 2007. The Anthropology of Christianity per Se. European Journal of Sociology, 48 (3), 383–410. Himes, K.R., 2006. Vatican II and Contemporary Politics. In: L.C. Reardon and C. Wilcox, eds. The Catholic Church and the Nation-State. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 16–31. Hüwelmeier, G., and Krause, K., 2010. Introduction. In: G. Huwelmeier and K. Krause, eds. Travelling Spirits. Migrants, Markets and Mobilities. London: Routledge, 1–16. Keane, W., 2008. The Evidence of the Senses and the Materiality of Religion. JRAI, 14 (1), 110–127. King, U., 2005. General Introduction: Gender Critical Turn in the Study of Religion. In: U. King and T. Beattie, eds. Gender, Religion and Diversity. Cross-Cultural Perspectives. London: Continuum, 1–12. Krondorfer, B., and Hunt, S., 2012. Religion and Masculinities. Religion & Gender, 2 (2), 194–206. Levitt, P., 2003. You Know, Abraham Was Really the First Immigrant. International Migration Review, 37 (3), 847–873. Maskens, M., 2015. The Pentecostal Reworking of Male Identities in Brussels. Etnogràfica, 19 (2), 323–345. Rafael, V., 1993. Contracting Colonialism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

182

Catholicism, gender conversion, masculinity

Rudolph, S.H., 1997. Introduction. In: S.H. Rudolph and J. Piscatori, eds. Transnational Religion and the Fading States. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1–19. Thompson, E.H., and Remmes, K.R., 2002. Does Masculinity Thwart Being Religious? Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 41 (3), 521–532. Van der Veer, P., 2001. Transnational Religion. Trans-com Working Paper WPTC-01-18 [online]. Available from: www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk/working%20papers/WPTC-01-18%20Van%20der% 20Veer.pdf. Werner, Y.M., ed., 2011. Christian Masculinities. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Wogman, P., 2000. Christianity and Politics. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. Woodhead, L., 2007. Gender Differences in Religious Practice and Significance. In: J.A. Backford and J. Demerath, eds. The Sage Handbook of the Sociology of Religion. Los Angeles, CA, London, New Delhi, and Singapore: Sage, 550–570.

183

Part IV

Transnational movements

15 Pilgrimage, traveling gurus and transnational networks The lay meditation movement in contemporary Chinese societies Ngar-sze Lau

Introduction ‘Sufi orders, Catholic missionaries, and Buddhist monks carried word and praxis across vast spaces before those places became nation states or even states’ (Rudolph 1997, p. 1). In the context of global religions, sacred landscapes, pilgrimage, migration and diaspora, missionary activities, and transnational religions network have become important themes of study. The ‘spatial turn’ in the humanities and social sciences has had an impact on the study of space, place and location in religious studies (Knott 2010, p. 476). Scholars have paid attention to religion and migration since the early 1990s. Kivisto (2014) has discussed how religion might function to allow for social adaptation among new immigrants. For instance, the Brick Lane Jamme Masjid in the East End of London has been home to distinct religions since the eighteenth century among immigrant groups: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. From the case study of Chinese converting to Christianity in Iowa City, Chinese churches became new homes providing social support to those new immigrants and students from mainland China. Migration and the growth of diaspora communities around the world are instrumental in building transnational religious networks. Transnationalism is a process that immigrants tend to sustain in their social relations to link societies of origin and settlement. These relationships cut across geographic, cultural and political borders (Basch, Schiller and Blanc 1994). In the case of Cuban-Americans building a shrine Our Lady of Charity in Miami, Tweed (1997) shows how religions ‘dwell and cross’ to create spaces among migrants who cultivate rituals and myths and foster imaginations of the homeland. Asian Buddhists who migrated to the United States, Canada and Brazil have built Buddhist temples to preserve their traditional faith to maintain their ethnic and cultural identity (Kawanami 2012). Transnational migrants recreate a new form of global religions with new geographical spaces to make their local identities more meaningful and stronger than their political identities (Levitt and Schiller 2004).

187

Ngar-sze Lau

Transnational religious networks developed by migrants are well-discussed. However, transnational religious networks developed by pilgrims or travelers are under-researched. This chapter examines the recent emergence of lay meditation activities and transnational religious networks in contemporary Chinese societies since the start of the twenty-first century. Global flows from the East to the West, and then from the West back to the East, have become the main causes of the recent popularity of lay meditation practices in Chinese societies. In the following sections, I will first introduce the context of Buddhist modernism which gave rise to the lay meditation movement in Asia in the nineteenth century. With the effort of spiritual seekers traveling to Asia from the West, lay meditation was transformed to become secular, psychological and scientific. From my ethnographic study, I will discuss how lay meditation practices have been introduced to Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China by Chinese travelers and traveling gurus since the start of the twenty-first century. I argue that Chinese engagement with the transnational lay meditation movement demonstrates a new trend in the contemporary Chinese context—the privatization of spiritual experiences.

Pilgrimage, Buddhist modernism and the rise of the lay meditation movement in Asia As a global and historical religion, Buddhism provides many examples of religious places and movements with pilgrimage routes, missionary activities, sacred landscapes and global developments (Kawanami 2012). Coleman and Eade (2004b) argue that pilgrimage is not merely a journey of creating sacred space, but as ‘cultures in motion’ linking different understandings of movement, such as performative action creating social and cultural transformations. Turner and Turner (1978) suggest that the pilgrim is making ‘a spiritual step forward’ (p. 15) by escaping from the everyday life and cutting ‘across the boundaries of provinces, realms, and even empires’ (p. 6). Social and psychological transformation happens in various embodied motions including walking, kneeling, crawling and dancing over the journey towards the sacred destination. Pilgrims have contributed to the continuous transformation of Buddhism with new modes of expression. With the foundation of the Theravā da tradition in ancient India, Mahā yā na traditions were developed and introduced to Central Asia and China through the Silk Road around the first century. After that, Mahā yā na Buddhism spread to Japan and Korea via China. Given the historical development of Chinese Buddhism, Mahā yā na doctrines and practices were seen as superior to early Theravā da Buddhism. The doctrines of early texts, such as the Āgamas, and practices of Theravā da Buddhism in Southeast Asia were marginalized as inferior Hīnayā na in the Chinese context until recent decades. Moreover, in the Chinese Mahā yā na Buddhist tradition, Chan meditation has been practiced exclusively by monastics only (Welch 1967). However, the encounter between Asian Buddhist reformers and Orientalist Buddhist scholars in the early twentieth century led to a major change concerning the concept and imaginaries of ‘Buddhism.’ Modern Buddhism and Buddhist scholarship were constructed by the colonial encounter. Despite the critical reflections on Orientalism, the Orientalist discourses about modern Buddhism inevitably continue in the Western imagination. The global lay meditation movement is rooted in the modernization of Buddhism over the colonial era in Asia, especially in Ceylon and Burma.1 As McMahan (2017) argues, the effort of building an alliance between Buddhism and modern science by Buddhist reformers was not only critical in confronting the colonial regime but also contributed to the globalization of Buddhist meditation. With the support of Western theosophists, Anagā rika Dharmapā la 188

Pilgrimage, traveling gurus, networks

(1965), the most prominent Buddhist reformer in Ceylon, revived Buddhism not only by establishing the Maha Bodhi Society, but also by assimilating Buddhist doctrine to scientific understanding.2 Vipassanā or ‘insight meditation’ is a contemporary form of meditation modernized by Ledi Sayadaw, a Buddhist scholar and meditation teacher in Burma (Braun 2014). When the British colonized Burma in 1824, Buddhism was not supported by the political regime.3 With the hope that lay people would take up the responsibility of preventing the decline of Buddhism, Ledi decided to teach them Buddhist philosophy and meditation, which was traditionally restricted to monastics. By placing more emphasis on vipassanā meditation rather than the cultivation of mental absorption (jhā na), Ledi simplified and edited the Abhidhamma as a set of systematic practices. He also traveled to villages across the country to initiate a new tradition of mass lay meditation using printed literature in the early twentieth century.4 In the 1950s lay meditation spread to other Asian countries as a transnational practice after the independence of Burma. U Nu, the first prime minister, sought to project Myanmar as a nation state based on a Buddhist identity by inviting Mahā si Sayadaw to teach at a new state-supported meditation center—Mahā si Thathana Yeiktha. With the support of government officers and military leaders, the number of meditators and meditation centers grew exponentially within a few years (Jordt 2007). Mahā si promoted revitalized vipassanā meditation, known also as the ‘new Burmese method,’ using tape recordings which were later on replayed for new yogis. Over 700,000 Burmese yogis had practiced at Mahā si’s centers by 1972. Vipassanā meditation also became a diplomatic link between Myanmar and other countries that Mahā si and his disciples were invited to travel to to teach, such as Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, the UK and the United States.5 This has inspired the lay meditation movement to spread with new meditation centers established in other Asian countries. For example, in Thailand, the Mahanikai sect revived the lay meditation movement and patterned itself following Mahā si’s meditation center model (Cook 2010, p. 31). Meditation classes were offered at the branches of Mahanikai monasteries throughout the country, attracting many from the middle class. Since the 1970s, lay meditation has further spread around the world. S.N. Goenka, a Burmese-Indian businessman, established transnational vipassanā meditation centers with his tailored ten-day curriculum. Goenka (2002) believed that vipassanā , as a universal, scientific and therapeutic practice, can be practiced by anyone in the world.6 He promoted vipassanā as an art of living, a secular technique, like a physical exercise for developing insight (Hart 1987). Goenka even interpreted dhamma (Sanskrit: dharma) as a universal truth rather than Buddhist doctrine. Vipassanā meditation was then introduced to secular institutions including prison, hospitals and schools by traveling meditators. In 1976, the Vipassanā Meditation Center was first established in India and then overseas in Massachusetts in the United States in 1979. There are now over 300 centers set up all over the world.7 In summary, lay meditation was modernized in Asia and then spread to other Asian countries because of traveling gurus and meditators.8

The flourishing of transnational lay meditation in the West and Chinese societies In this section, I will discuss how the transnational lay meditation has flourished in the West, the rest of the world and Chinese societies, including Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China. The Orientalist and romantic projection of Buddhism has inspired Western spiritual seekers. David McMahan (2008) identifies the adaptations of Buddhism in North America as 189

Ngar-sze Lau

a hybrid form of indigenous Buddhist concepts mixed with discourses of psychology, romanticism and science. Because of the influence of the Enlightenment’s epistemological claim of scientific rationalism, the Buddha has been redefined as a rational figure and even a Victorian gentleman (Prothero 1996). Buddhist teachings have been characterized as rationalist, empirically based, psychological, ethical and free from superstition. McMahan (2008, p. 11) argues that the Romantics ‘project the hope that the ills of western society can be assuaged by the supposedly more spiritual, primal wisdom of Asia.’ Buddhism, a foreign spiritual tradition from the East, has been expected to fulfill the role of the re-enchantment of the materialist Western societies. Western spiritual seekers started visiting meditation centers in Asia, particularly Myanmar and Thailand, to learn meditation in the 1960s. International meditation centers in Asia have been described as important missionary venues for spreading Buddhist teachings to the world. Foreign meditators with any religious background are welcome to experiment with meditation as an ‘alternative way of living’ by teachers at international meditation centers (Schedneck 2015, pp. 175–176). Foreign yogis are not requested to convert to Buddhism. Meditation has been adapted to foreign yogis and labeled as a universal practice with the rational Orientalist imaginaries, including for the purposes of psychological healing and well-being. Meditation has become a form of relaxation for international meditators as well as a way of exploring Buddhism. In this modern context, decontextualized forms of meditation have been globalized rapidly since the 1970s. After learning modernized meditation in Southeast Asia, some Americans and Europeans brought meditation teachings and vipassanā practices back to the West. One of the most explicit examples is the establishment of the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Massachusetts by Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg. They traveled to Asia to practice various forms of Buddhist meditation and vipassanā .9 They, as firstgeneration US meditation teachers, invited well-known Asian meditation teachers, such as Mahā si Sayadaw and Dipa Ma, to travel to the United States to lead meditation retreats. Gaia House, a branch of the IMS, was established in the UK in the early 1980s.10 In the West, the dialogue between Tibetan monks and Western scientists on emotions, neuroscience and Buddhist meditation since the early 1980s has inspired research.11 Some disrobed monastics, such as Jack Kornfield and Alan Wallace, also contributed to the psychologization of Buddhist doctrine and meditation practices. Kabat-Zinn (2011), a molecular biologist and a practitioner of Hatha yoga and Korean Zen, developed the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program at the University of Massachusetts in 1979. The effectiveness of MBSR in reducing symptoms of stress and psychosomatic diseases has aroused increasing research interest in mindfulness and other diseases (Williams and Kabat-Zinn 2013). Another successful case is the development of Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) by clinical psychologists Mark Williams, John Teasdale and Zindel Segal (2012). MBCT is recognized by National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) as an effective practice for preventing depression relapse in the UK.12 The application of mindfulness programmes in a clinical context has popularized mindfulness meditation in counselling centers, schools, prisons, workplaces and even the military in the West. In summary, in the past few decades, Western spiritual seekers, who learnt vipassanā meditation in Asia, have brought lay meditation to the West from the East. The scientific research and application of mindfulness by scientists has further secularized and globalized meditation. But since the 1990s, modernization and globalization have facilitated the introduction of vipassanā meditation and mindfulness programs from the West to Asia, including Chinese societies. Most lay meditation practices were generally introduced into Taiwan first in the 190

Pilgrimage, traveling gurus, networks

1990s, then to Hong Kong and later mainland China. In the mid-1980s, with advantageous socio-economic and political conditions in Taiwan, many Chinese Buddhist organizations modernized rapidly with the support of the urban middle-class.13 Within a decade, with the notion of ‘Buddhism in the human world,’ a few successfully developed into worldrenowned transnational Buddhist organizations (Madsen 2007).14 Vipassanā meditation and mindfulness programs were introduced to both monastics and lay in Taiwan. Books of world-renowned meditation teachers who visited Europe and North America were firstly translated and published in Chinese before any actual introduction of meditation practices. For example, Our Real Refuge, a collection of dhamma talks by Ajahn Chah, was translated into Chinese in 1992 and reprinted over 50,000 times (Ziyan 2009). There are over ten charitable or commercial presses that publish books about the teachings of significant meditation teachers, including Mahā si Sayadaw and U Pandita Sayadaw from Myanmar. Lin Chung-on, a physicist, was the first Chinese who imported vipassanā meditation to Taiwan (Dharma Light Monthly 2000). After reading books on vipassanā practice in the late 1980s, he invited Luangpor Thong from Thailand to teach meditation in Taiwan in 1992. The Mahasati Association was later set up in 2002 to promote the practice.15 After attending a tenday vipassanā retreat led by S.N. Goenka in Nepal in 1995, Lin invited Goenka to Taiwan to teach the first ten-day vipassanā retreat for 220 participants a few months later. The first Vipassanā Meditation Center in Taiwan was officially established in 1997.16 Quite a few famous meditation teachers from Myanmar and Thailand have been invited to Taiwan to lead retreats frequently since the 1990s (Chen 2012; Metta 2002). At the same time, Taiwanese monastics and lay started travelling to Myanmar and Thailand to learn meditation. A free guidebook introducing various international meditation centers in Asia was published by a Taiwanese monk (Metta 2002).17 There are now several transnational organizations established by Chinese meditators in Taiwan actively promoting the teachings of Mahā si, Pa-Auk from Myanmar and Luangpor Thong from Thailand.18 The spread of meditation in Hong Kong was influenced by Chinese meditation books and meditators from Taiwan. For example, the establishment of the first vipassanā retreat using Goenk’s teaching was facilitated by Taiwanese meditators in 1997 (Lau 2014). There are now two centers providing meditation retreats.19 Meditation teachers in various traditions from Myanmar and Thailand have been invited to Hong Kong to lead retreats. Quite a few meditation organizations promoting lay meditation have been set up by Hong Kong meditators (Lau 2014, pp. 28–35).20 Mindfulness programs were introduced in Hong Kong and then Taiwan. Helen Ma, a clinical psychologist, first introduced MBSR in a hospital in 1997. She invited Kabat-Zinn to Hong Kong to lead a mindfulness retreat for social workers and healthcare professionals in 2004. She and Peta McAuley have organized Chinese-speaking and English-speaking mindfulness teaching supporting groups for sharing mindfulness teaching experiences at regular meetings. In 2012 Ma set up the Hong Kong Centre for Mindfulness and organized MBCT training for healthcare professionals. Quite a few NGOs promote mindfulness programs to the public.21 Over 4,000 healthcare professionals and patients have finished MBSR or MBCT training programme by 2013 (Lau 2014, p. 36).22 The book, Wherever You Go, There You Are by Kabat-Zinn and published in Chinese in 2008, attracted some attention to the counseling and education field in Taiwan. The first MBSR program was organized at Fangsheng Monastery by the abbot and Peggy Tsai in 2011. Later MBSR and MBCT programs were promoted rapidly with established organizations in clinical and secular settings by Elsa Huang, Roy Te-Chung Chen, Tsungkun Wen and Yen-hui Lee (Lau 2014, p. 37). Jon Kabat-Zinn and Mark Williams were 191

Ngar-sze Lau

invited to Taiwan a few times to lead mindfulness retreats. In the past few years, a few Taiwanese mindfulness teachers have visited mainland China to teach mindfulness and be involved in events with Kabat-Zinn. In summary, transnational networks of lay meditation and mindfulness have been developed quite strongly in Taiwan and Hong Kong since the turn of the century. Since the 1990s, the dramatic economic growth of China has surprised the world and encouraged both inbound and outbound tourism (Guthrie 2009). With the changing party–state policies and economic growth in the early 1980s, religious practices and mind–body healing in diverse traditions have been reinvented, redeveloped and even imported into mainland China. For instances, the qigong ‘fever’ (Palmer 2007), the ‘psycho-boom’ (xinli re) (Pritzker 2016) and health cultivation (yangsheng) culture (Dear 2012) have provoked the popularity of body technology for healing, intersecting with traditional culture and science, lifestyle, nutrition and Chinese medicine. Martial arts films, such as Shaolin gongfu in the 1980s, initiated the ‘Chan fever,’ which sparked popular interest in Buddhist tourism, practices and notions of well-being.23 There are, however, some difficulties. On the one hand, the materialistic orientation of some Chinese monasteries and the lack of Chan masters disappointed some devout Chinese Buddhists. On the other, it has not been easy to revive the traditional Chan practices in a few years due to a lack of prominent Chan meditation teachers and also a generation gap in monastic lineages caused by both political turmoil and economic blooming (Birnbaum 2003; Xueyu 2015). With the party–state relaxing the tourism policy and the influence of globalization, educated Chinese Buddhists, including monastics and lay people, have traveled to countries in Southeast Asia to seek out ideal meditation teachers and meditation teaching since the turn of the century (Lau 2018). In my fieldwork in contemporary China, I found out that the individualized spiritual experience has become the key motivation for Chinese practitioners who travel repeatedly to Southeast Asian countries to explore the ideal dhamma. The living conditions in traditional Chinese monasteries (with a huge room shared with many people) are not regarded as satisfactory by young, educated and urban middle-class Chinese practitioners. My informants, such as Yaozhen and Zhou Fu, mentioned that a single room is an ideal meditation accommodation, and they said they could find their ‘paradise’ in Myanmar, but not in China. Nevertheless, Chinese travelers risk the challenges or danger during their trips, including the tedious visa application process, different languages, food difficulties and vulnerabilities to tropical diseases (Lau 2018). Chinese women, including nuns and lay, could hardly access and learn the traditional Chan practices. Until now, most Chan halls (chantang) refuse entry for women. I argue that this is one of the main reasons that some Chinese travel to learn meditation in Southeast Asia, where meditation centers welcome both men and women. In my study, Bhiksuṇī ̣ and lay women from China had fruitful experiences of their pilgrimages (Lau 2018). After returning to China, many Chinese yogis, including monastics and lay people, would share their experiences with friends in their meditation communities. In the 2010s, these practitioners have ‘transplanted’ the Theravā da meditation experience to their community, from Myanmar or Thailand to China. They have created sacred spaces and propagated their favorite teachings through networking, organizing practice groups (gongxiudian), fund-raising and even establishing new meditation centers in mainland China. For example, U Paṇḍita Sayā daw and Chanmyay Sayā daw from Myanmar, disciples of the world-renowned insight meditation teacher Mahā sī Sayā daw, have been invited to teach meditation in retreats at Chinese Buddhist monasteries in Beijing, Wenzhou and Jiangxi Province. Globally known meditation teachers 192

Pilgrimage, traveling gurus, networks

such as Jack Kornfield, and mindfulness teachers including Jon Kabat-Zinn and Mark Williams, have been visiting China to teach meditation since 2011 (Lau 2014).24 Various transnational meditation communities of specific teachings have been rapidly developed by travelers through cyber technologies in mainland China. Information about teachers and teachings, photos and audio clips of dhamma talks, and electronic books have been shared on websites. Announcements of retreats and regular practice groups and the recruitment of volunteers are shared through popularly used mobile applications. Special events of meditation centers in Southeast Asian countries, updates of teachers in Burma or Thailand, especially their health conditions, are shared and exchanged among the members of these communities. Fundraising schemes are also launched within the virtual communities by activists for the construction of new meditation centers in China and Southeast Asian countries (Lau 2018). Based on my ethnographic study in mainland China, the existing lay meditation activities in contemporary China can be categorized into four main models. The first model involves retreats based on only one tradition upheld by Han Buddhist monasteries. For example, retreats according to Goenka’s teachings are organized mainly in five centers attached to Buddhist monasteries. Mahasati meditation of Luangpor Teean from Thailand is promoted at the Shifo Monastery in Sichuan. There is a policy context here. According to the Regulations on Religious Affairs, all religious activities can only be held in religious venues.25 The second model refers to retreats based on various traditions upheld in different Han Buddhist monasteries. For example, retreats based on some teachings of Mahā si Sayadaw, U Tejaniya Sayadaw and Luangpor Pramote are hosted by different monasteries across the country. The third model involves the Theravā da Buddhist community. Dhammavihā rī Forest Monastery, established as a permanent meditation center, mainly promotes the teaching of Pa-Auk Sayadaw (Lau 2018, pp. 126–189). Finally, the fourth model involves secular activities. These are mindfulness programs held at universities, yoga clubs or resort centers. Meditation teachings from Myanmar and Thailand have reached China because of traveling gurus and returning yogi during the 2010s. These meditation retreats attract mainly the educated middle class, university students and professionals (Lau 2017). In fact, learning transnational meditation from famous teachers has become trendy among urban people. Mind–body healing in particular is one of the key attractions to the new types of meditation. Some devoted meditators have visited meditation centers in Southeast Asian countries over a few weeks or even a few years to practice. Many Chinese enjoy communicating directly with their Burmese meditation teachers and practicing with yogis from all over the world, even though some of them could not speak any English. Some others feel excited and show gratitude to become short-term monks and nuns, while the practice is not highly encouraged in the Han Chinese tradition. The common advertisement and registration process is through virtual platforms such as Weibo and WeChat, as well as the most popular mobile phone apps emulating the functions of Facebook (Lau 2018). However, religion is perceived as a politically sensitive issue in China. The tension brought about by the local communities and global forces may result in the construction of hybrid religious identities. Some Chinese Mahā yā na Buddhist monasteries have developed their meditation retreats in a hybrid way with some elements from Theravā da Buddhist meditation and mindfulness. Despite the restriction of religious activities by the party–state, yoga clubs, health centers, offices or homes have become venues for these regular meditation activities. Virtual communities of a specific tradition are organized via WeChat to announce news about retreats and other activities. In summary, globalization, economic growth, international travel and new forms of communication technology are facilitating religious activities and establishing transnational lay meditation networks in contemporary Chinese societies. 193

Ngar-sze Lau

Conclusion: modernized meditation, ‘subjective turn’ and global spiritual seeking Mark Juergensmeyer (2012, p. 716) points out that religious phenomena are part of a ‘global drama,’ which should be understood with multiple frames of references, including secular ideologies. He reminds us that studying global religion is about studying ‘cultural change and interaction,’ including religion in its global contexts, religious diasporas, religious ideas and the ‘emerging spiritual and moral sensibilities of globalized, multicultural societies’ (p. 719). In this chapter, I have examined the historical development of transnational lay meditation movements, which began in Southeast Asia before reaching the West. They then spread to Hong Kong and mainland China via Taiwan. I have argued that, instead of migration, religious traveling has been the key force behind the growing transnational lay meditation network. The initial significant influence was the modernization of meditation in Southeast Asia and the ‘subjective turn’ in the West. In the Southeast and South Asian contexts, meditation practices have become accessible to the laity since the early twentieth century as a result of concerted efforts to confront the decline of Buddhism in the region. Western spiritual seekers since the 1960s have traveled to Asia to learn meditation, inspiring later on the popularity of vipassanā meditation in the West. In the late 1980s, some Taiwanese encountered Western spiritual seekers and the teachings of contemporary living meditation teachers in Southeast Asia. All this has taken place with the advantage of religious freedom and economic growth, the mass publication of Chinese translated books, and retreats organized in the region with teachers from Thailand and Myanmar. Traveling has allowed the Chinese to learn meditation and then establish meditation communities in various Burmese and Thai traditions in Chinese societies. As Kim Knott (2016, p. 41) suggests, in the late modern context, more people are choosing to ‘turn to the self’ and individualize their religious experiences. McMahan argues that Buddhist meditation has become detraditionalized and privatized after the encounter with Western modernity (2008, pp. 183–192). He explains that the increasing attention of meditation among Westerners can be seen as a ‘subjective turn,’ which has also involved Romantic, psychological and rationalist orientations. From the Orientalist perspective, while ‘the West’ is materialist and rational, ‘the East’ is spiritual, subjective and intuitive. The shift from ‘the West’ to ‘the East’ may be a reaction to the development of industrialization and scientific knowledge. Despite the ongoing debate on the category of New Religious Movements (NRMs) (Fox 2010), Bryan Wilson (1992) argues that NRMs arise as a private form of religion with the increasing disappearance of religion in the public sphere. In my study of the transnational lay meditation in the Buddhist context, the popular literature on both vipassanā meditation and secular mindfulness are referenced from traditional Buddhist canons. I argue that the lay meditation movement is a new expression of the religious tradition instead of an NRM. The modernized image of Buddhism as a rational and scientific endeavor was not only fostered by Western enthusiasts but also by Asian Buddhist teachers (Metcalf 2002, pp. 348–364). For instance, after Carl Jung’s works on yoga, Daoism and Buddhism were popularized in the West, the encounter between Zen and psychoanalysis initiated by Japanese Zen teacher D.T. Suzuki and psychologist Erich Fromm also drew attention to the therapeutic approach of Buddhism. The teaching of some monks from Tibetan Buddhism, Korean Zen or Japanese Zen in the West in the 1960s formed part of the New Age Movement (Heelas 1996). Nevertheless, Western psychologists and scientists have further secularized Buddhist meditation since the 1980s. Meditation in ‘the East’ has

194

Pilgrimage, traveling gurus, networks

been seen as a manifestation of the ‘subjective turn’ and self-reflexivity, in contrast to the materialism and rationalism of ‘the West.’ Nowadays middle-class spiritual seekers from Chinese societies such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and China try to find their ideal meditation teachers by spending time and money in a similar way. From my observation, the trend of Chinese individuals practicing Theravā da meditation has followed a similar way to those international yogis. Ninian Smart (2006) imagines that there will be a ‘coming world civilization’ with common spiritual and moral elements uniting people on the planet. This may embrace the phenomenon of globalized spiritual seeking with the tendency of privatization and selfreflexivity of spiritual experiences. It has led to a reconstruction of the meaning of religion and Buddhism in the contemporary Chinese context.

Notes 1 I refer to Sri Lanka and Myanmar as Ceylon and Burma in the colonial period respectively. 2 For example, Dharmapā la took karma and rebirth to evolution, and causes and conditions (hetupratyaya) to causality in science (McMahan 2017, p. 115). 3 In 1886 the British colonial government forced the last Burmese king to be exiled in India. Ledi (1846–1923) foresaw that Buddhism would not be protected by the state anymore. 4 Over 300,000 were educated with Abhidhamma by Ledi’s efforts between 1903 and 1926 (Braun 2013). 5 Mahā si Sayadw visited several Asian countries for teaching vipassanā meditation. For the spread of Mahā si meditation in Indonesia, see Bond (2003); in Thailand, see Cook (2010); in Nepal, see LeVine and Gellner (2005). 6 Goenka states, ‘Some people take [Vipassanā ] as a religion, a cult, or a dogma, so naturally there is resentment and opposition. But Vipassanā should only be taken as pure science, the science of mind and matter, and a pure exercise for the mind to keep it healthy’ (2002: 31). 7 There are 188 centres and 138 non-centres providing vipassanā meditation courses. See Worldwide directory of Vipassanā Meditation www.dhamma.org/en/locations/directory [Accessed May 8, 2018]. 8 Unlike Sri Lanka and Myanmar, Thailand, which has never been colonized by a Western country, did not experience a similar dramatic Buddhist reform. Nevertheless, anthropologist Tambiah (1984, 1977) argues that the Thai forest tradition, a forest-wandering monastic community that began in the Northeastern provinces of Thailand, was reconstructed in the early twentieth century. It was a lineage started by Ajahn Mun, a well-recognized enlightened person (arahant). With the expansion of the nation-state, the Thai forest tradition has become institutionalized by secular elites. Ajahn Chah, who trained under Mun’s lineage, has attracted many young Western men to join the monastic community in Thailand since the 1960s. His western disciples, particularly Ajahn Sumedho, have formed the largest Theravāda monastic communities in the West since the 1980s. Ajahn Sumedho became the first abbot of Amaravati Monastery, located near London. See the website of Amaravati Monastery https://forestsangha.org/community/monasteries/continents/europe [Accessed May 8, 2018]. 9 See the website of Insight Meditation Society www.dharma.org/ [Accessed May 8, 2018]. 10 See the website of Gaia House https://gaiahouse.co.uk/ [Accessed May 8, 2018]. 11 See the website of Mind & Life Institute www.mindandlife.org/[Accessed May 8, 2018]. 12 See the website of NICE www.nice.org.uk/ [Accessed May 8, 2018]. 13 The abolition of Martial Law in 1987 facilitated political democracy, economic growth, civil society and religious freedom (Madsen 2007). 14 The most famous three transnational Chinese Buddhist organizations are Fo Guang Shan, Tzu Chi and Dharma Drum Mountain (Madsen 2007). 15 Mahasati Meditation in Taiwan www.mahasati.org.tw/home/index.php [Accessed May 8, 2018]. 16 There are now two centers in Taiwan, see website www.tw.dhamma.org/zh-tw/ [Accessed May 8, 2018]. It is estimated that over 60,000 people have attended vipassanā retreats in Taiwan. 17 This free guidebook provides information about different meditation traditions, weather, visa issues, etc. in many Asian countries, including Laos, Cambodia and Indonesia. 18 It is estimated that over ten organizations promote transnational lay meditation, e.g. Luangpor Thong’s teaching is promoted by Mahasati Meditation www.mahasati.org.tw/xoops/index.php [Accessed May 8, 2018]; Pa-Auk’s teaching is promoted by Taiwandipa www.taiwandipa.org.tw/

195

Ngar-sze Lau

19 20

21 22 23 24 25

[Accessed May 8, 2018]; Mahā si’s teaching is promoted by MBSC http://mbscnn.org/NewsList. aspx?CLASS=195 [Accessed May 8, 2018]. See the website of Hong Kong Centre www.mutta.dhamma.org/new/HKVMC_Chi/ HKVMC_Home_Chi.html [Accessed May 8, 2018]. E.g. The Hong Kong Insight Meditation Society www.hkims.org/ [Accessed May 8, 2018]; The Association of Godwin’s Spiritual Friends www.godwin.org.hk/ [Accessed May 8, 2018]; Hong Kong Theravada Meditation Society www.hktheravada.org/enaboutus.asp [Accessed May 8, 2018]. E.g. New Life Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association https://newlife330.hk/ [Accessed May 8, 2018]. See the website of mindfulness programmes in Hong Kong https://mindfulness.hk/en/newest/ [Accessed May 8, 2018]. Chan is a word translated from dhyā na, a Sanskrit term meaning ‘meditation,’ which is the equivalent to the Japanese term Zen. Jack Kornfield visited China in June 2015 https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/2a8T5XAwSq6bn qi7AA_ilA [Accessed May 8, 2018]. A revised Regulations on Religious Affairs, issued in June 2017, implemented more detailed rules on religious venues and activities. See the website of the State Administration for Religious Affairs of PRC www.sara.gov.cn/old/ztzz/xxdzjswtl/ [Accessed May 8, 2018].

References Basch, L., Schiller, N. C. and Blanc, C. S., 1994. Nations unbound: Transnational migration, postcolonial predicaments, and the deterritorialized nation-state. Langhorne, PA: Gordon and Brench. Birnbaum, R., 2003. Buddhist China at the century’s turn. China Quarterly, 174, 428–450. Bond, G. D., 2003. The Contemporary Lay Meditation Movement and Lay Gurus in Sri Lanka. Religion, 33, 23–55. Braun, E., 2013. The birth of insight: Meditation, modern Buddhism, and the Burmese monk Ledi Sayadaw. Chicago: Univesrity of Chicago Press. Braun, E., 2014. The birth of insight: Meditation, Modern Buddhism, and the Burmese Monk Ledi Sayadaw. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Chen, C., 2012. The development and influence of Theravā da Buddhism in Taiwan: A globalization perspective. Taiwanese Sociology, 24, 155–206. Coleman, S. and Eade, J., 2004a. Introduction. In: S. Coleman and J. Eade, eds. Reframing pilgrimage: Cultures in motion. London and New York: Routledge, 1–25. Cook, J., 2010. Meditation in Modern Buddhism: Renunciation and change in Thai Monastic life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dear, D., 2012. Chinese Yangsheng: Self-help and self-image. Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity, 7 (1), 1–33. Dharma Light Monthly. 2000. An interview with Lin Chung-on about learning Buddhism. Dharma Light Monthly, 12, 1–6. www.ss.ncu.edu.tw/~calin/article2008/00.pdf Dharmapā la, A., 1965. Return to righteousness: A collection of speeches, essays and letters of the Anagarika Dharmapala. Colombo: Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs. Fox, J., 2010. New religious movements. In: J. Hinnells, ed. The Routledge companion to the study of religion. Abingdon: Routledge, 339–353. Goenka, S. N., 2002. Meditation now: Inner peace through inner wisdom. Onalaska, WA: Vipassana Research Institute. Guthrie, D., 2009. China and globalization: The social, economic and political transformation of Chinese society (Revised Edition). Abingdon: Routledge. Hart, W., 1987. The art of living: Vipassana meditation as taught by S. N. Goenka. Mumbai: Embassy Books. Heelas, P., 1996. The New Age Movement: The celebration of the self and the sacralization of modernity. Oxford: Blackwell. Jordt, I., 2007. Burma’s mass lay meditation movement: Buddhism and the cultural construction of power. Athens: Ohio University Press. Juergensmeyer, M., 2012. Global religions, beliefs, and ideologies. In: H. K. Anheier, et al., eds. Encyclopedia of global studies, vol. 2, SAGE Reference, 715, accessed 23 Mar. 2017, http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GVRL&sw=w&u=unilanc&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CCX4183000225&it=r&asid=ce9fc4af23f4e5c58a 8cc18cbcf21b82.

196

Pilgrimage, traveling gurus, networks

Kabat-Zinn, J., 2011. Some reflections on the origins of MBSR, skillful means, and the trouble with maps. Contemporary Buddhism, 12 (1), 281–306. Kawanami, H., 2012. Buddhism. In: H. K. Anheier, et al., eds. Encyclopedia of Global Studies, vol. 1, SAGE Reference, 141–145, accessed 23 Mar. 2017, http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GVRL&sw=w&u=u nilanc&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CCX4183000062&it=r&asid=e23427f3edc601e80ed2a956a706e56c. Kivisto, P., 2014. Religion and Immigration. Cambridge: Polity Press. Knott, K., 2010a. Geography, space and the sacred. In: J. Hinnells, ed. The Routledge companion to the study of religion. Abingdon: Routledge, 476–491. Knott, K., 2016. How to study religion. In: L. Woodhead, C. Partridge and H. Kawanami, eds, Religions in the modern world: Traditions and transformations (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge, 15–40. Lau, N. S., 2014. Changing Buddhism in contemporary Chinese societies, with special reference to meditation and secular mindfulness practices in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Thesis (MPhil). University of Oxford. Lau, N. S., 2017a. Desire for self-healing: Lay practice of satipaṭṭhā na in contemporary China. Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity, 12 (1–2), 317–335. Lau, N. S., 2018. Modernising Buddhism: Emergence of Theravā da meditation communities in contemporary China. Thesis (PhD). Lancaster University. LeVine, S. and Gellner, D. N., 2005. Rebuilding Buddhism: The Theravā da movement in twentieth century Nepal. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Levitt, P. and Schiller, N. G., 2004. Conceptualizing simultaneity: A transnational social field perspective on society. International Migration Review, 38, 1027. Madsen, R., 2007. Democracy’s Dharma: Religious renaissance and political development in Taiwan. Berkeley: University of California Press. McMahan, D., 2008a. The making of Buddhist modernism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McMahan, D., 2017. Buddhism and global secularisms. Journal of Global Buddhism, 18, 112–128. Metcalf, F. A., 2002. The encounter of Buddhism and psychology. In: C. S. Prebish and M. Baumann, eds. Westward Dharma: Buddhism beyond Asia. Berkeley: California University Press, 348–364. Metta, B., 2002. A guide to monasteries and meditation centres in Asia [原始佛教道場指南 ]. Tainan: Woyu Publication. Palmer, D., 2007. Qigong fever: Body, science and utopia in China. New York: Columbia University Press. Pritzker, S. E., 2016. New Age with Chinese characteristics? Translating inner child emotion pedagogies in contemporary China. Ethos, 44 (2), 150–170. Prothero, S. R., 1996. The white Buddhist: The Asian odyssey of Henry Steel Olcott Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Rudolph, S. H., 1997. Introduction: Religion, states, and transnational civil society. In: S. H. Rudolph and J. Piscatori, eds. Transnational religion and fading states. Boulder: Westview, 1–24. Schedneck, B., 2015a. Thailand’s international meditation centers: Tourism and the global commodification of religious practices. Abingdon: Routledge. Segal, Z. V., Williams, J. M. G. and Teasdale, J. D., 2012. Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford. Smart, N. 2006. The global future of religion. In: M. Juergensmeyer, ed. The Oxford handbook of global religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 625–30. Tambiah, S. J., 1984. The Buddhist Saints of the forest and the cult of amulets Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Turner, V. W. and Turner, E. L. B., 1978. Image and pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press. Tweed, T. A., 1997. Our Lady of the Exile: Diasporic religion at a Catholic Shrine in Miami. New York: Oxford University Press. Vásquez, M. A., 2016. Chapter 15 Religion, globalization and migration. In: L. Woodhead, C. Partridge and H. Kawanami, eds. Religions in the modern world: Traditions and transformations (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge, 431–452. Welch, H., 1967. The practice of Chinese Buddhism 1900–1950. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967. Williams, J. M. G. and Kabat-Zinn, J., 2013. Mindfulness: Diverse perspectives on its meaning, origins, and multiple applications at the intersection of science and dharma DiverMin. In: J. M. G. Williams and J. Kabat-Zinn, eds. Mindfulness: Diverse perspectives on its meaning, origins and applications. Abingdon: Routledge, 1–17. Wilson, B., 1992. The social dimensions of sectarianism. New York: Oxford University Press.

197

Ngar-sze Lau

Xueyu. 2015. The socialist transformation of Chinese Buddhism [中國佛教的社會主義改造 ]. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2015. Ziyan. 2009. The analysis of non-profit publications of Theravā da Buddhism (A). Management for Buddhist Libraries, 50, 15–21.

Five key texts Coleman, S. and Eade, J. eds. 2004b. Reframing pilgrimage: Cultures in motion. London and New York: Routledge. Knott, K., 2010b. Chapter 9 Geography, space and the sacred. In: J. Hinnells, ed. The Routledge companion to the study of religion. Abingdon: Routledge, 476–491. Lau, N. S., 2017b. Desire for self-healing: Lay practice of satipaṭṭhā na in contemporary China. Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity, 12(1–2), 317–335. McMahan, D., 2008b. The making of Buddhist modernism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schedneck, B., 2015b. Thailand’s international meditation centers: Tourism and the global commodification of religious practices. Abingdon: Routledge.

198

16 Globalization and asceticism Foreign ascetics on the threshold of Hindu religious orders Daniela Bevilacqua

Introduction Indian ascetics, with their ideals of spirituality and detachment, have captured the Western imagination since the end of the 19th century. While some Indian gurus began to travel internationally to spread their teachings, at that time it was almost impossible for a foreigner to become part of a Hindu traditional religious order (sampradā ya). However, this began to change in the second half of the 20th century, and today not only can foreigners be initiated, but some of them are even able to obtain important religious titles. This chapter focuses on these groups of foreigners as representative of contemporary changes that have come about as a result of the new possibilities of cultural and religious exchange offered by a globalized society, as well as a revolution in travel and communication; changes that have allowed individuals to overcome strict identities connected to the geographical-socialcultural milieu in which they grew up. As pointed out by D. Lehman (2002, p. 346), the interaction of religion and globalization has moved boundaries, bringing different practices to new groups and new settings and creating multifarious identities that crisscross frontiers. This has led to a dialectical process of Westernization of the East and Easternization of the West. Westernization is often explained as occurring ‘largely because the West exercises power over other civilizations, whether the power is military, economic, political, or cultural in nature’ (Campbell 2007 p. 40), and often includes several ideals (like equality and female emancipation for example) that are seen as necessary today for the ‘improvement’ of society. Similarly, the presence of Indian gurus in the West has contributed to interest in the ‘wisdom of the East,’ which has frequently been cast since the 19th century as providing ways to overcome ‘disillusionment with the wisdom of the West’ (Campbell 2007, p. 41). Foreign Hindu ascetics represent a case in which the Easternization of the individual may lead to the Westernization of the chosen Eastern path. This chapter describes some of the trajectories of foreigners who have been initiated into Hindu traditional ascetic orders. First, the dichotomy between Modern Hindu Traditionalism and Neo-Hinduism will be introduced. It will be seen that the ascetics on whom this chapter focuses belong to orders that can be described as part of the former. It

199

Daniela Bevilacqua

will then be argued that because of new communication technologies, new politicaleconomic contexts and the presence of foreigners themselves, this form of Hinduism acquires in some contexts features more commonly found in Neo-Hinduism.

Contexts and methods An understanding of contemporary Hinduism can begin by considering the word Hinduism to be an umbrella term under which further classifications are possible. A useful one is that proposed by De Michelis (2004, p. 37), in which Hinduism is divided into Classic Hinduism, Modern Hindu Traditionalism and Neo-Hinduism, thus making clear that various Hinduisms coexist, each characterized by the influences it has received and assimilated, and the changes that it has subsequently undergone. Following De Michelis (2004, p. 37), Classic Hinduism has to be considered as including not only what belongs to the Brahmanic tradition and is testified to in orthodox texts, but also sampradā yas belonging to heterodox streams. It was present in the pre-18th century context, before the advent of British colonial power in India. Subsequently, British presence promoted Westernization and its ‘imported culture,’ which affected ‘traditional ways of life in a noticeable degree’ (De Michelis 2004, p. 38). The influence has in part led to the rise of Modern Hindu Traditionalism and Neo-Hinduism. As already mentioned, this dichotomy is of fundamental importance in understanding the directions that Hinduism has taken in contexts influenced by, and resulting from, globalized circumstances. Using Halbfass’s definitions (1990, pp. 219–220), 19th century Neo-Hinduism and Classical Hinduism are distinguished by ‘the different ways in which they appeal to the tradition, the structures which they employ to interrelate the indigenous and the foreign, and the degree of their receptivity vis-a-vis the West.’ This does not mean, however, that Neo-Hinduism breaks with tradition. Rather, it invokes it ‘to find in it the power and context for its response to the West,’ but as ‘the result of a rupture and discontinuity . . . basic concepts and principles of this tradition have been reinterpreted and provided with new meanings as a result of the encounter with the West’ (Halbfass 1990, pp. 219–220). Other features of Neo-Hinduism include the following: ‘the tendency to give more weight to a new rational reading of the texts, bypassing traditional schools; less allegiance to sampradā yas and gurus; a tendency to regard God as abstract and aniconic; and an emphasis on direct religious experience’ (Sardella 2013, p. 235). The gurus who began to leave India at the end of the 19th century to preach in the West belonged to the wave of Neo-Hinduism and had to communicate with Western audiences unfamiliar with Hindu deities and practices. In doing so, ‘Western values are firstly embraced and then included in a new vision of Hinduism,’ and the transnational diffusion of Hindu-based beliefs and practices ‘implied a process of Westernization, which started even before they crossed Indian frontiers’ (Altglas 2011, p. 234). Neo-Hindu gurus are referred to as ‘modern gurus’ because, following Jaffrelot’s definition (1999, pp. 195–196), they place particular emphasis on ‘individual growth, social concern and religion as a code of conduct for every man to make life a success,’ and because their ‘spiritual practice is based on discourses in English with messages adapted to the urban middle class with whom they often share the same background.’ In an effort to be universal or global, these gurus and their movements were affected by transnational processes, often supporting and promoting ideas that were not those of India’s ancient tradition, but rather those of the counter-cultural milieu (Altglas 2011, p. 237). In the 1960s, young people in Western societies, driven by a desire for rebellion and by the search for unconventional forms of 200

Globalization and asceticism

awareness, became fundamental social agents, open to cultural innovation and ready to reject preconceived historical-cultural heritage (Palmisano and Pannofino 2017, pp. 128–129). In that period, several modern gurus provided a generation of Westerners with various spiritual teachings and practices. For example, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi developed Transcendental Meditation; Swami Muktananda introduced the path of Siddha Yoga; Swami Sivananda founded the Divine Life Society; and Bhaktivedanta Swami founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKON) (Altglas 2007; Khandelwal 2012). Directly or indirectly these gurus encouraged spiritual ‘searchers’ to go to India. Some seekers, however, did not find gurus associated with Neo-Hinduism, but rather found ascetics belonging to sampradā yas representative of Modern Hindu Traditionalism, which appears as a middle path between Classical Hinduism and Neo-Hinduism. Modern Hindu Traditionalism resists ‘the closer contact with the West of Neo-Hindu thought and practice, but also the views of classical Hinduism that were perceived to be outmoded’ (Sardella 2013, p. 236). It preserves an essentially unbroken continuity with the tradition, carrying on what is already present while also making additions and extrapolations. Whereas Neo-Hindu gurus are referred to as ‘modern,’ in this chapter gurus and ascetics representing Modern Hindu Traditionalism are referred to as ‘traditional.’ A fundamental difference between Neo-Hinduism and Modern Hindu Traditionalism concerns the idea of Sanā tana Dharma, a label with which in the 19th century Hindus began to refer to their eternal or universal religion. Modern Hindu Traditionalism considers Sanā tana Dharma to be ‘a pure interpretation of Hinduism, drawn from a plurality of texts, inclusive of the Vedas, Puranas, Upanishads and Tantras,’ and therefore it supports the presence of the various sampradā yas with their diverse approaches, rites and ceremonies (Kasturi 2010, p. 123). NeoHinduism, on the other hand, aims for a unified Hindu religion rather than the plurality of the sampradā yas. Indian traditional asceticism has indeed been characterized by various orders, groups and subgroups whose members follow sā dhanā s (religious disciplines) that vary with respect to the importance given to devotional practice, to the outside world and to the body as a means of liberation. The foreigners dealt with in this chapter belong to some of the sampradā yas that today are representative of Modern Hindu Traditionalism and in which asceticism demands the renunciation (saṃnyā sa, virakt) of social life. Many of these sampradā yas have historically upheld caste hierarchies and not admitted lower castes or women, who in any case often face strong opposition from their families and society to a path of asceticism. Such a path is not considered appropriate for women since it takes them beyond the boundaries of a safe, normal, social life (Bevilacqua 2017). Traditional asceticism, however, is not a rigid structure: its history shows that constant adaptation has allowed ascetic traditions to survive, transforming themselves in the wake of wider social and religious changes (Bevilacqua 2018, pp. 13–15). The presence of foreigners, both male and female, in these orders today is an example of this adaptation and is in itself a remarkable change. Nevertheless, scholarship on foreign ascetics in traditional sampradā yas is still a relatively inchoate field, apart from a handful of monographs (Allop 2000; Tillis 2004), autobiographies (Swami Agehanenda 1961; Rampuri 2005), articles (Khandelwal 2007, 2012) and references to foreign ascetics in more general publications on asceticism (Hausner 2007). During my own fieldwork among sā dhus in India, however, I met a number of such foreigners and collected information from informal conversations with them, both in India and abroad. I also collected information while talking with Indian sā dhus and collected data from websites and Facebook pages managed by foreign ascetics. Although the number of individuals presented is limited to 16, their ages (from 24 to 70 years old), origins (Europe 201

Daniela Bevilacqua

and the Americas) and social backgrounds mean that they constitute a diverse sample that can provide valuable insights and the basis for an analytical framework. Although there are no numerical data available, my experience at religious melā s (fairs) suggests that the majority of foreigners have joined traditional Ś aiva orders, rather than Vaisṇ ̣ava groups. Clearly, I do not consider here foreigners belonging to modern Vaisṇ ̣ava groups which nevertheless claim a more ancient lineage, such as the ISKON which was founded in 1966. In addition, the sample illustrates ways in which the relationship between traditional ascetics and foreigners changed between the 1970s and the present, allowing us to catch glimpses of wider transformations within Hindu asceticism.

Foreigners on the path of Hindu traditional asceticism At the beginning of the 20th century, while modern gurus began to initiate foreigners in the West—Swami Vivekananda, for example, initiated two ascetics in New York, a middle-aged Russian Jew known as Swami Kripananda and an elderly American lady of French extraction known as Swami Abhayananda (Sil 1997, p. 163)—Hindu traditional orders in India kept their doors closed to them. According to Brahmanic sources, not all castes can undertake the ascetic path and many, as already noted, do not include lower castes or women. Foreigners were considered outcastes and by definition ineligible. Swami Agehananda Bharti, who was born in Vienna in 1923, reports in his autobiography that in the 1940s he had to be initiated by an Indian guru who belonged to a Neo-Hindu sect because, ‘according to the 90 per cent of orthodox Hindu opinion, anything of this sort is impossible—you have to be born a Hindu’ (1961, p. 46). Foreigners began slowly to be admitted into those orders, however, which have a history of accepting low-caste disciples, such as the Nā gā section of the Daś nā mı̄ sampradā ya, the Udā sı̄ n akhā rā ̣ and the Nā th and Rā mā nandı̄ sampradā yas. Nā gā s are the naked saṃnyā sins (ascetics) traditionally grouped in regiments—called akhā rā ̣ —that form the army of the Daś nā mı̄ sampradā ya (see Clark 2006). As suggested by Gross (1992, p. 73). These akhā rā ̣ s had allowed entry to landless peasants and the urban unemployed, who were then able to acquire an ‘identity, a sense of security and a potential for accumulation of wealth.’ The Udā sı̄ n akhā rā ̣ , on the other hand, probably inherited its openness from Sikhism, to which it was initially connected. The lineages of the Nā th sampradā ya, an order traditionally associated with the practice of haṭha yoga, also do not discriminate between castes and in the Rā mā nandı̄ sampradā ya the ascetic path is allowed to anybody regardless of gender, caste or religion. Rā mā nandı̄ ascetics are usually called vairā gı̄ s and the order has a history of admitting disciples from low castes (see Bevilacqua 2018). Despite these examples of open recruitment, the first generation of foreign sā dhus had nonetheless to struggle to be admitted to ascetic orders when they arrived in India in the 1970s. R. Purı̄ , who was born in the United States, faced much opposition to his initiation into the Jūnā akhā rā ̣ —one of the seven akhā rā ̣ s which are part of the Daś anā mı̄ sampradā ya— and several sā dhus disagreed with it because as a non-Indian he had no gotra (clan) and therefore he could not be given a janeu, the sacred thread received by the three higher castes (Brahmans, Ksatriyas and Vaiś yas) during the ceremony of upanayana, which marks a second ̣ social and ritual birth and eligibility to study the Vedic texts. He was finally initiated when, like other persistent foreigners elsewhere in India, he found an individual guru who was willing to give him a chance and who appreciated his commitment to the austere, ascetic lifestyle. The fact that this lifestyle could also be seen as ‘alternative’ satisfied the specific ideals of those first seekers who reached India on the wave of the counterculture movements (see 202

Globalization and asceticism

Campbell 2007, p. 14). For example, S. Dā s and G. Bā bā reached India in the 1970s after leaving their countries (Italy and Canada respectively) as a sign of protest against Western political systems. India represented for them, on the other hand, a place where individuals could be themselves and where jobless and wandering ascetics were supported and respected. S. Dā s met his Udā sı̄ n guru by chance and was taught some yoga, meditation, mantras and the daily rituals. G. Bā bā did not reveal his affiliation to me. Another foreign ascetic, I. Nā th, arrived in India when he was only 14 years old and initially began to wander with ascetics. Later he met the man who was to become his guru and remained with him. At that time, being initiated into these orders meant first spending months with the guru, following him in his pilgrimages and wandering, often in very hard conditions. As J. Dā s from the UK told me, meeting with the guru over the years was uncertain, depending to a certain extent on chance, since there were no mobile phones or sophisticated communication methods at the time and often the meeting point was given according to religious festivals happening in this or that holy city. Foreign disciples were not given any special treatment or rights, and it was the foreigner who had to adapt to the situation if he wanted to be part of the order. Exemplary is the story narrated by the disciples of D. Girı̄ , who was originally from Italy and was a saṃnyā sin of the Ā vā han akhā rā ̣ who seriously followed the ascetic path and spent a lot of time in India with his guru before returning to Italy. Later he changed his affiliation because his akhā rā ̣ did not want to recognize the disciples that he had initiated abroad. After a protracted dispute, however, he eventually had his 100 disciples accepted by the Jū nā akhā rā ̣ . Today the situation is different, with many gurus more than willing to accept foreign ascetics and an increasing number of foreigners ready to become initiated into traditional orders. To understand this new situation, we have to look at the Indian and global socioeconomic context since the 1990s.

Changes in the ascetic world Political powers and wealthy individuals have always supported ascetics and religious centers. By the 1990s, the national policy of economic liberalization opened up India’s markets to the world and businesses began to operate in a more competitive global economy (Fuller and Harris 2001). In the same period the political religious nationalism of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and the continuous propaganda of religious and cultural associations such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) transformed the public sphere, which became increasingly religious in tenor with Hindus more assertive about celebrating their religion and identity in direct opposition to Muslims and Christians (Fuller and Harris 2005, p. 227). As argued by Nanda (2009, p. 144), indeed, ‘economic globalization and neo-liberal reforms have created the material and ideological conditions’ that enabled Hindu religiosity to grow. The support of the state became ‘a channel for pumping taxpayers’ money into promoting temples, ashrams, and pilgrimage spots,’ making Hinduism a ‘rapidly growing and lucrative market’ (Nanda 2009, p. 109). Thus, a threesided partnership between the secular state, temples, and corporate interests was created: [t]he government provides land either as a gift or at a throwaway price for temples’ investments in schools, universities, hospitals, and other charities . . . At this stage, industrialists and business houses step in: they make donations to build and sustain these religious institutions headed by the holy man/guru they may happen to revere. (Nanda 2009, p. 114) 203

Daniela Bevilacqua

Many wealthy people direct their devotion towards modern gurus, but many continue to support more traditional ones because the connection with a specific traditional sampradā ya responds to a demand for authenticity and religious authority by the faithful. The amount of money that flows into the religious world is far more than in the past, and with it has come greater participation of lay people in the activities of religious centers as well as increased numbers of lay people in the company of ascetics. As a Rā mā nandı̄ sā dhu told me, up to a few decades ago religious gatherings were attended mostly by sā dhus: there was not the huge participation of lay people that occurs today. The organization of religious festivals has at the same time come under the control of politicians, transforming such festivals into tourist attractions for both Indians and foreigners. Today ascetics can rely not only on larger numbers of supporters coming from the middle and upper classes of society but also on supporters from abroad. The roads to the East are, indeed, more accessible. According to M. Nanda (2009, p. 16): The creation of trans-planetary communication networks in the last thirty years or so is something radically new . . . another dimension of space—‘super-territorial space,’ or space that is not linked to any specific physical territory on the map—has become widely available for carrying out all kind of activities. New transnational religious networks are emerging ‘as globalization disembeds religions from their historic homelands and scatters them around the world’ (Nanda 2009, p. 172). This means that a single individual can now remain in a temple or small religious setting but, because of new technologies, is able to reach any corner of the globe and have the opportunity to become globally famous and attract followers. As stressed by Nanda (Nanda 2009, p. 14), for the first time in human history, it has become technologically feasible for ordinary people, using everyday, household gadgets, to communicate across oceans almost as easily as it is to talk to their neighbor across the street. Even those who lack the resources and the opportunities are becoming aware of the possibilities. In recent years, the Internet and then social media like Facebook and WhatsApp have provided an interesting window on the life of sā dhus and been a factor in the increased interaction between ascetics and the wider society. Lay people donate to ascetics not only money but also material things (such as laptops, mobile phones, and even motorized vehicles) that are changing their lifestyle. As well, many ā ś rams are today becoming so predisposed to hosting lay people that they have the comforts of guesthouses, with amenities such as hot water and flushing toilets. This situation is well accepted by many ascetics because the more disciples and followers they have, the more political or charismatic power their order will have as well. At the same time, wealthy devotees can support their guru to achieve higher status. While making a donation or giving a daksiṇ ̣ā after receiving a religious title has been quite a normal procedure, the possibility of making a payment before entering a religious order or getting a title has now opened up. Lay Indian people may support their gurus by purchasing titles in this way, and foreigners do it as well. That is why there are now more and more sā dhus who search for foreigners (especially during religious gatherings), knowing that some will also pay a lot of money to be initiated or to skip some steps of the training. Such sā dhus may also have in mind the increased recognition they could obtain through the foreigners and the likelihood that 204

Globalization and asceticism

foreigners will return to their countries of origin, only to come back to India with more money and perhaps friends. Furthermore, some sā dhus see foreigners as their ticket for flying abroad, an interest that is quite common among the new generations of sā dhus. Several young ascetics disclosed to me that after having traveled far and wide in India, they now wanted the opportunity to travel abroad and see the world. But to accomplish this, they know they need not only the economic support of devotees but also letters from individuals in other countries to assist with getting visas. This openness to foreigners is clearly not always or only based on utilitarian motives, and some ascetics, as already noted, can be genuinely curious about foreigners and prepared to accept them as disciples. For example, in her study of the Nā th sampradā ya, Bouillier (2008, p. 280) argues that today’s monasteries show a less sectarian attitude and are open to those who want to apply a more individual approach to the tradition of the order. There is also an interest among some gurus and ascetics in new approaches that can better satisfy the religious quest of a wider society that now spills far beyond the geographical borders of India, and one in which requests (for example, for ceremonies, initiations or visualization of Gods and Goddesses) can come from all over the world. For similar reasons, some gurus and ascetics adapt their religious methods according to the new interests of followers and supporters, and ascetics belonging to traditional sampradā yas, for example, often give foreigners a very simplified idea of Hinduism, closer in fact to Neo-Hinduism. They may also use ‘New Age’ concepts that they themselves have learned from other foreigners or the Internet. This chapter will now further illuminate these changes in ‘the ascetic world’ by examining more closely the place of foreigners in traditional religious orders in recent decades, and attitudes towards those foreigners.

Foreigners on the threshold of ascetic lives Newer generations of foreigners often approach Hindu philosophies being moved first by the practices—yoga, chanting and meditation—which are seen as instruments through which to fight today’s materialism, bureaucratization and consumerism (Altglas 2008). Since the end of the 19th century, modern Indian gurus have ‘used’ yoga—or better a transnational version of it—as a means by which to represent Indian spirituality and attract a Western audience (Strauss 2005; Singleton 2010). Since yoga became a globalized practice, yoga groups with religious connotations have sparked interest in gurus and traditional orders connected with yoga practice, such as the Nā th sampradā ya. This happened in the case of M. Nā th, an accomplished guru of Russian origin who went to India in search of Nā th yogis to deepen his knowledge of yoga. Later he became a world-famous teacher and today he has about 100 students in various countries (such as Israel, Latvia, Spain and the United States) through which he spreads the sampradā ya’s teaching of yoga and the Nā th tradition. On the same path is S. Nā th who runs a yoga school in the Czech Republic. At the same time, there are individuals who reached India without a precise plan, in search of answers to their imprecise questions but who decided to take initiation and remain in India after having ‘mystical’ experiences. For example, Austrian C. Dā s had a ‘spiritual awakening’ while collecting ś aligrams (holy stones dedicated to the god Visṇ ̣u), and in 2008 became initiated into the Rā mā nandı̄ sampradā ya. She now lives a retired life with her guru in Uttar Pradesh. M. Nā th, from Italy, went to India after he dreamed several times that Lord Krṣ ṇ ̣a was suggesting he should find his path there. Eventually he was initiated into the Nā th sampradā ya. 205

Daniela Bevilacqua

Foreigners may become sā dhus for a number of other reasons. One is the appeal of belonging to an ‘exotic’ sect, while others may be attracted to the charisma to be gained by becoming a guru. It is not rare, in fact, for ‘successful’ foreign ascetics to become gurus, with followers all around the world through social media. ‘Old’ foreign ascetics can drive new generations towards Hindu asceticism and people initiated between the 1970s and 1990s became bridges from their own country to India. Many created in their countries a path for those who might be called ‘sā dhus at a distance,’ which is to say sā dhus who were not initiated in India and follow their religious discipline abroad. When I asked H. Girı̄ , an Italian saṃnyā sin, why so many young foreigners were attracted to Indian ascetics and spirituality, he replied: But because of drugs. You meet a guru, or a guru calls you to sit with him and share a chillum. Then you start enjoying the smoking. And that is the main practice initially. But then the guru gives you also some teachings, and if you are interested you continue and dig into Indian spirituality. This consideration was true for most of the foreign ascetics I met: their first encounter with Indian spirituality was with its chillums and only later came its theories, or in some cases a Westernized version of its theories. The Easternization of some individuals, indeed, leads at times to a Westernization of traditional asceticism or simply an adaptation of it according to the particular people involved. Either can result for them in lives lived on a kind of threshold. The concept of ‘threshold’ here is similar to that of liminality defined by Turner (1967, pp. 95–98) as a state of being ‘betwixt and between’ in which liminal people ‘are necessarily ambiguous,’ since their conditions ‘elude or slip through the network of classifications that normally locate states and positions in cultural space,’ and they become therefore outside ‘the’ single, accepted social reality. Since the term liminality has been amply used and developed (see Thomassen 2009), I prefer to use ‘threshold’ to describe the position of foreign ascetics. The threshold represents a doorsill, an intermediate, in-between place that potentially allows entry to a space, but at the same time can represent a limit if this entrance is not completely actualized. The threshold can become a place in which innovations occur because it is where two realities (in the current case ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’) meet. Below, I discuss the various ways in which this threshold manifests. A first aspect of the threshold manifests in the confrontation of foreign ascetics with Indian society. Indian ascetics also confront society, of course, and occupy a threshold in which they are supported by it without being part of it. At the same time, however, they are a familiar sight and the position of the renouncer is generally accepted. However, the presence of foreigners among ascetics always arouses a particular curiosity: during religious gatherings Indian people very often stop in front of camps where foreign ascetics sit or smoke, simply to take photographs. To the general Indian population, it seems that, despite having taken a dı̄ ksā ̣ and being theoretically as respected as Indian ascetics, a foreigner in India is perceived first of all as a foreigner. Foreign ascetics also live on the threshold of their society of origin, a threshold made more precarious by the fact that to many they represent a very unusual religiosity, perhaps between the exotic and the bizarre. Therefore, it can be very difficult to live off alms, as ascetics do in India, while at the same time following a religious discipline. An example is given by D. Girı̄ : when he is in Italy he stays in his temple, which is in a very remote place, and spends his time alone, doing his practices. Since he has only a few supporters who can 206

Globalization and asceticism

take care of his expenses, however, he often finds it difficult to travel to India. To overcome this problem, he is sometimes obliged to work, even though that is not normally permitted by his order, and on rare occasions he organizes small yoga training sessions that attract a few curious Italians. A second aspect of the threshold is a ‘cultural’ one, arising because foreigners do not always understand or accept the norms of the new Indian society they enter. When abroadformed-sā dhus go to India to immerse themselves in their ‘religious tradition’ they find that the ‘theory’ they have learned does not always correspond to the realities in India. The Italian J. Girı̄ was initiated in Italy in 1995 when he was just 17 years old and went to India only twice. In Ujjain, he was quite confused about his sā dhanā and was scolded by his brethren because he could not easily sit with crossed legs on the floor, revealing an absence of daily practice. However, this aspect of the threshold is also felt by older ascetics, who got initiated in India but are no longer integrated into their religious order. They are following a path they decided upon when they were young and are somehow ‘stuck’ in their ascetic life. For example, neither S. Dā s nor G. Bā bā lives in an ā śram of their ascetic order, although both have connections with various pilgrimage centers in India. They now spend most of their time with other foreigners they meet in India and who often become their source of support. Money for daily survival, or how to earn it when not in India, is a major problem. Interestingly, Khandelwal (2012, p. 215) provides similar examples of foreigners ‘stuck’ in Rishikesh. These conditions often lead to lives on the edge of multiple identities: several foreign ascetics are on the threshold between an ascetic life and a kind of lay-life in ascetic garb. Without a full awareness of what an ascetic life really entails—or, sometimes, despite knowing what it entails—they prefer to adjust it according to their own needs and according to life events. A particularly revealing aspect of a lay-life in ascetic garb is the fact that many foreign ascetics, despite taking saṃnyā sa, have relationships with women. This is the case, for example, of R. Purı̄ : during religious gatherings he seems a well-integrated sā dhu, but most of the time he lives in Goa with a partner in his ā śram, where he gives teachings and organizes yoga retreats. S. Dā s as well was in a relationship for 18 years. Despite his order being a celibate one, he said that the decision is up to the individual and that his guru taught him so. However, according to his ascetic brethren, this is absolutely untrue and demonstrates his unreliability, meaning that he is an ascetic only by clothing. J. Girı̄ has also been criticized for his relationship with women, but like S. Dā s he said that his guru taught him that celibacy is not necessary because the intention in the sā dhanā is more important. This is an issue that also affects Indian sā dhus, who by rule are celibate, but if a ‘simple’ sā dhu is discovered to have a partner, he is likely to be expelled from the order unless he is very influential or has only a religious relationship with his partner. This is not the case with foreigners. It would seem, then, that Indian gurus are not particularly strict when it comes to foreigners. Low expectations and inconsistent behaviors towards them are often present, and this indicates a fourth aspect of the threshold in regard to the teachings they can get. There is sometimes a kind of cultural indifference and diffidence towards a non-Indian individual that becomes a lack of transparency and incompleteness of information. Some Indian ascetics have suggested to me that Indian gurus limit their teachings because they do not consider foreigners completely worthy: despite all, they are the result of a ‘karma’ which made them grow up outside India. Other Indian ascetics might limit their teachings because they interpret the fact that many foreigners do not follow the rules as proof of their lack of a serious commitment to the sā dhanā . The comment I received most often about foreign 207

Daniela Bevilacqua

ascetics was that they are sā dhu manoranjan ke liye, sā dhus for amusement, although at the same time there are some foreign ascetics who are obviously committed to the practice and are therefore held in high esteem. Khandelwal (2012, p. 217) reported that, according to a Swami she met, although: [t]here are some [foreigners] who genuinely wanted to take sannyasa . . . the majority wanted orange robes for their personal vanity . . . to go back to the West and pose as swamis without any qualification whatsoever and then to make disciples. Consequently, foreign ascetics who live abroad are accepted to a degree but are also considered with suspicion, because they can appear and disappear from the sampradā ya and because—as a sā dhu told me—‘what they do once they are back is out of our jurisdiction.’ Some foreign ascetics seem to spread teachings more similar to Neo-Hindu movements than the teachings of their own religious orders. As we have seen, indeed, Neo-Hindu movements aim to spread a universal message that detaches ‘Hindu practices and beliefs from their specific cultural, national, and religious roots’ (Altglas 2010, p. 240). Following an approach of ‘religious appropriation’ (Tomlinson 1999, p. 84), they often make a process of selection, adaptation and interpretation of the teachings that they have learned, often simplifying them. This appropriation can also lead to adaptation of the sampradā ya’s rules to make them more suited to social realities outside India. For example, the Russian-born M. Nā th took the permission of his guru to initiate foreigners, and today his community of followers is quite spread out. In the Nā th sampradā ya there are two stages of initiation (dı̄ ksā ̣ ): the first is the aughar dı̄ ksā ̣ , which refers usually to the training time, while the second is called darśanı̄ and refers to the full accomplishment of the teachings (see Bouillier 2017). M. Nath claims, however, that an aughar, or individual who has received the first initiation, can decide whether to live as a householder or an ascetic. This represents an important variation because in the Nā th sampradā ya in India an aughar is necessarily a renouncer and cannot maintain the previous social life style. Furthermore, M. Nā th is also giving initiation to women, something that a male guru is not allowed to do in India: generally, a woman should be initiated by another woman. Gender indeed represents a final aspect of the threshold for female foreign ascetics. In the male-dominated ascetic world, as already noted, the traditional ascetic path is usually very arduous for Indian women, which is a reason why only a few groups have a female section (Bevilacqua 2017). However, Vijaya Ramaswami (1997) and Ursula King (1984) suggest that renunciation has become more, not less, accessible to women over the last century, with an increasing number of modern female gurus (who can often be considered to be in the NeoHinduism streams) and female ascetics as well. According to Amanda Lucia (2014, p. 16), there are two reasons that have caused female ascetics to appear more frequently in modern politics, social movements and academic publications: first, ‘the intellectual tides instigated by the political impulses of subaltern studies and feminism have brought forth a generation of anthropologists and scholars of religion who have actively sought out women’s narratives of renunciation’; and second, ‘Westernization and globalization have introduced the rapid transformation of modern Indian society in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries’ therefore ‘these modern forces challenge the primacy of Brahmanical exclusions of women and have created new cultural spaces for a multiplicity of voices occupying positions of religious exemplars.’ Likely because of these modern forces, female foreigners have been more readily accepted in the ascetic path. Although many are involved in the practice of sevā (service) and belong 208

Globalization and asceticism

to ā śrams that run schools and hospitals, several distinguish themselves by their more austere practices. For example, a Japanese sā dhvı̄ called Keiko Mā tā was allowed to practice austere and rigorous training at altitudes between 5,000 and 6,000 meters in the Himalayas with Hari Bā bā and under the guidance of Pilot Bā bā , a sā dhu from the Jū nā akhā rā ̣ . Keiko Mā tā and Svā mı̄ Ānand Lila Girı̄ , a Russian sā dhvı̄ , were bestowed with the title of mahā man ̣d ̣aleśvara (spiritual guardianship and Superior of a religious district), one of the highest titles of the Hindu religious hierarchies which had been given to hardly any sā dhvı̄ s in the past, indicating therefore a meaningful change. Female foreigners, however, sometimes are unaware of the etiquette that should be followed with male ascetics and this leads at the very least to misunderstandings. There are also cases of misbehavior on the part of Indian ascetics who apply certain ideas about foreign women (such as that they are open-minded and sexually available) to foreign sā dhvı̄ s, and several cases of sexual harassment and rape of foreign female ascetics have been reported. However, I have also heard many stories of young sā dhus who were completely captivated by Western female disciples and ended up marrying them and leaving India to start lives as householders.

Conclusion Globalization has created a favorable background for the circulation of people and ideas. According to Tsing (2000, p. 336), circulation is a central theme of globalization: ‘Many things are said to circulate, ranging from people to money; cultures to information . . . circulation is thus tapped for the endorsement of multicultural enrichment, freedom, mobility, communication, and creative hybridity.’ The circulation of ideas and cultures through new media, and the circulation of people due to new means of transport, have created ‘new opportunities for the global transmission of religion’ so that religious leaders can ‘communicate easily the universal ideas of transnational religions to their expanding communities worldwide’ (Juergensmeyer 2006, p. 9). In this chapter we have seen the circulation of traditional Hindu asceticism, and that the increased presence of foreigners in traditional orders has been driven by a new socioeconomic, political and religious context in India, one that derives from globalization. Although the attention of scholars is often on modern gurus because of their international appeal, this chapter has focused on traditional gurus and orders. These gurus, who represent what we have defined as Modern Hindu Traditionalism, are often considered as social leaders thanks to their traditionally legitimized authority. However, they often maintain this authority thanks to a predisposition to ‘evolve’ their role according to changed social conditions, crossing domains and therefore extending their range of action. The inclusion of foreigners as disciples can be seen as part of attempts by ancient sampradā yas to modernize and indeed their traditions survive because they are in a constant state of evolution. The presence of foreigners may indeed be a catalyst for this evolution, because it creates conditions in which the needs of the Other (a foreigner) are very obvious and require immediate answers. Foreign ascetics, therefore, have begun to occupy a place in the evolution of Modern Hindu Traditionalism. We have seen that they approach and live Hindu asceticism in various ways, interpreting and including it in their lives according to their needs. As disciples of traditional gurus, they can support their masters, helping them to manage relationships in India and abroad through sophisticated social media and expanding their area of influence or power. As gurus themselves, they can spread the teachings of their religious orders beyond 209

Daniela Bevilacqua

the boundaries of India also adapting those teachings and thus ‘glocalizing’ Modern Hindu Traditionalism: creating it in different shapes in different geographic areas, but coexisting with a ‘universal’ shape (Robertson 2003). In so doing, they sometimes approach NeoHinduism, and we have also seen a Neo-Hindu influence in the ways Indian sā dhus interact with foreigners. It is clear that both Modern Hindu Traditionalism and Neo-Hinduism are rapidly changing, influenced by both tradition and modernity, in order to satisfy the religious questing not only of a multifarious Indian society but now numbers of foreigners as well.

References Agehanenda, B., 1961. The Ochre Robe: An Autobiography. London: Allen & Unwin. Allop, M., 2000. Western Sadhus and Sannyasins in India. Prescott: Hohm Press. Altglas, V., 2007. The Global Diffusion and Westernization of Neo-Hindu Movements: Siddha Yoga and Sivananda Centres. Religious of South Asia, 1 (2), 217–237. Altglas, V., 2008. Indian Gurus and the Quest for Self-Perfection. In: J. Stolz, ed. Salvation Goods and Religious Markets: Theory and Application. Bern: Peter Lang, 211–234. Altglas, V., 2010. Globalisation and Religion. An Overview. [Pre-print version of Introduction]. In: V. Altglas, ed. Religion and Globalization: Critical Concepts in Social Studies. London: Routledge, 1–22. Altglas, V., 2011. Yoga and Kabbalah as World Religions? A Comparative Perspective on Globalization of Religious Resources. In: B. Huss, ed. Kabbalah and Contemporary Spiritual Revival. Beersheba: BenGurion University of the Negev Press, 233–250. Bevilacqua, D., 2017. Are Women Entitled to Become Ascetics? An Historical and Ethnographic Glimpse on Female Asceticism in Hindu Religions. Kervan International Journal of Afro-Asiatic Studies, 21, 51–79. Bevilacqua, D., 2018. Modern Hindu Traditionalism: The Śrı̄ Maṭh and the Jagadguru Rā mā nandā cā rya in the Evolution of the Rā mā nandı̄ Sampradā ya. Hindu Studies Series. London: Routledge. Bouillier, V., 2008. Itinérance et vie Monastique. Les Ascètes Nath Yogis en Inde Contemporaine. Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme. Bouillier, V., 2017. Monastic Wanderers: Nā th Yogı̄ Ascetics in Modern South Asia. Delhi: Manohar Publishing House. Campbell, C., 2007. The Easternization of the West. Boulder: Paradigm Publisher. Clark, M., 2006. The Daśanā mı̄ Saṃnyā sı̄ s, the Integration of Ascetic Lineages into an Order. Boston, MA: Brill. Clémentin-Ojha, C., 1998. Outside the Norms: Women Ascetics in Hindu Society. Economic and Political Weekly, 18 (April 30), WS34–WS36. De Michelis, E., 2004. A History of Modern Yoga: Patanjali and the Western Esotericism. London: Continuum. Gross, L. R., 1992. The Sadhus of India. A Study of Hindu Asceticism. New Delhi: Rawat Publications. Fuller, C. J. and Harris, J., 2001. For an anthropology of the modern Indian state. In: C. J. Fuller and V. Bénéï, eds., The everyday state and society in modern India. London: Hurst & Co., 1–30. Halbfass, W., 1990. India and Europe, an Essay in Philosophical Understanding. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Hausner, S., 2007. Wandering with Sadhus: Ascetics in the Hindu Himalayas. Bllomington: Indiana University Press. Jaffrelot, C., 1999. The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics 1925 to 1990s: Strategies of IdentityBuilding, Implantation, and Mobilization. New Delhi: Penguin Books. Juergensmeyer, M., 2006. The Oxford Handbook of Global Religions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kasturi, M., 2010. All Gifting Is Sacred. The Sanatana Dharma Sabha Movement, the Reform of Dana and Civil Society in Late Colonial India. The Indian Economic & Social History Review, 47 (1), 107–139. Khandelwal, M., 2007. Foreign Swamis at Home in India: Transmigration to the Birthplace of Spirituality. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 14 (3), 313–340. Khandelwal, M., 2012. The Cosmopolitan Guru: Spiritual Tourism and Ashrams in Rishikesh. In: I. J. Copeman and A. Ikegame, eds. The Guru in South Asia: New Interdisciplinary Perspectives. London: Routledge, 202–221.

210

Globalization and asceticism

King, U., 1984. The Effect of Social Change on Religious Self-Understanding: Women Ascetics in Modern Hinduism. In: K. Ballhatchet and D. Taylor, eds. Changing South Asia. Hong Kong: Asian Research Service, 69–83. Lehman, D., 2002. Religion and globalization. In: L. Woodhead, P. Fletcher, and H. Kawanami, eds., Religions in the Modern World: Traditions and Transformations. London: Routledge, 299–315. Lehmann, D., 2003. Religion and Globalization. In: C. Partridge, L. Woodhead and H. Kawanami, eds. Religions in the Modern World: Traditions and Transformations. London: Routledge, 408–428. Lucia, A., 2014. Reflections on Amma: Devotees in a Global Embrace. Berkeley: University of California Press. Nanda, M., 2009. The God Market. How Globalization Is Making India More Hindu. Noida and London: Random House Publishers. Palmisano, S. and Pannofino, N., 2017. The Emergent Tradition of the New Spirituality. In: S. D. Mills, ed. Religion: Past, Present and Future Perspectives. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 123–148. Ramaswami, V., 1997. Walking Naked: Women, Society, Spirituality in South India. Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study. Rampuri, B., 2005. BABA: Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Yogi Sadhu. New York: Bell Tower. Robertson, R., 2003. Globalisation or Glocalisation? In: R. Robertson and K. White, eds. Globalization: Critical Concepts in Sociology. Vol. 3. London: Routledge, 31–51. Sardella, F., 2013. Modern Hindu Personalism, the History, Life, and Thought of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sil, N. P., 1997. Swami Vivekananda: A Reassessment. Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University. Singleton, M., 2010. Yoga Body. The Origin of Modern Western Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Strauss, S., 2005. Positioning Yoga. Balancing Acts Across Cultures. New York: Berg Publishers. Thomassen, B., 2009. The Uses and Meanings of Liminality. International Political Anthropology, 2 (1), 5–28. Tillis, M., 2004. New Lives, 50 Westerners Search for Themselves in Sacred India. Varanasi: Indica. Tomlinson, J., 1999. Globalization and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tsing, A., Aug 2000. The Global Situation. Cultural Anthropology, 15 (3), 327–360. Turner, V., 1967. The Ritual Process, Structure and Anti-Structure. New York: Cornell University Press.

211

17 Maya revival movements Between transnationality and authenticity Manéli Farahmand

Introduction In a public conference on ‘The Maya calendar,’ Ian Xel Lugold, a Californian author with connections to New Age circles, was asked by a member of the audience how Mayas came to devise their calendar. His responded as follows: We do not precisely know. They have their own legends. The legends are all we actually know about it. Their legends tell that a person, or a god, named Itzamma, came down to the Maya people and delivered information about language, writing, mathematics and the calendar. So, they received this information as a gift. Where Itzamma came from, and where he went, we do not really know. And frankly, it is none of our business to know where they got it. It is much more important what we do with this information now. (Ian Xel Lungold, ‘The Mayan Calendar. The Evolution Continues’. YouTube, accessed on April 12, 2019—part 9, 3 min.) Lugold’s answer reveals how pragmatism rules as concerns matters of authenticity and religious authority, a characteristic that is widespread among Westerners interested in ‘Mayan spiritualities.’ This pragmatic logic involves ‘considering real what they perceive to be useful’ (Champion 2004, p. 70) and is a central aspect of what Véronique Altglas calls ‘religious exoticism’ (Altglas 2014), which she defines as a way of constructing and idealizing otherness, and taming it through forms of decontextualization and romanticization (Altglas 2014, p. 24). Such processes are at work in the various contests about religious authenticity within the transnational circulation of actors, values, practices, imaginaries and symbols that characterize whole strands of the New Age nebula, enhancing hybridization. Connections between so-called New Age spiritualities and ethnic ‘cosmovisions’ have been particularly fertile since the 1990s, for example in the production of transnationalized imaginaries surrounding the December 2012 phenomenon in neo-mayanists publications. The millenarian approach of ‘2012’ flourished in Californian circles close to the New Age (Mayer 2014). The term cosmovision refers to an understanding of the world centered on the interrelationship between human beings, nature and

212

Maya revival movements

the cosmos (Galinier and Molinié 2006, p. 23; Macleod 2013), and which is said to be typical of the Indigenous people of Latin America. These authors reported having visited different archaeological sites in Central America in order to decode the ‘Long Count’ of the Mayas, a pre-Hispanic calculating system made up of 13 cycles also known as b’ak’tun, with each of these cycles corresponding to approximately 394 years (Sitler 2006). The date ‘21.12.12’ was believed to mark the end of the 13th cycle and the beginning of a ‘period of greater human enlightenment’ (Sitler 2006, p. 26, cited from Argüelles 1987). Mexican-American neo-Mayan authors like José Argüelles see ancient Maya civilization as ‘carrying a primordial message for the spiritual evolution of the planet’ and considered this date to be ‘an important step’ in the harmonization of the relationship between humans, nature and the cosmos (Bastos, Engel, and Marcelo 2013, p. 315). In his book The Mayan Factor (1987), Argüelles wrote that Mayan identity was not confined to ethnicity and thus accessible to everyone, thereby universalizing the significance of the 21.12.12 date. In his account, remarkable historical figures such as Plato, Pythagoras, Goethe and Jung had all been ‘Mayas,’ and thus carriers of a perennial brand of Mayan wisdom. Argüelles was one of the first neo-Mayanists of the 2012 Phenomenon to have disseminated the vision of a mythical, decontextualized and universal Mayan wisdom and identity, and his writings inspired an entire generation of non-Indigenous neo-Mayas. The aim of the chapter is to show how ‘indigeneity’ has been reinterpreted and reappropriated within a contemporary transnational context. This will help to highlight the recent emergence of so-called ‘neo-ethnic’ hybrid traditions and identities of which neoMayanity is only one example, in relation to issues such as authenticity and the symbolic quest for legitimacy. My argument draws from the results of a multi-sited research project among transnational neo-Mayan circles, extending from the Americas to Europe. I argue that neo-Indigenous performativities represent new ways of doing religion in which complex processes and claims of belonging, expression, identity and authenticity are at work.

Varieties of Mayanity Transnational religious dynamics have profoundly transformed the territories of ethnic identities in Central America. Following James MacKenzie (2017), one can distinguish between three types of competing identities. • •

•

First, there are traditionalist types of syncretic cosmovisions (costumbristas), which are found mainly in territorialized Indigenous communities, and are centred around the cult of Catholic saints. Second, forms of Mayan revivalism, such as that heralded by activists from urbanized and middle-class ‘Maya’ movements. This has been a widespread trend in Guatemala since the 1990s, for instance. MacKenzie refers to this type in terms of ‘Maya Spirituality,’ stressing how its proponents often seek to purify pre-Colombian Mayan beliefs and practices from Catholic influences (MacKenzie 2017, p. 359). Finally, the range of New Age neo-ethnic ‘spiritualities’ (e.g. neo-Indian, neo-Aztec, neo-Mayan and neo-Incan) which are born out of transnational dynamics and which combine New Age references and claims regarding ‘Indigenous Spiritualities.’

213

Manéli Farahmand

The present chapter focuses on the third and last type comprised of people who adhere to neo-ethnic ‘spiritualities’ and consider themselves ‘Indigenous at heart’ or by ‘reincarnation.’ I call the latter neo-Mayan, who are part of a more widespread, de-territorialized and globalized movement for which New Age and tropes of self-realization provide the grammar as well as the format. Towards the end of the 20th century, in the absence of historical facts supporting the belief in the coming of the ‘New Paradigm of Aquarius,’ some scholars questioned whether New Age understood as a ‘new religious movement’ would fade out. Scholars have hinted at an important change within New Age, which has diffracted into innumerable networks of ‘alternative’ therapies based on individual transformation and well-being (Champion 1995). Authors have therefore talked about the shift towards a sort of ‘post-New Age’ or ‘Next Age’ (Mayer 2014, p. 8 cited from Hanegraaff 1996; Introvigne 2001; Melton 2007). Using the example of neoMayanity, this chapter seeks to illustrate the current extension of New Age through new and transnationalized processes which are reshaping ethnic identities. The 2012 Phenomenon has played a major role in this respect, and deserves our attention. It is helpful to distinguish between Mayanity and neo-Mayanity. Neo-Mayanity can be defined as the most recent transnationalized and spiritualized form of self-identification with the Maya which do not require ethno-linguistic anchoring. Mayanity, on the other hand, retains a relation with Mayan cultures and a form or another of direct historical heritage. A historian of Mayan civilizations, Mercedes de la Garza, defines Mayanity as the property of a series of communities which inhabit several regions of present-day Central America, from Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, western El Salvador and western Honduras. While these communities do not form a homogeneous cultural whole and speak different languages (not simply dialects) and have diverging customs and historical legacies, they do share certain common traits which enable them to be classified as a singular cultural unit (De La Garza 1999). From a historical perspective, the generic term ‘Maya’ is a polysemic, socially constructed ethnolinguistic concept (Chavarochette 2013, p. 134). The political and legal definitions covered by this category also vary from one national constitutional framework to another. In Mexico, for example, the word ‘Maya’ designates ethno-linguistic communities associated with specific territories (Villa Rojas 1985, pp. 46–78): Yucatán (Mayas Yucatecos), Chiapas (Lacondones, Chols, Tseltales, Tsotsiles, Tojolabales, Mames) and Tabasco (Chontales). However, some recent historical and anthropological works have questioned Mayan ethnicity and its boundaries. Wolfgang Gabbert (2001), for instance, has demonstrated that there is no empirical evidence of any shared Mayan ethnic self-identification among Mexican indios or indígenas, whether in colonial times or at the end of the 19th century. The term ‘Maya’ was established as a category by the colonial powers, based on supposed ‘biological’ criteria rather than self-identification. Moreover, Mayan identity is unpopular nowadays among certain indigenous Mexican communities (Loewe 2007). In Yucatán, for instance, some people speaking Yucatec do not identify as Maya, claiming they are ‘not Indigenous’ (Castañeda 2004, p. 38). Mayan self-identification is restricted to a small section of the middle class, an urban indigenous elite that works in governmental institutions, development or education. Lower classes tend to prefer calling themselves mestizo, mayer, campesino, gente del pueblo or otsilmak” (Gabbert 2001, p. 476). These discrepancies help explain the ease with which the term ‘Maya’ has been appropriated by a wide array of people, including certain Western New Age adepts. In sum, ethnic categories and classifications in Central America tend to be negotiated and defined by context and interactions (Barth 1969) rather than given and stable.

214

Maya revival movements

Neo-Mayas, for their part, perform a hermeneutical shift in their interpretation and appropriation of the term Maya. By using it exclusively as a means of ‘spiritual’ and symbolic identification, they move the term away from the classical boundaries of ethnicity, language, territory, history and heritage. Neo-Mayas call themselves ‘Mayas at heart,’ in reference to the work of religious studies scholar Marion Bowman (1995). In her research on contemporary Celtism, Bowman uses the expression ‘Cardiac Celts’ to designate people who ‘feel’ and identify as Celtic: ‘Celticity is coming to be seen as a quality or a matter of choice rather than an issue of history, geography, language or ethnicity: it is a thing of spirit, not of heritage’ (Bowman 1995, p. 245). The consequence of this is that anyone can be or become a ‘Cardiac Celt’ since the relationship is ‘emotional and spiritual.’ The same process is at work among the neo-Mayas, who identify as Maya and claim to ‘act ritually Maya,’ without being ethnically attached or otherwise to ‘the Maya.’ Significantly, some neoMayas present themselves as ‘the reincarnation of cosmic Mayas.’ In such cases, the lineage is an obvious (re)construction. The prefix ‘neo’ is fitting as it underlines this type of reconstruction and (re)appropriation of ‘Indianity’ which has emerged in Latin America since the 1990s (Galinier and Molinié 2006). Paradoxically, the prefix references a movement ‘back’ to an ancient cultural heritage, as the result of an encounter between the local and New Age global networks (De La Torre and Gutierrez Zuñiga 2013, p. 155). The notion of ‘neo-Mayanity’ is a compromise which aims to capture both the actors’ modes of self-identification while signaling the essentially performative and constructed nature of these identities.

Translocal territories of Mayanity at heart The ethnographic examples I present in this chapter are part of a wider set of data from a multi-sited research project among different neo-Mayan milieus as observed in Guatemala, Mexico, Germany and Switzerland, between 2012 and 2015. As part of a larger interconnected ensemble that includes a large body of literature, video, conferences, workshops and festivals, these territories are traversed by transnational networks of healers, neo-shamans and seekers invested in Maya-bound ‘shamanistic’ initiations. The research sought to collect the varieties of motivations that lead people to identify with Mayan spirituality, while tying them to the life-stories (see Bertaux 2005 [1976]; Bertaux and Kohli 1984) and religious pathways of the actors as way to define common imaginaries and the modes and dynamics of such reinvented traditions (Capone 2014). The purpose was to situate biographical elements—ruptures, crises, transitions—which lead participants to change their lifestyles through processes of religious exoticization. ‘Mayas at heart’ share certain socio-demographic characteristics. They all live in urban areas and are mostly non-Mexican or Mestizos (which ‘invites at least a nominal association with an indigenous ancestry’ [MacKenzie 2017, p. 360]). They come from the upper middle-class (and occasionally upper-class backgrounds) and often sport university-level education. Research revealed how ‘Mayas at heart’ explain their turn to Mayan spirituality as the result of a dissatisfaction with former lifestyles and their disappointment with Catholicism. Former lifestyles, actors confessed, were based on social success: marriage, family, work, social performance and wealth. Their narratives evoke a moment of crisis in the form of a divorce, an illness or a bereavement, for instance, which prompted them to reassess and redirect their personal values, objectives and trajectories. ‘Mayas at heart’ often confess being initially attracted to Mayan spirituality because of the millenarianist, end-of-the-world prognosis and messages about the calendars. The experiential nature of this religiosity counts as another oft-mentioned reason for their interest. A majority insist on the appeal of the applicability of Mayan spirituality to everyday life, such as working 215

Manéli Farahmand

with the four elements or four directions as well as prescriptions applied to water, food and breathing. Many confess to owning a Mayan altar at home and using it for daily prayer as well as to assist in their personal development. They look upon Mayan spirituality as a ritualistic and deeply pragmatic system, easily accessible and readily exportable. Most neo-Mayas also practice other forms of rituals and alternative therapies and techniques such as reiki, women’s circles, sweat lodges, yoga, astrology, numerology, neo-Kabbalah, tarot and various other forms of body work (e.g. massage). Such practices radiate from the capital, Mexico City, and are spread through an intra-national network of holistic healers, reaching outposts such as Mérida (capital of the State of Yucatán), where I conducted part of the fieldwork. Mexico City is portrayed to be ‘progressive,’ as its population is in majority in favor of the right to abortion, gay marriage and adoption. This contrasts with the rest of Mexico where a more or less secularized form of Catholicism still has influence on issues relating to family and couples (Blancarte 2013, p. 137). This is especially true in Yucatán. As a state, Yucatán is considered to have some of the most conservative values in Mexico and a high level of sexual and domestic violence towards women. A high percentage of its inhabitants self-identify as Catholic. In addition to this, the region has seen an important rise in Protestant evangelical and Pentecostal churches in the last few decades, as well an increase of those claiming ‘no confession’ (Hernández Hernández, Gutiérrez Zúñiga and De la Torre 2016). As a sign of the penetration of New Age and personal development tropes within the fabric of this otherwise conservative and traditionalist region, public spaces in Yucatán are flooded with holistic flyers, brochures and posters. Mystic tourism linked to the ‘2012 Phenomenon’ starting in the early 1990s contributed to the rise of this holistic milieu, despite an initially hostile context. Research shows that neo-Mayas from Mérida have adopted holistic or neo-ethnic worldviews in challenging social environments, in the face of conservative and traditionalist milieus closed to holistic worldviews. Some of them confess disguising their beliefs and practices in the face of evangelicals and Catholics who perceive them as ‘deviant’ and even ‘satanic’. They declare having suffered humiliation in both family and the workplace, which has compelled them to develop themselves as independent (and somewhat underground) neo-Mayan therapists. Mayas at heart cite therapeutic reasons to justify their involvement in this neo-Mayanity. This is the case of Cristina, a 40-year-old mestiza from Mexico City. A child of the Mexican bourgeoisie, she is now a psychologist and has two children. She received a Catholic education and used to be at the head of her own company before her life changed dramatically following her son’s illness. While exploring non-medical solutions to complement his treatment, she received training in alternative therapies and was later initiated into Mayan spirituality through, a neo-Mayan movement from Yucatán (south-East Mexico). She then travelled to Córdoba, Argentina, where, over several months, she completed specialized training in ‘therapies of the soul.’ Her transnational network emerged through ‘non-hazardous’ encounters, which she understands as steps in her initiation, and she began to simultaneously attend different holistic circles. She later travelled to Australia for an ‘individual pilgrimage’ at Mount Uluru (Ayer’s Rock), recognized by natives for its importance within Aboriginal symbolism. In her narrative, Cristina ‘mayanizes’ this pilgrimage to a far-away place by referring to it as part of ‘the sacred serpentine walk,’ following the name of Yucatec pilgrimages to Mayan temples in the classical period. In her story, Uluru serves as a symbolic equivalent to a Mayan pyramid, thereby dissociating it from its native (Australian aboriginal) cosmology. For Cristina, Mayan identity is something like an ontological posture, a ‘state of being-in-the world’ or a ‘spirit.’ She recalls a particularly striking experience during a neo-Mayan workshop: 216

Maya revival movements

And all of a sudden, a Maya appeared wearing a tunic, and I said, ‘Well, what’s that?’ In fact, it reminded me of a lot of things from my life, no? And he started to talk to us about the Mayas. It was in a marble lounge in Mexico City. In a neighbourhood called Bosques de las Lomas, which is a very upper-class neighbourhood, no? And they told him, ‘You’re going to get sick on the marble floor,’ and he answered, ‘There are no sicknesses, it’s all in your mind. I am more than this body.’ Wow! I said, ‘I want that, too. Where did you learn that? I want that, too.’ He then told me, ‘I’m Maya, but the Maya isn’t an area, it isn’t a territory. The Maya is cosmic.’ ‘Even if I wasn’t born in Mérida, can I be Maya?’ That was my first question. ‘Of course, you can. Mayas are from all over the world. When you feel called from the sun. We’re all children of the Sun.’ In the 1970s, Mexico saw the rise of Mexicanidad (Mexicanity). This social movement was initiated by urbanized intellectual mestizos, who sought to recover ancient heritages and reIndianize the national culture. Performing an ‘idealized reinterpretation of the pre-Hispanic past and an exaltation of an archetypal image of the Indian’ (De La Peña 2001, p. 96), the movement produced two strands: radical Mexicanity and neo-Mexicanity. The former was characterized by politicized, anti-Western and anti-syncretic discourses as well as a ‘radical Indianist nationalism,’ which valued ‘authentically Indian’ culture (De La Peña 2001, p. 101; De La Torre and Gutierrez Zuñiga 2011, p. 183). The latter was more ‘spiritualist,’ transnationalized, pluralistic and related to a New Age-style global project. Many neo-Mayas like Cristina had been initiated to neo-Mexicanist circles before getting in touch with neo-Mayanity. Both act to universalize the figure of the indigenous in general and the Maya in particular. The reference is not to the ethnic Mayas of Central America, but to a global form of ‘primordial energy,’ accessible from within, from the ‘depths of the self’. Mayanity is thus transformed into an essence that can be combined with an infinite number of symbolic representations and practices. The Consejo de Ancianos y Sacerdotes Mayas, which was established in the 2000s and whose executive committee sits in Mérida, Yucatán, coordinates the meetings of continental Indigenous representatives working towards the ‘development and promotion of Maya cultural values.’ It also holds local ceremonies and fights against ‘any form of cultural discrimination and economic marginalization of the Maya people’ (official document, General Assembly of December 21, 2014). In 2015, Ricardo became the first non-Maya to be initiated into the Mexican Council of Maya Elders. Born in Mexico City with Oaxacan, Mixtec and Zapotec roots, Ricardo practices Mayan acupuncture, Mayan massage and ‘pre-Hispanic sound healing,’ and confides feeling ‘Maya in his heart.’ His relationship with Mayan spirituality is internalized, affective and subjective. In this contemporary view of Mayanity, Mayan identity is situated in a meta-historical and meta-cultural time-space which enables its transnationalization in a variety of local contexts. Such view raise a number of issues regarding authenticity.

Issues of authenticity In The Children of the New Age, Steven Sutcliffe (2003) describes a history of the New Age in Anglo-Saxon culture from the 1930s to the 1990s. The author deconstructs the idea of a New Age movement while showing how this ‘false category’ has nonetheless become firmly rooted in the sociology of new religious movements. Rather than characterizing New Age as a movement or a homogeneous entity, he conceives it as a loose term to refer to the heterogeneity of so-called ‘alternative spiritualities.’ More than a movement, New Age is better envisaged as a widespread and ill-defined community of seekers. Similarly, Latin American scholars such as De la Torre and Gutiérrez Zúñiga refrain from using the term 217

Manéli Farahmand

New Age as a substantive, describing it rather as a ‘matrix of meaning’ that revolves around holistic and millenarian worldviews and cosmologies which predict the arrival of some kind of ‘New Era’ (De La Torre and Gutierrez Zuñiga 2013). Such an approach is fruitful for seizing the recent hybridizations that have occurred between Mayan spirituality and New Age on at least two counts. First, it sheds light on the dynamics by which traditional cultures and identities have been recast as both de-historicized and de-territorialized. Secondly and simultaneously, these developments have acted, somewhat paradoxically, to ethnicize New Age (at least discursively) by grounding it in Latin American Indigenous cultures. Indigenousness-seeking movements generally develop transnationally within the New Age as a ‘matrix of meaning’. ‘Transnational,’ meanwhile, refers to any phenomenon that crosses cultural boundaries (Capone 2010, p. 238). This concept emphasizes the idea of a multidirectional process which multiplies a tradition’s ‘places of reference’ and roots, against a background of ‘power relations’ (Capone 2004, pp. 16–17). A body of scholarly literature has recently investigated the Indigenousness-seeking process within New Age in Latin America. Renée De la Torre and Cristina Gutiérrez Zúñiga (2011, 2013), Carlos Alberto Steil, Renée De la Torre and Rodrigo Toniol (2018), Francisco De la Peña (1999, 2001), has suggested generalizing the use of the prefix ‘neo’ to mean the ‘requalification of the traditional’ (De La Torre and Gutierrez Zuñiga 2013, p. 18) within transnational fluxes, e.g. neo-tradition, neo-religion, neo-Mexicanity, neo-Indian, neo-Inca, neo-Aztec and neo-ethnic. Galinier and Molinié (2006) refer to this general movement as ‘neo-Indianism,’ by which those ‘symbolic appropriations of the past’ are seen as ‘different’ from the ‘authentic’ practices of ‘ethnic Indian’ communities. Such a perspective goes beyond description, however, by providing academic legitimacy to normative claims as to what constitutes an ‘authentic’ set of practices and beliefs. This is problematic, as it inherently opposes supposedly pure and immutable ancestral practices to impure bricolage, thereby disqualifying the social actors’ experiences involved in the latter. This, I argue, goes beyond what should be the task of the social sciences in the analysis of such phenomena. A transnational approach, on the other hand, makes it possible to avoid making authenticity into a normative tool for defining these movements since drawing the frontier between ancestral and crafted traditions is challenged by the fact that the reality in the field is muddy. For instance, even in rural communities, strands of Indigenous people are reinterpreting their practices in the terms of spirituality and with references to energies and chakras, even though this remains the case of a minority. Many community curanderos (healers) say they practice ‘authentic’ Mayan sweat lodges and integrate pan-Indian and New Age references, even though these are importations and constructions. Neo-Mayanity thus questions the classic distinction between the supposed ‘inauthentic’ quality of New Age and the ‘purity’ of traditional Indigeneity. Thus, authenticity is a discursively constructed notion. Scholars have underlined how the question of authenticity haunts contemporary religious reconfigurations, and how it simultaneously emerges as an issue in social sciences. The argument of Gauthier (2020) and Meintel (2020), for instance, is two-fold. First, they relate the emergence of the heightened concern for authenticity to a profound shift in the structures of authority due to globalization and the massification of its consumer and hypermediated culture. Second, they note how the social sciences have tended to qualify New Age type bricolage as inauthentic in contrast to supposedly pure and authentic Indigenous cultures (Gauthier 2020, p. 3). As concerns the latter, they note how phenomena such as the 218

Maya revival movements

ones described in this chapter—in which Indigenous cultures themselves are profoundly transformed and remixed—show the untenable nature of such categorizations, which they decry as being fundamentally normative. Discourses on ‘authenticity’ and ‘purity’ can be observed among a wide range of neoMayan people including Europeans, Indigenous elites, Mayan communities or even mestizos who revitalize ‘Mayan identity.’ Neo-Mayanity is indeed characterized by a tension between the quest for purity and for syncretism. This tension includes power issues related to legitimacy. Perceptions also play an important role. The notion of syncretism is often synonymous with impurity, whereas purity denotes something authentic and positive. For most neo-Mayan leaders, purity and authenticity are specifically accompanied by a radical rejection of ‘syncretism’ as a synonym of failure in their ‘mission’ to preserve ‘Mayan purity.’ Their life stories emphasize the fact that they were initiated in a ‘traditional’ way by Abuelos, the Elders from the Yucatán communities. The stories surrounding their traditional initiation grounds their spirituality in a local cultural heritage and therefore makes it more ‘authentic.’ The question of authenticity is indeed at the heart of the neo-Mayan phenomenon, and it emerges from the field as a key notion for thematizing identity boundaries. Overall, neoMayas tend to legitimate the authenticity of their practices and beliefs on the basis of their efficacy and the grounds of experience. In this respect, they participate in what Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor has called the ‘ethics of authenticity and expressivity,’ according to which each person is unique and must find within the self the nature of this uniqueness and express it through various forms of conducts, adhesions, fashions and lifestyles, for instance. These ethics, Taylor argues, which emerged within the Western and Westernized bourgeoisie in 18th- and 19th-century Romanticism, became massified in the second half of the 20th century through the dynamics of consumerism and its globalization. As Gauthier states, this ‘expressive’ dimension implies that for ‘each individual, having an irreducible singularity,’ it has become a ‘social imperative to discover and express it as an identity principle.’ Researchers such as Charles Lindholm (2002, 2013), François Gauthier (2009, 2012, 2020), Deirdre Meintel (2020) and Daniela Moisa (2011) have noted how these ethics and the focus on the quest and expression of authenticity have penetrated and even shaped recent changes within religion worldwide. These shifts promote the internalization of human experience, the spiritualization of nature, the enhancement of an immediate connection with the sacred, and a focus on the pursuit of personal and shared experience that transfers regimes of authority away from the legitimation provided by tradition or institutions such as churches (Gauthier 2012, p. 103, cited from Taylor 2003, pp. 79–80). Yet Gauthier insists on how this ‘expressive identity’ requires ‘validation, legitimization and therefore recognition by others or by a social authority’ (2012, p. 104), and therefore does not amount to a form of atomized individualism. Rather, such identities need to be constantly recognized in order to be substantiated, and thereby require forms of ‘communitization’ (Gauthier 2014), whether in the actual or virtual realm. Gauthier’s account captures the romantic quest for authenticity that occurs within neo-Mayan and neo-shamanic networks more generally, in which the West is devalued on the one hand, while exoticism and extra-European ‘archaism’ are valued on the other (Gauthier 2009). In a forthcoming contribution focusing on authenticity, Gauthier and Meintel further examine the interactions concerning the ‘quest for an authentic soul’ that brings to the fore issues regarding ‘truth, legitimacy, and knowledge.’ These have become central themes in ‘periods of conflict and profound change’ (Gauthier and Meintel, forthcoming). Transnationalization and globalization are processes which, as we have seen, do play an important role in shaping how the dynamics of authenticity unravel within neo-Mayan circles. 219

Manéli Farahmand

Authenticity is at the centre of neo-Mayan discourses and their relation to issues of power and authority. While some neo-Mayan leaders are criticized by their peers for their tendency to Westernize and export their practices, others are valued as legitimate authorities precisely because they circulate and gain recognition within Western and transnational New Age networks. As such, transnationality may be either positive or negative depending on the context and the personalities involved. Transnationality generates internal competition between the acceptance and dissemination of Westernized practices and their rejection on the grounds of their inauthenticity. The issue of syncretism is similarly at the center of rival claims, and it carries negative connotations. As Charles Stewart and Rosalind Shaw (1994, p. 7) argue, authenticity always depends on discursive strategies: What makes them ‘authentic’ and valuable is a separate issue, a discursive matter involving power, rhetoric and persuasion. Thus, both putatively pure and putatively syncretic traditions can be ‘authentic’ if people claim that these traditions are unique, and uniquely their (historical) possession. The quest for authenticity in the creation of these new hybrid identities thus raises the sensitive issue of cultural appropriation. Groups that seek New Age indigenousness are often considered ‘knowledge robbers’ and criticized for their production of images of Indigenous peoples, idealizing their ‘pre-industrial’ lifestyles and casting them as nostalgic artefacts of a ‘Golden Age’ (Boissière and Farahmand 2017). A transnational approach makes it possible to go beyond these perspectives and emphasize the diversity and multilateral dimensions and dynamics of cultural appropriations, for example from the peripheries to the centers (the neo-colonial missionary societies), and from the centers to the peripheries, which result in complex and shared processes of identity foundation and production (Argyriadis and De la Torre 2012, p. 13). Neo-Mayas leave Latin America and circulate towards Japan, Western Europe, South America and North America. By contrast, Westerners travel to Central America in search of exoticism and ancestrality (De La Torre 2011). As a result of these movements, all parties are affected and changed, and it is useless to try to oppose authentic indigenousness to inauthentic appropriations. It is important to stress how this transnational multi-directionality does not prevent the development of class hierarchies that have incidences on the access and recognition of these transnational identities. Not all actors from all social classes have access to (or simply want to access) neo-Mayanity. As we have seen, neo-Mayanity tends to develop within the mostly urbanized and educated middle classes. In addition, neo-Mayan claims can become a source of local conflicts, competitions and divisions. However, the issue of cultural appropriation still needs to be addressed, and I refer to the approach developed by Janice Hladki (1994). She suggests that we understand cultural appropriation as a complex phenomenon that goes beyond simple power relations involving resistance, subversion and opposition. For Hladki, the multilateral constitution of such hybrid identities challenges any attempt at containing them within dichotomous oppositions such as oppressor and oppressed. As neo-ethnic spiritualities continue to grow and transnationalize, issues of cultural appropriation become increasingly problematic and attempts at opposing normative classifications are thwarted by the increasing blurring of the frontiers between the centre and periphery dynamics among generalized multilateral relations. I therefore agree with Christina Welch’s (2002) critique of the categorization of ‘bad New Agers’ and ‘Indigenous victims,’ based on her research on New Age appropriations of North American sweat lodges.

220

Maya revival movements

Rites and initiations: becoming neo-Maya Neo-Mayan rituals are characterized by the use of specific accessories and ritual clothing, sets of objects, pre-Hispanic social hierarchies and sounds. On May 1, 2014, I took part in the annual pilgrimage at the archaeological site of Uxmal, Yucatán, an ancient Mayan city. The participants started to march in a single file, arranged according to hierarchical positions, with the Elders taking the lead. The procession made its way to an ancient ceremonial pyramid, the highest in the region at 32 meters. Once the procession arrived at the temple, the followers shouted Hu Hunab Kú!, which can be translated as ‘primordial energy’ among the New Age Mayanity (see Argüelles 1987), several times before performing a ritual inspired by pre-Hispanic ceremonials. In this reconstitution, the followers collectively prayed to the four directions and four elements, invoking specific divinities and brandishing their power sticks to the sky. The ritual ended with collective songs devoted to the earth, the sun, light and universal love. By enacting this spatially, linguistically and materially constructed neo-indigenous performance, the group were claiming to be ‘true Mayas.’ The Maya Solar Tradition is an emblematic neo-Mayan collective. This movement was founded in Mérida in the late 1980s by Mother Nah Kin (Madre Nah Kin), a Mexican mestiza woman. Nah Kin was trained in a variety of spiritual paths throughout the world, including Buddhist and Hindu-inspired teachings, South American shamanism, Western esotericism, reiki, lithotherapy, rebirthing and Osho dynamic meditation, before creating her own neo-Mayan movement. The Maya Solar Tradition seeks to return to a Maya Golden Age by initiating disciples to the ‘highest of Maya cosmologies’ (Kin 2012 [1997], p. 2). The movement is built on dynamic processes of transnationalization. Rituals and mythologies have roots in a revised version of the local Yucatec Maya tradition, which is inflected with global images, symbols and meanings. The leader as well as its members enjoy significant transnational geographical mobility, and branches have been created in Latin America, Europe and as far as Japan. At the end of the 1990s, Mother Nah Kin started to circle the world in order to perform her rituals oriented towards the sacred date of 2012. An increasing number of Westerners were drawn to her message and journeyed in turn to Yucatán to in situ performances. Mexican mestizos, Western New Agers and spiritual holistic therapists, mostly women between 40 and 60 years old working in urban areas, participated in the movement’s activities in Yucatán, taking these teachings and experiences back to their own local contexts. At the end of the 1980s, Mother Nah Kin went to Switzerland to give lectures on the end of the Mayan calendar, thereby drawing on a broad segment of the Western esoteric repertoire (Mayer 2011). On December 21 of that year, she organized a ‘planetary spiritual summit’ in Uxmal, the ancient Mayan city, which marked the end of the ‘Long Count’ of the Mayan calendar. In a spirit of unity, spiritual leaders of the New Age from around the world took part in the event, offering their teachings, building relationships and promoting future transnational exchanges. As part of its activities, the Maya Solar Tradition offers three modules of training to become a fully qualified ‘Maya.’ After completing the modules, the participants receive a diploma, a ‘power stick’ (a ritual object said to be inspired by pre-Hispanic indigenous tradition), and a set of ritual accessories. They are also given a Mayan-inspired name. The initiation modules feature an eclectic range of references which are all related to Mayanity according to the logic of correspondence. For example, during one initiatory module, one of the leaders exclaimed: ‘The human body has seven chakras that you all know. The Mayas knew these chakras and worked with them as centers of power.’ Following one participant’s

221

Manéli Farahmand

question on the relationship between Mayanity and ‘karma,’ the same instructor replied: ‘The chakra of the Hara is the one that keeps the soul. The best process of liberation is service, the dharma that comes from the word “to give.”’ By such practices, Mayan references were integrated into New Age imaginaries, related to neo-Oriental interpretations and vice versa, as such tropes were systematically referred back to a ‘Mayan’ origin. The Maya Solar Tradition is one example among others which shows how the 2012 Phenomenon became a crucible in which Mayanity and New Age were reconfigured and remixed, created new identities, religiosities and authenticity claims.

Conclusion The 21st century has been characterized by extensive social, cultural and religious transformations. The neo-Mayan phenomenon shows how new forms of ‘ethnic spiritualities’ are being created which challenge notions of ‘purity’ and show how quests for authenticity do not produce idiosyncratic, individual expressions as much as variations on a theme provided by overarching processes of transnational dissemination of the tropes of self-realization, experience and the ethics of authenticity and expressivity. More precisely, the research that founds this chapter identified a shift in the social representations of the ‘Maya.’ Starting roughly in the 1980s in certain social milieu, a movement emerged by which the Maya has become a multifarious signifier which has been appropriated and reinterpreted through processes of de-ethnicization, universalization and reconfiguration as a means of connection with a ‘primordial inner energy.’ This universalization has enabled the Mayan identity to be combined with a wide range of symbolic representations which have constructed it as a locus for religious investments. A central argument of this chapter is that Mayan references have been transformed by the encounter with the globalized field of the New Age, reinterpreting ethnic and territorial borders and producing new hybrid symbolic systems. Multidirectional transnational processes have produced contests about authenticity, identity and ethnicity as well as inscribed local hierarchies within the nexus of global New Age networks. A paradoxical situation emerges by which local traditions are reasserted while they are reformed as global friendly. The result is the emergence of a system of complementary yet competing and in some instances opposing ‘niches’ which negotiate their singularity and difference. For neo-Mayas, insertion into a local context, with its codes and references, acts to provide authenticity and purity. At the same time, insertion within transnational networks provide another set of legitimacy through the parameters of New Age. Mayas at heart are mainly well-educated, female, urbanized, Mexican mestizos and Western or Westernized seekers of upper middle-class backgrounds. The experiential, pragmatic and therapeutic dimensions of these religiosities emerge as central motivational factors. Mayan identity is de-territorialized in favor of a subjective and inner relation to Mayanity. The self-identification is perceived as an important resource for identity and ethics in daily life, such as the daily use of the Mayan calendar, prayers, rituals around the altar or Mayan transcendental meditation as a tool for personal development and self-development through the cultivation of self-acceptance, self-awareness and empathy towards the self. The same can be said about the symbolism of the four elements (water, air, earth and fire) and purification rituals. Other practices include weekly rituals inviting ‘abundance’ and offerings to Mother Earth in the form of cereals, lentils, beans, sunflowers seeds, fruit seeds, corn, sesame seeds and money.

222

Maya revival movements

The anticipation that the world would end in 2012 generated a number of important transnational events and alternative neo-Indian pilgrimages. This had repercussions for the tourist industry across central America. For example, between 15,000 and 20,000 visitors attended the archaeological site of Chichen Itzá on December 21, 2012. The fact that the end of the world did not occur on that date did not dampen enthusiasm for neo-Mayan religiosities. Interpreting the date to mean the beginning of a more spiritual and self-conscious era, there has been a significant increase in shamanic imitations in urban public places and ancient sacred sites across Yucatán, Mexico and many regions of Latin America. Indeed, as Jean-François Mayer noted, the majority of New Age milieus ‘did not expect a visible and externally verifiable event for 21 December 2012’ (Mayer 2014, p. 41). For the seekers, 2012 was an opportunity ‘to evolve on the energetic dimension’ rather than ‘the material or terrestrial level.’ It was above all a moment of ‘spiritual transition.’ From an anthropological point of view, 2012 contributed to accelerate the creation of hybrid neo-ethnic identities, halfway between reinvented indigeneities and a globalized form of New Age. Concretely, the anticipation was a factor that spurred the transnational spread of neoMayan beliefs, as conferences, workshops and rituals flourished. Thanks to the 2012 prophecy, neo-Mayan spiritual leaders travelled extensively, creating and solidifying an ever-extending transnational network (Farahmand and Rouiller 2016, p. 66). The result has been both a diversification and standardization of the mythologies, ritual clothing, ritual objects and healing practices that make up the neo-Mayan symbolic system. For the leaders as well the participants, the more they travel and the more they experience, the more they gain a symbolic legitimacy on the global stage of New Age and deepen their connection to their Mayan identity and cosmovision. As we have seen, this transnationalization is stimulated by a paradoxical desire to return to Indigenousness while inscribing it within the nexus of global flows. In response to this two-fold dynamic, one might think that it opens accesses neo-Indigenous identities by ‘emancipating’ them from the particularism of their cultural roots (for this democratized access see Rossi 1997, pp. 20–21). However, data show that ethnic and national references remain central in neoMayan quests for authenticity, with references to pre-Hispanic objects and instruments, mythological figures and places. In the context of transnational, virtual and effective social connections, it is possible ‘to feel Mayan,’ to think and act Mayan without ethnoterritorial ties to such an identity. What imports is a mixture of personal choice and personal calling in this New Age type of born-again religiosity.

References Altglas, V., 2014. From Yoga to Kabbalah. Religious Exoticism and the Logics of Bricolage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Argüelles, J., 1987. The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology. Vermont: Inner Traditions/Bear & Compagny. Argyriadis, K. and De la Torre, R., 2012. Présentation générale et méthodologie: les défis de la mobilité. In: K. Argyriadis, S. Capone, R. De La Torre and A. André, eds.. Religions transnationales des Suds. Afrique, Europe. Amériques. Paris: Harmattan, 13–25. Barth, F., 1969. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference. London: George Allen & Uwin. Bastos, S., Engel, T., and Marcelo, Z., 2013. La reinterpretación del oxlajuj b’aqtun en Guatemala: entre el new age y la reconstitución maya. In: R. De La Torre, C. G. Zuñiga and N. J. Huet, eds.. Variacones y apropiaciones latinoamericanas del New Age. Oaxaca: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 309–336. Bertaux, D., 2005 (1976). L’enquête et ses méthodes. Le récit de vie. Paris: Armand Colin.

223

Manéli Farahmand

Bertaux, D. and Kohli, M., 1984. The Life Story Approach: A Continental View. Annual Review of Sociology, 10, 215–237. Blancarte, R., 2013. Droits sexuels, catholicisme, sécularisation et laïcité au Mexique. In: F. Rochefort, ed.. Normes religieuses et genre. Paris: Armand Colin, 137–150. Boissière, Nicolas, Manéli Farahmand. 2017. When Indigeneity Meets New Age: A Comparison of Two Ethnographies in Quebec and Mexico, ISSR Conference, Lausanne, 4–7 July. Bowman, M., 1995. Cardiac Celts: Images of the Celts in Contemporary British paganism. In: G. Harvey and C. Hardman, eds.. Paganism Today. London: Thorsons, 242–251. Capone, S., 2004. A propos des notions de globalisation et de transnationalisation. Civilisations, 51, 9–22. Capone, S., 2010. Religions en ‘migration’: De l’étude des migrations internationales à l’approche transnationale. Autrepart, 56 (4), 235–259. Capone, S., 2014. La religion des orisha: les enjeux d’une transnationalisation religieuse ou le syncrétisme revisité. Colloque de recherche de l’ISSR. Enquêter en sciences sociales des religions: psychologie de la religion, sociologie des religions, sciences sociales des migrations. Université de Lausanne, conférence. Castañeda, Q. E., 2004. ‘We Are Not Indigenous!’ An Introduction to the Maya Identity of Yucatan. The Journal of Latin American Anthropology, 9 (1), 36–63. Champion, F., 1995. La nébuleuse New Age. Etudes, 14, 233–242. Champion, F., 2004. Logique des bricolages: retours sur la nébuleuse mystique ésotérique et au-delà. Recherches Sociologiques, 1, 59–77. Chavarochette, C., 2013. L’Etat Guatémaltèque et les populations mayas: stratégies d’identifications ethniques négociées chez les Chuj (1821–2011). Presses de Sciences Po I, 60 (3), 133–150. De La Garza, M., 1999. Los Mayas, 3000 Años de Civilización. Oaxaca: Monclem Ediciones. De La Peña, F., 2001. Milenarismo, nativismo y neotradicionalismo en el México actual. Ciencias Sociales y Religión, 3 (3), 95–113. De La Torre, R., 2011. Les rendez-vous manqués de l’anthropologie et du chamanisme. Archives de sciences sociales des religions, 153 (1), 145–158. De La Torre, R. and Gutierrez Zuñiga, C., 2011. La neomexicanidad y los circuitos new age. ¿Un Hibridismo sin fronteras o múltiples estrategias de síntesis espiritual? Archives de sciences sociales des religions, 153, 183–206. De La Torre, R. and Gutierrez Zuñiga, C., 2013. Introdución. In: R. De La Torre, C. G. Zuñigaand and N. J. Huet, eds.. Variacones y apropiaciones latinoamericanas del New Age. Oaxaca: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 13–27. Farahmand, M. and Rouiller, S., 2016. Mobility and Religious Diversity in Indigenousness-Seeking Movements: A comparative Case Study between France and Mexico. New Diversity, 18 (1), 53–71. Gabbert, W., 2001. Social Categories, Ethnicity and the State in Yucatán, Mexico. Journal of Latin American Studies, 33, 459–484. Galinier, J. and Molinié, A., 2006. Les Néo-Indiens. Une religion du IIIe millénaire. Paris: Odile Jacob. Gauthier, F., 2009. Religion in Contemporary Consumer Societies. In Search of a Global Comprehensive Analytic. Revue du MAUSS permanente. September 1, 2009 [Online]. www.journaldu mauss.net/spip.php?article539. Gauthier, F., 2012. Primat de l’authenticité et besoin de reconnaissance. La société de consommation et la nouvelle régulation du religieux. Studies in Religion, 41 (1), 93–111. Gauthier, F., 2014. Intimate circles and mass meetings: The social forms of event-structured religion in the era of globalized markets and hyper-meditazation. Social Compass, 61 (2), 261–271. Gauthier, F., 2020, Authenticity, consumer culture and charismatic authority, Studies in Religion, pp.1–23. DOI: 10.1177/0008429820920885 Hanegraaff, W.J., 1996. New age religion and western culture: Esotericism in the mirror of secular thought. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Hernández Hernández, A., Gutiérrez Zúñiga, C., and De la Torre, R., 2016. Encuesta Nacional sobre Creencias y Prácticas Religiosas en México. Informe de resultados. Mexico D.F.: Red de Investigadores del Fenómeno Religioso en México (RIFREM). Hladki, J., 1994. Problematizing the Issue of Cultural Appropriation. Alternate Routes, 11, 95–119. Introvigne, M., 2001. After the new age: Is there a next age? In: M. Rothstein, ed. New age religion and globalisation. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 58–72. Kin, M. N., 2012 (1997). Kinich Ahau. Sabiduría Solar. Mérida: Editorial Kinich Ahau SCP. Lindholm, C., 2002. Authenticity, Anthropology and the Sacred. Anthropological Quarterly, 75, 331–338.

224

Maya revival movements

Lindholm, C., 2013. The Rise of Expressive Authenticity. Anthropology Quarterly, 86 (2), 361–396. Loewe, R., 2007. Euphemism, Parody, Insult, and Innuendo: Rhetoric and Ethnic Identity at the Mexican Periphery. The Journal of American Folklore, 129 (477), 284–307. MacKenzie, J., 2017. Politics and Pluralism in the Círculo Sagrado: The Scope and Limits of PanIndigenous Spirituality in Guatemala and Beyond. International Journal of Latin American Religion, 1 (2), 1–23. Macleod, M., 2013. Mayan calendrics in movement in Guatemala: Mayan spiritual guides or day-keepers understandings of 2012. The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 18 (3), pp. 447–464. Mayer, J.-F., 2014. Le réveil du Nouvel Age: 2012 comme chemin de salut. In: J.-F. Mayer and M. Farhmand, eds.. Le phénomène 2012. Fribourg: Cahiers de l’Institut Religioscope, 12, 5–14. Meintel, D., 2020. Religious Authenticity and Commitment. Studies in Religion, 1–19. Doi: 10.1177/ 0008429820930692. Melton, J.G., 2007. Beyond millenialism: Then new age transformed. In: D. Kemp and J. Lewis, eds. Handbook of new age. Leiden: Brill, 77–97. Moisa, D., 2011. Etre un vrai orthodoxe ». L’identité religieuse au carrefour des registres d’autenticité. Diversité Urbaine, 11 (2), 45–68. Rossi, Ilario. 1997. Corps et chamanisme. Essai sur le pluralisme médical. Paris : Armand Colin. Sitler, R. K., 2006. The 2012 Phenomenon. New Age Appropriation of an Ancient Mayan Calendar. Nova Religio: The journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 3 (9), 24–38. Steil, A. C., De la Torre, R., and Toniol, R., 2018. Entre trópicos. Diálogos de estudios Nueva Era entre México y Brasil. México D.F.: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIEASAS); Potosí: El Colegio de San Luis. Stewart, C. and Shaw, R., 1994. Introduction: problematizing syncretism. In: C. Stewart and R. Shaw, eds.. Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism: The Politics of Religious Synthesis. London: Routledge, 1–26. Sutcliffe, S. J., 2003. The Children of the New Age. A History of Spiritual Practices. London: Routledge. Taylor, C., 2003. La diversité de l’expérience religieuse. William James aujourd’hui. Montreal: Bellarmin. Villa Rojas, A., 1985. Estudios etnológicos: Los Mayas. Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma de México. Welch, C., 2002. Appropriating the Didjeridu and the Sweat Lodge: New Age Baddies and Indigenous Victims? Journal of Contemporary Religion, 1 (17), 21–38.

Interviews Andrea, Uxmal, May 5, 2014. Maria, Uxmal, May 4, 2014. Nah Kin, Mérida, May 13, 2014. Ricardo, Mérida, February 9, 2015. Suzana, Mérida, April 11, 2014.

Websites www.maxisciences.com/fin-du-monde/la-fin-du-monde-pour-le-21-decembre-2012-meme-les-mayasn-039-y-croient-pas_art28053.html, accessed on June 25, 2018. www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPvC7dv-ROo&feature=relmfu, accessed on April 12, 2019.

225

18 Defending tradition and confronting secularity The Catholic Buen Pastor Institute Esteban Rozo and Hugo Cárdenas

Introduction Despite the fact that traditionalist Catholics criticize Vatican II, they demonstrate how the Catholic Church after Vatican II has reconfigured the relationship between clergy and laity. Unlike the First Vatican Council (1869–1870) where ‘clergy governed the laity within the life of the church and lay members did not have their own distinctive mission’ (Pope 2004), lay members of the Instituto Buen Pastor (IBP) have their own political agenda not under direction of the clergy. This agenda includes participating and intervening in secular debates through religious means and practices. The ways in which traditionalist Catholics become visible in the public sphere include the political use of Catholic rituals (such as traditionalist liturgy and processions) in public spaces, as well as the participation in prayer chains such as ‘40 Days for Life’ in which they converge with Christians from other religious denominations. Although traditionalist Catholics criticize the ‘false ecumenism’ promoted by the Church since Vatican II, in their political practices Catholics deploy a ‘practical ecumenism’ that produces alliances with other Christian churches and political parties, leaving aside any kind of doctrinal differences. The politics of religion deployed by lay members of the IBP question clear-cut divisions between politics and religion, revealing how the secular may be confronted and inhabited through the defense of specific religious traditions. Religious practices can constitute specific forms of political participation and expression that by no means follow liberal conceptions of politics as a sphere separate from religion (Mahmood 2005, p. 4).

A public ritual On October 18, 2015, the celebration of Christ the King at the IBP chapel began with a procession on the streets of a neighborhood in Bogota called La Soledad. The procession was led by young acolytes who held the flags of Colombia and the Vatican. They were followed by the military police’s marching band (which guarded the little girls wearing veils), the priest representing the Holy Power, and the nuns walking behind the marching band. The

226

Defending tradition, confronting secularity

priest stood under a small canopy marking his political status and held in his hands a monstrance with a large host at its center. The host in the Holy Sacraments incarnates Christ the King, which accounts for the solemn nature of the procession and the presence of the military as escort. Behind the priest and the nuns were the laymen and women of the chapel. Laymen wore formal suits and ties, while the female members of the chapel were dressed in long skirts and old-fashioned attire with white veils covering their faces. The procession arrived at the statue of José Prudencio Padilla, an Afro-Colombian military and navy leader who fought in the Spanish-American wars of independence. An altar was installed before the statue of Padilla and the monstrance was placed on it by the priest. The sermons delivered in public liturgies like this have strong political connotations and commemorate different martyrs killed while defending the Christian faith against secular persecution. In this sermon, the priest quoted the Book of John 18:33–38, which narrates the story of the judgment of Christ at the hands of Pontius Pilate. During his sermon the priest recalled how in the judgment of Christ, Pontius Pilate refused to recognize the fact that Christ’s kingdom ‘[was] not of this world.’ The priest claimed that the transcendental character of the Church and Christ was not recognized in this world, given that the ‘global government’ was behaving in a manner similar to that of the Jews who had chosen to save Barabbas instead of the truth represented by Christ. This interpretation focused on the fact that the people of God had the chance to choose between the truth of Christ or the material salvation of modern Barabbas, whom the priest also named as the ‘guerrilla insurgent leader’ standing against the Romans. Although the procession of Christ the King and the appropriation of public streets in Bogota by members of the IBP are often not considered to be political acts, because the final objective is to pledge allegiance to the transcendence of Christ the King, this is not what we observed. At the climax of the Mass, the priest raised the Holy Sacrament, while the choir, along with the military and lay members, rang bells before the presence of Christ. But during the celebration of Christ the King in 2015, a demonstration interrupted the normal ending of the Mass. Lay members began to cry out: ‘Viva Cristo Rey! Viva Cristo Rey!’ [Long live Christ the King]. This happened even if the prescribed practice was to pray and meditate after consumption of the host. This disruption of the sacramental order was described to us by the acolytes as being part of a ‘holy war,’ like that of the Cristeros War in Mexico (1926–1929) when the end of every Mass was followed by shouts among the laity who had participated in the Mass. The representation of the laity as soldiers of God allows the laity of the IBP to articulate their political agency as defenders of sacramental duties and Catholic traditions. The wider debates in the public sphere in which they engage include issues such as gay marriage, adoption of children by gay couples and abortion. While the liturgical reforms of Vatican II were predicated on the idea of ‘lay passivity’ in the Tridentine Mass, which led to the Sacrosanctum Concilium calling for ‘full and active participation by all the people’ present at Mass and the use of vernacular languages instead of Latin (Dinges 1987, p. 144), the active political participation of lay members of the IBP in the public sphere defies this charge of passivity.

The Instituto Buen Pastor The IBP was established in November 2009 in Bogota, following the creation of the Institut du Bon-Pasteur in Bordeaux in 2006 by the Catholic priest Phillipe Laguérie. In 2005, Pope Benedict XVI reestablished the Tridentine Mass and permitted its use as an ‘extraordinary 227

Esteban Rozo and Hugo Cárdenas

ritual,’ along with the new ritual of the Mass that had been institutionalized with Vatican II. The purpose was to achieve reconciliation with the members of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), created in 1970 in opposition to the changes brought to the liturgy and the Catholic Church by Vatican II. In 1969, Cardinals Alfredo Ottaviani and Antonio Bacci, with the support of French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, wrote A Brief Critical Study of the New Order of the Mass (Ottaviani and Bacci 1996), in which they argued that the structure and order of the new Mass had taken out of the liturgy the mystery of the real presence of Christ, and suggested that the liturgical reform of Vatican II disrupted the religious authority of the clergy in the ritual. Ironically, the politics of religion promoted by lay members of the IBP in the public sphere take place in a society where Catholicism has lost its status as the national religion and the Church has lost its hegemonic control over institutions such as public schools and social care. Until 1991 Colombia was formally a Catholic nation, at which point a new Political Constitution was issued approving ‘religious freedom’ and the separation of church and state, marking the end of the old Concordat signed in 1887. From the end of the nineteenth century, the national government had close ties with the Vatican and this made Catholicism the national public religion par excellence. This new Political Constitution opened the door to a new kind of Christian politics, developed mostly by Pentecostal churches with the creation of Christian political parties and the reevaluation of Colombia as a Catholic nation. Lay members of the IBP interpret the constitutional reforms of 1991 as a threat to the Catholic foundations of society and a conspiracy against the moral authority of the Church over the nation. The reforms are seen as the attempt by secular powers to undermine the Catholic faith. Lefebvre, who founded SSPX in 1970 in France, conceived Vatican II ecumenism as dangerous, given that the Catholic Church was ‘recognizing other faiths not as false doctrines but as perfectly legitimate religions offering equally valid access to God’ (Stoekl 2006, p. 94). In 1976, Pope Paul VI suspended Lefebvre a divinis after he ordained thirteen priests of the SSPX on the day of St. Peter and St. Paul, without the permission of the Pope.

Liturgical reform, politics and the secular Vatican II (1963–1965) initiated a modernization of the Church and the adaptation of its doctrines and practices to the age (Gonzalez 1987, p. 7). In the Sacrosanctum Concilium the Church is recognized as a historical institution subject to change, emphasizing the need to adapt liturgical practice (or Roman rite) to the spiritual needs of the current laity. Among the most important changes in liturgy promoted by the Sacrosanctum Concilium are the use of vernacular language in church, as well as congregational responses to the priest’s prayers, receiving the host with the hands without kneeling, singing contemporary hymns, and the priest’s celebration of Mass from an altar facing the people (Dinges 1987, p. 141). Sacrosanctum Concilium attempted to ‘overcome the tendency of laity to regard Mass attendance as a form of duty parade,’ and to address a concern that the ‘laity were not properly participating in the liturgical action which was taking place but had accepted the standing of spectators’ (Rowland 2008, p. 123). The active participation of laity in the Sacred Liturgy was thought to have an ‘effect on a person’s subjective response to God’s gift of grace, which is difficult to achieve if his or her spiritual disposition is that of the merely passive spectator’ (Rowland 2008, 124). Traditionalist Catholics, including lay members of the IBP, criticize the ‘new Mass’ institutionalized after Vatican II on the grounds that it left behind the mystery of the 228

Defending tradition, confronting secularity

incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ. For traditionalist Catholics, the new Mass has become just a worldly commemoration of the death of Christ, similar to Protestant liturgy. It ‘lacks the dramatic tension because there is no sacrifice, there is only the reading of scripture and fellowship’ (Rowland 2008, p. 134). The use of vernacular languages in the new Mass is said to contribute to the loss of the mystery of Christ, since vernacular languages vulgarize the mystery through a simple narration of sacrifice, rendering impossible the enactment of the sacrifice of Christ as it occurs in traditionalist liturgy. For traditionalist Catholics, the invocation of Christ in the Mass is only made possible through particular uses of Latin that include specific modes of intonation, Gregorian chants and the performance of the death of Christ as a present event. Defenders of Tridentine Mass believe that the real presence of Christ in the ritual is only perceived through the mystery of actions and practices involved, leaving unnecessary and reprievable any exposition of what is secretive, as happens in the new Mass where the death of Christ is narrated during the offering. The differentiation that traditionalist Catholics establish between the narration of the death of Christ and the real presence of Christ that is achieved in the Tridentine Mass is political as well as theological. In the traditionalist liturgy the priest and the laity always look towards the altar, not at one another—whereas in the new liturgy, the emphasis shifts from the ‘model of an individual priest standing between Christ and the community as an exclusive spiritual mediator, to that of the priesthood and ministerial character of the community’ (Dinges 1987, p. 148). The fact that in the Tridentine Mass only priests have the religious knowledge and power to invoke the presence of Christ, marks a strong hierarchical division between priests and lay members. However, these hierarchies between priests and lay members at the IBP can be contested both within liturgy and outside of it. In the IBP, the traditionalist liturgy creates the perfect scenario for pastoral guidance and religious pedagogy, in which the young members of the congregation participate as both acolytes and students of the faith, and are considered defenders of the Tridentine Mass against the risks of the post-Conciliar Church and the secular world. The pastoral guidance of all the members of the IBP plays an important role in the chapel, because a great number of the members are newcomers to the traditionalist Mass and need guidance in order to fulfill the sacramental purification required to receive the host. Most of these newcomers are middle-class young men with technical education, looking for a religious life (as acolytes, for example) and the possibility of becoming traditional priests. Newcomers also included middle-class women with families and their children who were the main subjects of catechization. Some of the newcomers were also relatives of members of the police and the military. The sacramental purification means that the members have to recognize their sins, attend confession regularly and recover the grace required to receive the Holy Body. In the IBP, grace is not easily achieved; it is the outcome of an arduous process of learning and disciplinary practices. There is a strong correlation here between the experience of faith, knowledge and the disciplinary practices that make them possible. As Talal Asad points out, it is the power which is articulated through different practices and institutions that creates the conditions for experiencing religious truth (Asad 1993, p. 35). In addition to the celebration of the Tridentine Mass, the IBP has also created ‘spiritual and doctrinal conferences,’ where the attending priests are holders of the knowledge of the faith, and lay members the students. In these spiritual and doctrinal conferences, lay members learn about the Church, its history and doctrines, as well as the theological foundations of traditionalist liturgy. Priests of the IBP also give advice to lay members at these conferences on how to behave in their everyday lives without losing grace. The advice given to lay members includes counseling on which individuals they should avoid, those 229

Esteban Rozo and Hugo Cárdenas

they must not become romantically associated with, and how to deal with issues such as feminism, atheism and liberalism. These conferences also include lessons on secular events which have affected the religious authority of the Catholic Church or have led to the political persecution of members of the Church at different historical moments (as they believe is the present-day case with the IBP). That which might be considered a secular achievement, such as the French Revolution, the advent of human rights or reproductive rights for women, among others, are considered by members of the IBP to be part of a conspiracy to dismantle the Catholic faith worldwide. One of the historical events most frequently mentioned during the Mass and at the conferences is the Cristero War in Mexico that took place between 1926 and 1929. The Cristero War was a widespread struggle in many central-western Mexican states against the secularist, anti-Catholic and anti-clerical policies of the Mexican government under the presidency of Plutarco Elías Calles (1920–1930). Members of the IBP perceive their current situation as resembling that of the Cristero War and consider the Freemasons to be their principal enemy. The latter are believed to be part of a ‘global government’ which Jews and Protestants also participate in. The priesthood and the laity at the IBP feel they are confronting a secularizing state (led by Masons), whose ultimate aim is to destroy the family (understood as the foundation of society), the Catholic faith and the Church. In this sense, grace as conceived of within the IBP entails a particular engagement with the world and a particular way of performing Catholic faith both in public spaces and in everyday life. Laity and priests consider participation in the Tridentine Mass to be a way of defending and spreading grace throughout society and the Church. In their sermons and conferences, priests criticize the ecumenical approach of the Catholic Church and the current pope Francis I. For example, priests at the IBP frequently criticize the Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ of the Holy Father Francis on Care for our Common Home (2015), because they consider it to be a deviation from the mission attributed to the Church that has historically consisted of ‘saving souls’ and preparing for the second coming of Jesus Christ. According to the members of the IBP, the publication of this encyclical letter by the Vatican in 2015 shows that the current Church is concerned with secular politics and issues such as the environment or the critique of capitalism, while leaving behind the grace that should fuel pastoral action in the world. Priests of the IBP criticize the position of the new pastoral model, pointing out the Church’s lack of clarity regarding the true means of salvation. This critique of Pope Francis’s encyclical letter on Care for our Common Home goes hand in hand with the critique of the ‘modern clergy’ who seem to confuse what is gracious with what is not, as happens for example with the masses that are carried out in order to bless pets such as dogs, who are not considered to be subjects for salvation. Thus lay members of the IBP criticize the current Holy See because they consider it to be under the influence of liberal, modern and, in some cases, leftist ideologies, which discard Catholic doctrine. Lay members of the IBP also criticize the influence of Liberation Theology on the priesthood in Colombia during the 1960s and its principal representative Camilo Torres who was killed in 1965 fighting alongside the leftist guerrilla ELN (National Liberation National Army). National clergy are criticized for transitioning from being in charge of national education and morality, to becoming one of the main negotiators between the leftist guerrillas and the national government, as has occurred during the twenty-first century. While Vatican II proposed that the Church should adapt to the changes brought by secularism and modernity, priests and lay members at the IBP consider secularism and modernity to be the historical enemies of the Church, requiring confrontation through 230

Defending tradition, confronting secularity

different means. Specifically, they criticize the dogmatic constitution of Vatican II as it appears in the Lumen Gentium. The fact that the Lumen Gentium includes in the people of God not just those who have been baptized, but also those that ‘do not profess the faith in its entirety or do not preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter,’ is seen by members of the IBP as a false ecumenism. Traditionalist Catholics of the IBP see themselves as soldiers of Christ the King and the continuation of the long history of struggle of the holy Church against its enemies. In this sense, members of the IBP hold a restricted notion of the people of God, one which includes only those who like themselves are willing to defend the Church as soldiers of Christ. Therefore, all of the members of the IBP celebrate the day of Christ the King as a recognition of the ultimate authority of Christ on earth, which is interpreted differently depending on the country where it is celebrated. For instance, traditionalist Catholics in Spain associate the celebration of Christ the King with the assertion of Spain as a Catholic nation, also commemorating Francisco Franco’s ascension to government in 1939 (Gonzalez 2014). In the case of the IBP, as we demonstrated at the beginning of the chapter, the celebration of Christ the King is used as a public display of Catholic faith as standing against secular institutions and the marginalization of Catholicism in society.

Political causes and alliances Despite the fact that lay members of the IBP criticize the new notions of the ‘people of God’ devised by Vatican II as false ecumenism, in their political actions they establish alliances with Pentecostal and Christian churches through movements such as ‘40 Days for Life.’ This organization was originally initiated in 2004 by David Bereit in Texas and currently enjoys a global reach. In Colombia, ‘40 Days for Life’ is supported by the Church and led by lay members of various churches. The anti-abortion campaigns organized by ‘40 Days for Life’ consist of forty days of prayer and fasting that start on Ash Wednesday and include shifts where members stand outside foundations or organizations that perform abortions or give assistance to women in relation to reproductive health. In 2006, The Constitutional Court in Colombia approved abortion in three specific cases: when the health of the mother is at risk, where fetus malformation is detected, and when pregnancy is the outcome of rape. These campaigns are usually carried out simultaneously in various places in Colombia and worldwide. In the anti-abortion campaign of 2018, the Colombian city of Pereira’s mayor attempted to prohibit the prayer and fasting of members of the ‘40 Days for Life’ movement in front of organizations that promoted women’s reproductive rights. The mayor’s argument was that these public protests ‘undermine the fundamental rights of pregnant mothers, imposing their criteria upon abortion.’ However, representatives of ‘40 Days for Life’ challenged the mayor’s decision in a letter which argued that abortion is still characterized as a felony in the National Penal Code and quoted the article 20 of the Colombian Constitution which guarantees every person the ‘liberty to express and spread his thoughts and opinions . . . without censure.’ This event reveals how the political participation of lay members of Catholic Churches in Colombia is coordinated through alliances with Christian churches, while also making strategic use of secular law for religious ends. This kind of political participation was clearly present on October 2, 2016 when peace agreements with the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) were submitted to a public referendum and the electorate rejected the agreement with 50.22% of the vote. The political coalition 231

Esteban Rozo and Hugo Cárdenas

against the peace agreement was led by politicians such as the former attorney general Alejandro Ordoñez, who is an active member of the SSPX (which defends Tridentine Mass), and former president Alvaro Uribe. The victory of this political coalition in the referendum was attributed by analysts and the press to the active participation of Christian voters. Members of the IBP interpreted this victory as a victory of the people of God, which contradicts their initial critiques of the ‘false ecumenism’ of Vatican II. In other words, ecumenism constitutes a doctrinal problem inside the IBP as it challenges the religious authority of the Church, but ecumenism becomes a politically useful tool in order to intervene in the public sphere and secular debates. The existing literature on recent religious change in Latin America tends to perceive Catholic and other Christian Churches as opposed to each other (Levine 1997), competing for the allegiance of believers in a market of symbolic goods where Catholicism has lost its religious monopoly and political hegemony (Bastian 1997, 2012; Beltrán 2013). The way in which lay members of the IBP articulate their political agency in the public sphere through alliances with other Christian churches and denominations leads us to rethink the opposition as doctrinal differences between them tend to disappear when common political and moral agendas emerge. Nonetheless, there are differences in terms of how traditionalist Catholics and other Christians direct political participation in the public sphere. Since 2000 a number of the Christian churches in Colombia have begun to create political parties in order to participate in electoral politics with their own candidates. The most well-known case in Colombia is the Church of God Ministry of Jesus Christ which was created in 1972, and which in 2000 created its own political party called the Independent Movement of Absolute Renovation (MIRA). Unlike Christian churches that have created their own political parties, traditionalist Catholics mainly direct their politics of religion through rituals (such as the Tridentine Mass) and processions inside the chapel and in public places, as we described in the chapter opening. However, ideological convergences between traditionalist Catholics and other Christians are present through religious practices such as the prayer chains that take place in front of institutions promoting female reproductive rights. One of the major anti-abortion campaigns organized in Bogota by ‘40 Days for Life’ took place in September 2015, when people of different religious denominations prayed and fasted for forty days in front of Profamilia and Orientame, two well-known institutions that assist women in terms of reproductive health, as well as performing abortions. This vigil provoked conflicting reactions from the people working in the institutions and the neighbors living close by.

Conclusions In this chapter we have analyzed how lay members of the IBP articulate forms of political participation and intervention in the public sphere through the performance of traditionalist Catholic rituals in the chapel of the IBP and public spaces of Bogota. The active political participation of lay members of the IBP in the chapel and in public spaces defies the idea that the practice of Tridentine Mass produces merely passive spectators (Rowland 2008, p. 124). Through the participation and defense of traditionalist liturgy and other rituals, lay members of the IBP become politically active in the public sphere, displaying religious symbols and practices in public spaces. Given that these practices constitute political manifestations through religious means, they question any clear division between the political and the religious. 232

Defending tradition, confronting secularity

One of the main critiques of Vatican II by lay members of the IBP concerns the ecumenism that it promoted, but despite this critique of the ‘false ecumenism’ of the Church, lay members of the IBP have developed a ‘practical ecumenism’ that consists of political alliances with Christian churches from other denominations. These alliances are expressed through religious practices such as prayer chains and vigils, where Catholics and other Christians converge and where doctrinal differences become irrelevant for political purposes. Clearly, the relationship between politics and religion is not simple, especially in former Catholic nations that have recently implemented political reforms that recognize religious freedom and the separation of church and state (Vaggione and Morán 2017). Therefore, it is necessary to analyze how the relationships between politics and religion are reconfigured in the context of religious pluralism and political reforms that try to limit the power of the Catholic Church.

References Asad, T., 1993. Genealogies of religion. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Bastian, J.-P., 1997. La mutación religiosa de América Latina. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Bastian, J.-P., 2012. La modernidad religiosa: Europa latina y América Latina en perspectiva comparada. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Beltrán, W. M., 2013. Del monopolio católico a la explosión pentecostal: Pluralización religiosa, secularización y cambio social en Colombia. Bogota: Lecturas CES. Dinges, W., 1987. Ritual conflict as social conflict: Liturgical reform in the Roman Catholic Church. Sociological Analysis, 48 (2), 138–157. Gonzalez, F., 1987. Prólogo. In: J. P. Restrepo ed. La iglesia y el estado en Colombia. Bogota: Banco Popular, 7–37. Gonzalez, J. M., 2014. El catolicismo tradicional español ante el caso Lefebvre (1976-1978). Hispania Sacra, 66 (2), 489–513. Levine, D. H., 1997. Protestants and Catholics in Latin America: A family portrait. Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 50 (4), 10–42. Mahmood, S., 2005. Politics of piety: The Islamic revival and the feminist subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ottaviani, A. and Bacci, A., 1996. A brief critical study of the new order of the Mass. Available from: http:// archives.sspx.org/SSPX_FAQs/brief_critical_study_of_the_new_order_of_Mass-ottaviani-interven tion.pdf [Accessed 30 April 2018]. Pope Francis., 2015. Encyclical on capitalism & inequality. On care for our common home. London: Verso. Pope, S., 2004. Introduction: The laity and the governance of the Catholic Church today. In: S. Pope, ed. Common people: The laity and governance of the Catholic Church. Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1–24. Rowland, T., 2008. Ratzinger’s faith: The theology of pope Benedict XVI. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stoekl, A., 2006. French Catholic traditionalism and the specter of reactionary politics. South Central Review, 23, 89–106. Vaggione, J. M. and Morán, J. M., 2017. Introduction: Laicidad and religious diversity: Themes in the debates on the regulation of religion in Latin America. In: J. M. Vaggione and J. M. Morán, eds. Laicidad and religious diversity in Latin America. Cham: Springer, 1–20.

233

19 The globalization of the Catholic Church History, organization, theology Isacco Turina

Introduction In this chapter we propose an analysis at three levels—historical, organizational and theological—of the globalization of the Catholic Church in the twentieth and early twentyfirst centuries. These three dimensions have evolved together to transform it from a mainly European-based organization into a global actor. In a sense, the Church has always aspired to a universal mission: the evangelization of all mankind (originally, ‘catholic’ meant ‘universal’). Indeed, in the seventeenth century the Jesuits were already active on a global scale (Clossey 2008). But the rest of the Church was deeply involved in European politics. Until the end of the nineteenth century most of its followers were European, and so was its hierarchy. But the sweeping events which shaped modernity profoundly remoulded its structure. What had initially seemed a dramatic shrinking of its means and scope triggered important changes, which, in the end, turned into unexpected opportunities to expand its influence worldwide.

Historical dimensions Historical dimensions concern macro-historical changes like secularization in Europe, the loss of temporal power of the popes, and global demographic trends. These processes have evolved independently and often against the wishes of the Church, which has tried hard to resist them. Until the French Revolution and despite the loss of religious monopoly in Europe after the Reformation, the Catholic Church still acted within the frame of the alliance of secular and religious powers in the government of societies. Centuries of fierce conflict between the popes and the Christian emperors over matters of jurisdiction and legitimacy did not shake, but rather confirmed, the general idea that secular powers were of divine origin and therefore needed approval by the religious authority. Contrary to this political theology, the French revolutionaries established the sovereign power of the people. In a wave of violent reaction against the former establishment, they persecuted the clergy, confiscated ecclesiastical properties and brought the French Christian monarchy to an abrupt

234

The globalization of the Catholic Church

end. The subsequent Napoleonic reforms spread new models and theories of secularized state power throughout Europe. In particular, the building of the modern Italian state led to a direct confrontation with the popes, who still governed over the Papal states in Central Italy. The Italian troops conquered the city of Rome in 1870, thereby ending the temporal power of the papacy and, incidentally, interrupting the First Vatican Council where Catholic bishops were closing ranks around the Pope and proclaiming his infallibility. This was a traumatic event for the Church, which until the 1950s perpetuated an official policy of resistance, hostility and de-legitimation of modern secular powers. And yet, as Casanova (1997) has argued, the loss of temporal power paved the way for a new universal role of the popes as policy makers and opinion leaders, which we will examine later. Demographic trends generated other macro-historical processes, which have shaped the contemporary Church. In the second half of the nineteenth century, mass migrations of European Catholics to America and Australia began to shift the global distribution of believers. The Vatican had to devise new programs to provide religious and material aid to these migrants (Turina 2015). In the long run, this proved to be a successful policy. In the USA, traditionally a Protestant country, about 23% of the population is now Catholic (Center for the Study of Global Christianity 2013, p. 62). European mass migrations were followed by the migration of Latinos—most of them Catholic—from Mexico and Southern America. While future trends are open to change, the foundation of a distinct American Catholicism, which has had a profound impact both on US society and on the Church itself, is mostly the work of migrants. Besides migrations, sheer demographic growth has a strong impact on religions, and it is rapidly changing the face of the Church. The future growth of Catholicism largely depends on Catholic communities in the global South (Jenkins 2002). Currently about 59% of all Catholics live in Latin America and Africa (Secretaria status ecclesiae 2016, p. 43). Those continents, which were once lands of evangelization for European missionaries, now represent the bulk of Catholicity and are themselves promoting evangelization elsewhere, including Europe, where it is increasingly common to see African priests or Indian nuns.

Organizational dimensions While these processes are part of great historical changes and have evolved mostly independently of the Church itself, which could do little to stop or manage them, at the organizational level we identify the structural adjustments of the Church in response to these trends. We will focus on five of these changes: the election of bishops; the College of Cardinals; the diplomacy of the Holy See; the network of Catholic NGOs; and the uses of media.

The election of bishops One of the benefits accruing from the loss of temporal power and the separation of Church and State has been the centralization of the appointment of bishops in the hands of the Pope (Costigan 1966). After centuries of struggles between Rome and the secular powers, in the twentieth century the Holy See gained almost complete control over the appointment of bishops worldwide, the notable exception being currently the People’s Republic of China. In the course of this process, the bishops were freed from the grip of local powers and brought under Rome’s direct control. Once mainly a local élite, Catholic bishops are now more like a corps of officials with a relatively homogeneous education who act in 235

Isacco Turina

accordance with, and under the surveillance of, the Pope. This centralization has allowed for a global political agenda orchestrated by the Holy See, as in the case of the campaign against abortion and reproductive rights under the pontificate of John-Paul II.

The College of Cardinals Until the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), the College of Cardinals that elects the pope used to be mainly European and particularly Italian; now it is genuinely global and increasingly so. European cardinals are 42% of the electors, while cardinals from Latin America, Asia and Africa, altogether represent 44% of the electorate and their share is likely to increase in the coming years (data from the website www.vatican.va, last update 28 June 2018; cardinals can elect the Pope until the age of eighty). Churches from the global South are gaining weight within the universal Church and they have begun to shift from the periphery to the centre of the organization. They increasingly provide institutional leaders—and more recently Francis himself, the first pope from the Southern hemisphere.

The diplomacy of the Holy See Although the Vatican City is the smallest country in the world, it is the only existing case of a religious organization that can act as a state. Diplomatic relations are key to its politics. The Vatican currently entertains bilateral relations with 180 states and holds the status of permanent observer at the UN. Its delegates participate on a regular basis in the assemblies of the UN and of its organisms like UNESCO, ILO, WHO and FAO. It is notably a member of the Executive Committee of the UNHCR, a member of the OSCE and maintains formal relations with the EU. The Holy See generally enjoys a good reputation for its endorsement of peace, human rights, religious freedom and the rights of migrants and refugees. However, its engagement does not go without criticisms. Its opposition to abortion, reproductive rights and same-sex marriage has led to tensions and ambiguities when women’s rights or the rights of homosexual people are at stake. Nevertheless, the Holy See has acted consistently in favor of debt relief for poor countries, against the Iraq War in 2003 and for the rights of Christian minorities in the Middle East (Shelledy 2004). It has sustained campaigns for universal access to water, food and medicine, and it has upheld the cause of poor peasants and indigenous people against land exploitation in Latin America and the Philippines. The Pope’s public statements deal mostly with social, spiritual and moral issues, but they can have significant political meaning. This has been notably the case with John XXIII during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, while the diplomacy and travels to Poland of John-Paul II are credited with having favored the fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe (Linden 2009).

The network of Catholic NGOs While official diplomacy is centralized in Rome, a large number of faith-based organizations around the world assume the task of putting into practice the Catholic teaching in a variety of social, political and local arenas. This task, which used to be undertaken mainly by religious congregations and societies of apostolic life, since Vatican II has been increasingly in the hands of lay Catholics. The galaxy of Catholic NGOs covers a wide range of ideological positions and material tasks, from assistance to the poor to intergovernmental lobbying (Trigeaud 2014). Part of this network is coordinated by the Holy See through its 236

The globalization of the Catholic Church

departments; but generally these NGOs enjoy a great deal of leeway or they work mainly with the local clergy. In addition to their material work they can act as a powerful network of information, especially in the case of conflicts, humanitarian emergencies, or in contexts where the official Church is not allowed to move freely. For example, in the 1970s when Vatican delegates had little chance of passing beyond the Iron Curtain, Caritas Internationalis and other NGOs continued to bring material and financial help, to maintain informal contacts between Eastern and Western Europe, and to provide information on the real condition of Catholics under communist regimes (Della Cava 1997). The overall influence of this network has not yet been fully assessed, but it seems to be considerable. Some of these organizations have gained an international reputation, like the Community of Sant’Egidio, which works with the homeless in Rome and at the same time ‘has developed the world’s probably best expertise on the Balkans and in certain African conflicts (Burundi, Congo)’ (Matlary 2001, p. 93). Catholic activists are also at the origin of fair trade organizations, like Max Havelaar (Landron 2008, pp. 406–410).

Uses of the media Since the 1920s the popes have been aware of the ubiquitous role of mass media in contemporary society and of their influence on the public. Their response has been twofold. On the one hand, they have made use of the new media to spread their own message. On the other, they have warned against the danger that they represent for the public. Thus, in 1931 Pius XI broadcasted the first radio discourse by a pope and in 1936 he issued an encyclical (Vigilanti cura) in support of Catholic campaigns of moral censure of films, including the boycott of those that fell below moral standards. In 1963 Vatican II confirmed in its decree Inter mirifica this double concern: to make good use of the mass media for Catholic purposes and to keep watch on possible misuses. At the turn of the twenty-first century the Church has adopted the Internet as a new means of publicity and evangelization (see the 2002 document The Church and Internet, by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications). Gauthier and Uhl (2012, p. 59) have shown that the Holy See’s official website ‘emphasises a personal rapport with the Vatican, namely through the living symbol of the Pope.’ In recent decades the popes, beginning with John-Paul II, have indeed become media celebrities and the media have been eager to cover some news stories concerning the Church. While this has proved successful on the occasion of events like papal journeys, the election of a new pope or the 2000 Jubilee in Rome, media attention has backlashed in the case of scandals involving the clergy and the Roman curia. As Alain Woodrow has contended, ‘the Catholic Church was quick to grasp the way it could utilise the media for its own ends, but much less willing to accept the legitimate demands made upon it by those same media’ (Woodrow 2003, p. 209). The pontificate of Benedict XVI, racked by frequent scandals, has shown how much relations with the media have become a priority for the government of the Church. In a ‘commitment to reorganize’ the Holy See’s information system, in 2015 Pope Francis established the Secretariat for Communication, tasked with coordinating the Vatican media and maintaining relations with external media.

The theological dimensions These structural adjustments have been accompanied by doctrinal changes. Here we focus on the Catholic doctrine as it appears in papal teachings. These teachings provide contents, guidelines and inspiration for the activities of Catholic communities and organizations 237

Isacco Turina

worldwide. We will review five recurrent topics in the magisterium of the popes since Vatican II: human rights; migrants and refugees; family, sexuality and bioethics; economics; and environment and climate change. Taken together, these issues contribute to forging a global Catholic teaching. It is global because it deals with matters of international significance and also because it is intended to target not only Catholic believers but all mankind. Each of these issues has inspired campaigns and commitment, and it has received considerable attention from the media, scholars and the public opinion, sparking debates and sometimes provoking vehement criticism. For better or worse, this participation in the public sphere has helped greatly to increase the visibility of the Church and its influence in contemporary social and political processes.

Human rights The Church’s reception of human rights has had a troubled history (Menozzi 2012). Initially associated with the Declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen of the French Revolution, the hierarchy considered such rights as a modern error. In the field of conscience, everyone must follow the truth, so that there is no freedom to hold or disseminate false (i.e. not Catholic) opinions. Well into the twentieth century, the Church was still opting for an official religion enforced by secular powers. Vatican II helped to advance the debate, accepting the principles of religious freedom and freedom of conscience, together with the separation of Church and State. John XXIII’s 1963 encyclical on peace, Pacem in terris, was the first to uphold the discourse of human rights. In the 1980s, John-Paul II grafted the doctrine of human rights on his own theology, which put the human person at the center of the Church’s advocacy. He openly endorsed the work of the UN and was viewed by many as a champion of human rights who spoke on behalf of all humanity. Since then, the issue of human rights has become commonplace in the magisterium of Church leaders and in the campaigns of many Catholic NGOs. This attitude is not completely consistent, however. Tensions frequently arise on the subject of women’s rights, reproductive rights, or the rights of homosexual people, with liberal and radical movements routinely accusing the Church of sustaining and perpetuating a patriarchal and heteronormative order (Chong and Troy 2011). The Church itself is not a democratic society in any case, and its vision of human dignity stems from a conception of men and women as created by God, which is not easily reconcilable with more secular approaches. Nonetheless, in the second half of the twentieth century, the Catholic thought has turned towards a positive assessment of democracy, peace and human rights. According to Huntington (1991) and Casanova (1996), in the 1980s and 1990s the Church became a decisive actor in the transitions from dictatorial to democratic regimes in many countries throughout the world.

Migrants and refugees The concern of the Church for the fate of migrants was initially determined by the vicissitudes of Catholic migrants. In the 1940s Pius XII spoke in favour of the free circulation of Catholic believers worldwide and against discrimination in their new lands of settlement. In the aftermath of World War II he publicly embraced the cause of war prisoners and refugees independently of their religion, advocating a rapid and peaceful return of all people to their homes. In 1951, the Holy See was among the twenty-six states that promulgated and signed the Geneva Convention on the status of refugees. Vatican II further 238

The globalization of the Catholic Church

developed this interest. In the dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium, the Church identifies itself as ‘the wandering people of God’ whose members live ‘still as pilgrims in a strange land.’ Concern for mobile and displaced people has gone hand in hand with a selfconscience of the Church as a supranational entity, not bound to the Westphalian system of frontiers, territorial jurisdiction and national citizenship (Turina 2015). Since Paul VI, the popes have been travelers on all continents, and papal journeys have become regular media events. John-Paul II was an indefatigable traveler. Visits provided him with opportunities to pursue political aims or to settle conflicts with local churches. In the course of his sojourn he met political leaders and he would personally follow diplomatic relations between the Holy See and secular governments. Modern transportation technology enabled him to combine a solid central power with ceaseless mobility. It therefore comes as no surprise that he was an advocate of human mobility. Lately Pope Francis has been a vocal defender of the rights of migrants. On his first papal trip he visited the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa— a gateway to Europe for thousands of migrants and asylum-seekers from North Africa. In a sermon on Lampedusa he remembered the deaths at sea of hundreds of them and criticized the indifference of host countries.

Family, sexuality and bioethics Breaking a longstanding tradition of reticence on sexual matters, in his 1930 encyclical Casti connubii Pius XI made the first public statement on eugenics and birth control, basically condemning the intervention of states (forced sterilizations, certificates of eugenic marriage) as well as attempts by the couples themselves to limit the number of their children. Casti connubii marked the beginning of an ongoing struggle among the Church, secular powers, public opinion and the medical world around questions of sexuality, human life and what would be later known as bioethics (Turina 2013a). The official doctrine on this matter has not been immutable, however. In 1951 Pius XII permitted the use of natural means of fertility control based on estimates of the ovulation cycle. But in 1968, when considerable numbers of lay Catholics—especially in Western democracies—were persuaded that the doctrine was about to be further liberalized, Paul VI reaffirmed the ban on the pill as well as any other contraceptive method except the ‘natural’ ones. His encyclical Humanae vitae was a watershed in the contemporary history of the Church (Massa 2010). It widened the gap between the laity and the hierarchy that Vatican II had begun to close and it exacerbated the culture war between liberal and conservative Catholics. The Holy See has often tried to influence, through its political and diplomatic forces, liberal secular legislations concerning abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage and the diffusion of gender theory (Dobbelaere et al. 2015). Indeed, this may be the only domain where tensions between the Church and the modern world, which have been largely resolved in other fields, are still strong. The Holy See has shown a propensity to ally with such unlikely partners as Muslim states in order to counter UN programs on reproductive rights (Chong and Troy 2011). It would be wrong, however, to see the Church as univocal. John-Paul II thwarted internal plurality, and he made conformity with sexual morals the standard of loyalty to the hierarchy. Since his death many dissenting voices—including members of the clergy—have publicly emerged, showing that the Catholic world is far from being of only one mind. Benedict XVI had timidly begun to relax the ban on condoms, and Francis has insisted on the primacy of pastoral care over doctrinal anathemas, thereby adopting a more nuanced consideration of subjective and contextual factors. Nevertheless, the dispute over same-sex marriage and gender theory still continues between the Catholic hierarchy and liberal movements around the world. 239

Isacco Turina

Economics As part of the social doctrine of the Church, inaugurated by Leo XIII in 1891 with the encyclical Rerum novarum, the Catholic teaching on economics traditionally emphasizes the dialogue between labor and capital and the need for a wage that guarantees a decent life for workers and their families. In a polemic against communists on one side and free-market enthusiasts on the other, the Church has stressed the role of intermediate bodies like trade unions and grassroots organizations. In 1931, Pius XI opted for corporatism as the system best able to assure a just and reasonable economic order. In the 1950s Pius XII was a moderate supporter of free enterprise (Percy 2004). After Vatican II, the doctrine on economics became global. Populorum progressio (1967) by Paul VI brought North-South inequalities and economic development to center stage. In 1991, immediately after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the encyclical Centesimus annus by John-Paul II was read by some as welcoming free entrepreneurship and capitalism (Novak 1993). Although this interpretation would need to be qualified—John-Paul II was certainly no advocate of the consumer society—the international financial crisis that began in 2008 caused a shift towards a more open critique of the negative consequences of global capitalism. The claim that the economy ‘must be structured and governed in an ethical manner’ runs through Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in veritate and has been forcefully reiterated by Pope Francis. Indeed, the latter is developing a strong indictment of the ruthlessness of global corporations and the misdeeds of impersonal financial transactions which altogether are worsening the conditions of poor people worldwide and exploiting them (Cavanaugh 2015). Just as John-Paul II’s campaign against communism drew on his personal experience under the Polish regime and had the Cold War as its backdrop, Francis’s message against global inequalities takes stock of his Latin American background as well as the global justice movement (in 2014 the Vatican summoned a World meeting of popular, i.e. grassroots, movements). His teachings dovetail with pre-existing Catholic initiatives for economic justice, such as those for debt relief, fair trade or the Economy of Communion project by the Focolari Movement.

Environment and climate change In 2015, Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato si’ on ‘the care for our common home’ has evoked comments from various sections of the public, including scientists, politicians and social movements. The Church’s engagement with ecology dates back to the early 1970s (Keenan 2002), but Laudato si’ was the first document to give a full-fledged account of the environmental crisis. The official Catholic attitude towards environmentalism differs from that of many secular movements because it is wary of demographic policies. It stops short of ‘deep ecology’ and biocentrism and it shuns references to Eastern spirituality which are commonplace among many activists (Turina 2013b). But even within these limits, Francis has strongly denounced land exploitation and pollution by governments and corporations as well as weak, superficial environmental policies. He emphasizes the link among safeguarding the environment, global justice and the misdeeds of an unbridled free market. He pairs ‘the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor,’ a sentence that echoes the title of a book by the Brazilian liberation theologian, Leonardo Boff. Taking stock of the scientific consensus on global warming, he rebukes climate change deniers. Together with his indictment of neoliberalism, this stance has earned him the reproaches of Catholic conservatives, notably in the United States and Australia. It is noteworthy that he makes frequent references to the documents of National Bishops’ conferences, a detail which suggests the slow formation of a genuinely global theology, nourished by non-European and particularly Southern Churches.

240

The globalization of the Catholic Church

The issues examined above have allowed the Church to take an active role in the most urgent debates that have riven modern societies in the past century. They have channeled political alliances and they have favored convergences and cleavages with other agencies. They have induced theology to confront living problems and they have fueled grassroots commitments. They have accompanied the globalization of the ecclesiastical structures and they have given it corresponding global contents. They have contributed to keeping the visibility of the Church high and to having its voice heard by other relevant actors worldwide. They are a witness to the engagement of the Church with the modern world at the same time as the Church was loosening its former rejection of it.

Conclusion Our three-level analysis started with those historical changes that in the past two centuries have affected the Church and pushed it into the turmoil of modernity: secularization, the separation of Church and State, the loss of temporal power, mass migrations and world demographic trends. The initial reaction was one of outright rejection of these and other characteristics of modern societies. These unwanted changes, however, triggered a series of organizational adjustments that in the long run have shaped an unexpected new profile of the Church. The popes could finally manage the appointment of bishops; through the encyclicals and thanks to the new technologies of communication, they have learned how to address an international public, gradually gaining a wide reputation as world leaders, relevant political actors and even media celebrities; the establishment of a skilled diplomatic corps and of a network of Catholic NGOs has greatly enhanced the power of the Church as mediator in international relations and as a provider of information and services on different continents; the College of Cardinals summoned to elect the Pope has shifted from a mostly Italian and European entity to a genuinely global constituency that represents also Southern and Eastern countries—after about twelve centuries, the election of a European pope is no longer taken for granted. Doctrinal developments have accompanied these structural changes. The pre-conciliar magisterium was more concerned with otherworldly matters. Now it is deeply involved in contemporary social and political issues. The Church has often something to say about the most hotly debated topics in the public sphere. Its main areas of intervention include peace and human rights, migrants and refugees, sexuality and bioethics, economics, and the environmental crisis. As a result of these processes, the Catholic Church has left behind its former identity as a European-based organization to take on a truly global profile. If this is an accomplished fact, it is nevertheless difficult to make a critical assessment of the next challenges. On the one hand, the Pope attracts worldwide attention and media coverage. But this high visibility risks becoming a two-edged sword when disastrous news emerges: the recent child abuse scandals have greatly eroded the credibility of the Church, particularly in the United States, Ireland and Belgium but also in Peru. Moreover, an excessive concentration on the Pope might be a liability if it hides problems that emerge at grassroots level. Pope Francis has put evangelization and pastoral care at the top of his agenda. Indeed, the Church is losing followers to the profit of secularism, especially in Europe and North America, and of Protestant and Pentecostal Churches, particularly in Africa and Latin America. In China too, which is likely to be strategic for the future of world religions, Independent and Protestant Christians outnumber Catholics and they are growing faster than them (Center for the Study of Global Christianity 2013, p. 36). The balance between élite power and grassroots vitality is likely to be a major stake for the future of the Catholic 241

Isacco Turina

Church. In the end, its prestige as a world actor is founded on its representing large masses of believers. If it were to lose substantial numbers of followers, in the long run the influence and legitimacy of its leaders would also predictably wane. Another crucial point concerns internal ideological division. The post-conciliar fracture between liberal and conservative Catholics is still not reconciled and may endanger the unity of the Church. An almost exclusive focus on the person of the Pope can temporarily hide these problems and enhance the influence of Catholic élites, but it does not really help to cope with them. The balance of power between the center in Rome and the National Bishops’ conferences is also a delicate matter that causes deep concern when an official agenda is de facto ignored or disregarded. For all his authority, John-Paul II was more successful in assuring public compliance with his positions on abortion than he was with peace. As Linden remarks, ‘despite the ability of parts of the Church to leap nation-state boundaries in pursuit of the Common Good, the Church has rarely transcended ethnic and national identities in times of war’ (Linden 2009, p. 275). The civil war of 1994 in Rwanda opposing two ethnic groups, both of them Catholic, is a tragic reminder of this inability. The upsurge of new grassroots Catholic movements, from the loosely organized Charismatics to the strictly disciplined Neocatechumenal Way, also raises questions about the liturgical and doctrinal consistency of the various branches of the Church. On the external front, inter-religious relations represent a crucial challenge for the twenty-first century. Indeed, inter-faith dialogue is strictly intertwined with political and diplomatic affairs. Currently, the persecution of Christian minorities in the Middle East is a formidable obstacle to Muslim/Catholic dialogue, while ecumenical rapprochement with Orthodox Christianity in Russia is hindered by fears of Catholic proselytizing. Likewise, ‘it seems that dialogue between Jews and Catholics will still be held hostage by the unsolved Palestinian issue’ (Vukić ević 2015, p. 70). Therefore, in a time when religion has become a major variable in international relations, the establishment of peaceful collaboration between the Catholic Church and other religious actors seems particularly doubtful and delicate. Finally, the Church’s constant visibility has raised the issue of public accounting. The child abuses cases, together with financial and political scandals that have swept the Vatican in recent years (Thavis 2013), have dramatically exposed the traditional culture of secrecy which until recently was widespread among the clergy and deeply entrenched within the Roman curia. Theological analyses of public accounting and the civil responsibilities of the clergy are few and far between. The damage that this unpreparedness has caused to the global image of the Church is only too evident.

References Casanova, J., 1996. Global Catholicism and the Politics of Civil Society. Sociological Inquiry, 66 (3), 356–373. Casanova, J., 1997. Globalizing Catholicism and the Return to a ‘Universal Church’. In: S. Hoeber Rudolph and J. Piscatori, eds. Transnational Religion and Fading States. Boulder: Westview, 121–143. Cavanaugh, W., 2015. Return of the Golden Calf: Economy, Idolatry, and Secularization Since Gaudium Et Spes. Theological Studies, 76 (4), 698–717. Center for the Study of Global Christianity, 2013. Christianity in Its Global Context, 1970-2020. Society, Religion, and Mission. South Hamilton: Center for the Study of Global Christianity. Chong, A. and Troy, J., 2011. A Universal Sacred Mission and the Universal Secular Organization: The Holy See and the United Nations. Politics, Religion and Ideology, 12 (3), 335–354.

242

The globalization of the Catholic Church

Clossey, L., 2008. Salvation and Globalization in the Early Jesuit Missions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Costigan, R. F., 1966. State Appointment of Bishops. Journal of Church and State, 8 (1), 82–96. Della Cava, R., 1997. Religious Resource Networks: Roman Catholic Philanthropy in Central and East Europe. In: S. Hoeber Rudolph and J. Piscatori, eds. Transnational Religion and Fading States. Boulder: Westview, 173–196. Dobbelaere, K. and Pérez-Agote, A., eds., 2015. The Intimate. Polity and the Catholic Church. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Gauthier, F. and Uhl, M., 2012. Digital Shapings of Religion in a Globalised World. The Vatican Online and Amr Khaled’s TV-preaching. Australian Journal of Communication, 39 (1), 53–70. Huntington, S. P., 1991. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Jenkins, P., 2002. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press. Keenan, M., 2002. From Stockholm to Johannesburg: An Historical Overview of the Concern of the Holy See for the Environment, 1972–2002. Vatican City: LEV. Landron, O., 2008. Le catholicisme vert: Histoire des relations entre l’Église et la nature au XXe siècle. Paris: Cerf. Linden, I., 2009. Global Catholicism: Diversity and Change since Vatican II. London: Hurst & Company. Massa, M. S., 2010. The American Catholic Revolution: How the Sixties Changed the Church Forever. New York: Oxford University Press. Matlary, J. H., 2001. The Just Peace: The Public and Classical Diplomacy of the Holy See. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 14 (2), 80–94. Menozzi, D., 2012. Chiesa e diritti umani: Legge naturale e modernità politica dalla rivoluzione francese ai nostri giorni. Bologna: il Mulino. Novak, M., 1993. The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Free Press. Percy, A. G., 2004. Private Initiative, Entrepreneurship, and Business in the Teaching of Pius XII. Journal of Markets & Morality, 7 (1), 7–25. Secretaria status ecclesiae, 2016. Statistical Yearbook of the Church 2014. Vatican City: LEV. Shelledy, R. B., 2004. The Vatican’s Role in Global Politics. SAIS Review, 24 (2), 149–162. Thavis, J. (2013) The Vatican Diaries. New York: Penguin. Trigeaud, S.-H., 2014. La géopolitique de l’Église catholique. Annuaire français de relations internationales, 15, 765–779. Turina, I., 2013a. Vatican Biopolitics. Social Compass, 60 (1), 137–151. Turina, I., 2013b. L’Église catholique et la cause de l’environnement. Terrain, 60, 20–35. Turina, I., 2015. Centralized Globalization: The Holy See and Human Mobility since World War II. Critical Research on Religion, 3 (2), 189–205. Vukić ević , B., 2015. Pope Francis and the Challenges of Inter-civilization Diplomacy. Revista Brasileira De Política Internacional, 58 (2), 65–79. Woodrow, A., 2003. The Church and the Media: Beyond Inter Mirifica. In: A. Ivereigh, ed. Unfinished Journey. The Church 40 Years after Vatican II. London: Continuum, 208–224.

Key texts Casanova, J., 1996. Global Catholicism and the Politics of Civil Society. Sociological Inquiry, 66 (3), 356–373. Casanova, J., 1997. Globalizing Catholicism and the Return to a ‘Universal Church’. In: S. Hoeber Rudolph and J. Piscatori, eds. Transnational Religion and Fading States. Boulder: Westview, 121–143. Jenkins, P., 2002. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press. Linden, I., 2009. Global Catholicism: Diversity and Change since Vatican II. London: Hurst & Company. Shelledy, R. B., 2004. The Vatican’s Role in Global Politics. SAIS Review, 24 (2), 149–162.

243

Part V

Diasporic communities

20 Dialectics between transnationalism and diaspora The Ahmadiyya Muslim community Katrin Langewiesche

Introduction My aim in this chapter is to draw attention to the complementarity of the concepts of diaspora and transnationalization by analyzing certain religious movements, using the example of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. The concept of diaspora can be used as a framework for studying particular social formations that arise within processes of transnational mobilization. The transnational perspective highlights the importance of individual mobility, religious media, and educational and health institutions in conveying religious ideas across large geographical distances. The example of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community emphasizes the importance of religion and religious actors as brokers and outcomes of global exchange. The Ahmadiyya was founded in British India in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, an Indian Muslim scholar (1835–1908). The movement holds a unique place within contemporary Islam because, although its members consider themselves Muslim, they are not recognized as such by the majority of Muslims. Since the 1974 Islamic Conference in Mecca, the Ahmadiyya has been excluded from the Islamic community by fatwa (legal opinion given by a recognized authority). Within the Ahmadiyya, there were theological differences and disagreements regarding the founder’s successor prompting the splitting of the movement into two groups as early as 1914: the Lahore Ahmadiyya (Ahmadiyya Anjuman-i Isha`at-i Islami—AAII) and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community (Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at—AMJ). The missionaries of the Lahore Ahmadiyya were the first to reach Europe and those who were met with greatest success among Europeans from World War I onward, until World War II transformed the situation entirely. Jonker (2016) explains these transformations by adapting missionary ideas to changing political and intellectual contexts. While, on one side, the progressive Islam of the Lahore Ahmadis and their rational approach fitted well in the period of experimentation and intellectual awakening between the two world wars, the millenarian Islam of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at, on the other side, with its promise of redemption through charism settled in a post-war, then Cold War atmosphere and began to conquer one European capital after another.

247

Katrin Langewiesche

The vast majority of Ahmadis in Europe and in the world today belong to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at, whose administrative headquarters have been in London since 1984 because the Ahmadis are persecuted in their home country, Pakistan. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at is represented in over 200 countries around the world. Although the group is attracting many converts, especially in Africa, a very large proportion of its members are still Pakistani or of Pakistani origin. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at sees itself as a reform movement within Islam. Indeed, the traditional tenets of Muslim Reformism—personal interpretation of the Quran and the purge of Islam from local traditions—are present in Ahmadi Islam. An important characteristic of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at is that it is missionary-oriented, with a special emphasis on peaceful proselytizing aimed at Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Travelling from the periphery to the center of the European empires the Ahmadiyya movement was the first Muslim migrant community from the Indian subcontinent who engaged in a ‘reversed’ mission flux (Gaborieau 2001). In its writings, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at refers to the sources of Islam. The Quran is considered to be an infallible book revealed by God. Furthermore, the sunna (practice of the Prophet Muhammad), as well as his traditions (hadith), are considered to be fundamental as long as they do not contradict the Quran. Ghulam Ahmad refers to the Hanafite school of law and to the independent interpretation of the legal sources (ijtihad) by scholars of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at (Ahmed 2012, pp. 13, 49). The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at links the demand for a return to true Islam with active faith spreading, which is in line with some Wahhabi-Salafi currents. This ethos resembles US evangelical media campaigns. It also calls for the veneration of their spiritual leader (like in some Sufi brotherhoods) and manages its international communities centrally (which resembles the clerical structure of the Catholic Church). The Ahmadiyya can be described as the outcome of cultural interactions in a colonial environment and long-term transnational exchanges combining diverse threads into one religious movement that adopted its own way.

Ahmadiyya studies, methods, and concepts Although the Ahmadiyya movement has received scholarly attention both on the Indian subcontinent where the movement was founded (Lavan 1974; Friedmann 1989; Gaborieau 1994; Khan 2015; Qasmi 2015) and in the diaspora (Beyler et al. 2008; Ross-Valentine 2008; Curtis 2009; Lathan 2010; Skinner 2010; Green 2014; Jonker 2016), the level of research in Africa is not sufficient. The only transnational study for the African continent dates back to the 1960s (Fisher 1963). In addition, there are several national studies on Benin (Bregand 2006), Burkina Faso (Cissé and Langewiesche 2019), the Ivory Coast (Yacoob 1986), and most recently a historical study on the Gold Coast, today’s Ghana (Hanson 2017). Recent transnational studies are largely lacking, even though the outstanding pieces of research by Green (2014), Hanson (2017), and Jonker (2016) have identified precisely these global connections. The few studies on the Ahmadiyya deserve to be placed in a larger theoretical context, namely that of transnational religious research. Thus, the empirical example of the Ahmadiyya movement is nourished by the theoretical discussion about the complex relationship between religion and globalization.

Multilocal fieldwork My interest in the activities of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community began in 2009 with a series of interviews with employees and the doctor of the Ahmadi hospital in Ouagadougou, 248

Transnationalism and diaspora

the capital of Burkina Faso. They allowed me to participate in many medical outreaches and cataract operations in villages around the capital and distributions of medicines in the prison. In 2014 and 2015, I conducted systematic research in France, Germany, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Benin, following the activities of various Ahmadi communities and participating in their events, in particular the Jalsa Salana, an annual meeting of days of prayer organized in every country hosting an Ahmadi community.1

Concepts: transnationalism and diaspora In the context of the debates surrounding globalization, researchers introduced the idea of transnationalism to analyze complex links between migrants, their countries of origin, and their host society (Glick Schiller et al. 1992; Vertovec 1999). Faist (2000) stressed that transnational phenomena do not develop solely through migration but also through the exchange of goods and ideas among NGOs, business connections, associations, religious movements, and churches (Lauser and Weissköppel 2008). Two characteristics must be highlighted when outlining this idea of transnationalism, be it in the area of religion or other sectors: this term refers to crossing borders in the sense that links are created and sustained between persons of the same national background but in different places. Second, the term indicates the possibility of crossing borders in the sense of an exchange of political, religious, and social ideas and interests. This indicates the mobilizing forces that transnational groups or networks can exercise within states or any given society. The first characteristic is obvious: the exchange of goods and information, and people’s mobility, clearly establish connections. In contrast, rather than assuming eventual effects in advance, the second characteristic—the mobilizing force of transnational links—remains to be proved empirically for each case (Weissköppel 2005a). Transnationalism is an analytical and descriptive concept associated with such subjects as mobility and the formation of networks. It refers to processes that extend beyond national borders. The traditional definition of diaspora as religious or national groups who live outside their country of origin is rooted in concepts of ‘community’ and ‘dispersal,’ which are frequently associated with persecution (Cohen 2008). The term diaspora is not solely an analytical category used to describe social phenomena in the academic context; it is used equally commonly in political debates in the defense of individual interests. In contrast to the concept of transnationalism, which remains an academic term, diaspora can be envisaged as a political project, which serves in the defense of interests and ideologies (Bauböck 2010, p. 315). When the practices and discourses of a group and the ways in which they are maintained and respected in a transnational community across generations are considered from an empirical perspective, the concept of diaspora quickly emerges. This concept alludes to cultural idiosyncrasies and identity markers such as language, food, clothes, and their importance for delineating the borders of the religious community. For historical reasons, the Ahmadiyya movement is strongly linked with the Pakistani diaspora but gradually includes new converts of different nationalities and cultures. As a result, its identity markers and boundaries are changing and shifting. This movement offers a good example for the study of a Muslim diaspora which is increasingly displaying its transnational character. Three dimensions deserve attention if we wish to compare the ideas of transnationalism and diaspora with a view to deploying them for the analysis of a specific case (Bauböck and Faist 2010): 249

Katrin Langewiesche

1.

2.

3.

The phenomenon of transnationalism encompasses all kinds of social formations (for example, scientific networks and social movements alike). This concept is broader than that of diaspora, which is associated with groups and territories (Levitt 2001). The dimension of identity and mobility. While transnationalism stresses individual mobility across borders thanks to the constitution of networks, the concept of diaspora is focused on collective identities. Finally, the third difference between the two concepts concerns their inscriptions in time (Cohen 2008). The studies on diasporas are more suited to the long-term perspective and integrated into the historical context than transnational analyses which focus on recent migratory flows.The interest in combining these two concepts lies in recording the recent changes within the Ahmadiyya movement and understanding its adaptation and resistance to different contexts.

Transnational spaces bridging transnational movement and diaspora Some of the Ahmadiyya’s global and local practices highlight this dialectic between transnationalism and diaspora. During the annual assemblies of the Ahmadiyya, the Jalsa Salana, a yearly event taking place in each country where the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at is settled, the transnational practices are physically concentrated and updated. These meetings are not only days of prayer for spiritual fulfillment but also an occasion to meet relatives and friends from all over the world, and to present the multiple professional and educational Ahmadi networks, the humanitarian association linked to the religious organization (Humanity First), the matrimonial agency of the Movement (Rishta Nata), and its widereaching media activities. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at conveys their message through a highly developed media network. Nowadays, its international television plays an important role for the growing number of converts and to counter the accusations of heterodoxy (Scholz et al. 2008; Sevea 2009). In Africa, radio broadcasts are just as important in order to reach out large sections of the population as well as all Muslims who would never take part in their meetings because of the Ahmadiyya’s outsider position. There are several reasons accounting for this outsider position.2 The main reason is that the Ahmadis believe their founder is not only a reformer of Islam but also the promised Messiah and Imam Mahdi. Other Muslims see this belief as a contradiction to the dogma that Mohammed is the ‘Seal of the Prophet.’ This led to controversies over the interpretation of the Quranic term ‘Seal of the Prophet’ (khatam-al-Nabiyyin). Ghulam Ahmad understands khatam not as the ‘last’ but as the ‘best’ and ‘greatest’ of the prophets. Ghulam Ahmad and other thinkers of Islamic mysticism before him (Muhyi al-Din Ibn alArabi, 1165–1240) make their case by emphasizing the difference between legislative prophets (anbiya tashri’) and non-legislative prophets (anbiya la tashri’ a lahum) (Friedmann 2003, pp. 73–75). Ghulam Ahmad sees himself as a non-legislative prophet who has come to revitalize the teaching of the Quran as the last scripture, and who acknowledges Muhammad as the last prophet. The Ahmadiyya’s commitment in the fields of education, health, and development has a clearly missionary purpose even if they carefully keep mission and humanitarian work apart (Langewiesche 2020). The movement funds both its missionary activities and its social projects through its members’ contributions. Members must donate between 6–10% of their net income to the community. These internal contributions do not exempt Ahmadi Muslims from the standard zakat. Mission activities combined with the strong veneration of their 250

Transnationalism and diaspora

charismatic leader and a centralized organization are the main elements which allow the spreading of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at all over the world. Every country has a national president (the Amir) and a chief missionary. The Amir, a position comparable to that of an ambassador, is the direct representative of the khalifa. Every Amir is advised by an elected executive office including several departments. Inside the Ahmadiyya movement, there are sub-communities for boys (7–15), for men under 40 (Khuddam), for men over 40 (Ansar), for girls (7–15) and for women (Lajna). The women’s organizations are organized independently and are under the sole authority of the khalifa. The local, regional, and national department heads are in close contact with the international headquarters in London. Local and national departments together organize major events, such as the Jalsa Salana, which would otherwise overburden local communities financially. The Jalsa Salana can be analyzed as transnational spaces connecting the global Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and its Pakistani diaspora. I use the concept of transnational spaces with respect to Marcus (1995). In his programmatic text he suggests tracking ‘communication spaces’ like crossover points in a network.

Professional and educational associations Each country publicly rewards its academic graduates during the annual Jalsa Salana. In Germany, where the biggest European assembly of Ahmadis takes place (and in 2016, 33,000 Ahmadis gathered to pray and undergo spiritual training), the khalifa himself presided over the ceremony for awarding medals to the new graduates. The community claims ‘tens of millions’ of faithful.3 However, independent sources variously estimate the community at between 10 and 20 million members worldwide, thereby representing around 1% of the world’s Muslim population.4 In some countries, like Pakistan, the members cannot proclaim they are Ahmadis because of the persecutions. For this reason, any estimation of the exact number of Ahmadis is difficult to establish for the organization itself and research institutions alike. However, even in western countries, the Ahmadiyya rarely discloses its exact numbers of faithful.5 This tendency to remain discreet regarding the number of members in the community is part of a narrative of a religious truth situated beyond history and the commensurable. The realistic demography is of lesser importance than the vision of an increasing and ever expanding religious movement. Within the movement, great emphasis is placed on the education of all members, from childhood to adulthood, and for both men and women. The Ahmadis’ understanding of education covers both religious and scientific instruction. Particular attention is paid to the education of girls and women. As a result, it is possible to encounter numerous Ahmadi women in both Africa and Europe, who exercise socially prestigious professions requiring extensive university studies. This promotion of the education and professionalization of women on the part of the Ahmadiyya does not, however, rule out the requirement for the strict separation of the sexes within the community, within families as soon as strangers are visiting them and, as much as possible, within public spaces. The professional involvement of women into society is encouraged by the community under the condition that the woman is able to respect the purdah (i.e. the correct behaviour/clothing) and that her professional activity does not prevent her from taking care of her children’s education and doing the housework. During the Jalsa Salana, members of the various professional associations can meet directly or be informed about the activities of the respective associations. There exist international associations according to professions for Ahmadi lawyers, professors, interpreters, and 251

Katrin Langewiesche

engineers, who offer support and internships to young Ahmadis at the beginning of their careers.6 In every country there are also national student associations to provide tutorials and counsel about professional or academic careers. The movement requests all members to offer their services to the community for free for at least three months each year. For example, young Ahmadi Burkinabés completing their agronomy studies come to provide their help in Nigerian villages during their vacation. This system of religious service creates a permanent circulation between villagers and people who have a cosmopolitan habitus and are connected to the globalized world. This system encourages young, well-educated Ahmadis to regularly visit a village and not to sever links with rural life as is often the case for young people who have studied and who do not return to the village either because they do not wish to do so or because they lack professional prospects in rural areas.

Humanity First: a humanitarian and development association During the annual prayer days, the activities of the Ahmadiyya-initiated non-government organization (NGO), Humanity First, are presented to the public. In 1995, the Ahmadiyya religious movement set up a humanitarian organization. Humanity First is devoted exclusively to humanitarian aims, whose activities benefit the entire population of a country and are explicitly not associated with proselytizing. Humanity First offers a wide range of social and charitable services in over 43 countries across 6 continents. Like many Islamic NGOs, it concentrates its actions on Muslim countries or those with a substantial Muslim minority population. In Africa, Humanity First funds hospitals, schools, orphanages, and different kinds of infrastructure for villagers. They organize medical camps and emergency aid in crisis situations. In Europe, Humanity First organizes blood donations, actions of cleaning of public spaces, or support to the homeless. By building schools and respecting the public curriculum, by integrating their healthcare centers into national schemes, Humanity First is one of the transnational Islamic NGOs aligning their activities with the public policy of the countries where it works and within the legal framework of its host countries. The case of Humanity First illustrates that an Islamic missionary movement like the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at, whose emphasis is on mosque building and da’wa, can launch a humanitarian NGO that strictly separates mission from aid and focuses on poverty alleviation. Yet both organizations are based on the same values and religious norms. For Ahmadi Members of Humanity First the bridging of religious activism and development cooperation emerges as an ideal way of pursuing religious social activities in a global society that requires professionalism and economic performances (Langewiesche 2020).

Ristha Nata: an international matrimonial agency The encouragement to acquire advanced scientific education and to engage in the local civil society via development cooperation goes hand in hand with the practice of arranged marriages. Be it in Germany, the UK, or Burkina Faso, it is recommended that parents choose a partner for their children. They are supported in this endeavor by a department, the Ristha Nata, which operates as an international matrimonial agency for and among Ahmadis, and organizes national seminars, often during the Jalsa Salana, which enables mothers to establish contact with other mothers who are looking for spouses for their children. During these seminars, the mother of a boy, who is identified as such by a blue ribbon, can approach a woman wearing a red ribbon indicating that she has a daughter to marry off, with a view to exchanging information. Strict endogamy is recommended within 252

Transnationalism and diaspora

the community. An Ahmadi girl is allowed to marry only an Ahmadi husband; if she does otherwise, she will be obliged to leave the jama’at. An Ahmadi man may wed a nonAhmadi woman as her conversion is hoped for. These endogamic rules are adapted according to regional customs particularly in order to integrate the new converts. Endogamy facilitates the maintenance of transnational connections of the global community, allows the development of new networks, and helps to expand the community (Balzani 2006). Nonetheless, in Africa strict endogamy is practiced between Ahmadis of Pakistani origin, which gives the impression of a cultural segregation between Ahmadis of Pakistani and African origin.

Wide-reaching media activities The Ahmadiyya has several publishing houses and printing centers in each sub-region to publish the international magazine Review of Religions and all the Ahmadi literature. Green emphasizes how important, in view of reaching out to new regions of the world, the publishing of newspaper articles, making speeches, and founding magazines were as early as the 1920s, when the first Punjabi missionary arrived in the American Midwest (Green 2014). The often free distribution of this literature is part of a method for gaining new members, just like Quran translations in all languages, radio broadcasts, and the Muslim Television Ahmadiyya (MTA). The global satellite TV MTA consists of four international channels. Since 2006, it has been possible to watch the Friday Sermons live on MTA simultaneously translated into eight languages. Within a few days, they were made available through smartphone apps (on the website al.islam, in 18 languages or via PowerPoint presentations). The Ahmadiyya has an important online presence with their official page al.islam (but also the pages of each national community and innumerable personal blogs). During the annual prayer days, the Ahmadi literature is given away or sold in all languages and exhibitions of Quran translations are made accessible. At the Jalsa Salana in Germany a translation service in more than 15 languages ensures that all members receive simultaneous translation of the sermons and of the lectures held in Urdu or German. All technical tools, such as simultaneous interpretation or the iconography of the movement rolled out in the various media channels, help to create coherence and cohesion in a context of exclusion from the ummah in order to establish a collective harmony where members understand each other and are morally united by faith in the power of the caliphate (Langewiesche 2021). During the Jalsa Salana, today’s Ahmadiyya Muslim Community’s challenge of maintaining the coherence of a transnational discourse without falling into the particularism of a Pakistani diaspora is particularly visible. Some requirements, which formerly served to maintain the Pakistani identity, have been relaxed to facilitate the acceptance and integration of new converts. For example, learning the Urdu language is no longer mandatory even if learning this language is encouraged so that all members may read the basic scriptures. The Imams give their Friday speeches in the respective national language or have them translated if necessary. Another example of this flexibility is food. At the annual meetings, special meals are proposed for guests and new converts, much less spicy, and fat-free, than Pakistani dishes. The wearing of the veil is also adapted to the customary dress of different countries. It is not mandatory to wear a veil covering the nose and the mouth, a type of veil still largely worn by Pakistani women. Many Ahmadi women wear a scarf loosely draped around their heads, like Mauritian women, or a simple cap or hat in keeping with the current fashion. Strict endogamous marriage rules are gradually loosened due to local customs. Traditional almsgiving is translated into a humanitarian narrative. 253

Katrin Langewiesche

In contrast, one important element of the Ahmadi-Pakistani diaspora identity is maintained: the commemoration of the persecution and the celebration of the martyrs. Although the Ahmadiyya is no longer a diaspora whose members share the same migratory history and traumatic experience of persecution, the reference to the martyrs functions as a symbol of the unity of all Ahmadis. In local parishes and during the national Jalsa Salana’s exhibitions in honor of the Martyrs are set up again and again, and numerous Ahmadi publications deal with the political, sociological, legal, or theological aspects of their persecution (Gualtieri 1989; Ahmed 2012; Arif 2014; Qasmi 2015). This culture of remembrance is ‘iconographic,’ whose social capital makes it possible to bridge the wide geographical areas that separate the individual communities and to maintain a common framework of experience (Bruneau 2004). Khan (2015, chapter 6, 7) examines in detail how persecution has influenced the Ahmadi identity by altering the movement’s theological worldview.

Conclusion The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community reminds us that a transnational organization does not only open up new horizons. It is also about withdrawing into the community, and thus drawing up new borders. It exemplifies what Peter Geschiere and Birgit Meyer describe as the paradox between ‘global flows’ and ‘cultural closure.’ The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is one of many empirical examples of the fact ‘that people’s awareness of being involved in open-ended global flows seems to trigger a search for fixed orientation points and action frames, as well as determined efforts to affirm old and construct new boundaries’ (1998, p. 602). Cohen (2008) advances the proposition that in the face of the insecurity of our global age, many social groups want to reach in and to reach out, to be simultaneously ethnic and transnational, local and cosmopolitan. They combine the ‘comfort zone’ provided by the community of a diaspora by sharing the intimacy of the same religion and way of life with ‘questing impulses’ from transnational connections. Within the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community such tensions become visible, the analysis of which makes it a particularly exciting research subject. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is in constant tension between globalization and identity, transnationalism and diaspora. Not only does the researcher struggle with the global and the local, but it is also the case for the Ahmadis who have to overcome the vision of an authentic (Pakistani) culture to integrate their movement in the globalized world. Through its history, the Ahmadiyya is closely linked to Pakistan, but the cornerstone of the community is not a national origin, but a specific religious faith and its practices. The khalifa and his entourage accepts the relaxing of certain requirements which formerly served to maintain the Pakistani identity. This flexibility facilitates the acceptance and integration of new converts. Further research is needed to verify the assumption that how the Ahmadiyya Muslim community and the Lahore Ahmadiyya deal with converts is one of the key differences between these two branches of Ahmadiyya. Beside their ideological divergent this contrasting integration of converts may well account for the more successful expansion of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community compared with that of the Lahore Ahmadiyya. By means of the Ahmadiyya movement it becomes clear how transnational religious organizations contribute to social dynamics that change local contexts as well as global ones. They engage in development cooperation, inter-Islamic or inter-religious dialogue, integration work, and media relations beyond the strictly religious sphere. The Ahmadiyya Movement was a highly politicized movement in the beginnings of its history in Pakistan, and is becoming politicized again today in its home country and the South Asian context, but it claims to strictly avoid interferences in the political agendas of the host countries. As a matter of fact, leaders and scholars of the Ahmadiyya interpret the specific 254

Transnationalism and diaspora

religious rights and duties in such a way that they can be brought into line with the legal and social principles of every host state. The international Ahmadiyya movement has no political agenda. But undoubtedly it can be qualified as a political actor in the broader sense. They participate in socio-political decision making and in the process of elaborating new rules. They participate in the organization of social life in the different countries where they settle. Nevertheless, the political consequences in the respective countries in which the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is active and its contributions to governmental politics remain to be investigated. In addition, there remains to be analyzed how the intra-Islamic dialogue and the acceptance of the Ahmadiyya has developed in secularly oriented states in Europe, Africa, and the United States in order to assess the repercussions of this tendency of recognition in secular states on the global movement. The dialectic between the local and the global means that local integration or rejection of the Ahmadiyya also has repercussions on the global movement. By getting entangled with temporal institutions, religious diasporas in general, not only the Ahmadiyya, have reoriented their spiritual mission. This process shows how local politics shape religious transnational identities. Finally, the example of Ahmadiyya illustrates the theoretical assumption that religion is a key element for social cohesion in a phase of geographical dispersion or ethnic and national diversification of a diaspora. New transnational practices are linked to the diasporic phenomenon in complex ways. It is a plausible hypothesis that increasing intercultural opportunities should act as a catalyst to move local cultures first into diasporic space then, via conversion and integration of outsiders, to a more transnational or cosmopolitan arena (Cohen 2008). Conversion and integration are important elements for the transformation of a diaspora into a transnational group. The religious distinctiveness of such groups as the Ismailis, Alevis, and Rastafarians usually tends to set them apart as ethnic groups whereas Ahmadis can no longer be considered as an ethnic or national group because of their policy of conversion. Combining transnational and diaspora concepts helps to theorize the connection between religion and globalization in terms of changing frameworks entailed by migration or minority status and mission.

Notes 1 I am grateful to the family of Sameena Nasreen in Ghana, the Härter and Zubair families in Germany and the families of Dr. Bhunoo, Khalid Mahmood and Mahmood Nasir Saqib in Burkina. I also appreciate the welcome of the family of Farooq Ahmad in Benin. In France, I am very grateful to Shafiqua Ishtiaq and her family, to the family of Naseer Ahmed and to Astou Dramé, Munirah Doboory, Ameenah Nabeebaccus and Rokiah for the time that they devoted to me and for their kindness in answering all my questions. The different field visits were generously funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation. 2 Beside the interpretation of the prophet’s doctrine, the Ahmadiyya differs from other Muslims mainly in the interpretations of the Jihad concept and of the doctrine on Jesus. For a detailed analysis of the reasons why Ahmadiyya is seen as a heterodox movement, see Lathan (2008). 3 www.alislam.org/library/ahmadiyya-muslim-community/. 4 Minahan (2002, p. 52) and World Religion Database 2016 quoted by http://a-m-l.blogspot.fr/ 2017/07/ahmadiyya-population-in-world-2016.html [Accessed 11 March 2018]. 5 In Germany the community has given an estimation of 50,000 in 2005 and 35,000 in 2013 (revised during the proceeding to join the corporation of public law (Körperschaftsverfahren)). http://remid.de/ info_zahlen/islam/ [Accessed 12 March 2018]. In 2016, it was assumed that the number of Ahmadis in Germany was 45,000. 6 For example, the International Association of Ahmadi Architects & Engineers (IAAAE), the Ahmadiyya Muslim Teachers Association (AMTA), the Association of Ahmadi political scientist and lawyers.

255

Katrin Langewiesche

References Ahmed, M. D., 2012. Studien zur Ahmadiyya. Ein Fall religiöser Diskriminierung in Pakistan. Location unknown: Fazli Books. Arif, A., 2014. L’Ahmadiyya: un Islam interdit. Histoire et persécutions d’une minorité au Pakistan. Paris: L’Harmattan. Balzani, M., 2006. Transnational Marriage among Ahmadi Muslims in the UK. Global Networks, 6 (4), 147–157. Bauböck, R., 2010. Cold constellations and hot identities: Political theory questions about transnationalism and diaspora. In: R. Bauböck and T. Faist, eds. Transnationalism and Diaspora. Concepts, Theories and Methods. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 295–322. Bauböck, R. and Faist, T., eds. 2010. Transnationalism and Diaspora. Concepts, Theories and Methods. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Beyler, S. and Suter Reich, V., 2008. Inkorporation von zugewanderten Religionsgemeinschaften in der Schweiz am Beispiel der Aleviten und der Ahmadiyya. Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Religions-und Kulturgeschichte, 102, 233–259. Bregand, D., 2006. La Ahmadiyya au Bénin. Archives de Sciences Sociales des religions, 135, 73–90. Bruneau, M., 2004. Diasporas et espaces transnationaux. Paris: Ed. Anthropos. Cissé, I. and Langewiesche, K., 2019. L’Association Islamique Ahmadiyya au Burkina Faso. In: A. Degorce, L. O. Kibora and K. Langewiesche, eds. Rencontres religieuses et dynamiques sociales au Burkina Faso. Dakar: Editions Amalion, 90–107. Cohen, R., 2008. Global Diasporas. An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge. Curtis, E. E., 2009. Muslims in America: A Short History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Faist, T., ed. 2000. Transstaatliche Räume. Politik, Wirtschaft und Kultur in und zwischen Deutschland und der Türkei. Bielefeld: transcript. Fisher, H. J., 1963. Ahmadiyya: A Study of Contemporary Islam on the West African Coast. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Friedmann, Y., 1989. Prophecy Continuous, Aspects of Ahmadi Religious thought and Its Medieval Background. Berkeley: University of California Press. Friedmann, Y., 2003. Tolerance and Corecion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gaborieau, M., 1994. Une nouvelle prophétie musulmane: les Ahmadiyya. In: C. Markovits, ed. Histoires de l’Inde moderne 1480–1950. Paris: Fayard, 551–552. Gaborieau, M., 2001. De la guerre sainte au prosélytisme. Les organisations transnationales musulmanes d’origine indienne. In: J.-P. Bastian, F. Champion and K. Rousselet, eds. La globalisation du religieux. Paris: Karthala, 35–48. Geschiere, P. and Meyer, B., 1998. Globalization and Identity: Dialectics of Flow and Closure. Introduction. Development and Change, 29, 601–615. Glick Schiller, N., Basch, L., and Blanc-Szanton, C., eds. 1992. Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Reconsidered. New York: The New York Academy of Science. Green, N., 2014. Terrains of Exchange. Religious Economies of Global Islam. London: Hurst. Gualtieri, A., 1989. Conscience and Coercion: Ahmadi Muslims and Orthodoxy in Pakistan. Montreal: Guernica. Hanson, J. H., 2017. The Ahmadiyya in the Gold Coast: Muslim Cosmopolitans in the British Empire. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Jonker, G., 2016. The Ahmadiyya Quest for Religious Progress: Missionizing Europe 1900–1965. Leiden: Brill. Khan, A. H., 2015. From Sufism to Ahmadiyya. A Muslim Minority Movement in South Asia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Langewiesche, K., 2020. Ahmadiyya and development aid in West Africa. In A. Heuser and J. Köhrsen, eds. Does Religion make a Difference? Baden-Baden, Nomos, 263–286. Langewiesche, K., 2021. Le calife et son portrait. L’iconographie d’un Islam missionnaire. Le cas de l’Ahmadiyya. In: M. P. Ba, M. Saint-Lary and F. Samson, eds. Matérialités religieuses. Aux frontières du public et du privé. Dakar: édition Codesria, forthcoming. Lathan, A., 2008. The Relativity of Categorizing in the Context of the Ahmadiyya. Welt des Islams, 48 (3/4), 372–393.

256

Transnationalism and diaspora

Lathan, A., 2010. Reform, Glauben und Entwicklung: die Herausforderungen für die AhmadiyyaGemeinde. In: D. Reetz, ed. Islam in Europa: Religiöses Leben heute. Ein Portrait ausgewählter islamischer Gruppen und Institutionen. Münster: Waxmann, 79–108. Lauser, A. and Weissköppel, C., eds. 2008. Migration und religiöse Dynamik. Bielefeld: transcript. Lavan, S., 1974. The Ahmadiyya Movement: History and Perspective. Delhi: Manohar Bookservice. Levitt, P., 2001. The Transnational Villagers. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Marcus, G. G. E., 1995. Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, 95–117. Minahan, J., 2002. Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations. Ethnic and National Groups around the World. Vol. I. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Qasmi, A. U., 2015. The Ahmadis and the Politics of Religious Exclusion in Pakistan. London: Anthem Press. Ross-Valentine, S., 2008. Islam and the Ahmadiyya Jama’at: History, Belief, Practice. London: Hurst. Scholz, J., Selge, T., Stille, M., and Zimmermann, J., 2008. Listening Communities? Some Remarks on the Construction of Religious Authority in Islamic Podcasts. Die Welt des Islams, 48, 457–509. Sevea, I. S., 2009. The Ahmadiyya Print Jihad in South and Southeast Asia. In: R. M. Feener and T. Sevea, eds. Islamic Connections. Muslim Societies in South and Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 134–148. Skinner, D. E., 2010. Da’wa and Politics in West Africa: Muslim Jama’at and Non-Governmental Organizations in Ghana, Sierra Leone and The Gambia. In: B. Bompani and M. Frahm-Arp, eds. Development and Politics from Below. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 99–130. Vertovec, S., 1999. Conceiving and researching transnationalism. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22, 447–462. Weissköppel, C., 2005a. Transnationale Qualitäten in Netzwerken von Sudanesen in Deutschland. Nord/ Süd Aktuell, 19 (1), 34–44. Weissköppel, C., 2005b. Kreuz und quer. Theorie und Praxis der multi-sited ethnography. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 130, 45–68. Yacoob, M., 1986. Ahmadiyya and Urbanization: Easing the integration of rural woman in Abidjan. Asian and African Studies, 20, 125–140.

257

21 Transnational religious movement The Turkish Süleymanlı in Indonesia Firdaus Wajdi

Introduction Indonesia is a Muslim majority country saturated with Islamic movements. With a population of over 250 million, approximately 80% of whom are Muslim, Indonesia represents a huge market for promoters of Islamic piety, not only from within the region but also from across the globe. Indonesian graduates of Saudi Arabia’s universities and Al Azhar Universities of Egypt have established the link between the Middle East and Indonesia and extended religious influences from the Middle East (Abaza 1994; Azra 2004; Laffan 2011; Subhan 2012). While global linkages between the Arab Middle East and Indonesia are well documented (see, for example, Bryner (2013); Machmudi (2008); Mandaville (2009); Zulkifli (2013), relatively little academic attention has been given to the Turkish-based movements established in Indonesia since the late 1990s and early 2000s. Turkish organizations show different characteristics from the previously mentioned scripturalist, Salafist, and Islamist transnational movements and newly salient groups. The newly arrived Turkish movements exhibit a more peaceful and accommodating approach to Islamic renewal and life in multireligion societies (Wajdi 2018). This chapter focuses on the Süleymanlıs, little known as a transnational movement and previously under-studied in Indonesia. The establishment of the Süleymanlı’s United Islamic Cultural Centre of Indonesia (UICCI) in Jakarta in 2005 signalled a widening of Turkish Muslim outreach to Indonesia. It is distinctive among the Turkish transnational organizations in that it maintains links with the Nakş ibendi Sufi order as well as provides a transnational Islamic boarding system. This newcomer, with its distinct way of offering hizmet (religious services), enriches the diversity of Indonesian Islam.

Concepts Although it focuses on the Indonesian branch of the Süleymanlı, the UICCI, this chapter seeks to understand that organization as part of a transnational movement. This ethnographic

258

Transnational religious movement

study of the Turkish Süleymanlı movement in Indonesia seeks to contribute to the growing understanding of religious movements that take shape in the form of transnational organizations supported by electronic communications and travel. It also aims to understand the UICCI as a new development in global Islamic movements in the Indonesian context. Utilizing the framework of transnationalism, it will also draw on further concepts to explain the UICCI’s development and adaptation, including the theory of ‘opportunity spaces’ developed by Hakan Yavuz (2004), and that of ‘glocalization’ introduced by Roland Robertson (1995). The goals of this case study are thus to document the development of the UICCI in Indonesia and extend knowledge of Turkish transnational Islamic organizations by recognizing the UICCI in Indonesia as a distinctive element in the expanding array of transnational religious movements, and to contribute to a more comprehensive picture of transnational organizations in late modernity.

Context and state of the art Religious communities are among the oldest transnational actors. They began centuries ago, with the proselytizing led by universal or ‘world’ religions, even before the formation of nation states. However, scholarly studies of transnational religious movements only became significant in the 1990s, when a considerable number of academic studies began to focus on religious groups as key participants in transnationalism (Rudolph 1997). Nowadays, many religious organizations are transnational. They are particularly evident in diasporic communities that have resulted from globalization, the collapse of empires, and major wars. Moreover, the improvement in communications, which accompanies and facilitates globalization, increases the ability of religious organizations to find new audiences, both home and abroad. Transnational religious movements are able to coordinate and integrate outposts across the world as never before and they are therefore likely to continue to develop and to play a significant role in global society (Schiller et al. 1992; Vertovec 2009). An important development in the study of religion in society is the recognition that many religious movements are transnational, and transnational in a new way. This section presents a brief discussion of scholarly definitions of the term ‘transnationalism’ (Schiller et al. 1992; Vertovec 2009) and examines transnationalism in relation to religious movements, with particular emphasis on Muslim transnational organizations. It then reviews the literature on two other theoretical approaches: ‘opportunity space’ (Yavuz 2004) theory, and ‘glocalization’ (Robertson 1995) theory. Transnationalism has a broad meaning, referring to multiple ties and interactions that link people and institutions across the borders of nation states (Jackson et al. 2004). Among its many definitions, transnationalism can be said to refer to ‘communities of outlook that include persons and organizations that share common world views, purposes, interests, and practices which they communicate and act across national borders and jurisdictions’ (Juergensmeyer 2005). In addition, Portes argues that ‘the concept of transnationalism provides new perspectives on contemporary migratory movements and offers hypotheses about the patterns of settlement and adaptation of immigrants in the new land’ (Portes 2001). There are at least three reasons, aside from their universalistic framing, why world religions continue to be so active across community and national boundaries. First, they have a tendency toward missionary expansion and intensive penetration of social life. Second, world religions always contain some competitive impulse. Thus, according to Juergensmeyer (2003), ‘they are “religions of expansion” despite their geographical and cultural roots being 259

Firdaus Wajdi

in one locality.’ In addition, all world religions have traditions of pilgrimage to the sites of their historical origins or to places associated with figures and events of significance to believers, such as Shalosh Regalim for Jews and Hajj for Muslims (Kitiarsa 2010). The second major impetus to the study of transnational religion was post-World War II migration to North America and Western Europe. This was seen as a phenomenon of transnationalism (Roudometof 2005). Indeed, migration in the post-war era has been a major subject of transnationalism studies in general. However, transnationalism is not limited to the movements of migrants. It is a broad category that refers to a wide range of practices relating to the activities of migrants, their interactions with other people, and organizations linking their host lands and homelands (Portes et al. 2007; Vertovec 2009). Although immigrants and refugees from predominantly Muslim countries have been migrating to and settling in Europe in substantial numbers since the end of World War II, their religious affiliations were not noted by scholars prior to the mid-1980s (Tiesler 2009). In the early post-World War II days, immigrants were seen in terms of their economic function (for example, as guest workers), their legal status (for example, as refugees), and above all, their ethnic-national category (as Turks, Pakistanis, Bangladeshi, Afghans, and so on). One reason for this is that they did not display many public signs of religiousness (Kettani 1996). Another reason is that the public and those academics in post-war and postcolonial Europe who discussed the topic of migrants did not see themselves as scholars of religious studies (Nielsen 1992). This situation changed significantly after the mid-1980s when religious activities became more obvious among the diaspora communities. In addition, at that time scholars began to introduce new academic topics, such as ‘the new Islamic presence in Europe,’ ‘Muslims in Europe,’ and ‘Islam in the West,’ which appeared more frequently and so became recognized (Tiesler 2009). Immigrants’ religious affiliations came to be seen as a significant feature of their social adaptation. The third advance in the study of transnationalism was in the 1990s, when the technical facilitators of globalization, such as electronic communication technology and rapid transportation, enabled diasporic communities to be more intensely involved with their countries of origin, and to develop ever more effective transnational networks supporting their religious groups (Brettell and Hollifield 2000; Vertovec 2009). This development helps to explain the contrast scholars have observed between older and younger or more recent migrants. In summary, studies show that religious movements have long been transnational. Now, in the modern era of globalization, with sophisticated communications, transport, and bureaucratic structures, religions are manifesting this feature in new ways.

Methods In this research, the detailed ethnographic study of Süleymanlı UICCI branches in Indonesia was complemented with a ‘micro-ethnographic’ (Bryman 2008) study of Süleymanlı branches in other parts of the world. This included the study of two Turkish branches in Istanbul (Yavuz Selim and Zeytinburnu), one in Frankfurt (Verband der Islamischen Kulturzentren e.V. Islam Kültür Merkezleri Birliği, Frankfurt Ş ubesi), and one in Melbourne (Meadow Heights). This approach proved particularly important, and indeed crucial, for understanding how the Süleymanlı have adapted in different countries. Turkey was chosen because it is the home of the Süleymanlı movement. Germany is home to the oldest and largest late twentieth-century Turkish diaspora community. Australia is home to a smaller, 260

Transnational religious movement

and different, diaspora community within a multi-ethnic and multi-religious settler society. Both the German and Australian Süleymanlı movements played significant roles in the establishment of the Indonesian Süleymanlı. Finally, Indonesia is home to a Muslim majority population with a limited Turkish diaspora community.

Substantive discussion Süleyman Hilmi Tunahan’s proselytizing (dakwah) began in 1924, when the early Kemalists implemented their secularist policy limiting religious expression. So, the early years of the Syeikh’s dakwah were difficult, as such activities were treated as ‘forbidden’ (T. yasak) and could be severely punished. At this time, however, according to Abi Zaitin Burnu, the Syeikh demonstrated his courage in reviving Islam in Turkey. Due to the security issue, Süleyman performed ‘hidden’ or ‘silent’ dakwah, teaching religion to Muslims by just going from one house to another. It is said that in the beginning he taught just one student, and that this student later brought two other students, and then the pattern continued until the students grew into a community (jamaah). In 1959, the Süleymanlı movement first established branches outside Turkey. For the Süleymanlı this was a point of transition from a national to a transnational movement. According to Abi Zaitin Burnu, the first outreach of the Süleymanlı abroad was to Germany, where there was a large Turkish migrant community. Then followed outreach to Turkish migrant communities in the Netherlands and other European countries. This was followed, in the 1970s, by their expansion to the Balkan countries and, at about the same time, to the United States and Australia, where there were also Turkish migrants. Later in the 1990s Süleymanlı began a new kind of outreach: not to Turks living outside Turkey but to Muslims of any ethnic or national background in foreign countries. Thus, they started establishing schools in substantially Muslim areas of the former Soviet Union countries (Russia and Kazakhstan) and then in Africa and Asia after the turn of the century. The Süleymanlı trace this impetus to carry their religious service abroad to their Syeikh, who early on predicted that the jamaah he formed would become an international movement. Tunahan is said to have been aware of this possibility when he predicted: ‘You will be flown to other countries to give lectures.’ So, for the Süleymanlı, going overseas to perform dakwah is a jihad, and a part of the Islamic teaching they believe needs to be done. If one dies during the hizmet, then he dies as syahid (a martyr). While religious motivation has clearly been important in driving the overseas expansion, so also have social factors. These include recognition of the market for religious services in non-Muslim majority countries where Turkish migrant workers have established substantial communities. Also, the Turkish Islamic revival movements that had moved into the public sphere since the 1970s and had grown rapidly in their home country, including the Süleymanlı and the Fethullah Gülen and the Nurcu movements, were in a position with newly developed management and business structures to extend themselves overseas. Thus, the pull of the need for religious instruction in Muslim communities abroad and the ensuing outreach response by the movements reinforced pressures within them to formalize their organizational structures. The Süleymanlı have gone the farthest in developing hierarchical bureaucratic structures to coordinate their domestic and international activities.

261

Firdaus Wajdi

Here, one could argue that the Süleymanlı, when they became transnational, extended their original aim (which was to preserve the Islamic religion in Turkey in the face of what they saw as the threat of secularism), to global Islamic revivalism and purification of the religion according to the Hanafi, Shafi, Hanbali, and Maliki schools of law. In sum, by the 1970s, the Süleymanlı movement had changed from a small, mostly faceto-face jamaah into a formally constituted bureaucratic organization. This stage in the life cycle of a social movement, defined by Blumer as ‘formalization’ (Blumer 1951), is characterized by multiple levels of organizational management and formally defined offices and areas of authority. This stage was achieved by the Süleymanlı movement after the death of its founder, under the direction of abimist Kemal Kacar. The movement is presently under the direction of abimist Arif Denizolgun. Both leaders have promoted awareness that a coordinated strategy is necessary across all of the Süleymanlı’s branches. Therefore, the Süleymanlı’s transnational management works through five bolge (regions) across the globe, and stratified levels of management within those regions. The Süleymanlı also select abis for management positions according to their skills and abilities to assume the responsibility of running the schools and businesses. After successfully developing their Qur’an education institutions in Turkey, the Süleymanlı then developed their hizmet outside of Turkey. The following section gives examples of Süleymanlı branches in two countries with significant Turkish migrant communities. The need for religious education and leadership in these communities represents an ‘opportunity space’ for the organization (Yavuz 2004). The Süleymanlı chose Germany as a suitable country in which to expand, largely because it is home to the world’s largest overseas Turkish diaspora community. The beginning of the organized labor migration from Turkey to Germany was in October 1961, when Turkey and Germany signed a bilateral agreement for the recruitment of Turkish workers to Germany. Before 1961, participation of Turkish workers in post-war labor migration to Western Europe had not—at least officially—taken place (Küçükcan 2004). A Central Recruitment Office was established in Istanbul in that year, and by the year’s end, 7,000 Turkish workers were living in Germany. In 1962 the first Turkish social and political organization in Germany, the Union of Turkish Workers, was established in the Cologne Region, evidencing the large-scale labor migration from Turkey to Western Europe that had already taken place. The Süleymanlı in Germany are able to run their private boarding schools, teaching Turkish culture and Islamic studies. In Germany, the Süleymanlı claim that their schools work hand in hand with the German government, supporting a policy of integrating Turkish Muslims into German society. They claim that they meet the needs of Turkish Muslims in Germany for religious activities by providing imams and religious teachers. They say that Turkish Muslims therefore need not feel alienated from their adopted country, since their needs are being met by the Süleymanlı, who always encourage an excellent attitude to living in German society. It could be argued that by building the boarding schools in Germany the Süleymanlı have, in fact, helped Turkish immigrants integrate there, as they use these educational institutions not only to teach the religion of Islam and Turkish culture but also to help the students accept Germany as the country where they were born and now live and work. This is evidence of what Ersanilli and Saharso (2011) have argued: that an inclusive government policy has a positive impact on migrants’ settlement country identification. While the Süleymanlı are free to operate their schools in Germany, they receive no support from the state other than the permit to run their schools. For this reason, they rely heavily on the Turkish diaspora community in Germany, or on their ‘brothers’ in Turkey, 262

Transnational religious movement

for funds. Nonetheless, they have been able to build up their network of schools over the years through good management and by offering education. Following a similar pattern to the one they adopted in Germany, the Süleymanlı have spread their network as far afield as Australia. They began their hizmet there in 1971, in Melbourne, Victoria. Once again, they were able to meet the demand for religious education among Turks abroad—in this case Turks who had migrated to Australia or who were born in Australia but had Turkish ancestors. Evidence of Turks moving to Australia from the island of Cyprus for work is noted in the 1940s; then during the Cyprus conflict, between 1963 and 1974, a number of Turks were forced to migrate to Australia (Yağmur and Van De Vijver 2012). Further, large numbers migrated to Australia after a bilateral agreement was signed between Turkey and Australia in 1967. According to the 2006 census, between 150,000 and 200,000 Turkish citizens were in Australia at that time, and between 40,000 and 60,000 Turkish Cypriots (Yağmur and Van De Vijver 2012). The largest numbers of Turks in Australia are in Melbourne, Sydney, and Wollongong. Australia’s migrant Turkish population, of approximately 90,000, is among the four largest, along with those of Germany (2.5 million), the Netherlands (400,000), and France (390,000) (Yağmur and Van De Vijver 2012). When the Süleymanlı chose to offer their hizmet in the form of Qur’anic education in Australia in 1971, it seemed obvious to begin in Melbourne, since that city was where the largest concentrations of Turkish immigrants were to be found. The Süleymanlı then set up another branch in Auburn, NSW, where Turkish Muslims had established the Gallipoli Mosque, one of the largest mosques in the Sydney region. I had the opportunity to visit the headquarters of the Australian Süleymanlı in Melbourne and speak with young abi there about the location of their boarding schools. So far, they have established schools in only two states, Victoria and New South Wales. In Victoria they have two boarding schools for male students and one for female students, and in New South Wales they have just one new school for male students, located in Auburn, NSW. The Süleymanlı schools in Australia provide boarding facilities for their students so they can sleep and eat there as well as study and receive Islamic teaching just as other Süleymanlı students do in Turkey. During my visit to the Süleymanlı boarding school, Meadow Heights, I was able to witness first-hand what I had read on their website. As in Germany, the Süleymanlı in Australia primarily offered their hizmet to Turkish communities. When I visited the Australian Süleymanlı’s headquarters at Meadow Heights boarding school in Melbourne, I could see that all the abis and students were Turkish or had a Turkish background. Although the abi who accompanied me was born in Australia, he also had a Turkish background and began his service as a teacher in the school after completing the tekamul level in Turkey. The above outline shows how the Süleymanlı initially aimed to expand their service beyond Turkey only to Muslim diaspora communities, responding to the significant demand from Turkish families living overseas for religious education. Although the Süleymanlı have become a transnational organization, their Turkish headquarters still coordinates and directs hizmet institutions globally. The history of the Indonesian Süleymanlı dates back to 2004, when a young Süleymanlı member from Turkey, who had served in Africa, touched down in Jakarta. He was Abi Zoltan, the abi now running the UICCI. He arrived in Jakarta with limited knowledge of the Indonesian language, and no companions or relatives, but with a spirit of hizmet for serving the community in the way of Süleymanlı. With struggle and hard work, Abi Zoltan successfully established the first branch in Pejaten, South Jakarta. Later, 263

Firdaus Wajdi

in 2007, a group of Turkish abis came to Indonesia to join in the development of Süleymanlı education there. They eventually took Süleymanlı education to all three major islands: Java, Kalimantan, and Sumatra. In Turkey the Süleymanlı use the name ‘Kuran kursu’ to designate their schools, while in Australia they use the word ‘dormitory,’ and in Indonesia, they have come to use the word ‘pesantren.’ Thus, in addition to including the names of Indonesian sympathizers in their deed of foundation, the Süleymanlı in Indonesia have also given their schools the same name as the local traditionalist Islamic education institutions, pesantren. This shows that they have been aware of the local social environment and have been willing to adapt or adopt local terms that are suitable to the movement’s activities. This represents an instance of what has been called ‘glocalization’ in a transnational movement. In Turkey, their country of origin, the Süleymanlı are known as providers of Kuran kursu (boarding school Islamic education), or more specifically, ‘Süleymanlı Yurtları’ (Süleymanlı residence or dormitory). This latter name has been translated into Indonesian as ‘Asrama Sulaimaniyah’ (Süleymanlı dormitory) and has been used since the establishment of UICCI in Indonesia in 2005. According to Abi Bayram, when the Süleymanlı Yurtları are referred to as ‘asrama’ in Turkey, the Turkish initially think that the Süleymanlı provide boarding with an Islamic education, including the Qur’an memorizing program (tahfidz) (one of the flagships of the Islamic movement). However, in the Indonesian context, the term ‘asrama’ is understood simply to mean residential accommodation for students of any sort. Indonesia, as a Muslim majority country, has a long history of Islamic education. In terms of traditional Islamic education within a boarding school system, ‘pesantren’ is the term with which Indonesians are familiar. So, when the UICCI introduced the term ‘asrama,’ claiming to provide Islamic education, this did not meet with much success. Indonesian Muslims regard ‘asrama’ as merely referring to a boarding home or shelter, without the provision of a religious education and the opportunity to practice Islam on a daily basis as the term ‘pesantren’ suggests. This became an issue for the enrollment of prospective students into UICCI boarding schools. Taking this into account, the management of UICCI eventually changed the name ‘asrama’ to ‘pesantren.’ In fact, the Süleymanlı went even further to distinguish their specialist pesantren type by adding ‘tahfidz,’ the Qur’an memorization, to the name, thus showing that, as in Turkey, Qur’an memorization is the flagship program of the residential schools. The name Pondok Pesantren Tahfidz Rawamangun (Rawamangun [district] Qur’an Study Boarding School) is an obvious example of this strategy. One could wonder why the Süleymanlı agreed to change a globally established name. In fact, they have always made great efforts to respect local terms and blend in locally. When they left Turkey to go to a country with an almost insignificant Turkish population, the Süleymanlı had to ‘sell’ themselves to local people. It would seem logical that they would decide to use the term ‘pesantren’ for their boarding school system in Indonesia; the UICCI is evidently willing to ‘glocalize’ in some respects within the local community, and this decision has worked well for it in Indonesia. Since 2009, the UICCI has been successful in gaining support from the Ministry of Religious Affairs and through this association has been able to establish branches in major cities of Indonesia.

Conclusion This chapter has been mainly concerned with the Süleymanlı in Indonesia, who have approached non-Turkish Muslims to recruit them as members. They have shifted their orientation from Turkish diaspora Muslims only to any Muslim willing to accept their 264

Transnational religious movement

service (hizmet) or participating in it. This gives us clear evidence that one of the ideas of being transnational is changing to the new focus while at the same time holding the connection and maintaining the traditions of the origin country. This is one way that the Süleymanlı assert their branding as transnational Sufi movements (Milani et al. 2017). The Süleymanlı have made it possible by looking at Indonesia as a country with the biggest Muslim population. This is not only to address people who could accept their services but also those who would like to give support and contribute to the management of the Süleymanlı in general. Using their religious term, this expansion is inevitable as religious values and blessings (barakah) need to be shared with everyone, an idea that was once confirmed by their highest leader, Süleyman Hilmi Tunahan. To make this expansion into reality, the Süleymanlı have made new opportunity spaces. The opportunity spaces are basically the avenues to promote social interaction as suggested by Yavuz. It refers to the ‘social sites and vehicles for activism and the dissemination of meaning, identity, and cultural codes’ (Yavuz 2004). These spaces are sites of social interaction that allow new possibilities for forming networks around shared meanings and enriching associational life. In the Indonesian context, the opportunity spaces take the form of the unique Islamic boarding school, which is free of charge for young Indonesian Muslims. This is proven to be attractive to Indonesian residents who not only accept the service but also are willing to give support and contribute to the development of the Turkish origin transnational organization. In addition, the Süleymanlı have worked together with the Indonesian government to establish their branches and assist with their international programs. This is a new pattern as the transnational movement tends to distance itself from the state elsewhere. This support did not come from the very beginning of the establishment of the Süleymanlı in Indonesia in 2005. In fact, this positive attitude of the Indonesian government only took shape after the Süleymanlı glocalized themselves to fit into the Indonesian Islamic education system, instead of insisting on the Turkish model and conception. Glocalization (Giulianotti and Robertson 2007; Robertson 1995; Roudometof 2005) took shape by changing the name of the Turkish boarding school (T. yourt, I. asrama) into pesantren. This adoption of the local term while maintaining the advantage of global movement has resulted in gaining formal support from the Ministry of Religious Affairs. This also noted the changing attitude of the Süleymanlı because in their home country, they tried to distance themselves from the Turkish government. Furthermore, the Süleymanlı in Turkey even did not allow any involvement of its followers in politics as Syeikh Süleyman Hilmi Tunahan himself had a difficult experience with the government and politics during his time. Sufi teaching also exhorts the members of the Süleymanlı to maintain some distance from worldly matters such as politics. This attitude has shifted a lot among the Süleymanlı. Although the members of the Süleymanlı did not become involved directly in politics in Indonesia, their willingness to be closer to the government has signalled a shift. The challenge of the Süleymanlı in Indonesia to maintain distance from politics will be put to the test once the movement has gained considerable followers. Further work might examine Süleymanlı organizations in other Muslim-majority regions that do not have a Turkish diaspora community, to identify other circumstances that have helped or limited the movement’s growth there. In general, there is a need for studies that provide a more complete picture of transnational Islamic movements. At present, studies of Islamic revivalist movements are interested in violence and capturing the state, as in the case of groups originating from Arabia, Central Asia, and South Asia. Further work could redress this imbalance. It would also allow for further theoretical refinement and best appreciation 265

Firdaus Wajdi

of the cultural and political scope of transnational Islamic movements. This would provide a better understanding of transnational Islamic movements in the contemporary world.

References Abaza, M., 1994. Indonesian Students in Cairo: Islamic Education, Perceptions and Exchanges, Paris, Association Archipel. Azra, A., 2004. The Origins of Islamic Reformism in Southeast Asia: Networks of Malay-Indonesian and Middle Eastern ‘Ulamā ’ in The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Crows Nest, N.S.W., Allen & Unwin. Blumer, H., 1951. Social Movements. In: H. Blumer and A. M. Lee eds., Principles Of Sociology, New York, Barnes & Noble, pp. 199–220. Brettell, C. and Hollifield, J. F., eds., 2000. Migration Theory: Talking across Disciplines, New York, Routledge. Bryman, A., 2008. Social Research Methods, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Bryner, K., 2013. Piety Projects: Islamic Schools for Indonesia’s Urban Middle Class. PhD, Columbia University. Ersanilli, E. and Saharso, S., 2011. The Settlement Country and Ethnic Identification of Children of Turkish Immigrants in Germany, France, and the Netherlands: What Role Do National Integration Policies Play? International Migration Review, 45, 907–937. Giulianotti, R. and Robertson, R., 2007. Forms of Glocalization: Globalization and the Migration Strategies of Scottish Football Fans in North America. Sociology, 41, 133–152. Jackson, P., Crang, P., and Dwyer, C., 2004. Transnational Spaces, New York, Routledge. Juergensmeyer, M., 2003. Global Religions: An Introduction, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Juergensmeyer, M., 2005. Religion in Global Civil Society, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Kettani, A. M., 1996. Challenges to the Organization of Muslim Communities in Western Europe. In: W. A. R. Shadid and P. S. V. Koningsveld eds., Political Participation and Identities of Muslims in NonMuslim States. Kampen, The Netherlands, Kok Pharos, 14–35. Kitiarsa, P., 2010. Missionary Intent and Monastic Networks: Thai Buddhism as a Transnational Religion. Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 25, 109–132. Küçükcan, T., 2004. The Making of Turkish-Muslim Diaspora in Britain: Religious Collective Identity in a Multicultural Public Sphere. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 24, 243–258. Laffan, M. F., 2011. The Makings of Indonesian Islam: Orientalism and the Narration of a Sufi Past, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press. Machmudi, Y., 2008. Islamising Indonesia: The Rise of Jemaah Tarbiyah and the Prosperous Justice Party (Pks), Acton: ANU E Press. Mandaville, P. G., ed., 2009. Transnational Islam in South And Southeast Asia: Movements, Networks, and Conflict Dynamics, Seattle, The National Bureau of Asian Research. Milani, M., Possamai, A., and Wajdi, F., 2017. Branding of Spiritual Authenticity and Nationalism in Transnational Sufism. In: P. Michel, A. Possamai and B. S. Turner eds., Religions, Nations, and Transnationalism in Multiple Modernities, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 197–220. Nielsen, J. S., 1992. Muslims in Western Europe, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press. Portes, A., 2001. Introduction: The Debates and Significance of Immigrant Transnationalism. Global Networks, 1, 181–193. Portes, A., Escobar, C., and Radford, A. W., 2007. Immigrant Transnational Organizations and Development: A Comparative Study. International Migration Review, 41, 242–281. Robertson, R., 1995. Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity. In: M. Featherstone ed., Global Modernities, London, Sage, pp. 25–44. Roudometof, V., 2005. Transnationalism, Cosmopolitanism and Glocalization. Current Sociology, 2005, 113. Rudolph, S. H., 1997. Religion, States, and Transnational Civil Society. In: S. H. Rudolph and J. P. Piscatori eds., Transnational Religion And Fading States. Boulder: Westview Press, 1–26. Schiller, N. G., Basch, L., and Blanc-Szanton, C., 1992. Transnationalism: A New Analytic Framework for Understanding Migration. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 645, 1–24. Subhan, A., 2012. Lembaga Pendidikan Islam Indonesia Abad 20: Pergumulan Antara Modernisasi Dan Identitas [20th Century Indonesian Islamic Educational Institutions: Struggle between Modernisation and Identity], Jakarta, Kencana.

266

Transnational religious movement

Tiesler, N. C., 2009. Muslim Transnationalism and Diaspora in Europe: Migrant Experience and Theoretical Reflection. In: E. Ben Rafael and Y. Sternberg eds., Transnationalism: Diasporas and the Advent of a New (Dis)Order, Boston: Brill, pp. 417–444. Vertovec, S., 2009. Transnationalism, Abingdon, Routledge. Wajdi, F., 2018. Globalization and Transnational Islamic Education: The Role of Turkish Muslim Diaspora in Indonesian Islam. Jurnal Adabiyah, 18, 176–186. Yağmur, K. and Van De Vijver, F. J. R., 2012. Acculturation and Language Orientations of Turkish Immigrants in Australia, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Journal Of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 43, 1110–1130. Yavuz, M. H., 2004. Opportunity Spaces, Identity, and Islamic Meaning in Turkey. In: Q. Wiktorowicz ed., Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 270–288. Zulkifli., 2013. The Struggle of the Shi’is in Indonesia, Acton, ANU Press.

267

22 Young Buddhists in Australia Negotiating transnational flows Kim Lam

Introduction This chapter introduces two bodies of theory and method on religion. More specifically, it discusses the literature on transnational flows of religion and mobile religion, as well as ‘lived’ or ‘everyday’ religion. Transnational flows of religion have contributed to the emergence of new opportunities to negotiate religious identities and to exacerbate, alter, and lessen racial and religious tensions. So far, less attention has been paid to the ways these processes are operating outside the Global North. In response, this chapter offers a microstudy of how they play out in experiences of ‘lived’ or ‘everyday’ religion among some young Australian Buddhist practitioners who are immersed in transnational flows of religion across Australia and Asia.

Theoretical developments in the study of religion and migration While religion has long crossed borders, the period of ‘thick’ globalization since the late 1970s has led to increasingly complex and intensified flows of religion and culture. As a corollary to this, research in the fields of international migration and sociology of religion have benefitted from significant cross-fertilization and mutual development. This is evident in the ways that research on religion and global flows has come to reflect new understandings of migrants as significant religious actors. Several researchers have documented these research developments. Ebaugh (2010), for example, has identified three stages in the development of research in this field, with a shift in focus from immigration to transnationalism and globalization. In the first stage, research on religion and the ‘new immigrants’ in the 1990s was centrally concerned with the role of religious institutions in helping migrants settle into receiving countries. This research was exemplified by Warner and Wittner (1998), and focused on the ethnic composition of immigrant religious groups, language use, gender roles, and generational issues. Research during this stage also looked at the spread of immigrant religion beyond ethnic and religious boundaries, as well as the global implications of transnational religious flows (Yang and Ebaugh 2001).

268

Young Buddhists in Australia

In the second stage of research, Ebaugh (2010, pp. 105–6) observes that research focused more on how religions co-existed and were transformed across sending and receiving countries. The work of Levitt (1999, 2003, p. 849) was central to this shift. Levitt showed that the religion of immigrants had a significant impact on religion in their home countries because transnational migrants produced new mixes of belief and practice that were sent back to home countries in the form of ‘social remittances.’ Third, Ebaugh (2010) observes that research on religion and migration has taken on an increasingly global dimension, moving beyond a focus on ties between sending and receiving countries. For example, once religion returns to the home country, family members and friends themselves migrate in many receiving countries around the world, consequently impacting global religious systems. Taking into account these findings, researchers have recalibrated their research on religion and migration to study the global system rather than smaller subunits such as the state (Beyer 1994, pp. 1–2). Significantly, Robertson (1994, p. 121) has identified ‘the theological and religious aspects and implications of globalization theory’ for sociological research. For example, some sociologists of religion have looked at how religion may be a homogenizing force, such as in the global Hindutva and Gulen movements (Levitt 2003, p. 848), while others have observed greater religious diversity as individuals negotiate local religious identities in relation to the world (Robertson 1994).

Mobile religion The theoretical and methodological implications of moving towards research on religion that centers around the global have been influentially discussed by Thomas Tweed and Manual Vasquez, who offer a useful orientation towards viewing religion as ‘mobile.’ In his review of research on Buddhism, Tweed (2011) observed that no adequate theory or methodological framework had emerged in scholarship on Buddhism, particularly with respect to flows of religion and culture. Seeking to foreground both the dynamism and porousness of religion and culture, Tweed (2011) proposed a ‘translocative’ analysis of religion that built on his earlier theory of ‘crossing and dwelling’ (Tweed 2006). In the latter, Tweed focused on the ways religion both ‘crossed boundaries’ and dwelled or made homes in various locations. In proposing a translocative theory of religion (Tweed 2011), he placed additional emphasis on ‘crossing,’ movement, or change, not only in relation to religious flows but also Buddhist ideas of impermanence, no-self, and dependent origination. As Tweed (2011, pp. 24–5) outlined, a translocative approach to religion has several methodological implications. These include an imperative to ‘follow the flows’ (of people, artifacts, institutions, and practices), ‘notice all the figures crossing’ (who is present and absent), ‘attend to all the senses and all religion’s components’ (when researching religion), ‘consider varying scales’ (or geographical regions beyond the national), and ‘notice how flows start, stop, and shift’ (in ways that recognize how flows are mediated by power relations). Similarly, Vasquez (2008) has developed a ‘networks’ approach to studying religion, that centers around a recognition of increasing connectivity and fluidity in an era of globalization. Vasquez (2008, pp. 153, 167) also emphasizes the ways global connectivity is characterized by socio-economic inequalities and ‘new exclusionary boundaries’ that may restrict certain flows, and indeed, reinforce rather than collapse borders. To account more fully for processes of ‘segregation, surveillance, and control,’ and the social inequalities that are preponderant in an era of globalization, Vasquez (2008, pp. 151, 169) suggests that a networks approach enables scholars to explore ‘relatively stable but always contested differentials of power, of inclusion and exclusion, or cooperation and conflict, of boundary-crossing and boundary-making.’ 269

Kim Lam

‘Lived’ or ‘everyday’ religion Drawing on Vasquez’s (2008, p. 165) account of mobile religion, it is important to relate global flows of religion to issues of context and diversity, looking at the ways religion may simultaneously contribute to both ‘ecumenical cosmopolitanism’ and ‘exclusionary particularism.’ This can be done by looking at the ways ‘local, grassroots, official, national, and transnational actors define and live religion’ (Vasquez 2008, p. 156). Similarly Levitt argues (2003, p. 852) that the methodological implications of researching transnational and global religion include an attentiveness to the ways ‘ordinary individuals live their lives across borders.’ ‘Lived religion’ has been described by McGuire (2008, p. 12) as an approach that enables scholars to understand ‘how religion and spirituality are practiced, experienced, and expressed by ordinary people (rather than official spokespersons) in the context of their everyday lives.’ This approach directs attention towards the actual experiences of religious individuals, looking at how religion is continually interpreted by individuals ‘within the circumstances of his or her histories, relationships and experiences’ (Orsi 2003, p. 174). In this regard, improvisation and the ability to pick and mix from various sources through ‘cultural bricolage’ (Orsi 1997, p. 7) becomes ‘the norm, rather than the exception’ (McGuire 2008, p. 185). Ammerman (2007, p. 5) makes a similar point, utilizing the term ‘everyday religion’ to emphasize the importance of looking for the many ways religion may be interwoven in the lives of ‘non-experts.’ She contends that while individuals’ experiences of ‘organized religion’ and ‘official’ ideas about religion are still important, ‘they are most interesting to us once they get used by someone other than a professional.’ A lived or everyday religion approach can help shed light on how cosmopolitan identities and racial and religious tensions are negotiated on the ground. More specifically, looking at these lived experiences helps scholars identify the factors that may enable religious individuals to adopt fluid, relational, and cosmopolitan identities, as well as the forces that contribute to inclusion, exclusion, surveillance, and control.

Case study This chapter examines how these processes play out in a microstudy of 22 young adult Buddhist practitioners living in Australia, aged 18 to 30, who are enmeshed in transnational flows of religion and culture between Australia and Asia.1 As Barker (2017, pp. 375–6) suggests, the growth of transnational flows of Buddhism in and out of Australia and Oceania, along with the increase in second, third, and beyond generation Buddhists in these nations ‘give rise to many questions about the lived status of Buddhism,’ ‘as opposed to nationally endorsed views on the integration and effects of Buddhist organizations.’ These generational changes are perhaps most usefully explored by focusing on the experiences of young people—the millennials and post-millennials—whose highly mobile lives have been noted by youth studies researchers (Robertson, Harris and Baldassar 2018), and for whom intense upheavals in relation to politics, the casualization of the workforce, detraditionalization, frequent overseas travel for study, work, and place, familiarity with technologically mediated networking, and precarity relating to employment and the establishment of life trajectories, are regular features of everyday living (Furlong and Cartmel 2007; Harris, Wyn and Younes 2010; White and Wyn 2013). The study employed a narrative method of interviewing, which pays attention to individuals’ temporal lived experiences and processes of change regarding the self (Elliot 2005, p. 6).

270

Young Buddhists in Australia

Young Buddhists within and beyond Australia Like other Western countries such as the United States, Canada, and France, Australia accepted large numbers of refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos in the aftermath of the Vietnam War through its refugee program, which saw up to 22,000 refugees settled in Australia per year from the early 1980s (Refugee Council of Australia 2012). The influx of these refugees significantly bolstered the number of people identifying as Buddhist in these countries, with Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data recording the percentage of Buddhists in Australia for the first time in 1981, at 0.2% or 35,073 people (ABS 1981, p. 12). In 2016, the percentage of Australians identifying as Buddhist grew to 2.4% or 563,674 people, making Buddhism the second most popular minority religion in Australia after Islam and the major Christian denominations. By comparison, the percentage of individuals identifying as Buddhist remains notably lower in the United States, where Buddhists made up only 0.7% of the population in 2014 (Pew Research Centre 2015), and Canada, where Buddhists made up 1.1% of the population in 2011 (Statistics Canada 2011). In the UK, only 0.4% of the population identified as Buddhist in 2011 (Office for National Statistics 2015). In terms of transnational flows, Australia’s geographical proximity to Asia is of particular interest. As Rocha and Barker (2011, p. 10) observe, this has made the development of Buddhism in Australia ‘different to the growth of Buddhism in other Western countries.’ While the geographic proximity of Australian to Asia is likely to be responsible for the higher percentage of Buddhists in Australia than other Western countries, it also has the capacity to heighten inequalities relating to socially constructed categories of race and ethnicity for the Australian Buddhist community. Tensions relating to racialized and ethnic differences, specifically involving ‘Asian’ versus ‘Western’ subjectivities, are exacerbated by the fact that the majority (over 50%) of individuals identifying as ‘Buddhist’ in 2011 were born in an Asian country (ABS 2011). Indeed, Rocha and Barker (2011, p. 6) point out that many chapters in their recent edited volume, Buddhism in Australia: Traditions in Change ‘delve into Anglo Australians’ social, political and cultural capital vis-à-vis Asian Australians’ lack of these.’ As they maintain, these inequalities should be understood within the context of Australia’s historical ‘ambivalence toward Asia,’ which can be observed in political maneuvers that have at various periods distanced Australia from the Asia region, and have shown a desire for a closer engagement with Asia at other times. The politics of Asian inclusion or exclusion, and its effect on Buddhist youth identity negotiation, are worth exploring in more detail particularly among young adult Buddhist practitioners, who have grown up in a national context where anti-Asian sentiment (particularly during Senator Pauline Hanson’s2 initial rise to prominence in the mid-1990s) has operated alongside an official multicultural policy, which supports the maintenance of diverse ethnic and religious identities. The growing complexity of cultural diversity has prompted scholars to develop new conceptual frameworks that recognize increasingly diverse, and often ambivalent, subject positionings. Harris (2013), drawing upon both Vertovec’s (2007) concept of ‘super-diversity’ and Noble’s (2011) work on ‘hyper-diversity,’ asserts that in an Australian context, diversity is not only increasing but is also subject to countless transmutations in everyday practice as people reflexively position themselves in relation to others in novel ways. She contends that these more complex, contextualized subject positionings held by young people are ‘ushering in a new kind of multicultural citizenship’ which reflects ‘young people’s expressions of post-minority identities and their multiple, dynamic—and at times conflictual—modes of relationality’ (Harris 2013, pp. 4–5).

271

Kim Lam

Young Buddhist practitioners in Australia need to be understood within this new framework of multicultural citizenship, due to their movement between multiple social contexts involving Asian, Western, Buddhist, and non-Buddhist elements in multicultural Australia, in which notions of belonging and exclusion based on single categories of ethnicity, race, religion, or nationality may overlook the micro-dynamics of contextually based subjectivities. In a globalized and detraditionalized Buddhist era, multiple boundary crossings are standard; young Buddhist practitioners continually traverse numerous social contexts on account of both their hybrid ethnic identifications (for example, Chinese-Australian Buddhist), as well as their movement within and beyond religious institutions. In each set of circumstances, young Buddhist practitioners are required to make themselves anew; they must adopt or develop appropriate identifications and modes of relationality befitting the circumstances. The dispositions they adopt or develop as they move from one context to the next are likely to be complex and multifaceted, and have yet to be explicated in studies of Buddhist youth.

Global flows and mobilities For many participants in the study, socialization into a Buddhist identity in Australia was facilitated by physical encounters of visiting monks, or opportunities to travel overseas. Beth, for example, explained that she initially became interested in Buddhism following an encounter with a visiting monk, who she then stayed with in Sri Lanka. For Fabian, his exploration of Buddhism took him to two different countries, where he spent several months in each country immersed in Buddhist communities. The effects of globalization are illustrated dramatically here, as Fabian initially became interested in Buddhism after attending a Buddhist center which aims to facilitate practice in a Western cultural context. He then became interested in Zen Buddhism after becoming involved in a group in Asia practicing in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh, an exiled Vietnamese monk. Several years later, he went to Europe for four months to live in a Buddhist community practicing in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. These examples demonstrate the role of global flows in shaping Buddhist identity and practice, long past the initial settlement of ethnic Buddhist communities in Australia. These findings resonate with McMahan’s (2008) contention, that globalization has disembedded Buddhism from ‘traditional social networks,’ spreading Buddhism to a diverse range of contexts which can now be accessed via a range of mediums, both locally and globally. While participants’ Buddhist socialization was facilitated by international travel and communication, they also had access to a wide variety of Buddhist resources, often in the form of books, or accessible via technology. Bob first came into contact with Buddhism by reading a book about the Buddha given to him by his mother. Ellen also mentioned that she first learnt about Buddhism through reading a book about Buddhism and watching a documentary about Buddhism on television. For Henry, digital media was his main source of information about Buddhism—he subscribed to email newsletters from various Buddhist groups, as well as the Facebook pages of Buddhist groups and well-known Buddhist figures, which he checked and read frequently. As a number of participants indicated, having to piece together multiple influences required considerable individual responsibility and effort, and was further complicated by participants’ own changing interests, needs, and life circumstances. At times, participants were required to adjudicate between competing discourses about Buddhism, which had been brought into contact through the global circulation of ideas, practices, and artefacts relating to Buddhism. These included simplistic interpretations of the Dalai Lama’s teachings, misunderstandings about Buddhists, and perceptions of Buddhism as an ‘Asian’ religion which was in conflict with Western cultural norms. Ben, for example, explained: 272

Young Buddhists in Australia

I think that a lot of people don’t understand what Buddhism’s about . . . well they see the Dalai Lama and they think it’s all about well just live your life and be happy. I think Buddhist philosophy’s a lot deeper than that, it’s based on the idea that life is suffering. And there is a way out of that, um, through right action. These findings are consistent with Bouma’s (2006, pp. 98–9) observation that contemporary forms of religiosity in Australia are now ‘less reliant on the formal organizations’ of religious institutions, and are part of a trend towards ‘do-it-yourself’ religiosity which reflects larger cultural trends of increased levels of personal agency and decision making. Other misunderstandings that participants were required to negotiate included the perception that Buddhists were attempting to cut themselves out from society and eliminate all their desires (Candice). These misunderstandings could sometimes create a distancing or dislike of Buddhism, and a perceived clash between Buddhism and Australian or Western culture, as discussed in the next section.

Buddhist identity and ‘Australian’ culture For some participants in the current study, there were perceptions of a binary between Buddhism and the West. Evie, for example, likened her practice of Buddhism to the experience of an international student coming to live in Australia. When asked if she had experienced any conflict between Australian culture and Buddhist practice, she answered: Hell yes . . . I feel that Australian culture is so much against the type of lifestyle that Buddhism is promoting me to live, and I find that conflict or that contradiction really, really difficult, to the point where I feel like I’ve now become so Buddhist that . . . I feel like I’ve lost a lot of my Australian culture, or like I’m starting to understand a lot, what it must feel like for an international student to come and live in Australia. Perceptions about the conflict between Buddhism and Western culture were not unidirectional; they were also evident in the positioning of Buddhist identity during interactions that participants had with others. This was observed in comments questioning the legitimacy of White Buddhist practitioners, from people who had difficulty seeing the compatibility between Buddhism and being White or Western. Ben, for example, noted that people often questioned his ethnic origins once they found out he was a Buddhist. He said, ‘often the question is, oh really. Are you fully European? Why are you Buddhist?’ Tenzin, too, noted the perceived disjunction between Buddhism and Western culture, revealing how he was verbally abused for wearing his Buddhist robes in public, and labelled a ‘fraud, or charlatan or something like that.’ He explained, ‘I think it’s ‘cause I was White and I was in the robes, and he thought I was a faker.’ Tenzin likened the experience of being Buddhist and a Westerner to belonging to ‘two different tribes,’ a predicament he ultimately chose to resolve by disrobing as a monk. While not all White participants experienced such a conflict between their religion and race, perhaps due to the fact that most did not take the step of becoming ordained and wearing Buddhist robes, the experiences recounted here illustrate the ways Buddhism is still perceived by many to be an ‘Asian’ religion, to be practiced solely among Asian immigrants and their offspring. Despite longstanding global flows of Buddhism, these perceptions are still salient in the minds of those who seek a clear demarcation between ‘East’ and ‘West,’ and the religions which supposedly belong to each. Globalization brings ‘East’ and ‘West’ in closer contact in ways which may be confronting, yet also serves as a productive space for the development of subjectivities which transcend bifurcated views about so-called ‘Asian’ and ‘Western’ religions. 273

Kim Lam

Complicity One strategy participants used to negotiate incompatibilities between Buddhism and Australian culture (for example, Australia’s binge-drinking and meat eating culture) was complicity. Beth, for example, said she was ‘still learning’ to reconcile Buddhism with Australian culture, implying an acceptance of existing social norms rather than a desire to challenge the status quo. Indeed, many participants chose to make adjustments to their own behavior to accommodate their religious preferences. Candice chose to act as the designated driver to avoid drinking while condoning it in her friends, while Faye chose to chant in her head to avoid offending others. Candice admitted that her decision to act as the designated driver allowed her to ‘get out of it in a really cowardly way,’ while Faye emphasized that a privatization of religion was part of Australian culture, stating, ‘that’s my country so that’s how I go with it’ [laughs]. These examples illustrate the simultaneous positioning of some young Australian Buddhist practitioners in both Buddhist and Western cultures, and the acceptance of Australian cultural norms. It is worthwhile unpacking these examples further, and questioning the reasons for such complicity, or unwillingness to engage in visible displays of religiosity. I suggest here that the unwillingness to challenge existing social norms regarding religion can be attributed to a ‘cosmopolitan irony’ (Turner 2001, 2002) which young Australian Buddhist practitioners both adopt and respond to in their negotiations of belonging. As Turner (2002, p. 149) argues, an ironic distance is ‘the most prized norm of wit and principle of taste’ when individuals are required to continually interact with strangers. According to Turner (2001, p. 148, 2002, pp. 55, 58) the irony of cosmopolitanism lies in distancing from one’s own culture in order to respect other cultures in a contemporary, globalized world. In the case of young Australian Buddhist practitioners, cosmopolitan irony is reflected in participants’ simultaneous commitment to Buddhism, and their hesitations in speaking about and practicing their religion in public, out of respect for those practicing other religions. In the examples above, Candice makes a point about not stopping friends from drinking, showing a respect for diversity and an ‘ironic distance’ from her own religion. Similarly, Faye demonstrates an awareness and respect for the preferences of her housemates to not be exposed to foreign religious practices. Yen and Anh also related how they were sometimes hesitant about mentioning Buddhism to others due to their awareness of cultural diversity in Australia. Yen for example said: [b]ecause we’re so multicultural . . . you gotta be a . . . people are a bit sensitive sometimes, and you don’t wanna like, I don’t want people to get upset if I say anything, you know. Especially if I think they’re a great person, but sometimes religion does get in the way for some, some people. So . . . I generally try and phrase things carefully. Be a bit more politically correct. In this case, Yen describes the value of rising above an attachment to any particular culture or religion, and sees this as necessary in the context of cultural diversity. The confrontation of diverse religious beliefs is described here as something that has the potential to lead to emotional distress, yet is also an expected feature of everyday life in multicultural Australia. Consequently, it must be anticipated and managed by distancing oneself from one’s own culture. Although participants from the study did not cite particular Buddhist teachings, Buddhist concepts such as dependent origination (pratī tyasamutpā da), no-self (anattā ), and impermanence (anicca) appeared to manifest in experiences of negotiating Buddhist identity in an Australian

274

Young Buddhists in Australia

context. In particular, a recognition of pratī tyasamutpā da, or interdependence, appeared to manifest in participants’ perceptions of belonging in an Australian national context, with participants adopting strategies of practicing Buddhism which complemented, rather than challenged, Australian culture. A recognition of anattā also appeared to be evident in participants’ contextualized experiences of religious belonging. It is also evident in the perceived absence of a monolithic ‘Buddhist’ or ‘Western’ identity. It is likely that recognition of anicca or impermanence gave participants a heightened awareness of the changing circumstances within which Buddhism was negotiated, and potentially predisposed them towards changing themselves. However, more research is required to support this possibility and to ascertain whether these findings resonate with the experiences of other young Buddhists globally.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have used a ‘lived religion’ approach to investigate how 22 young adult Buddhist practitioners negotiated transnational and global flows of religion between Australia, Asia, and beyond. I have explored the impact of racializing discourses which regard Buddhism as an ‘Asian religion,’ and the ways these racializing discourses affect the negotiation of Buddhism in an Australian context, which continues to serve as a site for the reproduction of ambivalence regarding Asia. I have suggested that participants’ negotiations of Buddhism take these ambivalences into account and rework them in ways which transcend the ‘East’/‘West’ binary, signifying the development of more cosmopolitan dispositions. As Buddhism continues to traverse geographical boundaries, the development of such dispositions may become more pertinent to maintaining social harmony and peaceful coexistence. As the field of religion, mobility, and globalization continues to change, future research may focus on explicating the religious teachings and practices which facilitate the development of these disposit