THEY ARE THINKING SNEAKING IN AN ABORTION BAN IS JUSTIFIED
Let’s let thousands of different religious beliefs stay in places of worship or in minds, power is corrupting both church and state now and it can get much worse. Let Iran experiment with theocracy.
All of this mixing of fundamental Christianity in America with politics is concerning to many of us. America as primarily a nation with a secular government has survived for so many years. I tried to find a paper on Iranian theocracy to present for comparative study to perhaps gain some ideas where this push for American Christian theocracy might lead us. The following paper of which excerpts were taken from address the Iranian theocracy in more detail. This 2003 paper points out the gaining of secular ideas from the 1979 Iranian Revolution (1975) to a 2001 survey taken. I’ve included the basics of this paper below for reading. Perhaps we might gain some ideas on where we might be heading in America. I would argue that perhaps some of the descriptions below might already be a factor in 2024 America, secular versus theocracratic governance. If nothing else this might inform us more about Iran, who we are in conflict right now.
Religious Life Under Theocracy: The Case of Iran
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 42:3 (2003) 347–361
ABDOLMOHAMMAD KAZEMIPUR
ALI REZAEI
INTRODUCTION
The unexpected rise of new religious revivalist movements in different parts of the world during the last quarter of the 20th century posed a serious challenge to universal validity of the “secularization theory” and resulted in some modifications in the way the theory was initially formulated. The early versions of this theory argued that social and political modernization, along with the rise of modern science, would lead to an inevitable decline in the significance of religion in both public life and individual minds (Berger 1967; Glasner 1977; Martin 1978; Fenn 1978; see also Ausmus 1982). However, the recent emergence of social and political movements inspired by religion, as well as the absence of a noticeable decline in the level of religious affiliation in the highly industrial and modern America, sent alarming signals for the historical validity and universal generalizability of secularization theory (see, e.g., Berger 2001; Sherkat and Ellison 1999).
Part of the problem with secularization theory was that it had a clear European bias from the outset. True, later on, modifications were made in order to account for “the American experience” (Hadden 1987; Warner 1993), but those later attempts hardly undermined the “Eurocentric” underpinning of the theory. They either ruled out the contrasting American evidence as “American exceptionalism,” a “deviation” from the European norm, or as a supporting example in which religion had undergone secularization from within, an “internal secularization” (Casanova 1994). Even after annexing the “American dilemma,” the secularization debate still kept a fairly strong “Western bias,” as religious developments in other parts of the world never became an important part of the debate, a clear reflection of the then predominant modernization perspective. The coming under attack of this Western bias, however, resulted in a rejuvenation of the sociological studies of religion and the broadening of the focus of such studies. But, even then, the bulk of empirically informed literature revolved around the Western world.
The present study attempts to push these boundaries farther by examining the religious developments in Iran, a non-Western country that has been in the spotlight in all the debates about the contemporary role of religion in the past two and a half decades. Despite this centrality, and the fact that the occurrence of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 is often cited as an evidence of the revival of religion in the modern age, there has been little or no systematic study of what this development involved in term of the religious life of Iranians. An empirical examination of the “Iranian experience” can broaden the scope of sociological studies of religion because the 1979 Islamic Revolution made Iran perhaps the only country in today’s world with the so-called caesaropapist* embrace of throne and altar, a marked contrast with the separation of church and state in Western cases upon which the secularization theory so heavily rests.
*Caesaropapism is the idea of combining the social and political power of secular government with religious power, or of making secular authority superior to the spiritual authority of the Church; especially concerning the connection of the Church with government. Although Justus Henning Böhmer (1674–1749) may have originally coined the term caesaropapism (Cäseropapismus), it was Max Weber (1864–1920) who wrote that "a secular, caesaropapist ruler ... exercises supreme authority in ecclesiastic matters by virtue of his autonomous legitimacy." According to Weber, caesaropapism entails "the complete subordination of priests to secular power."
The two main questions of concern here are: (1) To what extent the “Islamization project,” the massive institutional de-secularization that swept across the country in the postrevolutionary era, has been accompanied by a parallel de-secularization at the individual level, that is, in the minds and hearts of those so heavily subjected and exposed to the Islamization project? In other words, has the institutional de-secularization made the society more or less religious, both in terms of the number of religious individuals and the strength of their faith? (2) Regardless of the degree (or quantity) of religiosity, has the establishment of a theocratic regime in Iran in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution led to any change in the nature and the quality of faith in the country?
DISCUSSION
For their study of religious life in America, Glock and Stark (1965) chose a brief but meaningful title: Religion and Society in Tension. That title is also a good description of the religious life in Iran, as revealed by the findings of the present study. We started with two major questions in mind: (1) whether institutional de-secularization in Iran in the last quarter of the 20th century has been accompanied by a similar trend at the individual level; and (2) what are the dimensions of religiosity in Iran, and whether such dimensions correspond with those found in societies with an official doctrine of church-state separation.
Let us discuss the latter question first. With regard to the components of religion, two patterns stand out. First, Iranians do not seem to treat religion as an integrated package; instead, they have broken the package into smaller pieces and have expressed differential levels of loyalty toward those pieces. People of various ages, gender, and other social background characteristics value different aspects of religiosity quite differently, depending on whether that aspect is more belief-centered or practice-oriented, and also whether it is directed toward individual existence or social/communal life. In this regard, the religious behaviors of Iranians seem to be evolving along the lines suggested by the market model of religious adherence. Second, the religious opinions of those surveyed in 2001 underscore the presence of a uniquely Iranian component of religiosity, which we have called, in the absence of a better term, “religiopolitical beliefs.” This aspect of religiosity involves views or decisions about whether or not one should enjoy certain social “privileges” on the basis of one’s views on religion or the degree and type of his or her religiosity. This component, all by itself, singles out a group of believers for whom religion is not a private and personal matter but a means for allocation of vital resources and/or warranting certain rights (which turn into “privileges” when framed in this context). Since the leverage for allocation of such resources is clearly in the hands of government, one may argue that this aspect of religiosity in Iran is strongly related to the fact that there is a theocratic regime running the country.
Now, back to the first main question on the relationship between institutional and individual de-secularization. The data employed in this study revealed an interesting and unexpected trend. Contrary to the implications of the secularization thesis, the institutional secularization going on in prerevolutionary Iran for more than half a century did not result in a similar process at the individual level; people remained noticeably religious and expected the religious sentiments to intensify in near future. In a similar fashion, more than two decades of institutional Islamization of the country in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution has not strengthened the religious sentiments at the individual level; people in 2001 reported the same or a lower level of religiosity compared to their peers 25 years ago. The contrast is much more visible in the case of younger generations. As far as the relationship between the institutional and individual (de)secularization is concerned, this implies that the two vary in opposite direction, though with a lag.
How can such a perplexing trend be explained? How is it that the degree of religiosity has declined at a time when the country is run by a theocratic regime with monopolistic control over the broadcasting and education system? We think one source of the false expectations in this regard is that, when talking about institutional (de)secularization, researchers tend to make no distinction between “successful” and “failed” (de)secularization attempts. This distinction is important because a failed secularization attempt can easily give rise to a de-secular opposition wave and, by the same token, a failed de-secularization attempt may generate a secular opposition discourse. These two possibilities seem to match perfectly with the nature of the developments in Iran, as the country seems to have witnessed both types of unsuccessful attempts over the course of the past five decades.
Let us add some empirical flesh to these abstract theoretical bones. In the suppressive pre-revolutionary era in Iran, and given the absence of civil society institutions such as voluntary organizations, trade unions, independent media, or any meaningful forum for debating public issues, the religious institutions played the role of what Berger called “plausibility structures,” whose function was to provide people with an alternative social and political identity. Religion had become the alternative “cultural resource” to draw upon in resisting the psuedomodernist drive of an authoritarian regime trying to impose its own version of “true Iranian identity.” This identity, constructed as an amalgam of romanticized historical images of the Imperial (pre-Islamic) Iran and a modern, secular “Japan of the Middle East” taking Iran to the “gates of the great civiliztion” (the words of the last Pahlavi king) was so distant from the realities of social life in Iran that it alienated even the very modern middle class that was created by the economic development plans of the same regime. In the face of a suppressive regime using an authoritarian and secular nationalism as its main legitimizing ideology, the opposition embraced alternative cultural resources, such as political Islam, different versions of third-world Marxism, and, finally, an “anti-imperialist nationalism.” Identity narratives were couched in the language and terminology of these competing cultural resources.
Drawing upon religion as a cultural resource in constructing alternative political identities is not without its precedents. It is a phenomenon one could also find visible in eastern Europe, most notably in Poland, toward the end of the Communist era. Both as a unifying discourse and an institutional space not entirely occupied by the state, religion provided resources for resistance, collective protest movements, and constructing alternative social identities (Avery 1988; Ekjert 1991; Hall 1986). The important point to note here, however, is the fact that in both Iran and eastern Europe, religious beliefs and practices were “rediscovered,” as opposed to merely continuing from the past in a linear fashion.
A similar dynamic can be found in the post-revolutionary era. When religion becomes a formal hegemonic political force and occupies formal public institutions, a reverse trend is set in motion, that is, people start looking for other available cultural resources to draw upon in resisting the political and cultural “norms” set by the state and its ideology. This reverse trend has happened in Iran but not in eastern Europe because, in the latter, religion did not become a part of, or the basis of, the new establishment. In post-revolutionary Iran, the state took over all formal institutional spaces of religious collective activity and has since drawn upon religion as the main cultural resource for political legitimization purposes. As a result, the alternative narratives of social and political identity began shifting away from formal religion, and clustered around other cultural resources, which, in the age of globalization, are no longer limited to nationalism or Marxism. One closer look at social life in today’s Iran reveals that such cultural resources are increasingly found in the realms of art, sport, free press, and a variety of civic activities.
Beside this general trend, an additional factor catalyzing the “re-secularization” of the culture in Iran was the fact that fierce political battles among factions in power required constant revisions of the “sacred” principles already set as the dictums of the “divine law.” The “sacred” has been constantly “used” and brought down to earth to resolve conflicts over power and authority; hence, becoming mundane in the process. This is, perhaps, the most important “internal” source of re-secularization in Iran. Popular music, sports, and the vast realm of cultural consumption all became sites of performing alternative cultural practices, which challenged, in a conscious way, the ideological hegemony of the state. Things as simple as wearing a tie became contentious issues in public political debates, to the extent that they were brought up by such important political figures and representatives of religiopolitical aspect of religion as the leader of Tehran’s Friday Congregation. Dancing and shouting joyfully at soccer matches, waving a scarf on mountain peaks away from the eyes of the “moral police” of the state, violating the strict dress code in urban public spaces, listening to “illegal” music in taxis, and similar practices became ways of challenging the “ideal” image of the faithful citizen that the state promoted. A full discussion of these alternative practices and discourse, however, is beyond the focus of the present article.
The lesson from Iran clearly seems to be that a theocracy is ever on the defensive against a secular realignment which seems to come over time. The figures from the paper above showing changes from 1979 to 2001 seem to indicate the weakness of a theocracy. This is an extreme generalization, and to extrapolate it to America might be a stretch, but I thought it worthwhile to contemplate at this time. I would dread what our country might evolve to if theocracy is given a chance here. And unfortunately in Trump we have an ignorant person who will do anything for those evangelicals who so blindly support any of his ideas and actions. The MAGA isolationists are a nationalistic group who are more than happy to combine their religious/political views in an oppressive manner. This has to be on our minds.
*****
Mike Johnson invoked God in a GOP presentation on keeping the majority. It didn’t land well.
The Louisiana Republican showed slides to the members of his Elected Leadership Committee (ELC) team in a bid to tout the party’s prospects of hanging onto its two-seat majority in November. Johnson, a devout Christian, attempted to rally the group by discussing moral decline in America — focusing on declining church membership and the nation’s shrinking religious identity, according to both people in the room.
The speaker contended that when one doesn’t have God in their life, the government or “state” will become their guide, referring back to Bible verses, both people said. They added that the approach fell flat among some in the room.
“I’m not at church,” one of the people said, describing Johnson’s presentation as “horrible.”
“I think what he was trying to do, but failed on the execution of it, was try to bring us together,” that person said. “The sermon was so long he couldn't bring it back to make the point.”
Good luck America!
156th Posting, February 21, 2024.