A point of interest from Samuel Huntington

[WMS]

Considering the persistent 'the world is moving in a socially liberal direction' posts I've read from social liberals [note: Al is specifically exempted from this statement ], I thought I'd set the record straight, as it were.

From The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, 1996, selections from pp. 95-101:

"In the first half of the twentieth century intellectual elites generally assumed that economic and social modernization was leading to the withering away of religion as a significant element in human existence..."
"The second half of the twentieth century proved these hopes and fears unfounded. Economic and social modernization became global in scope, and at the same time a [emphasis mine] global revival of religion occurred. This revival, [emphasis in book] la revanche de Dieu, Gilles Kepel termed it, has pervaded every continent, every civilization, and virtually every country [with an exception remarked upon in Huntington's most recent book]. In the mid-1970's, as Kepel observes, the trend to secularization and toward the accommodation of religion with secularism 'went into reverse. A new religious approach took shape, aimed no longer at adapting to secular values but at recovering a sacred foundation for the organization of society - by changing society if necessary. Expressed in a multitude of ways, this approach advocated moving on from a modernism that had failed, attributing its setbacks and dead ends to separation from God.'"
"The renewal of religion throughout the world far transcends the activities of fundamentalist extremists [note: although they have definitely risen in strength!]. In society after society it manifests itself in the daily lives and work of people and the concerns and projects of governments."
"...the religious resurgence throughout the world is a reaction against secularism, moral relativism, and self-indulgence, and a reaffirmation of the values of order, discipline, work, mutual help, and human solidarity."
"...the revival of non-Western religions...is not a rejection of modernity; it is a rejection of the West and of the secular, relativistic, degenerate culture associated with the West."

From Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity, 2004, selections from pp. 343-365 [darn it, there's an article of Huntington's I need to find...]:

"As the sponsors of a 2000 poll on religion in American life concluded: 'One message arrived loud and clear: Americans strongly equate religion with personal ethics and behavior, considering it an antidote to the moral decline they perceive in our nation today. Crime, greed, uncaring parents, materialism - Americans believe that all these problems would be mitigated if people were more religious. And to most citizens, it doesn't matter which religion is involved.'" [note: that's certainly my position!]
"'No wound has afflicted the Democratic Party so deeply,' Joel Kotkin wrote in The New Democrat, 'as its divorce from religious experience and community. In the name of opposing religious dogmatism, it has embraced a [emphasis mine] morally relative dogma that many Americans find shallow and uninspiring.'" [does Barack Obama make more sense now, anti-religious liberals? ]
"In the last quarter of the twentieth century, however, the march toward secularism was reversed. An almost global resurgence of religion got under way, manifest in almost every part of the world - [emphasis mine] except in western Europe. [note: from a discussion with Seige I would add Canada, New Zealand and Australia] Elsewhere in countries all over the world, religious political movements gained supporters. And in these countries, the most religious people have not been elderly, but young, and not poor peasants but upwardly mobile, well-educated white-collar workers and professional people..."
"An exhaustive quantitative report on global religion in the late twentieth century [Assaf Moghadam, A Global Resurgence of Religion? (Cambridge: Harvard University Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Paper No. 03-03, August 2003), pp. 65, 67.] concluded bluntly: 'the majority of countries in the world, with a majority of the global population, are in the midst of a religious resurgence...Within the developed world, religion seems to be on the decline in most countries, [emphasis mine] with the most notable exception being the United States.'"
"The twentieth-first century is beginning as an age of religion. Western secular models of the state are being challenged and replaced...Where elections have been held in the Arab world, Islamist political parties almost consistently increased their strength around the start of the new century. Throughout the world, political leaders, as Mark Juergensmeyer put it, have been 'striving for new forms of national order based on religious values.' The United States has not been alone in filling its naked public square."

I see why so many Europeans, and American liberals who emulate them, are so confident about the lack of a public role for religion - western Europe is the one place on the planet where their viewpoint has any validity at all. But take a look around, folks - faith is pouring into politics all across the world. And should you be surprised? The spectrum just on this forum of those who hold religion important ranges from Al to Nation to me to Josh, and let's not forget about M, either.

You may not like everything Huntington believes in, but he is absolutely dead on about the importance of religion.

Think about it the next time anyone denigrates religious folks.
-WMS

[opebo]

Religion is influencing politics all over the world, yes.  But that is still a horrible thing.

[WMS]

Depends on one's point of view, Opebo...but at least you read the post.

One reply and 9 views...geez, you'd think people would've gotten tired of the Swiftboats by now...

[Gustaf]

This is probably true, but since Western Europe is ahead of the developing world, they're likely to follow us at some point. The US is an anomaly in this respect.

[Niles Caulder]

OK folks, you're pushing my buttons.    
There's this little saying I like that goes: "England sent their criminals to Australia, their religious nuts to America, and now there's no one interesting left!"

I'm the first to acknowledge that the reach and strength of religion in American society has historically been stronger than in Europe evaluating them at the same times, for historical reasons.  But this notion that America is in the midst of a religious ressurgance is a farce.  Just because the secularization lags behind doesn't mean it's reversing, or even that it goes slower than in Europe.

In the decade from 1980 to 1990, the Christian grip on the American population fell from 90% to 80%.  The decade since hasn't been as dramatic, but it's still been a net reduction.  The share of Catholic population has deteriorated from 28% to 23%.  As we speak, demographic projections are that American Protestantism has dropped below 50% for the first time in this nation's history.

The proportion of Americans who identify themselves as "nothing" has trippled or quadrupled in ten years, and Islam and Eastern faiths continue to gain a foothold making America once again live up to its cosmopolitan ideal.

There are years when numbers tick back up...and it's just human nature with regard to the psychological function of religion:  coping under stress.  9/11 is naturally going to cause one of those ticks...but did the Christian Church manage to successfully leverage that into an Historical recruitment drive?  Nope.  Winter of '01 saw the Religious Right fuming over its "Right-Wing" President calling Islam a religion of Peace, and all genuine spiritual seekers valid to God (even Hindus!)  The only thing they were allowed to do is pick on poor Harry Potter.

So America being an anomoly with regard to the Industrialized Western World is a characterization I find of dubious value, and easily maligned.  Mythic experience is the root the religious experience--I suggest folks like this author take stock of their mythic relationship with 'America" and not let it substitute for "researched" journalism.

There's a distinction to be made between 'spiritual' revolutions and religious movements, although they certainly can intersect.  The upsurge in the interest in spirituality is hardly a backward trend towards organized religion here in the West.  Quite the opposite.  And if we're measuring "secularization" by the proportion of agnostics and atheists in the population...then America is "secularizing" still, too.

And as far as the underdeveloped world goes, there's the simple fact that Religion is the natural (and worldly) outgrowth of Politics.  People seek greater authority in their lives, and religion inspires them to take solace in their poverty-stricken humanity and use organized religion to relieve themselves of so much oppression.  (Then the Organization becomes a powerful enough political institution itself to collaborate with the militicratic arm of government for its own benefit, and religious rhetoric turns towards polemical government of the people.)

"Islam" is the tool of many a powermonger who wants to use peoples' hopelessness to compete with the secular oppression the Islamic world has endured for many moons.  There's a reason it's the fastest growing religion on Earth...and we have a great deal of responsibility for it being so by utilizing "secular, democratic" tyrants against the Soviets.  Now national security depends on us cleaning up the mess we made.

We have to compete with religion, that Western secular government with free religious pluralism can give them a life worth defending from murderous 'righteous' zealots instead of becoming righteous zealots themselves.