June 2015 (Vol. 30, No. 8)

After expecting that their values would finally triumph through an alliance among conservative believers in different faith traditions, the spread of what are perceived as secular norms [see the above article on the conflict between religious and fiscal conservatives] is making some conservative Christians reconsider the political ambitions of the past four decades and rather give priority to the cultivation and preservation of “a robustly Christian subculture within an increasingly hostile common culture,” writes Damon Linker in The Week (May 19). This is called “the Benedict option,” from the concluding paragraph of Alasdair MacIntyre’s 1981 book “After Virtue” (1981), hoping for a new St. Benedict who, like his predecessor at the end of the Western Roman Empire, would help to construct “local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages.”

According to Linker, such views have been gaining ground in circles around The American Conservative and First Things magazines. It would not mean political quietism; conservatives would still contribute to various public causes, but the time of national political crusades or attempts to play a decisive role in presidential politics would be over, with conservative Christians acknowledging the fact that they are now a minority in a majority secular nation. One of the advocates of the Benedict Option for years is conservative blogger Rod Dreher. In an article published in First Things (February), Dreher describes the Benedict Option as “a radical shift in perspective among Christians, one in which we see ourselves as living in ruins (though very comfortable ones!) of Christian civilization,” with the coming task of keeping “orthodox Christianity alive in the hearts and minds of believers living as exiles in an ever more hostile culture”—but neither utopian nor strictly separatist. This would involve an emphasis on education and culture. It does not require a withdrawal from political life, but “is primarily a theological and cultural project” based on radically rethinking “our place within this order” (The American Conservative, May 19).

Commenting on the recent massive Irish vote for instituting same-sex marriages, Dreher remarks that it is futile to hope to win by fighting “the forces of liberalism on their own terms.” The practice of politics as usual is a distraction from the essence of the challenge of living in generations to come amid the ruins of modernity (The American Conservative, May 23). There now seem to be groups of conservative Christians discussing the Benedict Option (The American Conservative, May 29). Linker thinks that this pessimistic cultural project is currently starting to capture the imaginations of social conservatives.

Men’s ministries in American Catholicism are multiplying and inspiring fervent devotion and even activism, writes Dwight Longnecker on the Catholic news website Crux (May 27). At the turn of the millennium there were 16 Catholic men’s conferences; today there are more than 100 nationwide. The renewal of Catholic men’s ministries is also taking place at the parish and national level. Pastors and laymen are starting their own groups with larger organizations such as the National Fellowship of Catholic Men, That Man is You!, and the King’s Men, which offer content and guidance for the local expressions. Longnecker adds that, “much of the talk within the Catholic men’s ministry is militant. Speakers enthuse about spiritual warfare and call men to be soldiers of Christ and his cross.”

For example, Catholic catechist and body builder Jared Zimmerer delivers a “Catholic version of muscular Christianity, while football coaches Joe Hyland and Joe Lombardi headline as conference speakers linking the battle on the gridiron with the Catholic faith.” There is also a “Warrior’s Rosary” used in such gatherings that feature medals of five saints for battling the devil. Other programs, such as the King’s Men, hold wilderness retreats and seminars promoting chastity and anti-pornography messages. The men from these programs often are motivated to work through their parishes in evangelism, charity, prolife, social justice and other family issues, Longnecker concludes.

(Crux, http://www.cruxnow.com/life/2015/05/27/the-rise-of-militant-american-catholic-men/)

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby is leading the world Anglican communion through a combination of charismatic-personal authority and managerial culture that departs from the more traditional leadership styles of his predecessors, writes Oxford University theologian Martyn Percy in the Journal of Anglican Studies (online May). Percy credits Welby as managing to avoid the gridlock and divisions of his predecessor Rowan Williams over such matters as sexuality, as he draws on his extensive business background that stresses action and avoids red tape. Some observers have compared Welby’s leadership style to former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s personal and charismatic approach. Welby’s personal style has led him to make such time-consuming commitments as promising to visit each of the world’s 38 head bishops in their own provinces. But Percy argues that Welby’s stress on personal ministry risks disintegrating into “a set of warm reciprocal relations” divorced from institutional realities and conflicts that might be aired in meetings and gatherings. Along with Welby’s stress on charismatic and personal ministry is his adoption of leadership and managerial techniques and practices in the Church of England that downplays traditional church structures.

Percy points to a recent task force on theological education that was dominated by lay people from the financial world while excluding current theological educators, as it “simply recommended ‘deregulation’ as the way forward for theological formation and training.” Like Tony Blair’s informal “kitchen cabinet,” Welby has cultivated an “inner circle” that can develop into a “very small, tight-knit group of loyalists and…a larger devoted cadre.” While this kind of leadership can be effective in the short term, over time “it disenchants and alienates, while the cadres and elite become both increasingly powerful and paranoid,” Percy writes. The use of both charismatic leadership and managerial tactics also characterizes English archbishops who are now “functioning much-like corporate chief executives within their respective provinces, and nationally.” This has the effect of bishops serving as “area managers,” controlled through a tightly regulated training process, with targets and objectives set by executive managers and endorsed by “visionary” archbishops. In such a scenario, parish clergy are reduced to the status of local branch managers, “thinly stretched in resourcing, but made to chase the (unreachable) targets set by the area managers.”

(Journal of Anglican Studies, http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=AST)

Clergy couples have become increasingly common in the Church of England, with one result being the loss of the role of vicar wives, especially in rural parishes, reports Tablet magazine (April 4). Although uncounted in the Church of England, clergy couples are estimated to be in the hundreds, with the most prominent being all three of the first women bishops recently appointed in the church. Abigail Frymann Rouch writes that “Increasingly in recent decades, wives of male clergy have wished to pursue their own careers…Gone, largely, is the vicar’s wife offering tea to her husband’s visitors, doing a share of his role unacknowledged and smoothing over minor parish disputes—a loss perhaps more keenly felt in rural areas than in towns. Instead it is the recently invented role of vicar’s husband that has demanded soul searching from men who watch the dynamics of their marriages alter as they pass from the lay to the clerical state.”

There is also the emergence of what Rouch calls the “clergy super couple, a partnership between two rising stars, each already in an influential role and tipped for yet greater things.” Sociologist Linda Woodhead says that it may be more than a coincidence that the three new women bishops are married to priests. She cautions that the “‘patronage’ system of appointments have always favored people who are well connected within the clerical network.” She is concerned that bishop couples may do little to counter a “growing clericalization” of the church, leading to the possibility of clergy becoming “separate caste, increasingly cut off from the rest of society.” Woodhead also notes that it is unusual in the business world for married couples to occupy senior positions in the same firm unless a clear protocol is in place. The fact that all three women bishops come from the evangelical wing of the C of E may not reflect the breadth of the church.

(The Tablet, http://www.thetablet.co.uk/)

Egypt is not the first Muslim-majority country to consider using its religious scholars in the fight against radicalized Islam, but the presence of Al-Azhar in such an effort, one of the most prestigious centers of Islamic learning, gives it particular significance. In a report in Reuters (May 31), Mahmoud Mourad and Yara Bayoumy write that although Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi cracked down very hard on the Muslim Brotherhood, it seems that he now wants supplement security measures with a spread of “moderate Islam.” First steps have already been taken, such as an online monitoring center for tracking militant statements in social media in order to refute them better. Since 2013, there have also been attempts to modernize Al-Azhar curriculum and to review books written by professors in order to make sure they they do not promote extremism.

But not all students are supportive as some feel that the reforms are detrimental to the full teachings of Islam. And it is easy to find radical texts in bookshops around Al-Azhar. Moreover, the backing of an authoritarian regime—even with a devout leader—does not reinforce Al-Azhar’s credibility, because even some of its own students distrust it as mouthpiece for the state. Sources in security agencies have confirmed that Al-Azhar students are seen with suspicion as potentially prone to extremism, and that they are often monitored. But harsh security measures breed hatred for police among them. The article quotes Abdul Ghani Hendi, a religious affairs adviser in the Egyptian parliament, who thinks that Al-Azhar should be entirely restructured to allow for self-criticism and adds, “All the thought which dominates society is extremists’ thoughts. We should confess that frankly.”

In the current turbulence in the Middle East comes intriguing reports that locals in a rural part of Sulaymaniyah province, as well as in other parts of Iraqi Kurdistan, have started to revive the Zoroastrian religion, a faith that had more or less disappeared from those areas for centuries, writes Alaa Latif in Niqash: Briefings from Inside and Across Iraq (http://www.niqash.org, May 28). This phenomenon is understood by the people involved as a return to an ancient religion they see as associated with the culture of the Kurdish people. According to the article, the new Zoroastrian believers are not connected to still existing Zoroastrian communities such as those found in Iran—that do not proselytize anyway. They are rather said to represent a spontaneous movement in reaction to religious instability in the area as well as to radical Islamism. They intend to build temples in the region as well as to get Zoroastrianism recognized. However, some local observers, such as MP Haji Karwan, claim that those propagating Zoroastrianism “are few and far between.”

In the absence of statistical data regarding that new trend, the editor of the Middle East Journal, Michael Collins Dunn, writes on his blog (http://mideasti.blogspot.com, June 1) that the supposed trend seems to be regionally localized. It should be placed into the context of areas where elements of Zoroastrianism have been incorporated into the beliefs of a variety of small, syncretistic religious groups. He points that, while there is no consensus about where Zoroaster was born, he represents a religious figure and culture hero not only to Persians, but also to Kurds. [In its November 2013 issue, RW published an article on ethnic Kurds in the Caucasus starting to emphasize a Yezidi identity instead of a Kurdish one. There have also been attempts to revive the Zoroastrian legacy in Azerbaijan or Tajikistan, as observed twenty years ago by Shahin Bekhradnia (“The Tajik Case for a Zoroastrian Identity”, Religion, State and Society, 22/1, 1994). All cases illustrate striking attempts to reconfigure and redefine identities in those different areas, and how an old religion can become a resource for such purposes.]

Churches in China are non-denominational, or “post-denominational,” according to official law which prohibits autonomous churches beyond the local congregation, but in reality there are new networks and emerging movements that are bringing back denominational differences, even if they are increasingly indigenous. Those are some of the findings of a chapter on Chinese post-denominationalism by Chloe Starr in the new book The Changing World Religion Map (Springer), edited by Stan Brunn. While the official church, known as the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, and even the mainstream unregistered churches have become unified and de-emphasize denominational differences to the point of their disappearance, new independent, often home-based groups, such as the Word of Life, the Fangcheng Fellowship, and the Sinim Fellowship, are less easily merged with the others (although they have established a degree of unity among themselves).

China’s drive to unify the churches was mainly to make them autonomous of outside control, but it was easier when there were fewer unofficial groups and a less individualized communist state; today, “in an era of greater individualism…[there is a] “kaleidoscope of different allegiances, groupings, networks, and even sects,” Starr writes. “There are still voices holding out for the older vision of post-denominationalism, for a single Chinese church which enfolds all other divisions within itself…but events have surely overtaken such an ideology. “The real challenge is for the government to “find new ways to legitimize and manage the array of evolving church groups.”