ANASTASIA KARAFLOGKA
Religion on/in cyberspace
Taking the Net to be more a social, political, economic and spiritual
shift rather than just another mass medium, and that it represents
a new collective mental space where humanity can meet and exchange
knowledge, information, ideas and experiences, it is essential and,
in a way compulsory, to observe religion in this context. Religion
and technology, historically, have been closely interrelated and
the first has facilitated the development of the later, however,
the present expansion of technology and the predicted future innovations
call for a reassessment of the concepts of religion and spirituality
and their relationship with cyberspace.
In my paper I will examine the explosive development of religion
on/in cyberspace and predict the progressive advancement of what
I call cybereligions, as distinct religious/spiritual/philosophical
utterances from the existing uploaded religious information. Presenting
data from past and present research of religious discourse on/in
cyberspace I will reach my predictions which will include the formation
of new cyberreligious movements (NCRMs).
WILL KEENAN
Monasticism and religious life: Just another new millennium
Whatever quibbles there are dating the precise origins of Christianity,
the Year 2000 inaugurates 'just another millennium' for monasticism,
especially since diverse forms of religious life can be found within
Ancient Judaism (e.g., Essenes) and among the Gnostics of Ancient
Society (e.g., Pythagorean). All world faiths, East and West, exhibit
religious life dynamism in both its eremetical and coenobitical
forms. One can confidently expect that the chequered and changeful
history of religious virtuosi will continue unabated despite iconoclastic
persecution and secularisation.
However, the third Christian millennium is likely to generate new
modalities for the expression of that complex mix of affirmation
of and resistance to the signs of the times - both ecclesiastical
and worldly - that characterises 'the consecrated life' in every
epoch. The 21st century is likely to find enduring 'official' traditions
and controversial 'fringe' innovations commingling. Venerable monastic
orders and religious congregations will compete for market share
with novel apostolates and 'flexi-spec' foundations reactive to
multi-faith ecumenism, network society and resurgent post-religion
spiritualities.
JOHN KENNEDY
Machiavelli and Mandeville: Prophets of post-Christianity
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) was perhaps the earliest and most
important critic of the Church who took human energy and ambition
seriously, and called into the question the viability of a human
society based on conventional Christian values. His membership of
the self-consciously Christian administration of Florence which
survived the data of the radical reformer Savonarola is a crucial
and seldom noted feature of his thought.Bernard Mandeville, (1670-1733)
did for the commercial world what Machiavelli did for politics.
He acknowledged the benefits of the newly burgeoning commercial
world, but questioned radically whether a common good based on private
ambition could be accommodated to Christian morality. He disturbs
the often complacent world view of his successor, Adam Smith, and
Smith's attempt at a rebuttal of Mandeville's moral judgements is
not plausible. Four important contemporary church documents, from
Germany, Britain and Ireland, criticise public policy in a number
of areas. These are briefly examined. An application of the insights
of our prophets calls their claims into serious doubt. It is suggested
that the tendency to self-delusion discovered in such statements
is rooted in a failure to perceive the radically changed relationship
between Churches which feel called to make such statements, and
the societies which they purport to criticise. The implications
for the future of such Churches and their utterances is then discussed.
SUNGHO KIM
Modernization and the future of religion in South Korea
My paper tries to predict the future of religion in South Korea
by examining the process of modernisation in Korea, especially the
Korean Protestant Church. I divide modernisation in Korea into three
specific periods of time.
1. Before 1960 (Japan and America-led modernisation): I explore
the relationship between traditional elements and modernity in this
period, the impact of colonial moderenisation, and religious responses.
2. 1960-1990 (Korean government-led economic modernisation): I
examine how the Korean Protestant Church (and other religions) has
explosively grown, including discussion of the side-effects of the
fact that religions have accomodated to modernity in the process
of economic modernisation.
3. Since 1990 (globalisation and postmodernity): I describe declines
of church membership, the reason of this, and especially how each
religion has been challenged by globalisation and postmodernity.
On the basis of this analysis, I predict the future of religion
in Korea
KLAUS-PETER KOEPPING
Empowerment through embodiment in litury and ideology: An
apocalyptic religious movement in modern Japan
After the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Japan in 1945, a country
woman, Mrs. Sayo Kitamura founded the so-called Dancing Religion
(Odoru Shukyo) by publicly claiming in her sermons the impending
end of the world. The theme of her sermons from 1946 onwards re-iterated
the warnings of doom and cataclysm by insisting in particular on
the man-made causes for this end-scenario through divine fire. While
the doomsday scenario can doubtlessly be explained partly from the
war-experience of the prophetess living in the Hiroshima region
in 1945, her strong criticism of the natural science attitude must
also be based on her general world-view of human culpability for
which she reverts to the concept of innen (karma). While the prophetess
thus re-interprets a common notion of Buddhism about the arrival
of the 'age of decline' she also offers believers the hope of salvation
through human efforts, the 'cleansing of the heart'. As means of
empowerment for the believers the prophetess introduced a form of
liturgy which promises the attainment of unity with the divine force
through body-manipulation (foremost the 'Dance of Non-Ego', muga
no odori). This body liturgy re-enacts the personal spiritual experiences
of the foundress with the newly proclaimed universal divinity which
manifested itself in her body. The prophetic religious movements
seems to combine a number of features which may be considered a
typical re-action of people on local and regional levels being confronted
with forces of the outside world beyond their control. The nativistic
and anti-scientific orientation of the millennial and apocalyptic
beliefs can be interpreted as forms of a search for identity and
security as much as the claims of the foundress to embody the national
symbols of Japan can be seen as a form of protest as well as self-empowerment
for individuals in the nation-state on a local and regional as well
as personal level. This orientation of a prophetic religious movement
shows one form of local and regional coping strategies with the
perceived threats from globalization through agency in a specific
cultural idiom which may point toward a comparative assessment of
reactions to a so-called 'post-modern' condition by 'traditional'
socio-cultural forces and ideas.
DAVID LEHMANN
Charisma and possession in Africa and Brazil
As they have spread through Africa and Latin America charismatic
movements, largely in the form of Pentecostal and Evangelical churches
have created a complex and (at least apparently) contradictory relationship
with indigenous religious cultures - and especially with those in
which possession and cure plays a major role. The ambiguities and
ironies involved echo the problems faced by Anglican and Methodist
missionaries in the early and mid-19th century, as described by
Jean and John Comaroff in their history of the Tswana people (and
of much else besides) on the northern marches of South Africa. We
see here how profound cultural difference does not necessarily impede
cultural interchange and how the perception of radical cultural
opposition may be accompanied by borrowings between opposed groups.
In these cases - spread across time and space during two centuries
- we see that borrowings may travel in both directions between colonizer
and colonized, and between hegemonic and subaltern systems of ritual
and symbolism, The paper then illustrates how magic and mafia are
intertwined concepts and the ways in which charismatic religion
enters into an apocalyptic confrontation with them among the excluded
of the contemporary megalopolis.
GORDON LYNCH AND MARTIN STRINGER
Trends, theories and trajectories: devising a methodology
for religious prediction
I n this paper we wish to ask what methodologies might be used
to predict the future of religion in a reliable fashion. One principle
that we can build upon is to look back over the last fifty years
and to recognise and highlight factors that have predated changes
in religious attitudes and/or affiliation. We would like to propose
two such factors that may be worth looking at in more detail. The
first relates to the generation that provides religious leadership.
This would suggest, for example, that the generation that was formed
by the sixties is now moving into positions of leadership and that
their values, suitably developed over time, are those which are
going to be most relevant in the next ten years or so. The other
predicts a similar generational time gap (25-30 years) between academic
theories of religion and actual religious practice. Putting these
two principles together, we will offer some predictions for the
development of religion over the next 25 to 30 years.
DAVID MARTIN
Is there a leading edge to religious change?
I restrict myself to Christianity as the initial test case for the
relation of modernity to religion, unless one holds Christianity
specially vulnerable, intellectually, contextually or by reason
of its own destructive internal logic. I do not incidentally believe
either New Age sensibility or NRM's fill up some putative religious
space vacated by Christianity.
Much depends on how you locate 'lead societies', whether you regard
Europe or the U.S.A. as exceptional, and if the former whether you
relate that to fragmenting establishments. Much also depends on
whether you think there is an increasing domination of one style
or reason of a fragmentation of the 'Enlightened' establishment.
The spread of Pentecostalism, and its particular cultural incidence,
may throw light on these issues.
DAVID MAXWELL
'African Gifts of the Spirit': Fundamentalism and the rise
of the Born-Again Movement in Africa
The paper charts the rise of the Born-Again Movement in
Africa, particularly the appearance of its recent dynamic pentecostal
strand. The movement is analysed in terms of the developmental contradictions
within it: its global character and its capacity to localise itself;
the tension between its popular voluntarist origins and an increasingly
authoritative leadership; the tension between sectarian social sources
and the drive towards respectability, recognition and an embrace
of the world. The movement's relation to politics, its implications
for gender and generational relations, and its relation to modernity
are analysed in terms of these sets of contradictions.
The paper agues that scholars have so far failed to analyse African
born-again Christianity as, first and foremost, a religious movement.
More attenton must be given to its own idioms, particularly those
pertaining to the 'gifts of the spirit'. It is these that so animate
the movement. The label fundamentalism is rejected. Pentecostalism
does not represent a flight from modernity but rather embraces many
of its carriers and some of its discourses. Neither is it necessarily
a response to some perceived threat or crisis. At the turn of the
21st century it is aggressive and confident, and established religion
now responds to its agendas. It is very much here to stay.
BIRGIT MEYER
Modernity and religion in Ghana
The paper will focus on the popularity of the pentecostal-charismatic
movement in Ghana which manifests itself markedly in the public
sphere through its use and command of modern mass media, thereby
constituting an important part of civil society. Far from being
confined to the realm of mere culture, pentecostals actively engage
in political debate and force politicians to speak their language.
As a result, it appears to be impossible to disentangle religion
and politics. It will be argued that the difficulty of the Ghanaian
postcolonial state to achieve legitimacy and bind its citizens and
the easy accessibility of mass media make it possible for pentecostalists
to imagine powerful alternative communities which cannot be fully
controlled by the state. The paper will reflect on these processes
in the light of secularization theory. Challenging the assumption
that there is an intrinsic relation between modernization and a
declining public impact of religion, the paper will argue that the
relationship between religion and modernity is far more complicated
and make a strong plea for detailed historical-ethnographic investigation.
Only on this base will it be possible to determine the future location
and role of religion in Ghana.
WILL MYER
Chingiz Aitmatov: A Soviet prophet
'Prophesy' as understood in the Hebrew Scriptures relates to revealing
the true nature of Society rather than to foretelling the future.
This paper looks at two works by Lenin Prize-winning Kyrgyz author
Chingiz Aitmatov, The Place of the Skull and One Day is Longer than
a Century, to examine how a Soviet author was able to use religious
imagery derived both from Christianity and the Kyrgyz tribal tradition
to mount a critique of the effect of Soviet materialism on society.
That the use of such imagery was possible in an avowedly anti-religious
society tells us much about the power of religious discourse and
its ability to survive as a meaningful mode of expression in a secular
society. That Aitmatov draws on Christianity and the tribal tradition
rather than the nominal religion of the Kyrgyz, Islam, also provides
a pointer to the future religious development of Kyrgyzstan, suggesting
that the possibility for the growth of 'Islamic fundamentalism'
here and among other 'tribal' ex-Soviet Asian peoples (Kazakhs,
Turkmen, Karakalpaks) is limited in the foreseeable future.
