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Apologia Report 19:29 (1,212)
September 4, 2014
Subject: Where Have All the Cultists Gone?
In this issue:
HOMOSEXUALITY - are we entering a new era of cultural McCarthyism?
NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS - Philip Jenkins speculates: "Why so few cult-related scares in today's media?"
POLITICS - obsessing over the influence of religion in the public square
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HOMOSEXUALITY
"The Coming Gay Marriage Witch Hunt" by David Freelander -- begins: "Is this the new McCarthyism? With the battle over gay marriage beyond hope, some conservatives say they fear being run out of public life for being on the losing side. The war is over. Or at least it is nearing its end."
A number of paragraphs later, Freelander refers to Warner Todd Huston <www.publiusforum.com >, a conservative activist and writer, who describes the great fear in some quarters that "traditional American values are being criminalized as opposed to simply being out of fashion....
"For gay rights activists, such concerns appear overblown and can be used to stoke paranoia on the right.
"'This is a tactic. We have to call this out,' said Alvin McEwan, author of How They See Us: Unmasking the Religious Right War on Gay America <www.ow.ly/B4aG2> and a blogger at Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters <www.ow.ly/B4aMa>, a site, he says, that is dedicated to showing 'how religious-right groups distort legitimate research and rely on junk studies to stigmatize the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities.' ...
"'People have a right to boycott a business if they don't like you,' he said.
"And even though McEwan said he does not think that gay-marriage opponents should be cast out of public life, conservatives, he added, have been warning the citizenry about 'the gay agenda' for years.
"'They have this entitlement thing,' he said. 'They have a right to believe what they want to believe, but they have to share the country.' ...
"[O]pponents of same-sex marriage fear that supporters will not be happy until their side has been run out of polite society and forced to retract their previously held views.
"'Even supporters of abortion don't go around saying that people who believe that life begins at conception are evil people,' said Brian Brown, president of the National Organization [for] Marriage <nationformarriage.org >. 'But this is not the case here, and the problem is that the establishment gay marriage groups have not condemned this view that those of us who favor traditional marriage are bigots and therefore should be abolished.'
"Brown noted that according to the Southern Poverty Law Center <splcenter.org>, the [Family Research Council] is a 'hate group, in the same category as the KKK.'
"Another difference between earlier American civil rights conflicts and this one, he said, was that slavery, or discriminating against someone on the basis of race, was considered immoral around the world for centuries while the practice was ongoing in parts of the U.S. Hardly anyone in politics, on the other hand, was pushing for gay marriage 'until about 10 years ago, but the people who don't totally want to redefine a definition of marriage that has lasted for thousands of years need to be shunned.'
"Opponents of same-sex marriage say that even liberals have started to feel the effects of the witch hunt. While to many listeners Hillary Clinton's interview with Terry Gross last week <www.ow.ly/B4fVc>was an example of a politician fumbling through a response to a question about her evolution on gay marriage, to conservatives it was proof that everyone who once held a different view must now apologize and be publicly flogged for it. ...
"'The pro-gay marriage people need to accept that even though we disagree, we are not hateful,' said Brown. 'This notion that our position is one that doesn't belong in the public square is something we should all be worried about.'" The Daily Beast, Jun 19 '14, <www.ow.ly/ATLLp>
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NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS
"Where Have All the Cultists Gone?" by Philip Jenkins -- "compared to the 1970s, the cult issue has vanished almost entirely." His basis for this observation? "I looked around Penn State, a very large university with some 45,000 students at its main campus, offering exactly the kind of young population that should in theory offer rich pickings for predatory fringe sects. But those sects just aren’t there, and I looked hard. ...
"Just possibly, that marketplace really has changed in an unprecedented way, to reduce the public taste for supernatural manifestations of any kind whatever. ... Assume for the sake of argument that such surveys genuinely do reflect a secular shift, and the United States really is moving to become more similar to Canada, or the nations of Western Europe. If that were the case, then one of the first symptoms we would expect would be a general reduction of interest in spiritual or religious matters across large sections of society. We would no longer find the broad but ill-focused concern that manifested itself in the supernatural boom of the 1970s. Without a solid core of spiritual activism and inquiry, moreover, there would be no foundation for the extremism that produced so many prospective members for the cults.
"In other words, the first symptom we might expect of genuine American secularization would be the disappearance of cults, and a precipitous decline in activism and enthusiasm on the spiritual fringe, which is exactly what has taken place over the past two decades. ... Perhaps secularization really is looming."
Jenkins concludes: "In my view, declining concern about cults is not just a function of shifting media attitudes, but it rather reflects a genuine and epochal decline in the number and scale of controversial fringe sects. There really are far fewer fringe groups to be worried about. And that may be a mixed blessing." Patheos, Jun 27 '14, <www.ow.ly/ATPAk>
Another answer is that the cults aren't really "gone." It depends on what one is looking for. While they may not excite the same level of scorn and wonder in the popular press that they did in the 1970s and 80s, there's seldom been a shortage of abuse and scandal in this field.
The last two decades have seen many shocking revelations from the Church of Scientology, controversies surrounding "fundamentalist" Mormon polygamist groups, the Puerto Rican "antichrist" José Luis de Jesús Miranda, spiritual franchises led by violent and exploitative gurus and Zen priests, aggressive proselytizing by Korean sects, the manipulative NXIVM "life-coaching" organization, the UFO (and sex) obsessed Raëlians ... and much more of the same in Europe (east and west), Latin America, Asia, and Africa.
A few days after Jenkins posted the above article, he returned with "Cult Alternatives," in order to "offer two alternative explanations, or rather to other forces that might be at work....
"I begin with the idea of pre-emption." In other words, we are sensitized to abusive behavior more now than before. "You can’t get away with that sort of thing any more. ...
"I also wonder whether traditional public fears about cults have been targeted against other more mainstream - or at least familiar - organizations. ...
"Since 2002, virtually all those older fears and concerns about sexual exploitation have become strictly focused on the Roman Catholic Church, as a consequence of the abuse scandals that have convulsed that community.
"Since 2001, meanwhile, the old rhetoric about mindless religious fanatics has become firmly associated with radical Islam. From that perspective, we might see Osama bin Laden as the culmination of all American nightmares about evil cult leaders.
"When you have such potent mainstream images, who needs to fear cults any more?" <www.ow.ly/ATQvL>
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POLITICS
Religion, Politics, and Polarization: How Religiopolitical Conflict Is Changing Congress and American Democracy, by William V. D'Antonio, Steven A. Tuch and Josiah R. Baker [1] -- the book promo on Amazon begins: "Do the religious affiliations of elected officials shape the way they vote on such key issues as abortion, homosexuality, defense spending, taxes, and welfare spending?" This reminds us of the naïve statement: "Religion is fine, as long as you don't let it affect your life."
In his review, Jay Demerath (University of Massachusetts) notes that "The larger questions posed by the book are: Just how religious are religiously identified politicians and just how important are the changing polarities among and between Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelical Protestants, and Jews?
"The answers are exclusive. ... While the authors entertain little doubt that the Protestant Republican [movement between Senate and House] is more a function of party than of church, one must wonder whether that is not true of the Catholics as well. ...
"The major conclusion of this large little book is that much of the difference between political parties over the last half-century involves not just a political polarization but a religious polarization, albeit one that is turned on its head midway through the period. ... In recent years, a small number of successful politicians have claimed to be religiously unaffiliated, and the authors report that just last year in the 113th Congress a member of the House [Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.)] claimed to be a nonbeliever. Shocking indeed, but it is not altogether clear whether it is the substance that is so surprising or the candor. ... [Editor's note: Sinema is not an atheist — see <www.ow.ly/B4gqC>.]
"Today, of course, we hear a great deal about 'polarization' in the U.S. Congress. But there is very little said about religion." Demerath concludes that in periods of politicized religion and/or religionized politics, "it is not always clear which is leading which, or indeed whether issues of a kind of secular morality don't trump both. That would certainly describe today's polarization. There is very little sacramental wine at Tea Parties, and when the leader of one party avers that his primary legislative goal is to defeat the president from the opposing party from reelection, this hardly seems biblical. Issues such as a diminished government and shrinking taxes are no doubt important and have their religious supporters, but they are scarcely theological. One can only wonder when and how religion will return, as surely it will." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 53:2 - 2014, pp248-9.
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - Religion, Politics, and Polarization: How Religiopolitical Conflict Is Changing Congress and American Democracy, by William V. D'Antonio, Steven A. Tuch and Josiah R. Baker (Rowman & Littlefield, 2013, paperback, 172 pages) <www.ow.ly/ATEsv>
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