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Wright, Stuart A., Michael Stausberg, and Carole M. Cusack. "How Religions End: Terms and Types." The Demise of Religion: How Religions End, Die, or Dissipate. By Michael Stausberg, Stuart A. Wright and Carole M. Cusack. London,: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. 13–30. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 26 Sep. 2021. <http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350162945.ch-001>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 26 September 2021, 10:17 UTC. Copyright © Michael Stausberg, Stuart A. Wright, Carole M. Cusack, and contributors 2020. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. 1 How Religions End: Terms and Types Stuart A. Wright, Michael Stausberg, and Carole M. Cusack There is a paucity of studies on how religions disband, dissolve, or die. Most of the research appears to be directed toward religious sustainability, growth, or cultural continuity (Robbins 2014; Stark 2012; Stark and Bainbridge 1985), or in the case of secularization theory, how religion in general has had a declining influence on institutions of power and authority in modern societies (Berger et al. 2008; Bruce 2011; Chaves 1994; Wilson 1987). Regarding the latter, how a particular religion declines or dissolves is analytically independent of secularization or modernization; one doesn’t necessitate the other. Terms We will begin by suggesting some distinctions and definitions. To begin with, we need to distinguish between decline and demise, even though they partially overlap. Both terms can be used by outside and inside observers and analysts, even though they may assign a different meaning to this process. Speaking of decline can be a matter of nostalgia, or a rhetorical lament meant to rejuvenate commitment. Decline in a religion is here defined as an attenuation or decrease in activities, attitudes, beliefs, and commitments related to this religion (disengagement) and a reduction in the number of adherents, members, supporters, and sympathizers (disaffiliation or decrease). Decline refers to a process, which can gradually spread over several generations, can intensify in certain moments, or can be more sudden (e.g., as a result of a crisis). This process is not inevitable but can also be intercepted and inverted, for example, by revivals. Moreover, decline can be an issue of measurement: what some would define as decline, others would interpret 14 The Demise of Religion as change or transformation; for example, the decrease in overt religious practice can be interpreted as increasing spiritualization or a notable decline in the number of adherents can be explained as strategic downsizing or evidence for the approaching of the end of times. Decline can lead to demise, but not necessarily so, and demise can set in without extended preceding processes of decline. By demise we mean a process that results in the end or extinction of a religion (as observers know it). A group that exhibits demographic decline, be it the result of disaffiliation, a discontinuation of inter-generational retention of commitment (“investment,” see below), or a continuous demographic decline in population as the result of a negative reproduction rate (decrease), can be called endangered; this can be used as an alarmist trope or as an analytical category (similar to endangered languages). Demise is not a natural process, nor one that can be diagnosed unequivocally; sometimes the end is expected, but clear-cut and unambiguous finality is the exception rather than the rule. It is a matter of perspective whether the continued use of a word, name, or symbol in other contexts would count for the continued existence of a religion, even in fragmented form; some may interpret the process as disaggregation, disintegration, or fragmentation; others would speak of the end of a religion. The demise of a religion does not exclude its reappearance, reconstruction, or restoration in posterity; this is then a designed and invented tradition, an appropriation, or a rebranding. Rebranding may also signal the end of a religion once it decides to label itself predominantly in non-religious terms. We can call this a mutation. A more prosaic and common process of demise is disappearance; in many cases there are simply no more traces or sources available, so that there is the theoretical possibility that a religion continues to exist unobserved. A related phenomenon is groups that deliberately have gone into hiding or conceal their religious identity. Rare cases of demise are public acts of dissolution or abolishment. Such a religion is then declared defunct. The opposite phenomenon involves cases of deliberate replacement, (attempted) effacement, or (achieved) annihilation of religions, either because that religion is considered useless, dangerous, and/or inferior or because religion itself is considered a threat or inept. An analytical framework for examining religious demise must consider the various ways in which this process may take place. In this chapter, we propose nine trajectories of religious demise. The proposed categories relate to both how and why religions end. How Religions End 15 Most of the cases discussed in this volume belong to the field of new religious movements (NRMs). A relative latecomer to the field of Religious Studies, it began in the 1930s when scholars from a liberal Protestant background began to study the “anomalous religions at the time, like Christian Science, Spiritualism, Seventh-day Adventism, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Theosophy” (Ashcraft 2018: 9). The study of NRMs as a subfield gained ground in the 1960s and 1970s, and has in the twenty-first century become a major part of the academic study of religion, albeit as an area that presents challenges to traditional definitions of “religion” and which frequently focuses on unorthodox, transgressive, and fringe phenomena. Within the study of NRMs the question of the death (or “failure”) of religions, though never so popular as that of the birth of religions (Stark 1985), has received some scant attention (Wilson 1987). Clearly, some groups are able to survive challenges where most others falter or fail. This fact is sometimes acknowledged, for example, for the United States: “Of the plethora of new religions that emerged in the United States after 1965, many are defunct or essentially defunct; some survive but in heavily modified form; and a few survive without massive changes” (Miller 2010: 14). Similarly, for Japan it has been observed that in the study of the great number of Japanese new religions—and their number has vastly increased in the postwar period—research has focused mainly on the rapid growth and expansion of some groups, while the fate of the “losers” has been ignored in scholarship, unless their demise has caught media attention because of criminal charges or because of the involvement of celebrities (Baffelli, Chapter 3, this volume). In the following, we are seeking to put some signposts on an unchartered territory. Trajectories We propose that there are at least nine possible categories in which religious demise or dissolution can occur. However, when speaking of categories we refer to constellations of main reasons resulting in demise. It is tempting to place these categories on an axis that distinguishes exogeneous (external) from endogenous (internal) forces that impact on the process leading to demise (see also Wilson [1987] and Miller [2010] with different interpretations). The 16 The Demise of Religion distinction serves to highlight the location of the main disruptive force: are they within the sphere of action of the respective religion or beyond? In actual fact, however, exogeneous and endogenous forces may operate in conjunction: exogeneous factors can accelerate and thrive on endogenous problems, and endogenous forces can make exogeneous forces more challenging than they would have been without any preceding endogenous troubles. For example, internal problems that leak out to the media can be thrown back at a movement as external pressure. A main potential endogenous factor for demise of a religion is if it fails to match up to its promises or fails to meet the expectations of its “investors” (i.e., people who have invested commitment, energy and time in it as adherents, consumers, members, sympathizers, etc.) without providing rationalization for this disappointment, thereby transforming commitment into ongoing “investments.” The broader cultural context is difficult to position on the endogenous/exogenous axis, as both insiders and outsiders have to relate it. Endogenous Forces of Demise 1. Leadership Some religions face internal crises which may prove to be too great to survive. It is inferred here that the demise of the group is largely the result of factors that are more or less under the control of the religious group and its leaders. For example, leaders may lack the skills, insights, or judgments to ameliorate a crisis. Members may lose faith or confidence in leadership regarding decisions made, or they may be in conflict with leadership over the direction of the group. Of course, there are a number of possible outcomes in this regard. Members may leave over conflicts, and leavers may or may not form new factions. Minor incidences of defection are not likely to impact the sustainability of a religion. On the other hand, the departure of a large faction may break apart the religious community as it is unable to endure deep and intractable divisions. The sexually experimental intentional community Kerista, for example, peacefully disbanded in 1991, after its founder John Peltz Presmont (1923–2009), known as “Brother Jud,” was forced to leave due to internal pressure from a majority of members (Cusack 2019a). How Religions End 17 The leader’s actions may be seen as a betrayal of the group’s mission (Frisk and Palmer 2015). In some cases, the leader may even be charged with a crime, arrested and incarcerated, imperiling the viability of the group (e.g., Aumism, Neo-Phare, Nuwaubian Nation/Ansaaru Allah Community, Knutby Filadelfia [see Chapter 4, this volume], and Aum Shinrikyo [see Chapter 3, this volume]).
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