The Cultivation of Conformity: Towards a General Theory of Internal Secularisation

191 Pages·2019·2.748 MB·English

by  Pink Dandelion

THE CULTIVATION OF CONFORMITY
This book explores the inter-relationship between religious groups and wider
society and examines the way religious groups change in relation to societal
norms,potentiallytothepointofundergoingprocessesof‘internalsecularisation’
withinsecularandsecularistcultures.Receivedsociologicalwisdomsuggeststhat
over time religious groups moderate their claims. This comeswith the potential
lossofnewadherents,fortheoristsofsecularisationsuggestuniqueoruniversal,
ratherthanmoderate,truthclaimsappearattractivetowould-berecruits.Atthe
sametime,religiousgroupsneedtoappearequivalent,intermsofharmlessness,
to state-sanctioned religious expression in order to secure rights. Thus, religious
organisationsfaceaperpetualconundrum.UsingBritishQuakersasacasestudy
as theymovedfroma counter-culturalgroup toan accepted and accepting part
of twentieth- and twenty-first-century society, the author builds on models of
religion and non-religion in terms of flows and explores the consequences of
religious assimilation when the process of constructing both distinctive appeal
and‘harmlessness’inpursuitofrightsisplayedoutinasecularculture.Amajor
contributiontothesociologyofreligion,TheCultivationofConformitypresentsa
new theory of internal secularisation as the ultimate stage of the cultivation of
conformity,andamodelofthewaysectsandsocietyinter-relate.
‘Ben’ Pink Dandelion directs the work of the Centre for Research in Quaker
Studies,andisProfessorofQuakerStudiesattheUniversityofBirminghamand
Research Fellow at Lancaster University, UK. He has published widely in
Quakerism and the sociology of religion. He is the author of A Sociological
AnalysisoftheTheologyofQuakers;TheLiturgiesofQuakerism;AnIntroduction
to Quakerism; The Quakers: A Very Short Introduction; and Making our
Connections: The Spirituality of Travel, and co-author of Heaven on Earth:
QuakersandtheSecondComing;andTowardsTragedy/ReclaimingHope.Heisthe
editorofTheCreationofQuakerTheory:InsiderPerspectives,andtheco-editorof
The Historical Dictionary of Friends (Quakers); The A–Z of Friends (Quakers);
Good and Evil: Quaker Perspectives; The Quaker Condition: The Sociology of a
Liberal Religion; Religion and Youth; The Oxford Handbook of Quaker Studies;
andEarlyQuakersandtheirTheologicalThought1647–1723.
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THE CULTIVATION OF
CONFORMITY
Towards a General Theory of
Internal Secularisation
Pink Dandelion
Firstpublished2019
byRoutledge
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©2019PinkDandelion
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CONTENTS
List of illustrations vii
Introduction 1
PARTI
Theoretical context: the conundrum facing religious
groups 11
1 Organisational types and the inclination to conform 13
2 Secularisation, secularism, rights and recruitment 31
PARTII
Theoretical complexities: religion and ‘the world’ 49
3 The history of the hedge 51
4 Quakers as citizens and outlaws 74
5 Modelling turbulence 100
vi Contents
PARTIII
New theory: a future of religiosity 115
6 Quaker culture and non-doctrinal assimilation 117
7 Internal secularisation: elements and agency 137
References 162
Index 175
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
4.1 Quakers and the world 94
4.2 The elements of Quaker religion and non-religion 94
Tables
6.1 The Quaker double-culture 123
6.2 Initial attraction to British Quakerism (respondents were
allowed to tick more than one response) 132
6.3 Significant differences in Quaker belief in God, 1990–2013 132
6.4 Significant differences in Quaker descriptions of Jesus,
1990–2013 133
6.5 Significant differences in Quaker descriptions of prayer,
1990–2013 133
6.6 Significant differences in Quaker self-definition, 1990–2013 133
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INTRODUCTION
This book is about the inter-relationship between religious groups and wider
society and about the way religious groups change in relation to societal norms,
potentiallytothepointofundergoingprocessesof‘internalsecularisation’within
secularandsecularistcultures.Thistopicisofcriticalinterest,bothacademically
and generally, as the future role and nature of religion appears so unclear. A
debatewaxesinthesociologyofreligionaboutthedegreetowhichpopularreli-
gion is dying, particularly in the European north and potentially also in North
America, whilst other scholars chart how the apparatus of the secularist State
controls and limits what it decides is appropriate and inappropriate religious
expression. Received sociological wisdom on sects and denominations suggests
that over time religious groups moderate their claims. This comes with the
potential loss of new adherents, for theorists of secularisation suggest religious
groups require unique or universal truth claims to appear attractive towould-be
recruits.Atthesametime,religiousgroupsneedtoappearequivalent,intermsof
harmlessness,toState-sanctionedreligiousexpressioninordertosecurerights.
Irevisitsect/denominationtheoriestoshowhowthenatureofthisrelationship
ismorecomplexthanhasbeensuggestedandneednotbeuni-directional.Ialso
suggest that neither ‘religious groups’ nor ‘wider society’ are single or static
entities: religious groups comprise organisational and popular elements and
‘widersociety’canbedividedintotheState,andpopularculture.Eachofthese
four elements is in constant negotiation with the others to define the nature of
therelationshipbetweenanygivenreligiousgroupand itshostculture.Degrees
ofassimilationaredependentonthepositionofeachoftheseelements.
Given this constant dynamic, the relationship between religious groups
and wider culture can become turbulent at any point in time. Building on
Thomas Tweed’s workon religion as ‘confluences and flows’ and borrowing
from A. K. M. Fazle Hussain’s work on fluid dynamics, I develop a theory