Uncivil Religion: Judeo-Christianity and the Ten Commandments

In the recent Decalogue Cases, Justice Scalia argued that when it comes to “public acknowledgment of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our Nation\u27s historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits th[e] disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists.” Justice Scalia\u27s argument represents the latest attempt to insulate American civil religion from Establishment Clause attack. A “civil religion” is a set of nondenominational values, symbols, rituals, and assumptions which create both reverence of national history and formation of a communal national bond. The most recent incarnation of American civil religion is the “Judeo-Christian tradition,” which emerged in the 1950s as a set of “spiritual values” that was thought to be held by virtually all Americans. However, Judeo-Christianity no longer reflects the religious beliefs of all or nearly all Americans, if it ever did. Increases in unbelievers, Muslims, practitioners of nonWestern religions, and adherents to postmodern spirituality now leave large numbers of Americans outside the boundaries of Judeo-Christianity. As religious demographic trends have expanded American religious diversity beyond the bounds of Judeo-Christianity, political forces are contracting these same boundaries. In recent decades, conservative Christians have succeeded in projecting thick, sectarian meaning onto the purportedly inclusive symbols and observances of Judeo-Christianity, even as they continue to rely on the thin religiosity of civil religion to circumvent Establishment Clause limitations on government use of those symbols and observances. The contemporary ethic of religious equality that now informs Establishment Clause jurisprudence could regress into one of classic tolerance, under which the government would be constitutionally free to use a purportedly inclusive Judeo-Christian civil religion to endorse a sectarian Christianity. Similar tensions are evident in Europe. The separation of government from thick conceptions of the good permits liberal democracy to function despite radically different religious beliefs that may exist among citizens. Insistence on an American democracy informed by Judeo-Christianity or, indeed, by any civil religion, is precisely the wrong solution to the problem of religious difference in the United States and elsewhere

Religious Experience in the Age of Digital Reproduction

A religious experience is an extraordinary event that occurs against the backdrop of ordinary life, infusing that life with a meaning it would not otherwise have. Mass culture is now replete with portrayals of such experiences. Spiritually-themed television shows, movies, books, music, and fashion are now common and even popular. This is not necessarily good news for religion and religious experience. What mass culture portrays as sacred may be merely an imitation, resembling more the ubiquitous feel-good self-affirmance of popular psychology than authentic communion with the divine. On the other hand, the appropriation and portrayal of religious experience by mass culture may be the inevitable and desirable effect of a postmodern digitized world. Thedigital revolution has served up an inexhaustible supply of religious information and images, stimulating individuals to an awareness of spiritual choices and possibilities that were unimaginable only a generation ago. At the same time, postmodernism has underlined the implausibility of achieving social consensus on reality and truth in the face of widespread and persistent religious difference. The coincidence of epistemological indeterminacy with direct individual access to vast global fields of information empowers individuals to choose for themselves from among the innumerable versions of the real and the true now available to them. In this world, the appropriation and portrayal of the sacred by mass culture liberalizes and democratizes religious experience, erasing the boundaries placed on such experience by traditional denominations, and permitting believers to define for themselves the spiritual meaning of their lives. We argue that there are no reliable means of distinguishing classic religious experiences, like Moses\u27s encounter with Jehovah in the burning bush, or St. Paul\u27s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, from the religious experiences of ordinary people triggered by vehicles of mass culture. We lack access to the template of original religious experience, and thus the means for determining which religious experiences are authentic, and which merely imitations. The combination of vast information about diverse religious experiences made accessible by the digital revolution, and epistemological uncertainty brought on by contemporary postmodern sensibilities, has moved religious experience beyond the control of denominational and institutional religion, to the control of the masses. Marketplace democracy now determines what is real and true, and only religions that adapt themselves to this reality will survive as mass phenomena

Religious Experience in the Age of Digital Reproduction

A religious experience is an extraordinary event that occurs against the backdrop of ordinary life, infusing that life with a meaning it would not otherwise have. Mass culture is now replete with portrayals of such experiences. Spiritually-themed television shows, movies, books, music, and fashion are now common and even popular. This is not necessarily good news for religion and religious experience. What mass culture portrays as sacred may be merely an imitation, resembling more the ubiquitous feel-good self-affirmance of popular psychology than authentic communion with the divine. On the other hand, the appropriation and portrayal of religious experience by mass culture may be the inevitable and desirable effect of a postmodern digitized world. Thedigital revolution has served up an inexhaustible supply of religious information and images, stimulating individuals to an awareness of spiritual choices and possibilities that were unimaginable only a generation ago. At the same time, postmodernism has underlined the implausibility of achieving social consensus on reality and truth in the face of widespread and persistent religious difference. The coincidence of epistemological indeterminacy with direct individual access to vast global fields of information empowers individuals to choose for themselves from among the innumerable versions of the real and the true now available to them. In this world, the appropriation and portrayal of the sacred by mass culture liberalizes and democratizes religious experience, erasing the boundaries placed on such experience by traditional denominations, and permitting believers to define for themselves the spiritual meaning of their lives. We argue that there are no reliable means of distinguishing classic religious experiences, like Moses\u27s encounter with Jehovah in the burning bush, or St. Paul\u27s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, from the religious experiences of ordinary people triggered by vehicles of mass culture. We lack access to the template of original religious experience, and thus the means for determining which religious experiences are authentic, and which merely imitations. The combination of vast information about diverse religious experiences made accessible by the digital revolution, and epistemological uncertainty brought on by contemporary postmodern sensibilities, has moved religious experience beyond the control of denominational and institutional religion, to the control of the masses. Marketplace democracy now determines what is real and true, and only religions that adapt themselves to this reality will survive as mass phenomena