Value-Orientations in Catholic, Muslim and Protestant Societies

CHAPTER SEVEN VALUE-ORIENTATIONS IN CATHOLIC, MUSLIM AND PROTESTANT SOCIETIES Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar and Yasmin Alkalay Introduction This chapter explores the impact of three major monotheistic reli - gions—Catholicism, Protestantism, and Islam—on value orientations of individual members of society. Our study was stimulated by the ongoing debate over the relationship between religion and secularism in the modern world in general, and between religion and democracy in particular (Wallis and Bruce 1992, Berger 1999, 2004; Diamond, Plattner, and Costopoulos 2005, Norris and Inglehart 2005). As noted by Pollack (2007), until just a few decades ago the common thesis in the social sciences, dating back to the great nineteenth-century thinkers in the fi eld, was that modernization processes such as urbanization, industrialization, rising levels of affl uence, cultural pluralization, and individualization would lead to a decline in the signifi cance of religion. C. Wright Mills (1959: 32–33) expressed this view clearly and unequiv- ocally: “Once the world was fi lled with the sacred—in thought, practice, and institutional form. After the Reformation and the Renaissance, the forces of modernization swept across the globe and secularization, a corollary historical process, loosened the dominance of the sacred. In due course, the sacred shall disappear altogether except, possibly, in the particular realm.” More recently, however, the secularization thesis has been challenged and increasing numbers of scholars have argued that religion has not only retained its vitality under modern conditions but has generated new spiritual and social sources of strength (Berger 2004, Casanova 1994, 2007; Lilla 2007, Norris and Inglehart 2005, Stepan 2001). As succinctly put by Costopoulos (2005: x), “the old linear narrative of ‘modernization up, religion down’ is far too simple and does not begin to capture the complexity of religion’s varied circumstances in the contemporary world.” 150 chapter seven Underlying this debate is the awareness that we live in an era during which religious devotion appears to be weakened in some places, such as Western Europe, while retaining or even gaining strength and adher- ents in other places, including the United States, Latin America, and the Islamic world (Berger 1999, Finke 1992, Stark and Finke 2000, Norris and Inglehart 2005). Furthermore, recent research has pointed to certain changes in the modes of expression of religiosity, such as the process of “privatization” of the religious sphere and the weakening of its institutional features. Similarly, growing attention has recently been given to the varieties of “New Age spirituality,” which offers nontraditional contents and new modes of expressing religious mean- ing (Roof 1993, Reeves 1998, Stark 2001, Hollinger 2004). The general debate over the place of religion in modern society has been intimately related to the issue of the relationship between religion and democracy. This scholarly discourse has explored the basic question of whether the two systems are mutually hostile or hospitable (Stepan 2001, Filali-Ansary 1999, Berger 2004, Minkenberg 2007) as well as the bearing of specifi c religious doctrines on democracy. Not surpris- ingly, in view of the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in general, and in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks in particular, recently the relationship between democracy and Islam has been discussed considerably. Huntington’s (1993, 1996) argument that there is an inherent cultural clash between the democratic values held in Western Christianity and those held by the Muslim world (in his words, the West’s problem is “not Islamic Fundamentalism but Islam”) represents, in one way or another, a view shared by many (cf., Lewis 1991, 1993, 2003; Vatikiotis 1984, Kedourie 1994, Midlarsky 1998). In the same spirit, Costoupolos (2005: xi) wonders “whether a large part of the diffi culty in which the Muslim world fi nds itself today may not be traceable to its unfortunate position poised between various forms of illiberal, command-based secularism, on the one hand, and powerful fundamentalist forces . on the other hand.” Following his account of the intellectual debate on Islam and democracy, Tamimi (2007: 55) sums up this controversy as follows: “It turns out that democracy, in as much as it entails free elections, accountability, and transparency, the rule of law and protection of fundamental human rights, is a forbidden fruit in the Islamic lands.” However, the prevalent contention that Islam is inhospitable to democracy has been challenged on both conceptual and empirical grounds. Two main lines of argument have been raised against the .

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