December, 2002 (Vol. 18, No. 2)

While evangelicals are usually associated with the unofficial and illegal underground churches in China, there is a new trend of these believers working with official church bodies.

The evangelical digest Current Thoughts & Trends (December) reports on missionaries who willingly work with the Chinese government’s Three Self Patriotic Movement and are establishing flourishing evangelical seminaries, Bible institutes and congregations. A leader in this kind of ministry is China Partner, which works with Three Self seminaries and Bible institutes in supplying teachers and other pastoral training resources.

China Partner also teaches Westerners about China, advising them about the extent of ministry still possible under official auspices. These missionaries cite the lack of conflict and suspicion from officials as the major advantage in working with the official churches. There are currently 51 American Protestant agencies involved in similar work, such as Bible publishing, teaching English, and working with health care and adoption programs.

Madrasas, schools that teach young children strict Islamic basics and often viewed as incubators of militant Islam by Westerners, are likely to keep growing and remain relatively unchanged, even under current reform efforts. That is one of the conclusions of journalist Husain Haqqani writing in the magazine Foreign Policy (November/December).

Haqqani notes that madrasas are not only a phenomenon  of Afghanistan and Pakistan. In fact, the poorest countries, such as Yemen, Somalia and Indonesia, often boast the largest madrasa enrollment. An estimated 6 million Muslims study in madrasas around the world. Twice that number study in maktabs or kuttabs, small Koranic schools attached to village mosques.

Most Madrasas–which provide room and board for young students–are predominantly quietist in tradition, “teaching rejection of Western ways without calling upon believers to fight unbelievers… But even the quietist madrasa teaches a rejection of modernity while emphasizing conformity and a medieval mind-set,” writes Haqqani.

There are many calls for reform by politicians within Muslim countries (who often seek Western aid in this effort). But Haqqani is skeptical about such prospects, believing the schools will not change as long as they are “home to a theological class popular with poor Muslims.” The proposed recipe for reform is to add contemporary subjects, such as math and science, along with traditional Islamic subjects. But just as madrasas survived the introduction of Western education during colonial rule, they will likely withstand the new wave of reforms.

As one student told Haqqani, “In haddith [commentary on the Koran] there are many references to how many times Allah has multiplied the reward of jihad. If I knew how to multiply, I would be able to calculate the reward I will earn in the hereafter.”

(Foreign Policy, 1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW Washington, DC 20036)

Although under pressure from militant Islam, Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, continues to show resiliance.

That was one of the conclusions of a paper on the current status of Sufism in the Arab world delivered at the conference of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) in Toronto. Mark Sedgwick of American University in Cairo noted that Anti-Sufi stereotypes developed over more than a century, and the movement today is often considered to be archaic and obscurantist.

“Sufism is generally seen by educated Moroccans and Egyptians as a deviation of Islam.” Most students from the elite classes know nothing about Sufism, “although “many of their great-grandparents were surely Sufis.”

The growth of a rationalistic world-view, the influence of nationalism and socialism, and, more recently, the Islamic revival have all served to repress Sufism. Salafism, a reform movement from the 19th and 20th centuries which considered Sufis as “backward” and constituting an obstacle to reform, has been taken up by “neo-Salifis” today, many of whom are “more resolutely anti-Sufi than the original” movement, partly due to influences from Saudi Wahhabi thought.

Paradoxically, reactions of Westernized elites toward political Islam tend to include negative views of Sufism as well, due to a general suspicion torward all forms of Islam, which means Sufis have found themselves under fire from two sides. However, a few Sufi groups have made relatively successful attempts to adjust to those new circumstances.

Sedgwick offered a case study on the the Budshishiyya, a Moroccan order. In contrast with a number of other Sufi groups, “by the year 2000, perhaps half of the order’s membership of at least 25,000 were ‘educated’ Moroccans.” It included a number of recruits from the Islamic Studies departments at Moroccan universities, “a remarkable achievement, given the prevalence of neo-Salafism and Islamism in such circles.” The Budshishiyya has also developed outreach activities.

The order’s success may be due to its ability to adjust to new situations. Some standard aspects of contemporary Moroccan Sufism, such as visits to tombs of saintly people, are not encouraged by the Budshishiyya. It has also shown an ability to build networks that correspond to other preexisting networks (i.e. among people of similar backgrounds). However, “the Budshishiyya, from the inside, differs little from a classic Sufi order. From the outside, it looks unthreatening, modern and tolerant, and very different from the standard anti-Sufi stereotype,” concludes Sedgwick.

— By Jean-François Mayer

Films dealing with Mormon themes, and often targeting a LDS audience, are increasingly making their way to the cinemas, reports the independent Mormon magazine Sunstone (October).

More “feature films than ever are targeting the LDS audiences,” a trend that started with the release of Richard Dutcher’s film, “God’s Army.” The films deal with contemporary and historical subject matter, such as “Handcart,” involving the 1856 rescue of the Martin Company and “Out of Step,” about a Mormon girl moving to New York City.

Several of the films set to premiere in the next few months revolve around missionary themes. “The Day of Defense” is a drama inspired by a “cult-classic” pamphlet describing a theological showdown between a young elder and Christian minister in the deep South. The explosion of Mormon-themed films has even inspired a “mockumentary,” The Work and the Story, which parodies the rise of the Mormon cinema.

(Sunstone, 343 N. Third West, Salt Lake City, UT 84103-1215; http://www.ldsfilm.com )

Theologians and groups on the right and left are pressing the churches to incorporate new religious symbols and discard old ones in order to reach out to contemporary culture, writes Christine Wicker in the Dallas Morning News (Nov. 16).

The most organized and well-known of the attempts to revise and discard traditional Christian symbols is the Jesus Seminar. The seminar was originally focused on uncovering the authentic actions and sayings of Jesus through historical scholarship but now it is venturing into developing a faith and rituals that reflect the new view of Christ.

Seminar founder Robert Funk is proposing that the more universal symbol of salt replace the cross as the central Christian symbol since Christ’s death and resurrection is viewed by seminar revisionists as unhistorical. In challenging the traditional view of an omnipotent God, Funk would use the image of light.

There is yet little evidence that the ideas of Funk and the Westar Institute, the sponsor of the Jesus Seminar, are influencing  many churches. It is more common to see mainline churches keep the old symbols while also adding new ones. Wicker gives the example of churches using crosses with a multi-ethnic figure, a mural of a globe in which worshippers leave their handprint in paint to symbolize the sacredness of touch, and languages and images reflecting feminist and interfaith concerns.

“Even some evangelical churches are engaging new images and giving old ones less prominence,” according to Wicker. Megachurches, such as Willow Creek Community Church, have been known to discard the cross in order to reach the unchurched. One “postmodern” ministry allows worshippers to write their sins in a bowlful of sand and then wipe them away.

At the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Toronto, the sessions on Islam were bigger than ever, reports Leslie Scrivener in the Sunday edition of the Toronto Star (Nov. 24).

One of those sessions was devoted to they way the study of Islam has changed in North American universities after 9/11. “Professors found they couldn’t just teach the classical foundations of the faith [but] had to address modern issues.” Student audiences also increased significantly.

It has also had an impact upon Muslim students themselves. In an interview with the newspaper, a former imam who now teaches at the University of Colorado, Liyakat Hakim, explained: “[The students] questioned things in their faith they’d taken for granted, because of what they’d been reading.” Such a period of questioning may actually reflect wider trends in the Islamic world, according to Vincent Cornell (University of Arkansas).

He is convinced that Islam is going through a change equivalent to the Protestant Reformation, involving moving away from a religious elite to greater openness to the grassroots expression of the faith.

(http://www.thestar.com/)

— By Jean Francois Mayer

Several workshops at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Toronto, held Nov. 23-26, dealt with the changing relationship between scholars and law-enforcement.officials on new religious movements after Sept. 11.

Only a decade ago, the threat level from new religious movements (NRMs) was perceived as so low that actions committed in the 1980s by followers of Rajneesh in Oregon were dealt with just as criminal cases, according to Jeff Kaplan (University of Wisconsin). Waco changed that situation. Similarly, in Europe, security agencies became interested in NRMs after the case of Aum Shinrikyo in Japan (1995). The coming of year 2000 and alleged millenial threats associated with it contributed to a new relationship between law-enforcement officials and scholars. [See September RW for more on this topic].

Now 9/11 marks a new turning point. Other topics have now replaced NRMs and millenial groups. Massimo Introvigne (Center for Studies on New Religions) confirmed that  trend in Italy: security agencies there are no longer asking questions about NRMs, but about radical Muslim groups. Michael Barkun (Syracuse University) reported that regular private meetings have taken place between scholars working on NRMs or millenialism and the FBI at the AAR since 1999; in 2001, the meetings included scholars of Islam for the first time.

Barkun listed some problems with this shift, beginning with the lack of an historical relationship between religious studies and law-enforcement. There are no guidelines established regarding confidentiality and ethical issues. The fact that the FBI now has the prevention of terrorism as a priority task also has consequences: it is difficult for scholars to predict violence. The shift from the investigation of prosecutable crimes to prevention of attacks changes the balance between preservation of freedom and security interests, posing new questions for scholars, said Barkun.

The sessions also offered opportunities to reflect about past efforts at risk-assessment. Eugene Gallagher (Connecticut College) stated there had been an overemphasis on dates, well illustrated by the reactions to the year 2000, while the millenial calendar of groups is unlikely to coincide with the secular calendar. By narrowing the focus on the year 2000, law-enforcement reports produced in the USA as well as in several other countries had a restrictive perspective, possbily leading to the conclusion that millenial violence now belongs to the past.

— By Jean-François Mayer, RW contributing editor who heads the Website, Religioscope at http://www.religioscope.com

The November joint meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and Religion Research Association in Salt Lake City had as as its official themes “Practicing Religion in the 21st Century” and “Theory and Applied Research.”

Along with the usual conversations and debates about data, both themes revealed an ongoing concern about the relation of the social sciences to practicing a religious faith. Consider the comments by Charles Glock, sociology professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley and former president of the SSSR speaking on the compatibility of social science and religion: “Surface appearances to the contrary, I do believe that the social sciences and religion are inherently incompatible . . . The inherent incompatibility derives from the social scientist’s search for explanation . . . Social sciences’ determinism neither countenances a God who receives and answers prayers or a Devil who brings evil into the world.”

A rather different perspective was expressed during one of the conference’s keynote speeches by Robert Orsi, professor of the history of religion at Harvard University. He addressed the question “Is the Study of Lived Religion Irrelevant to the World We Live In?”

His answer was that the question itself was irrelevant. “Lived religion is an approach to religion research that takes place at the level of the practice of the individual or community, not the level of the averages created by surveys. Current discussions about  the “true nature” of Islam, for instance,  make no sense for Orsi because there is, for him, no “true” nature of a faith. “There is no religion apart from this, no religion that people have not taken up in their hands,” he said.

Nonetheless, hundreds of other researchers at the conference advanced general theories about faith and practice and even, in some cases, tried to square their studies with their faith. Among the more interesting studies was a paper presented by Laurence Iannaccone, an economics professor at George Mason University. Most of his work has involved application of economics-style analysis in an attempt to explain religious behaviors. But this paper was a sort of statistical archaeology that claims to show changes in trends of religious service attendance from decades back — during years and in places where no such studies were done.

Iannaccone used surveys taken in 1991 and 1998  in 30 nations, including the United States, by the International Social Survey Program. Included in the survey were questions about the respondents’ attendance at religious services when they were 11 or 12 years old and whether the respondents’ parents attended services at that time.

If the answers are accurate, or even useful, the surveys offer retrospective information stretching from the 1920s through the 1980s.

Iannaccone said the data probably overstates the rate of actual attendance but is still reliable in showing trends. One trend: In the United States, children were consistently more likely to attend services than their parents until the 1960s. By the 1980s, the difference had vanished. The importance: Other studies have indicated that children who do not attend services are less likely to attend as adults.

Also on the question of church attendance was a presentation by C. Kirk Hadaway, a researcher with the United Church of Christ. Using findings from the U.S. Congregational Life Survey, he produced an estimate that between 20.2 percent and 22.5 percent of Americans over the age of five attend a religious service on an average weekend.

Several presentations focused on one of the most comprehensive examinations of the beliefs and practices of Hispanics in the United States. The study, conducted by the Program for the Analysis of Religion Among Latinas/os (PARAL) and directed by Anthony Stevens-Arroyo of  Brooklyn College, found that of the Latino faith communities that participated more than a quarter were founded since 1995.

Of those founded before 1995, 78 percent had increased membership — compared with the national average of 51 percent.

Almost two-thirds of the congregations are multi-Hispanic with two or more Latin American nationality groups working together. And three out of four of the Latino faith communities share space with non-Hispanic congregations.

[The program for the conference listing the papers and presenters can be found on the SSSR Website: http://las.alfred.edu/~soc/SSSR/]

— By Jeffrey Weiss, a Dallas-based writer