Religious Movements in Contemporary America

by Irving I. Zaretsky, Mark P. Leone

Overview

Contemporary religious movements in America vary greatly in their organization, goals, methods, and membership. Reflecting the striking diversity of the current religious movement, the papers in this volume consider three categories of religious movements: native American churches, recently founded religious groups, and syncretistic groups based on imported cults. The general aim is to understand the varieties of human behavior within these institutions and to point out their relationship to society in the United States.

Originally published in 1975.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691638621
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	04/19/2016
Series:	Princeton Legacy Library , #1844
Pages:	876
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

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Religious Movements in Contemporary America

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By Irving I. Zaretsky, Mark P. Leone

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1974 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-07186-2

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CHAPTER 1

SECTION ONE

Church and State: Limits of Religious Innovation within the Social Order

INTRODUCTION

Church and State is too restrictive a label, in its traditional legal inquiry into conflicts over religious practices, for the material we wish to cover. The term is borrowed from legal scholarship to help identify a body of literature that deals with at least some of the issues we wish to raise. By church and state we do not mean two unitary structures easily identifiable in jurisdiction. Rather, we view "church" as a diffuse notion used to cover highly structured and loosely structured religious groups, or organizations that operate with a corporate charter from a religious organization. We also refer in that label to individuals' actions, interpreted to be based on deeply-held and sincere conviction, which may or may not be performed in acknowledged religious contexts. The notion "state" is similarly diffused over many different institutions that exercise social control at the local, state, and federal levels: judicial, legislative, and enforcement agencies such as the courts, boards of supervisors, district attorneys, and the police. These agencies are instruments of the state that are significant at different stages of conflict resolution and the building of religious institutions. For example, legislative bodies are significant for institution building insofar as they formulate statutes and ordinances governing behavior; the courts and the police are relevant as remedy agents in resolving explicit conflict situations. Several synonyms for the term church and state would be equally acceptable in delimiting this area of research: religion and society, church and the body politic, religion and state.

When this domain of research is approached through the combined perspectives of legal scholarship and social science, the primary theoretical question is: what are the legal determinants in the evolution of religious forms? More specifically, how do codified law and non-codified group values, when used by state agencies to resolve conflicts between religious groups and secular interests, result in promoting religious development? We are interested in both the short and long range impact of state involvement in religious life: what appears in the short run to be the controlling of a current conflict between a church and its community might result in the long run in promoting some other form of religious innovation.

Our concern with the legal determinants of religious evolution is motivated by the focus of this volume on contemporary religious movements. In observing recently founded churches one becomes aware of the importance of understanding the process of building church institutions, namely, the thinking through, formulating and instituting of religious observances which attract adherents but do not invite persecution from the surrounding community. Religious innovators who wish to organize a church to perform services which are open to the public at large and which hope for some stability and social permanence must be well informed about the legal framework within which that church will be viewed should conflicts with the community arise.

In terms of empirical research we need to look at three sources of data: first, the religious innovators' own view of their institutional goals and their understanding of how their religious work fits in with community values and norms. How do individuals structure their innovative religious observances which they think might come under legal scrutiny; how do they view themselves and their community; and, conversely, how do they think society looks at them? How is their worldview accounted for in terms of the social organization and ritual observance of their church institution? A second source of data is the communication channels that exist for the diffusion of information about: (1) the nature of the rules that impinge on the creation of new religious institutions; (2) the remedy agents available for conflict resolution within a given community; (3) the mechanisms that can protect a religious group from altercation with its surrounding community. A third source of data is the records of disputes between a given church institution or any of its adherents and a particular state agency. After we examine our informants' own view of the law and its relationship to their activities, the information upon which they base their world view, and the actual process of conflict resolution on a formal level, we can begin to understand the process of building a church institution and thereby the judicial and legislative determinants of the evolution of religious forms.

In this section of the book we address only one facet of the issues we have outlined above, namely, the formal judicial resolution of conflicts over religious practices which a community finds threatening to its values and norms. Pfeffer and Burkholder are legal scholars who are approaching the question of religious innovation in the context of constitutional issues and court decisions. Thus, religious innovations are placed within the most inclusive social framework within which they must be tolerated. The minority status of most innovative religious groups makes it unlikely for them to receive legislative recognition for what are considered deviant claims. They must depend on the judicial process to vindicate unpopular positions. The legal approach deals with the question of personal freedom and the limits of governmental action with regard to behavior recognized to be motivated by religious belief. How does our constitutional framework maximize individual freedom to believe, act, and advocate within the context of order. These authors discuss the boundaries set in this country for dealing with religion on the formal legal level.

If the legal process is working reasonably well and there is conflict between a religious group and the state, it is to the court precedents that appeal is made. The legal approach is based essentially on the considerations of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances." We are concerned with the first section of this amendment composed of two clauses, the establishment clause and the free exercise clause. On the most theoretical level, the establishment clause is construed as providing for separation of government from religious groups and activities, though the nature of that separation is not fixed. The free exercise clause relates to individual and group behavior and concerns the range of permissible actions motivated by religious beliefs and consonant with state interests. Of course, on more practical levels a different reality may be observed. For example, governmental authorities may determine whether a group qualifies for tax exemption under what constitute, in effect, government's definition of religion or what a church is.

The emphasis on the individual in matters of religion has deep historical and cultural roots in this country. The two major currents are the individualization of the concept of freedom and liberty, and the relationship of the state to religion. The Bill of Rights speaks in terms of the individual, not of groups. In the post-revolutionary period there was a definite fear of individuals combining into various kinds of groups called "monopoly," "establishment," "conspiracy," "factions." Similarly, we have a cultural emphasis on individualism rooted in the frontier realities of this nation and an attitude that the state should not involve itself in religious affairs; this is the separation of church and state. These notions are particularly important to keep in mind when dealing with religious movements that are innovative and new. Most of these groups are individual-oriented. Whether leader or adherent, the individual is regarded as more important than the institution of the church, since any status position can be filled by any qualified person. In these groups, it is often the individual, literally, who starts a movement and through his withdrawal from it can see it collapse. Within the context of the First Amendment, limits are placed on the power of government to act in religious matters. We are concerned with individually committed acts, and with an individual's refusal to perform certain acts, e.g. saluting the flag, when the refusal is based on religious conviction. The current decisions of the courts have individualized the free exercise clause to the point where religion is defined as a deeply, sincerely held belief, with little references to traditional appurtenances of religious forms. Similarly, the court since 1963 has based its decisions in cases dealing with religion primarily on the First Amendment clauses, rather than other constitutional provisions.

Pfeffer argues that in the United States, within the formal framework of the Constitution and work of the Supreme Court, there is no legitimation or formal recognition of a religious group by the state. Religious groups do not have to be formally recognized or registered by the state to enjoy the privileges which religious groups are accorded by the Constitution. Nor is there any delegitimation. In that formal legal sense neither are there marginal or minority religions. Within a constitutional framework all religions are regarded as equal. But in a realistic sense, marginality exists, based not necessarily on theological unorthodoxy but on the tension between religious practices and particular secular interests. This tension results in popular unacceptability of a particular practice of a group, which in turn is reflected in legal and official unacceptability. When a practice of a group challenges and threatens deeply held secular norms, a conflict ensues which is ameliorated to manageable proportions by reason of the group's own change of doctrine and religious observance or by change in secular norms of the community. Thereby, popular unacceptability disappears and legitimation, official or quasi-official comes promptly and almost automatically. Popular tolerance is reflected in the legal tolerance and the legal tolerance reflects the popular tolerance. Pfeffer demonstrates this by reviewing the legal cases of Mormons and polygamy, Jehovah's Witnesses and the salute to the flag, the I Am movement's use of mail to defraud large sums from the elderly, Black Muslims and prison rights, the Amish, and the education of children.

Some might take Pfeffer's point of view and argue that not only is there no marginality and legitimation in a technical legal sense, but there is really no such thing as the Court's attitude to religion. Since we do not have religious law, or ecclesiastical courts to deal with religious questions, one has to view the Court's decisions in cases of church and state as sharing in the general attitude and philosophy of the Court at a particular historical point and within the context of its activity on several fronts, religion among them.

Burkholder disagrees with some of Pfeffer's viewpoints and argues that the wall of separation between church and state is a metaphor which does not accurately reflect social realities. Through their decision making process the courts act in matters of religion, particularly in defining religion. To make this point he examines the judicial responses to unorthodox claims in the name of the free exercise of religion. He traces the historic steps leading to present-day interpretation of the religious clauses of the First Amendment with emphasis on landmark decisions involving representatives of marginal movements. In surveying the contemporary scene he raises some theoretical questions.

Burkholder stresses the question of how much freedom does freedom of religion mean, and, indeed, what is religion? No one clear definitive rationale has emerged in law for adjudicating the limits of religious freedom set by the Constitution. He agrees with Pfeffer that the "degree of tolerance for deviant behavior is determined more by the interplay of long-term cultural values and current prevailing opinion with respect to the behavior in question" than by a genuine concern for granting the fullest expression of religious freedom consistent with reasonable public order. Allied to this issue is the question: What is religion? The law has to be neutral, and the courts cannot probe into the truth or falsity of religious claims. The direction the courts have actually taken requires that the law must be able to recognize religion when it appears before a court. Distinguishing religious activity from other forms of human endeavor is necessary while remaining theologically neutral.

Burkholder argues that an approach useful to the judicial understanding of religion may be gained by adopting some of the analytical tools of the social and behavioral sciences. That framework is appropriate because it is descriptive rather than normative and deals with function rather than essence. It is not useful to talk about religion as if it were an entity, but it is advantageous to look at the religious aspects of a number of different situations. We must also be aware of several levels of meaning of religion: the symbolic, social, institutional, and personal. A classification of the dimensions of meaning would enable the courts to develop appropriate rationales for dealing with the issues encountered at each level. He concludes, "In an increasingly pluralist society, marked by a burgeoning variety of cults, a growing privatization of religious experience, and widespread abandonment of traditional theistic formulations, the task of how to define religion and remain theologically neutral is extremely delicate."

In taking the reader through the history of issues of church and state to the contemporary scene our aim has been to show the social dimension of law and its impact on religion. It is precisely because the groups that we are dealing with are concerned with the worldly problems of individuals and are this-worldly rather than world-rejecting that they have such diverse, untraditional, and secular interests in the life of their parishioners and often use secular means to cope with them within a religious framework. It is the secularity of some of their characteristics that often comes into conflict with the equally secular norms of the state. But also in that sense marginal religions have played a key role in the evolution of constitutional doctrine dealing with religious freedom.

LEO PFEFFER

The Legitimation of Marginal Religions in the United States

In one sense the title of this paper is fraudulent. There is in the United States neither legitimation nor marginal religions, at least in the constitutional or legal sense. From time to time one reads in the press that a new sect or denomination has been permitted to open a church in some country such as Spain or Greece or Israel after acceptance of its registry by the Minister of Religion. In this country no governmental permission is needed to open a church; we have no ministry of religion, and there is neither the need nor the means for official registry of a sect or denomination. The Department of Commerce did issue a Census of Religious Bodies in 1936, but the experiment has not been repeated, and when a proposal was made to include a question on religious affiliation in the 1960 census, it raised such a storm of controversy that the idea was speedily dropped (Pfeffer 1967: 261).

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Religious Movements in Contemporary America by Irving I. Zaretsky, Mark P. Leone. Copyright © 1974 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents

• Frontmatter, pg. i
• Contents, pg. vii
• Preface, pg. x
• INTRODUCTION. The Common Foundation of Religious Diversity, pg. xvii
• INTRODUCTION, pg. 3
• The Legitimation of Marginal Religions in the United States, pg. 9
• "The Law Knows No Heresy": Marginal Religious Movements and the Courts, pg. 27
• INTRODUCTION, pg. 53
• Uncovering Ritual Structures in Afro-American Music, pg. 60
• The Psychology of the Spiritual Sermon, pg. 135
• Ritualization: A Study in Texture and Texture Change, pg. 150
• In the Beginning Was the Word: The Relationship of Language to Social Organization in Spiritualist Churches, pg. 166
• INTRODUCTION, pg. 223
• Cross-Cultural Perspectives on the Religious Uses of Altered States of Consciousness, pg. 228
• Prognosis: A New Religion?, pg. 244
• Cocoon Work: An Interpretation of the Concern of Contemporary Youth with the Mystical, pg. 255
• INTRODUCTION, pg. 275
• Ritual, Release, and Orientation: Maintenance of the Self in the Antinomian Personality, pg. 283
• Sectarianism and Psychosocial Adjustment: A Controlled Comparison of Puerto Rican Pentecostals and Catholics, pg. 298
• Spiritualists and Shamans as Psychotherapists: An Account of Original Anthropological Sin, pg. 330
• A Medium for Mental Health, pg. 338
• Magical Therapy: An Anthropological Investigation of Contemporary Satanism, pg. 355
• Belief, Ritual, and Healing: New England Spiritualism and Mexican-American Spiritism Compared, pg. 383
• Ideological Support for the Marginal Middle Class: Faith Healing and Glossolalia, pg. 418
• INTRODUCTION, pg. 459
• The Hare Krishna Movement, pg. 463
• The Meher Baba Movement: Its Affect on Post-Adolescent Social Alienation, pg. 479
• INTRODUCTION, pg. 515
• Latter-Day Sense and Substance, pg. 519
• Reasonably Fantastic: Some Perspectives on Scientology, Science Fiction, and Occultism, pg. 547
• INTRODUCTION, pg. 591
• The Historical Study of Marginal American Religious Movements, pg. 596
• Culture Crises and New Religious Movements: A Paradigmatic Statement of a Theory of Cults, pg. 612
• Towards a Sociology of the Occult: Notes on Modern Witchcraft, pg. 628
• The Deprivation and Disorganization Theories of Social Movements, pg. 646
• INTRODUCTION, pg. 665
• Pentecostalism: Revolution or Counter-Revolution?, pg. 669
• "Publish" or Perish: Negro Jehovah's Witness Adaptation in the Ghetto, pg. 700
• The Economic Basis for the Evolution of Mormon Religion, pg. 722
• CONCLUSION. Perspectives for Future Research, pg. 767
• BIBLIOGRAPHY, pg. 771
• CONTRIBUTORS, pg. 815
• INDEX, pg. 823