Journal orthogonal's Journal: Preventing Dangeorus Cults 6
A Moscow court has banned Jehovah's Witnesses from operating within that city.
As an atheist, I'm appalled and fearful for Russian democracy. But I'm also not wholly unconcerned about my own country, the United States of America. The Russian ruling is more obviously religious persecution, but less obvious persecution goes on here too.
I've seen several people comment that the Russian ruling isn't so bad, because, well, Jehovah's witnesses go door to door and are, well, annoying. One person went so far as to relate her fears that the Jehovah's Witnesses could recruit the vulnerable:
The Watchtower is a destructive cult that actively and aggressively recruits new members.... it is wise to protect the vulnerable from their "message" whenever possible.
Perhaps it was because I'd just finished re-reading, for the Nth time, Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, which ends with the martyrdom at the hands of a mob, of the leader of a "disruptive cult", perhaps it was just my strong faith in that marvelous secular Bible, the U.S. Constitution, perhaps it was my own sense of being a religious minority, but I composed the following response. Your comments, as always, are welcome:
And, meaning no offense to you or to anyone, at one time Christianity was a cult that actively and aggressively recruited new members. Or at least that's what (now Saint) Paul's Epistles (to the Romans, the Corinthians, the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Colossians, and the Thessalonians) suggest.
Despite Paul's recruiting, the Christian cult -- or religion as it's now more usually referred to -- is very often credited with many fine accomplishments.
Speaking as an atheist, I have no particular axe to grind when it comes to debating the merits of one sect over another -- no sect has and none likely will overcome my incredulity. So believe me when I say that I am not enraging in any special pleading for the Jehovah's Witnesses.
As Christ said, the poor will be always with us (paraphrasing Matthew 26:11), and just so the vulnerable also will be with us always.
Protecting the vulnerable from used car salesmen (and I'm particularly vulnerable here) or spammers is one thing; but protecting them from the expression of beliefs, political ideologies, and indeed, theologies, smacks of condescension: if they are so vulnerable that they can't be trusted to determine their own faith, how can we trust them to decide their country's future in the voting booth? Shall we (re-)institute a literacy tests at the polling place and religious tests for office?
How shall we determine --and who shall determine -- what constitutes a "real" religion and what is an objectionable "cult" from which the vulnerable are to be protected? I have here some nominees for the position of Defensor Fidei, "Defender of the Faith": perhaps that Roman so unimpeachable that he was asked to be Governor of all Judea, Pontius Pilate? No? How about the well respected Jewish High Priest, Caiaphas -- he has some strong opinions on what's a real religion? No? Perhaps Uncle Joe Stalin -- he has some equally strong opinions about cults, especially cults of personality? No again? Is perhaps having a Defensor Fidei not so appealing when he's not of your sect?
And where does it end? Even if we agree that Jehovah's Witnesses are "bad cultists" -- and the Russian Orthodox Church, according to the article, very much agrees -- what about other Protestant splinter groups? As recently as 1770, the Colony of Massachusetts seized 400 acres of Baptist land -- in order to build a State-established church. Perhaps the Primates of the Russian Orthodox Church see the wisdom of the town fathers of Boston?
And what of those Latter Day Saints -- more popularly known by the derisive name "Mormons"? Are they a "cult" too? As late as 1846 the Saints were forced out of their community at Nauvoo, Illinois for -- among other things -- their "unnatural" practice of polygamy. Perhaps their habit of missionary work had something to do about it. God knows, it's up to us to fight for the sanctity of marriage against those dirty homos -- uh, I mean, religions founded in, even if no longer practicing, polygamy.
Of course, those Catholics are also not to be trusted, are they? Did you know that the Pope plans to subjugate this country, by a steady influx of Catholic immigrants! Or so the Know-Nothing Party told us (no, I mean the real Know-Nothing Party, not the party of George W. Bush!) as late as the 1850s. But even as late as 1928, anti-Catholic prejudice -- slanders that he was for "rum, Romanism, and rebellion" -- helped to ensure that Al Smith wasn't elected president. Instead, lucky us, we got Herbert Hoover.
On reflection, it seems that there are so many religions to protect the vulnerable against, doesn't it?
But perhaps the real message, the real "Good News", is that it's precisely this persecution of minority religions -- derisively called "dangerous cults" -- that led to the United States enshrining in its secular Bible, the Constitution, an absolute right of religious freedom. It's no accident that Baptists have historically -- despite the recent behavior of the Southern Baptist Convention -- been strong proponents of religious freedom: they have a equally long history of persecution.
There's also a reason why religious freedom and political freedoms like that of speech, assembly, and petitions for redress are tied together in the same Amendment: because once any government begins to presume to police the innermost dictates of your conscience -- your religious beliefs -- that government is also well on its way to telling you for whom to vote -- or well on its way to declaring that there's no need for you to vote at all.
So we should not fear just for the Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow, we should fear for Democracy in Moscow. And the Russian Orthodox Church should remember, as it suppresses the Jehovah's Witnesses in favor of the Orthodox Church, that not too long ago the State's power was used to suppress the Orthodox Church in favor of official atheism and Joseph Stalin's Cult of Personality.
Finally, let me point out that despite that glorious First Amendment, religion persecution -- official, government sponsored religious persecution -- still goes on in this country (just as the First Amendment did little for the Mormons in the 1830s). As an atheist, I see my faith -- for the lack of faith is, at base, a faith too -- derided every day that Congress opens with an official prayer -- a practiced recently declared constitutional by a Federal Court (but then, it was a (Supreme) Federal Court that decided Dred Scott and Plessy, too).
I see my faith dismissed on every piece of U.S. Currency, with the words "In God We Trust". And worst of all, I see young children coerced every day they go to State schools, to pledge a loyalty oath that includes a reference to a monotheistic God. I see that no one in the U.S. House or Senate professs my faith -- and that no member of the U.S. Supreme Court has ever been one of my co-religionists. And indeed, my people are all too often accused of being members of a dangerous cult, too.
I only hope there are a few historically minded Jehovah's Witnesses, Baptists, Latter Day Saints, and Catholics who might understand that neither my faith nor theirs is safe so long as a tyrannical majority can decide what is, or is not, suitable belief -- whether suitable belief for them, or me, or Michael Newdow's daughter.
Not much democracy left over there. (Score:2)
Unfortunately, I must say that this ruling is hardly surprising. It's just as the BBC article says -- a Russian must be orthodox. "Orthodox Culture" is taught in schools as an optional subject (this is a quite recent thing, though); a few months ago, a display of anti-religious art was shut down after a scandal, the curator and the artists may be facing a trial -- and so on.
As for Putin, the Russian orthodox
Re:Not much democracy left over there. (Score:2)
Thanks for the tip-off -- it's fixed.
And thanks for your insight on the Orthodox Church's relationship with Putin.
I have to say that it's a great disappointment seeing Russia tilting back to totalitarianism. I never expected that to end in Russia, and then in '89 the Wall came down -- something else I didn't expect ever to see, and least not in that way. and so I hoped that something like democracy might fl
Religious discourse back into the public sphere (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not concerned that Scientologists collect money to reveal secret teachings - their teachings are only slightly more ridiculous than those of, say, Catholics (who collect tithes,) or televangelists. However, I am concerned that the Church of Scientology may (or, to be fair, may not) be engaged in systematic criminal activity.
There are a great many hoaxes (particularly pertaining to "Satanists") regarding NRMs. This does not mean that people like David Koresh (that nut the FBI killed in Waco TX) are not sexually abusing adolescent girls under the cover of religion.
So, I'm not saying that all legal actions against an NRM are unjustified.
However, what we are seeing in the "counter-cult"/"anti-cult" movements is very much a backlash against the reintroduction of religious discourse into the public sphere. I'm an atheist, too, so the substance of most religious discourse strikes me as totally silly but that doesn't mean it is not important.
In the past 1500 years in Europe, religious discourse has been systematically, and very violently, driven OUT of the public sphere. This has ingraned a reflexive sort of fear in the media generally - we pretend that it is out of fear of "offending" people, but within living memory the fear was of getting killed, and not so long ago it was fear of being tortured to death.
My favorite example is Giordani Burno, who was gruesomely tortured to death by the Inquisition for speculating that if the stars are suns, they might have planets, with life, and the son of god might have gone there, too. To this very day, there are people arguing that he brought this on himself. [setileague.org]
Now, after only a hundred years or so when they cannot kill those who disagree with them, the forces of religious orthodoxy (in the general sense, not specifically the orthodox church) are trying very hard to keep religious discourse out of the public sphere, where it naturally resides.
The american anti-cult and counter-cult movements, and the suppression of NRMs in central and eastern europe, are a part of this backlash against (the limited, as Orthogonal points out) religious freedoms.
Damn straight (Score:1)
We have to stick together and defend the general principle of religious freedom, instead of letting the divide-and-conquer tactic work.
I'm a JW (Score:2)
I'm one of Jehovah's Witnesses, and this ruling scares me for the same reason. I should note that I get scared when any religion, not just mine, suffers something like this -- JWs just experience it frequently because we're not a "traditional church" and because of our preaching work. We're unfortunately closer to such problems in the US than most of us would like to believe: there are a lot of people like those on the forum you linked to that have no problem with restricting religions they disagree with or
Excellent read (Score:1)
As always, orthogonal, your post was well thought out, insightful, and interesting. As a deist (after a road that led me from atheism to agnosticism first), I often wonder whether I am subject to these threats... but if the JWs, LDSs, and Baptists can come under fire, then I suppose so can the religion of many of our country's greatest politicians [wikipedia.org] and writers [wikipedia.org].
Thanks for helping shore up the signal to noise ratio around here.