Going Beyond The Headlines..Identifying Signals of Religious Trends : an Interview with"Jean-François Mayer"

Egyptian Researcher on Islamist Movements

عنوان البريد الإلكتروني هذا محمي من روبوتات السبام. يجب عليك تفعيل الجافاسكربت لرؤيته.

 

Jean-Francois Mayer (b. 1957) is a Swiss researcher on contemporary
 religion. He received his PhD in history at the University of Lyon,
 France, in 1984. His original focus was the study of religious non
 conformity and new religious movements, bringing together historical
 perspectives and field research. He is the author of more than ten
 books in French and other languages, as well as numerous articles in
 several languages. From 1987 to 1990, he was in charge of a research
 project sponsored by the Swiss National Science Foundation. From
 1991 to 1998, he worked as an analyst in international affairs for
 the Swiss Federal Government. From 1999 to 2007, he was a consultant
 and lecturer in religious studies at the University of Fribourg. In
 2002, he launched the bilingual website Religioscope (www.religion.info ). Since 2008, he is the director of the newly-founded Religioscope
 Institute, in Fribourg, Switzerland. Personal webpage: www.mayer.info

First topic: The annual report on religions, 2008

- You have published a report on the main religious events of 2008 for the first time in January 2009. What is the aim of this report, what is the point of releasing an annual report about religions, and will the report be a permanent tradition?

Religioscope had already published some retrospective articles on developments in the religious field for the previous year. And we intend to do so again in 2010.

The idea is obviously not to cover the entire religious field worldwide: this would need the participation of a number of experts familiar with different areas of the world and different religious traditions. The purpose is rather to identify some signals and indicators of current trends. Thus, the review of events during the previous year is a way of looking toward the future at the same time. Readers are invited to pay attention to a selection of events and to follow what will unfold during the coming months.

We are surrounded by an unprecedented volume of information every day, on all possible topics. Thus, we feel that a website devoted to information and analysis on religion in the contemporary world should also be able to sort out relevant information—not only those topics that made the headlines of the past year, but also themes that the mainstream media might have paid less attention to.

Beside the website Religioscope, we publish a newsletter, Religion Watch, every two months that pays attention to trends in the field of religion. So it is quite natural for Religioscope to produce such a report, as it is also a result of an ongoing observation of religious developments around the world.

 - What are the most important religious issues or events that the report depended on?

It was actually an article more than a report: we attempted to keep it short, so that as many readers as possible would take the time to read it and hopefully gain insights from it. Moreover, we should be aware that, to a large extent, religions reflect long-term trends: while public opinion can change very quickly, religions are more connected to collective mentalities and they tend to transform at a less rapid pace. Thus, we should not expect to see radical changes in religion in a matter of a few months, or even a few years; instead, changes take place over much longer periods, although some changes can indeed occur faster due to the current acceleration in the pace of so many areas of life.

What we attempted first was to assess how far some trends observed in the previous yearly retrospect (published in January 2008) had been confirmed. Thus, we could notice that a number of religious leaders had continued to emphasize the significance of the environmental crisis worldwide—something that is also very much in the mind of various secular figures (politicians, philosophers, scientists), but is a fast-growing topic among religious thinkers, including among some religions deemed until recently to be less sensitive to this topic, e.g. some American evangelicals.

As one could have expected, we also observed increased efforts—both in Muslim and Western countries—to counteract what are perceived as threatening, radical understandings of Islam. "Counteracting" means here not just conducting a "war on terror," but increasingly also developing counter-ideological work. This will be a topic worth monitoring carefully in years to come, and Religioscope will certainly report again on the issue.

A year earlier, Religioscope had mentioned as a potentially burning issue in different parts of the world the controversies over missionary activities and proselytism. The violent events that took place in the Indian state of Orissa during the summer of 2008 (attacks against Christian groups and the killing of a number of people) confirmed the importance of this issue.

Something that we had not considered in our January 2008 report, but that became very important, was the global financial crisis and reactions of religious groups to it. In countries such as the USA, the financial crisis has, of course, had a direct impact on religious groups themselves (as well as educational institutions and a variety of other non-business sectors). But, beside these events, what mattered was to see how religious groups attempted to connect the crisis with a lack of respect for spiritual and moral principles in the field of finance. A number of observers remarked how Islamic finance had had its image strengthened by the crisis, since the way it approaches finance should—in principle at least—prevent the occurrence of such financial disasters.

But several other religious traditions also felt that they could contribute ethical guidelines for designing sounder financial principles. This was, for instance, the message of the Roman Catholic Church, which has a well-developed corpus of social doctrine for the orientation of believers in society: to rely on material things only for building one's life, without ethical guidelines, means building on sand, recalled Pope Benedict XVI.

The report also paid attention to tensions within religious groups, for instance, within the Anglican Communion, which is showing increasing signs of strain between conservative believers in the West allied with the dynamic Anglican Churches of the southern hemisphere, on the one hand, and liberal trends primarily (but not exclusively) active in the West, on the other hand. While some religious groups attempt to create greater unity through dialogue, some other groups may be heading toward divisions.

Of course, the report also paid attention to some other issues, but I have just summarized a few points, in order to give you an idea of the content.

- What is the common theme in the report? Can we see a common trend in the movement of the different religions in the period that the report covers?

I would say that the variety in the field of religion is such that it would be very difficult to identity one common trend, and we probably would not even attempt to do so! On the other hand, your question raises a very legitimate question: in a globalized context, developments tend to cross borders and affect all religions to a greater or lesser extent. So it is not surprising that various issues are raised more or less simultaneously in different religious traditions.

It is also quite expected that religious leaders and groups engage more and more in dialogue, in order to see what they can do together, but also, in some cases, how they can react meaningfully to the challenges of secularism. For instance, the new Russian Patriarch, Kirill, is very much aware of this challenge and eager—despite differences on other issues—to find ways to cooperate with the Roman Catholic Church in order to counteract the impact of secularism on believers.

It is interesting also to see how religious thinkers are exploring ways to contribute to decreasing tensions through inter-religious discussions: the document published in October 2007 by 138 Muslim scholars entitled A Common Word between You and Us is a good example of such efforts.

Thus we try to observe all trends—those leading to better relations among people as well as those contributing to tensions. The role of religious groups can be ambiguous and work in both directions, as many scholars have remarked.

- Is it possible when studying the movement of religions to combine the three monotheistic religions with other religions? Shouldn’t there be a specific focus on monotheistic religions?

This can raise issues and objections for some believers. Quite often, as a believer, one tends to feel that one’s own religious tradition should not be mixed with others, since one perceives it to be unique.

It is true that the three monotheistic religions that acknowledge Abraham as a common spiritual ancestor have a number of things in common and can more easily be analyzed together. It is true also that the concept of religion itself as we understand it in these religious traditions cannot be applied without reflecting about it in relation to other religious traditions: in January 2008, I attended an academic conference in New Delhi gathering scholars who claim—not without some good grounds—that applying the concept of religion to Hinduism, for instance, is misleading and actually forces Hinduism into a grid that is not adequate for understanding what it really is. So your question raises quite important issues.

However, what I can see is that there are people in all areas of the world who orientate their lives according to beliefs not just in material things, but in dimensions connecting them to what they perceive as supra-human levels. And these people are often organized into communities. Moreover, their beliefs may in a number of cases have an impact on the way they act in the world, or may endow them with a sense of a common identity, and even if they are not necessarily strong believers, this identity then can connect them to a group. Finally, we could also say that the concept of religion as it is understood in the West has now spread to all areas of the world: in our globalized environment, the same categories tend to be used everywhere. So such factors definitely can be analyzed in parallel across spiritual traditions, although we should indeed be careful not to lump everything together in an over-simple way.

- What have you found regarding Islam?

Again, our goal was not to cover all the issues in the Muslim world in 2008, but to pay attention to some key trends and developments.

Among issues mentioned in the report, beside those already mentioned in some of my previous answers, we have also listed the discussions in some Western countries about the possible introduction of elements of Muslim law for Muslims living in the West, in the context of increasingly multicultural societies. While it is very unlikely that we will see something of this kind happening, the fact that discussions have been started is in itself interesting.

We have also mentioned the initiatives of Saudi King Abdullah for inter-religious dialogue, with the summit that took place in Spain in July 2008. Along the same lines, a Catholic–Muslim forum took place in Rome in November.

The growing agitation in Indonesia (and Malaysia could have been added to the list) against the Ahmadiyya movement was also mentioned, since the government made an attempt to limit the rights of Ahmadis to spread their religious beliefs. Why did we list this development, since it is not a major one in itself? Because it was an interesting indicator of issues raised by religious pluralism and activities by dissenting groups in the Muslim world and of attempts by governments to appease Muslim activists through acceding to some of their requests. Here is a good example of one development from which wider lessons and indications of trends and debates can be drawn.

Second topic: Religions on the Internet, and your book

- The classical approach to the relationship between the Internet and religions concentrates on the role of the Internet as a method to transfer and publish religious content. We need to know how far the Internet can affect religious content (beliefs and practices)?   

All technological developments have an impact on religion. I wouldn't claim at this point that the Internet has already "changed" religions, although it cannot be ruled out that it can modify at least the organizational aspects of religions, since it creates new channels for communication and opens a window of opportunity for new, non-institutional actors. Moreover, among various religious groups we see attempts to develop online rituals: this goes beyond just publishing religious content, to situations where people pray together online or can compose their own religious service online. Or what does it involve, for instance, when people create a virtual church or a virtual mosque in the virtual world of Second Life? Are virtual worlds also places where a religious message can be spread? Can people convert to a religion in virtual worlds? These are just some of the issues that start to appear with the Internet.

What I can already tell with certainty, and I think I have made this very clear in my book (in French) on the Internet and religion, is that the Internet has already become the key for the future of the communication of religions. Not only religious seekers, but also journalists or anybody else looking for information today first checks the Web, at least in areas of the world where access is easy (which is now the case in nearly all urban parts of the world). To develop a system of efficient online communication is crucial.

- There is a common belief that the Internet leads to the dismantling of religions, the breaking down of traditional religious resources and individualization. What do you think about this? Do you agree? 

While such statements go too far, there is an element of truth in them. Basically, the Internet favours much more horizontal communication than vertical, hierarchical communication. Anybody can go online and, potentially at least, gain an audience. Even relatively small, fringe groups can thus achieve a much wider exposure: this has often happened at the beginning of use of the Internet in the Arab world, where leading religious institutions were not the fastest ones to jump online—today, this has changed, and many of them have woken up to the challenge. In the traditional, pre-Internet context, there was a clear line between media producers and media consumers. But the Internet enables consumers to turn into producers at a very low cost. (Then, of course, they still do not have the means of large media, so there are still limitations: but the success of some bloggers shows how even individuals can become highly read sources for comments and information, blurring the distinctions.)

In the case of Islam, I have been quite interested by research that has been done on the phenomenon of online fatwa, because it means that fatwa become delocalized and decontextualized: the person issuing a fatwa can be located thousands of kilometers away from the person receiving it, without any direct knowledge of each other. It is difficult not to think that this does not constitute a further challenge to traditional religious authorities.

But I should hasten to say that the way to answer this challenge is not to reject the Internet, but to adjust to this new reality.

Regarding the issue of individualization, I would have a more nuanced approach. On the one hand, it is true that some developments taking place online could indeed encourage individualization to proceed one step further. On the other hand, however, I see other, interesting developments taking place at the same time: the creation of new, online "communities"—or let's say at least networks, since the use of "communities" could be discussed, although I would tend to use it too. Because such networks are virtual, it does not mean that they are weak: strong solidarities and interaction can also take place online in such environments.

- Which religions win and which lose on the Internet? Which religions have successfully invested in the Internet and which ones have failed or refused to invest in it or ignored it?

Today, no religion is simply refusing to deal with the Internet. It is, however, true that some religious groups are more reluctant to embrace it, especially when they feel that their followers might be "polluted" spiritually by what they find online. A few small Christian groups are trying to reject the Internet (but these are very small, fringe groups), and some ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups are encouraging their followers to limit access to a few selected websites. But those are really exceptions in the industrialized world.

True, not all religions went online as fast, or quickly developed a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities offered by this new medium. But all have become more or less aware of the need to be online, as I have already mentioned. However, to be online means more than just publishing content: it means also publishing a kind of content that can attract and keep web surfers on a website in a highly competitive environment, where other interesting websites are just one click away! It means also to be able to react and comment promptly in case of a crisis and other events. It means updating content regularly, otherwise visitors won't come back. Here much more awareness still needs to be developed.

While it is difficult to say clearly who has "won" or "lost", I would say that the Internet has come as a golden opportunity firstly for those groups that were not in control of religious institutions, and also recently created groups. Suddenly, it became possible to reach people around the world (provided they would come to visit your website, of course!) as well as to coordinate people across borders. For instance, in France in recent years, some conservative Roman Catholics have started to use the Web in a very efficient way to make their views known, to coordinate people having similar views, and to lobby in order to gain more support for their agenda (in this case, having more parishes celebrating the mass according to the old, pre-Vatican II ritual). And this is just one small instance of this kind of thing.

Initially, when I became interested in religion online, I focused primarily on new religious movements. Firstly, I felt that online they had found an exciting way of sharing their beliefs. This was true, but I soon came to see a more complex reality: critics of these movements had discovered very early that the Internet also offered them opportunities to make known their criticism and exposure of movements they opposed. Thus the Web proved to be a mixed blessing for controversial movements: controversies developed online as well, and the Web makes it difficult to keep internal matters secret, since a leak spreads rapidly.

These are not only issues for religions, but they definitely matter for religious groups too.

- The Internet now gives wide scope for seekers after religion, but how far can the virtual transformation of religion go? Could religion abandon reality (churches, mosques, temples, sermons) and completely transfer to virtuality?

As much I am convinced that the importance of the Internet will increase for religions, I also believe that the Internet won't lead to an abandonment of reality. People will continue to meet physically. The Internet is one more sphere for religious activities, but it does not supersede existing spheres. Interestingly, many people who are active online may also be active in other, non-virtual contexts. In cases of the purely virtual religious activities that I have observed, I have noticed that people are eager to meet physically, after a period of participation, if they are given the opportunity to do so.

But it is true that because the Internet is a new, relatively recent phenomenon, some things might start to change when more and more people have come to experience the Internet from childhood. Maybe some of them will come to relate to the Internet in a way different from us: most of us have discovered the Internet as adults or teenagers. I do not think that religion will become virtual—no worries here—but I cannot rule out that some new, virtual forms of religion will appear.

I think it is the same with e-books, if we take an example from a different field: no doubt e-books will develop, but this does not mean that the printed book will die.

Third topic: New religious movements

- You are one of the important figures in New Religious Movements Studies. In your opinion, how important is this concept? Is it effective? And how did it first emerge in the field of religious sociology?

Anthropologists had already used the concept of new religious movements in previous decades. Similarly, the concept of "new religions" (shin shukyo) has been in use in Japan for many decades for describing a variety of modern movements, with roots either in Shinto or Buddhism, or syncretistic.

In the West, words such as "cults" or "sects" were primarily used until the 1970s. But they presented two problems. Firstly, while "cult" could be used for describing a new religious reality, "sect" was very much connected to a Christian context and a Christian understanding of religious life and religious organization: what was one supposed to do when dealing with movements coming from, for example, India or Japan, i.e. movements without any "genealogical" link with Christianity? Secondly, "sects" and "cults" tended to become loaded words in the context of the "cult controversies" in the West in the 1970s and 1980s. This posed a real problem for scholars: they were using these words as technical, more or less neutral terms; but ordinary people would associate them with very negative meanings, as describing allegedly "bad" or "dangerous" groups. This tended to create constant misunderstandings. While sociologists of religion may still use these words, the expression "new religious movements"—as a more neutral label—has gained wide circulation in scholarly discourse, and we see it increasingly being used by some media too.

Of course, "new religious movements" is not entirely satisfactory. Firstly, how long does a movement remain "new"? Then, it also puts together an amazing variety of unrelated movements, with their only common feature being the fact that they do not belong directly to one major, established tradition. On the other hand, the expression makes clear that these movements are relatively recent and that we are witnessing an incredible "religious creativity" in the contemporary world.

This is obviously a sociological and historical approach: the view of the theologian and that of the believer may focus on other aspects.

Since it is a very broad term, the concept of "new religious movements" can also be applied to new variations of traditional religions and newly emerging movements coming from established religions, but not necessarily breaking with them. While this is a slightly different meaning, it can be as legitimate as other uses. Actually, in cooperation with Algerian academics, the Religioscope Institute is planning to organize a conference in 2010 for the purpose of examining the different approaches of new religious movements, both in the Muslim Arab world and in the West. We hope that this can produce fruitful comparative approaches and make us all aware of the different perceptions that we might have when using that same expression. Moreover, it will be an opportunity to look at religious renewal and changes in different contexts.

- Are we facing a "return of religion" phenomenon or the emergence of new religious movements?

I am an historian, and I am quite careful when using slogans such as "the return of religion", for the simple reason that religion has never disappeared from the scene, although the influence of secular and Marxist theoretical views had tended to make people believe that religion would decline and disappear. As we know, reality has contradicted such expectations, although it is true that many changes have taken place.

At the same time, I do not deny that various forms of religion or religious-inspired behaviour have come once more to take on a greater role than—let's say—30 years ago. Secularization has progressed in various ways and geographical areas, but this has not meant that religion went away! On the contrary, to some extent, the challenges of secularization itself may have encouraged some religious groups to become more active on the public scene.

Regarding the emergence of new religious movements: yes, it is true. A large number of new religious movements have emerged and will continue to do so. This does not mean that they will replace traditional religions—many new religious movements remain statistically quite small. Some will also vanish with time. But this means that the variety of religions will continue to increase.

New religious movements have emerged at all times in history. But previous centuries were mostly not conducive to their development, since the principle of religious freedom was not widely accepted, and leaving one's original religion could have very serious social consequences. This is still to some extent the case in various parts of the world, but no longer in most of the Western world.

Such new religious movements emerge not only from the West, or India, or Japan. In China we are witnessing the birth of a variety of religious movements as well. A case such as that of Falun Gong—which is not completely a religious movement, but which has many features of such a movement—is an illustration. Such movements will also appear in the Muslim world, although almost certainly with a degree of opposition. A classic example of a new religious movement that emerged in a Muslim environment was the Baha'i faith, which was strongly influenced originally by millennarian Shia beliefs, but it has developed into a reality that can no longer be seen as just a branch of Islam, and has become something different, while claiming to incorporate previous religious beliefs.

- What distinguishes the new religious movements from the traditional religions? How have the traditional religious institutions reacted to the new religious movements? Is there competition between the two groups? Do the new religious movements really affect traditional religions? How does the old interact with the new?

We should probably distinguish here between two types of new religious movements.

Firstly, there are groups that derive directly from an existing religious tradition and build upon it, claiming to have grasped the essence of this tradition and to have the best understanding of it. If we take the context of Christianity and examples of "older" new religious movements, the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (more commonly known as Mormons)—two unrelated, quite different groups—claim to preach the true Christian message, and this is strongly what they believe, although such a claim is not accepted at all by traditional Christian churches. But they attempt to build partly on the same foundations as the other Christian churches, while being completely separated from them and having a different understanding of many aspects of the Christian faith.

Secondly, there are other groups that do not derive directly from an existing tradition, although they might draw elements from various pre-existing religions. This would be the case of several new Japanese religions, for instance.

Both a schism from a pre-existing tradition and a relatively new form of religious group may offer a challenge to existing religious institutions. In any society, there are people one might describe as "spiritual seekers" who are looking for other religious answers and practices. Conversions to a new religious movement can obviously result from a variety of factors, like any other type of conversion.

Regarding the reactions to new religious groups, they do not only come from older, established traditions. It is true that they may be tempted to protect their "religious market”: for instance, if you look at Central Asia, you see established religious groups (Muslims and Christians together) in many places taking stands against religious innovators, who are seen as creating trouble in the local societies.

In the West, interestingly, in some countries you see states reacting against some new types of religious groups as much as churches: for instance, in France and Belgium, you have state-controlled institutions in charge of monitoring the activities of new religious movements. This is not a policy followed by most Western countries, however, and it is strongly criticized by some advocates of religious freedom who are suspicious of state intervention in this field.

Basically, it is inevitable that new actors tend to change the status of any "game," and thus reactions are not unexpected. The specific type of reaction much depends upon the religious, social and political context of a country. In the United States, for instance, it is taken for granted that there should be a free market of religions, more or less immune to state intervention.

- As we talk about new religious phenomena, can we consider Islamophobia and criticism of Islam in the West as an extension of the phobia towards the new religious movements in general and the sects in particular that spread in the West over the last two decades?

To some extent, it derives from similar perceptions: it is perceived as something unknown and potentially threatening. While it cannot be entirely equated, since Islam is also associated with fears about immigration as well as historical memories of clashes, it is true that patterns show similarities. It is true also that, in the post-9/11 context, "cult controversies" seem to have declined in the same proportion that fears about Islam have been growing. For instance, in the late 1990s law-enforcement agencies in several countries were concerned about potential trouble coming from millennarian, "end-time" movements. In the early 2000s such interest from the same law-enforcement agencies seems to have been largely redirected to Islamic militants.

Several groups critical of sects have attempted to apply to jihadist militants the same type of approach that they had applied to "cults" (brainwashing, etc.). This has met with a limited level of success. I think that even if there are some similarities between high-demand, intense activist groups, we cannot simply transfer analysis of one type of group to another type.

Generally speaking, we cannot just simply see criticism of Islam and Islamophobia as an extension of cult controversies: some arguments are similar, some fears reveal similar patterns, but Islamophobia has its own roots too.

- In the West we now see wide fear of Islam and a desire to attract back converts, who are seen as victims of brainwashing. Is Islam the new religious fear that succeed the previous fear of the various sects in the West?

With my experience and background in research on converts to new religious movements, I can definitely see some similarities. Conversion to Islam or to a new religious movement can be frightening for some people, since it gets linked with feelings of something sinister and possibly dangerous.

I remember a few years ago attending a meeting of converts to Islam, as a part of one of my research projects, and one young lady who was contemplating conversion told me that she did not even dare to mention to her family that she was attending an Islamic meeting, because this would have put the family in a state of panic. Obviously, isolated cases of converts taking up very radical forms of Islam, including jihadism (remember that Belgian lady who blew herself up in Iraq a few years ago) do nothing to assuage such fears.

From a wider perspective, I think that conversions can easily be felt as threatening, since they can be perceived as a kind of treason to one's original community. If a Muslim in Egypt or elsewhere were to convert to any other religious group, certainly a number of people would resent that too and react with hostility. This is a much wider issue that would take too long to discuss here, but this is also why I think that research about contemporary reactions toward missionary activities and conversions is an important topic.

Let's face the facts realistically: in current times, with people travelling easily, with the Internet, with instant communication and access to a wide range of information, we will necessarily continue to witness more and more people converting from one faith to another. While it is understandable that believers in any religion feel that the conversion of one of their members to another religion as a loss, and while it is understandable too that they will try to convince people not to do it, this will happen again and again, creating tensions sometimes, but there is nothing that can be done to prevent it.

Criticism of Islam in the West does not prevent people from becoming interested in Islam and converting, and the same can be said about other religions. For researchers of contemporary religion, this represents one more fascinating field of research: I myself have conducted quite a few interviews with converts to Islam, and it is very interesting to hear their stories. Similarly, it has often been very interesting to hear the stories of converts to new religious movements. Whatever our own beliefs are, all these stories show the deep longing of human beings to find answers to fundamental questions about life.

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