Religion in Espace Mondial

can be approached at three different levels,

and we have to distinguish

between these three levels of analysis:

The first one will be the level of actors.

How actors are socialized?

What is the real influence of religion

in the social and political

behavior of individuals?

And how these behaviors are

organizing, shaping, the main issues

and the main mobilizations around the world?

The second level would be

the system and the political system.

Commonly we hear from media

and from public opinion or opinion leaders…

we hear some sentences like

“the Muslim political system,

the Christian political system,

Islam and politics…”

as if a religion was able to shape

and organize a political system.

In reality, in fact, the difference is

much more important that we can imagine,

it’s very difficult to coin a system

as a “Muslim political system”

or as a “Christian political system”,

as it is obvious that many many kinds of Islam

do exist around the world,

and it is not possible to conceive

a single model of Islam and politics,

of Christianity and politics,

so we have to debate about that.

And the third level

is the level of mobilization:

is religion able to mobilize and to create,

to generate a political mobilization?

Or is religion only an emblem

of a political mobilization?

Is religion an instrument or is it a goal?

And this is probably one of the main points

we have to discover together.

But the first question, the most important,

because not so easy to solve is:

what is a religion?

We have to go back

to famous French sociologist,

Emile Durkheim who published

a very important book dealing

with religion in our world.

And Durkheim in this book

opposed sacred to profane,

and this opposition is considered by Durkheim

as a main founding opposition;

for understanding and approaching

the manifestations and the expressions

of religion and politics.

Sacred is the contrary of profane

as sacred is considered

as out of reach for human beings,

sacred is the field which is not able

to be shaped and organized

by human beings,

when profane is the real field

of the human action and human creation.

If now, sacred is considered as out of reach,

we can imagine how sacred

is a very strong argument

for mobilizing people in a society.

If sacred is conceding a legitimacy

which is out of reach of individuals,

it’s a very strong useful

and successful instrument

for mobilizing and convincing individuals,

that’s why sacred is so used in politics.

Using a formula which is coming from

a field which is out of reach of individuals,

is a very good instrument

for convincing people.

Inside sacred Durkheim distinguished

rituals and believes,

and religion is a combination

of rituals and believes.

Now the question is why sacred

is so important in our modern

or even postmodern world?

If we follow Durkheim,

sacred is supposed to decline

when modernization takes place.

And so, Durkheim who was writing

in a positivist time, considered

that religion was to be failed

when modernization takes place,

and however, we can observe something

which is quite different

from what Durkheim fore saw.

So, three hypothesis can be mobilized.

If sacred is so present

in our modern and postmodern world,

it is first because maybe

sacred is now creating a new modernity,

that is the first hypothesis.

And even we can consider that laïcité

would be something like a new secular religion,

but, in laïcité, we can also find

something like believes and even rituals.

Can we consider that

we are now facing a new sacred modernity?

That’s the first hypothesis.

A second one would be to consider

that sacred is a kind of substitute;

that’s to say in our modern world,

some structures are not really operating,

sometimes states doesn’t work,

sometimes political parties doesn’t work,

sometimes ideologies don’t work anymore

and when these instruments of governing,

ruling, mobilizing, protesting,

are not working,

religion and sacred

can be a very useful and functional substitute.

The third hypothesis will be

to consider religion as a culture.

Different religions are also

expressing different cultures

as I defined them in my previous lecture,

and so religion will be back

for expressing this diversity of cultures

which is really at stake in our present world.

So now, how can we consider religious actors?

Religious actors

must be considered as individuals,

because first of all,

we have to take into account the fact

that religion belongs to individuals,

and that every individual, each individual

is shaping his own religion.

So there is an individual level

for approaching

this very important notion of religious actors.

And the second level

will be the level of religious entrepreneurs,

religions are organized, are structured,

by entrepreneurs

as Max Weber defined them,

that’s to say as organized groups

with an administrative direction.

And so, we have to build up

a typology of these religious actors,

and to consider

that these religious entrepreneurs

are not working in the same manner

because all the religious entrepreneurs

are different and must be considered separately.

For instance if you take into account

the Roman Catholic Church,

this is a religious entrepreneur,

which is strongly centralized

and which can be compared

with the nation state.

There is some similarities

between the history of the church,

this very centralized organization,

and the nation state.

But now if we move to the Protestantism,

to the Christian reform,

we are facing another model,

in which the individual is much more important,

and in which the church is fading

as a transnational structure

and don’t exist as a unified church

like the case in the Roman Catholic Christianity.

The third example would be

the Orthodox Christianity in which church

was merging with Empire

when politics and religion

are combined in a kind of dual structure.

And now if we move to Islam,

we are facing another model

in which there is no church,

no centralization, no organization

but a very complex network of preachers

and in which the Muslim community, the Ummah,

is playing the role of integration.

Now if we move to other religions from Asia,

like Hinduism, we are facing another feature

which is a kind of depreciation of power,

depreciation of politics,

when, on the contrary,

Buddhism is contesting power,

was created

as a kind of protest against the power

and which is creating new structures,

especially around monachism.

And so, that’s why when we consider

religions and politics in the Espace Mondial,

we have to take into account

this diversity of actors.

From Durkheim to Present Day

Espace mondial, uma visão francesa sobre os estudos globais

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