Responses to the contemporary religious movements
New Religious Movement in the US: Some Reading Responses
Timothy Miller from the University of Kansas USA in an article entitled “New Religious Movement in the United States: An Informal Introduction” outlined some interesting information on the phenomenon of new religious movement in America. I would like to highlight two aspects of his article. First is relating to the idea that new religious movements were considered to be a sect or a new cult from the perspective of mainstream religion. Second is regarding the causes of new religious movement.
The first highlighted issue is interesting because it illustrates the ambiguity of America which on one hand, celebrates liberal and open-minded views of all new phenomena including new religious movements but on the other hand, protests the existence of a new religious movement. Why do people of America seem to have the ambiguity? The first answer is regarding the fact that a lot of new religious movements used violence based on their beliefs like suicide, bombing, etc. However, in my opinion, another answer why a new religious movement, a sect, is not accepted is that it is too small to be religion.
A big religion or a religious movement should have a big name prophet, like Moses in Judaism, Jesus in Christianity and Mohammed in Islam. All mainstream religion community like Judaism, Christianity and Islam trust their religion because they trust the prophet of the religion. Meanwhile, the new religious movement usually has not had such a great name prophet. Hence, people of America or other countries, even though they have a liberal opinion, were reluctant to accept the phenomena of new religious movement.
A major religion also should have a holy book like Torah for Judaism, Bible for Christianity and Koran for Islam as the ultimate sources of teachings. It is difficult to accept a new religious movement that doesn’t have an ultimate book of teachings. Without the holy book, they do not have ultimate teachings that can lead their way of life.
Moreover, a big religion should have a big number of followers or congregation or ummah. People tend to believe a new phenomenon of truth after they see that a thousand people have been following that new truth. Hence, pioneers of a new religious movement often design a strategy to convince people by offering hope of progressiveness or happiness. Unfortunately, it is not easy way to collect followers because people often are suspicious trough of the new religious movement based on the record of violence conducted by several new religious movements.
However, when the new religious movements become bigger and bigger and they could present “new great name of prophet, holy book or number of congregation”, people will open their mind and start to believe it. An interesting example comes from Martin Luther’s Protestantism. In the first time of its emergence, they were protested by the old Catholicism and Luther was accused as a religious apostate. After Luther could convince his offering of renewal religion and flattered people to follow his idea, a lot of people began to be his follower and now the Protestantism became a big new religious movement trusted by many of people.
The second interesting information is about the causes of new religious movement. Miller mentions a number of causes of the increasing of new religious movement especially regarding some external factors such as social and economy situation and the policy of immigration of The Government of USA. I agree with his opinion describing the policy of the Government of USA as one of the biggest factors of new religious movements increasing. However, in my opinion, there are also internal factors for individuals joining new religious movement.
First of all is regarding the phenomena of “religion yes and organization of religion no”. It is a spiritual way when people prefer “to be religious than to have a religion” as in Martin Buber’s philosophy of religion. According to new religious movement initiators, it was time to leave the formal organization of religion like Christianity that for a long time could not give them spiritual happiness in their life. They were thirsty for spiritual satisfaction that they could not gain from the formal organization of religion. Therefore, a new religious movement is an escape gate to fill up their spiritual thirst.
Personal distressed condition is also an inspiring factor encouraging a new religious movement. On the one hand, this may be a problem of psychological illness when a person has no power to face a big problem of his/her life. But, the interesting issue is when he/she choose a religious movement to solve his/her problem. Hence, it is not only a psychological problem but also a spiritual problem. An interesting example came from the experience of Dr. Azhari, a terrorist, when he chose extremism to express his Islam. A long time ago, he was a successful scientist and had good life until his father died and other dark situations of his life emerged. The situation inspired him to search for a religious way that will heal him from the traumatic experience and he adopted a radical Islam as his new religious movement.
Religious narrow-mindedness is another factor leading to the increasing of new religious movements. In this term, people think that only a religion or a belief that can be a way of salvation. In this regard, we can catch the correlation between new religious movements and fundamentalism which has narrow-mindedness of belief as one of its characteristics. A person with a close-mindedness of belief tends to have an extreme way which often be chosen by some pioneers of new religious movement. In narrow-mindedness, they do not have alternative ways to solve their problem including problems of their belief or religion.
Finally, in conclusion, there were pull and push factors why new religious movements increased. While the pull factors are the external factors like social and economical condition, policies of the Government, increasing new religious movements in some parts of the world, etc, the push conditions came from internal individual problems, like spiritual, psychological, intellectual or educational background. Describing the internal problem inspiring new religious movements makes us to understand why people prefer to build or follow a new religious movement.
©farid muttaqin, 2006
The American Theocracy
In my opinion, it is difficult to explore American theocracy because it has a complicated relationship with many factors, such as the American philosophy of pragmatism and its political dynamic as well as American religion. However, Kevin Phillips in American Theocracy describes this subject very well by focusing on American theocracy in political practices. I would like to respond, not directly to Phillips’s description, but to the discussion of this subject.
It is surprising that in some parts of American political practices, the American government has experienced theocracy. In my opinion, this is an contradictory fact. On one hand, it is common for American people to follow a “modern” life style that is claimed to be far from any relating factors of religion. Besides, American is also popular as a secular community which separates religion from political practices. However, on the other hand, the Government could promote theocracy as a “spiritual” basis of their governance.
This appears to be a political game to attract most American people who have a conservative view of religion. Promoting a type of theocracy which increases during election time is done in order to overcome the problem of the different political parties. For example, Republican George W Bush could have gotten votes from people who initially would have voted for the Democratic candidate. People were able to change their opinion because “political theocracy” suggested a moral order with which people agree in opposition to what they called immoral actions, such as gay lifestyle, abortion, etc. In this regard, God (Theo) and religious spirit do not overwhelm the political theocracy practices. In The Guardian, it is stated that “Mr. Bush for years has been unashamedly talking about God, good and evil, religious belief and Christian faith. In an American context, … it merely means that a politician is saying to voters: I consider my-self to be a moral person..,” (The Guardian, November 10, 2004). Therefore, political theocracy is a political game regarding the common people’s interest in morality and religion as opposed to the effort to voice the word of God.
The political game of American theocracy is also related to contemporary global situations such as the increase of religious fundamentalism, especially in Islamic countries. In some periods of American politics, religious fundamentalism from any Islamic countries often hides other political dynamics. The tragedy of 9/11 is one of the biggest cases proving this situation. A lot of Americans are paranoid about the activities of Islamic fundamentalist groups any time violence erupts. The idea of theocracy in political America was meant to protect people from their fear. Therefore, the concept of theocracy is illustrated in President Bush’s crusade against Islamic fundamentalism just after 9/11.
In conclusion, the idea of American theocracy reflects more political interests and power than religious and spiritual reflection. It was a “smart step” from televangelist groups to encourage people to be supporters of their political interestsw.
©farid muttaqin, 2006
Religious Fundamentalism in the Globalization Era
What is globalization? In my opinion, globalization means that people in the whole world are unified in a global organization, a global world organization. As an organization, people have a relationship each other. People like my family in a small remote village in Indonesia like my family have correlation with people in a dynamic part of the world like members of Economic Hit Men (EHM) or the richest CEOs in New York City. In this mundane correlation, what is face fundamentalist religion like? Under what conditions does religious fundamentalism turn to the use of violence? Do perpetrators of such violence still voice the name of God in all of their actions?
Mark Juergensmeyer in his book, Terror in the Mind of God, offered some interesting discussions about fundamentalism in our current globalization. He described some facts and stories of religious fundamentalist actions such as the Hindu-Buddhist Asahara’s nerve gas terror in Tokyo, Islamist’s WTC explosion in New York, abortion clinic bombing in Alabama, and bin Laden’s 9/11 tragedy. The fundamentalist groups perpetrated these terror attacks by utilizing some high-tech devices.
Following this sophisticated use of technology for their actions identifies two realities. First, fundamentalists in recent times are people who have knowledge of and access to comprehensive modern products of technology. This allows their terrorist actions to be more sophisticated. Second, as a result, the effects of their attacks were tremendous and presented a long-time trauma among people. All people have the same possibility of being victims of these terrorist actions.
Juergensmeyer stated that in some of the diverse terrorist attacks by fundamentalist groups, America has been the biggest target. From this fact, we can discern the conditions inspiring the fundamentalist groups to use violence and terrors. The idea that terrorist actions express the battle for God against evil indicated that, in the minds of fundamentalists, America is the biggest place of evil. America is a trouble-maker in any crisis in the world. America dominates human life of the world. Terrorist attack against America will liberate the people of the world from the crisis. In addition, people of the world also despair with economic and political conditions in the recent globalization era that is dominated by America. Fundamentalists feel their religious community is under American attack when, for example, a lot of American products overwhelm their community. Therefore, some of terrorist actions against America were expressions of frustration. For this reason, terrorist attacks were not actually perpetrated in the name of God.
Some fundamentalist groups think that religion is the only solution to any problems of human beings in our contemporary globalization. As Juergensmeyer pointed out, using violence and terror actions means that fundamentalist groups reject the compromises with modern values that more liberal religious groups had done. Fundamentalists wanted to ensure people that attacking America as a symbol of progressive globalization and being separated with this kind modernity will save human beings from the horrible crisis. In addition, they convinced people that religion is the only solution for this crisis.
The fundamentalist view on religion as a solver of crisis seems very narrow. Crises in our contemporary globalization are tremendous and complicated. They overwhelm whole parts of our life, such as economy, politics, psychology, war and conflict etc. Back to the idea that globalization is unifying people throughout the world, fundamentalist groups should realize that religion can not answer the entire problem of the crisis. Globalization insists upon cooperation among people. It means that each group of people should take a part in trying to solve crisis. People have to build open dialogs to present understanding among them. They have to know that even though American capitalism and liberalism have presented some humanitarian problems, they have also presented progressiveness. On the other hand, even though religion is understood as an entity having humanitarian values, it still does not work to support progressiveness among people, especially in the economy. In this regard, terrorist attacks and violence used by fundamentalist groups are not the answer of our recent crisis in the globalization era. Open dialog is more significant to crisis solution because it emphasizes that we are one in a global organization.
©farid muttaqin, 2006
Religious Fundamentalism:
a Comparison between India and America
It is interesting to compare religious fundamentalism in India and America. In my opinion, there are a lot of similarities in the fundamentalist dynamics of both Hinduism in India and Christianity in America. Utilizing the media, especially television, to promote the idea of fundamentalism is one of the similarities. The Islamic challenge is another. In addition, fundamentalist groups in both countries have political interests. However, unlike America, India doesn’t face the problem of sects or the rise of new religious movements.
Television is very significant factor in disseminating any idea. It can attract people with some imagination that is appropriate to the dream of fundamentalism. “You walk through any neighborhood in Delhi at 6 or 7 a.m. and you will hear the sound of religious TV coming out of most homes,” claims Madhav Kant Mishra, executive director of the seven-month-old Sadhna religious channel. “People have gotten addicted to it.” (http://communalism.blogspot.com/2003/12/india-peddling-religion-on-tv.html). For this reason, fundamentalist groups in India also use television to campaign for Hindu fundamentalism. Some movies were produced to emphasize the sentiments of the Hindu community. Then television became more influential because it could touch the religious traditions of the Hindu community such as Mahabharata, Hindu rites and adorations. The fundamentalist groups then reinforced the sentiment of the Hindu community to increase Hindu nationalism. In my opinion, there are two main reasons for the increase of Hindu nationalism. The first is to develop Indian nationalism against Muslim separatist efforts and the second is to attract supporters of the political party or the Government. However, the development of Hindu nationalism has caused the problems of Hindu-Muslim conflict and India-Pakistan conflict that kills a lot of people.
Fundamentalist groups in America also utilized television to campaign for the idea of fundamentalism. They recognized that some television programs promoted by what they called secular humanism have significantly contributed to a supreme social, economic, moral, and religious crisis in America. The new generations of television from fundamentalist groups were eager to change the programs to ask people to return to the fundamental ideas of religion and morality (http://mb-soft.com/believe/text/fundamen.htm). Efforts to promote the idea of fundamentalism through television became more aggressive after they wanted to be involved in the political race. We can see this from the experience of Pat Robertson. As in India, the fundamentalist ideas in America increased as a reaction to Islamic fundamentalist attacks. However, in India the attacks came from a domestic Islamic group who wanted to separate from India, while in America the Islamic attack came from overseas. Further, the reaction of both India and America to the Islamic attacks expressed the idea of religious nationalism. In America, we can see it in President Bush’s crusade as a reaction to the 9/11 tragedy.
Fundamentalism in America also increased as a reaction to more competition from other religious sects which were the result of the immigration policy and the promotion of freedom of thought and expression. Hindu fundamentalism in India, however, is more stable. Even though the Government supports the freedom of expression, the strong religious and spiritual tradition of Indian people can hamper the increase of other religious movements.
In conclusion, the rising fundamentalism in India and America has been correlated with the increasing of television programs. The fundamentalist groups in both countries then tried to be involved in political dynamics which made the idea of fundamentalism stronger. This condition has the potential of erecting fundamentalism of religious nationalism, seen as important to protect people from Islamic fundamentalist groups. Islamic fundamentalism is a long-lived enemy of fundamentalist groups of both Hinduism in India and Christianity in America.
©farid muttaqin, 2006
