Fundamentalism in Comparative Perspective by Lawrence Kaplan Page B
Authors: Lawrence Kaplan
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separate religious values and sociomoral positions so that alliances can be formed with advocates of competing religious values. Leaders of the NCR insist that they have not accepted the denominational attitude (in which truth is relativized so a number of apparently and previously competing visions can all be seen as in some sense equally
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valid), but they have accepted another crucial element of modernity: they compartmentalize. They operate in a world of social action that has been divided into separate spheres with different values. In church, with their own people, in prayer meetings, they remain fundamentalist Protestants. But when pursuing the public agenda of sociomoral issues, they operate with a quite different set of criteria. That is, they have conceded a major part of what the modern pluralistic society demands of religion: its restriction to the private home world. Although their behavior in the public sphere is still informed by religious considerations, it is not dominated by them, and they have been diluted in order to attract maximum support from people who do not share the values and beliefs of conservative Protestantism.
The alternative to denominationalism is sectarianism: the continued insistence that what one has is the truth and that those who differ are simply wrong. To present the situation of religion in a modern society in the starkest possible terms, the choice is between sectarianism and denominationalism. Modernity constantly increases the costs of sectarianism. Those people who wish to maintain orthodox religious beliefs find themselves having to retreat further and further into either regional or socially constructed laagers. The NCR has tried to reduce the costs, both by seeking public support for its positions and by resisting the encroachments of the central secular state. But in trying to do those things, it has been forced to accept the denominational attitude. One can see this clearly in conservative Protestant reasoning about the possibility of a third party. Where religion exists in its "church" form, it does not need to be represented by a political party because its presence is so all pervading; Catholicism in the Republic of Ireland is a case in point. Where it exists in a sectarian form, it produces a coherent confessional party; the Calvinist antirevolutionary party in nineteenth-century Holland is an example. American conservative Protestants realize a confessional party is not a possibility. Those who talk about a religious party at all recognize that it would have to be at least a Christian or even a Judaeo-Christian party. But most of them realize that even a Judaeo-Christian party would not work; any viable third party would have to be a secular party informed by traditional (i.e.,
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religious) values. That is denominationalism and it is a long way down the road to the point where religion is hardly a factor at all, where religiosity appears only through political attitudes that reflect general class and status interests. The situation becomes one in which the second words in the phrases "conservative Protestant," "conservative Catholic," and "conservative Jew'' become redundant.
Modernity does not challenge religion. Instead it subtly undermines it and corrodes it. Fundamentalists tacitly recognize this when they refuse to be impressed or comforted by the state's willingness to permitto tolerate Mormons, Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Rastafarians, Scientologists, Moonies, and any number of more exotic religions. Although few fundamentalists say it openly, some of them recognize that it is better to be persecuted than to be tolerated as (in the language of American forms) a "religion of your preference."
Twenty or so years ago many of the sociologists who endorsed the above picture of modernity supposed that secularizationthe decline of religionwas an irreversible characteristic of modern societies. Recently the sociological orthodoxy seems to have
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valid), but they have accepted another crucial element of modernity: they compartmentalize. They operate in a world of social action that has been divided into separate spheres with different values. In church, with their own people, in prayer meetings, they remain fundamentalist Protestants. But when pursuing the public agenda of sociomoral issues, they operate with a quite different set of criteria. That is, they have conceded a major part of what the modern pluralistic society demands of religion: its restriction to the private home world. Although their behavior in the public sphere is still informed by religious considerations, it is not dominated by them, and they have been diluted in order to attract maximum support from people who do not share the values and beliefs of conservative Protestantism.
The alternative to denominationalism is sectarianism: the continued insistence that what one has is the truth and that those who differ are simply wrong. To present the situation of religion in a modern society in the starkest possible terms, the choice is between sectarianism and denominationalism. Modernity constantly increases the costs of sectarianism. Those people who wish to maintain orthodox religious beliefs find themselves having to retreat further and further into either regional or socially constructed laagers. The NCR has tried to reduce the costs, both by seeking public support for its positions and by resisting the encroachments of the central secular state. But in trying to do those things, it has been forced to accept the denominational attitude. One can see this clearly in conservative Protestant reasoning about the possibility of a third party. Where religion exists in its "church" form, it does not need to be represented by a political party because its presence is so all pervading; Catholicism in the Republic of Ireland is a case in point. Where it exists in a sectarian form, it produces a coherent confessional party; the Calvinist antirevolutionary party in nineteenth-century Holland is an example. American conservative Protestants realize a confessional party is not a possibility. Those who talk about a religious party at all recognize that it would have to be at least a Christian or even a Judaeo-Christian party. But most of them realize that even a Judaeo-Christian party would not work; any viable third party would have to be a secular party informed by traditional (i.e.,
Page 67
religious) values. That is denominationalism and it is a long way down the road to the point where religion is hardly a factor at all, where religiosity appears only through political attitudes that reflect general class and status interests. The situation becomes one in which the second words in the phrases "conservative Protestant," "conservative Catholic," and "conservative Jew'' become redundant.
Modernity does not challenge religion. Instead it subtly undermines it and corrodes it. Fundamentalists tacitly recognize this when they refuse to be impressed or comforted by the state's willingness to permitto tolerate Mormons, Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Rastafarians, Scientologists, Moonies, and any number of more exotic religions. Although few fundamentalists say it openly, some of them recognize that it is better to be persecuted than to be tolerated as (in the language of American forms) a "religion of your preference."
Twenty or so years ago many of the sociologists who endorsed the above picture of modernity supposed that secularizationthe decline of religionwas an irreversible characteristic of modern societies. Recently the sociological orthodoxy seems to have
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