Religion: Struggle for purification and liberalization

Religion: Struggle for purification and liberalization

Ignas Kleden, Sociologist, The Center for East Indonesian
Affairs (CEIA), Jakarta

It seems every religion must struggle with some internal
tensions, which usually result from the fact that religion is a
living phenomenon. One of these tensions exists between the wish
to keep religion in its pure, original form and the motivation to
initiate its development from the too rigid constraints of
orthodoxy.

The two inclinations often have the same goal: To keep
religion as authentic as possible to enable it to be a means of
salvation for people living in a particular time and place.

Ever since Max Weber published his seminal studies on the
sociology of religion, we have been made aware of a sort of
competition going on between the need to keep religion within an
esoteric circle of the highly qualified, and the tendency of
religion to reach out to as many people as possible.

However, if religion is to be brought out of the circle of
religious elite and made understandable and accessible to the
public, the language and the idioms used must be common and
familiar to the people.

For a religion to be accepted by the masses, it has to be
adjusted to the traditional beliefs and local customs of its
followers. Syncretism is easily found in many religions, in which
case there is, according to Weber, a transition from ethical
religion to traditional religion.

Various reforms in religion aim to reverse this tendency by
removing the magical elements from religious practices while
trying to purify spiritual life by reverting religion to its
original form and content.

To a certain extent, religious purification is "backward"
reform, because the evolution of a religion is already geared
toward its original beginning.

In contrast, there are also reform attempts which are liberal
in nature. The aim is not so much to purify a particular
religion, as it is to liberate a religion from the constraints of
orthodoxy so that it is free to adjust to new situations and to
be relevant to emerging contemporary problems.

It seems that both purification and liberalization have
something in common insofar as the contextualization of religion
is concerned.

In the case of purification, religion is de-contextualized to
bring it back to its original condition, to its status nascendi.
Conversely, in the case of liberalization, religion is de-
contextualized from its original context so it can take its place
in the context of actual, present time.

Both attempts run certain risks for religion. If purification
is pushed too far, it can result in rigid religious behavior and,
once this becomes unbearable, it could easily lead to mere
formalism or even hypocrisy. If liberalization goes out of
control, it can easily lead to a new, unintended permissiveness
and even to mere subjectivism.

In this sense, religious leaders play an important role in
judging how far the purification and the liberalization of
religion can proceed without becoming unnecessarily unproductive.

From a sociological point of view, it is interesting to see
how purification and liberalization are related to the double
function of religion -- both as a way toward an individual's
personal perfection and as a social force.

The two functions of religion must not necessarily coincide
nor be in harmony with one another. This means that if religion
is overly emphasized as a personal path to perfection, it can
lead an individual to a solitary existence, wherein an individual
is preoccupied with one's own spiritual exercise at the expense
of social engagements, or of social life.

Great mystics become asocial simply because they often believe
they are able to exert an influence on social life through the
indirect mediation of their self-mortification, spiritual
meditation, or individual devotion and personal prayers.

In contrast, it often happens that an individual will try in
vain to substitute a highly active social engagement in place of
the irreplaceable spiritual struggle and personal search for
truth. In many cases, an intensive involvement in social
activities is due to the inability of an individual to be alone.

Only those who are well trained spiritually and are socially
mature can combine the two exercises in a productive manner which
helps spiritually and is effective socially.

In both cases, however, religion has meaning and a role as a
vehicle through which the salvation of men and women can be
attained.

In this regard, both purification and liberalization raise
their own claims. The religious purist would say that a faithful,
obedient adherence to religious norms would necessarily lead to
salvation. Religious liberals, meanwhile, would contend that the
way to salvation is a continuous attempt, because the promise of
salvation is fulfilled differently according to different times
and places.

A critical question is thus raised: Is it possible to examine
whether an attempt at either purification or liberalization is
still conducive to the attainment of the basic aims of religion?
This essay dares to bring up two proposals as far as the
sociological effects of both purification and liberalization are
concerned.

First, from a sociological perspective, religious reform can
be viewed as successful if it makes followers relatively more
open in dealing with others, especially with those people of
other religious communities.

This can be compared to the cultural development of members of
a cultural community. Those who have come of age culturally
within their own cultures are more likely to be open and tolerant
towards people from other cultures. They are usually more at ease
with meeting differences without the fear of losing their own
cultural identity.

Second, from a philosophical point of view, religious reform
fulfills its mission if the salvation of followers is made the
main goal of its activities. This is worth mentioning, because on
this point there used to be a slight distortion, whereby the
followers of a religion or even mankind as a whole were required
to make sacrifices or even to give their lives for the security
and the salvation of their religion.

The dubious presumption is, of course, whether sacrificing
one's life for the sake of religion is identical with giving
one's life to the glory of God.

The world might be a little more peaceful if all world
religions were united in a common belief that measures their
existence and significance against the extent to which people are
permitted to enjoy their spiritual freedom and are guided toward
their salvation without being forced to follow one way or
another.

In contrast, the failure of world religions is discernible,
among other traits, in the preoccupation shown by the respective
leaders of each faith, especially in their efforts to secure and
save their own position with all the means at their disposal,
even at the cost of their own followers or other human beings.