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Home , Millennium celebrations, Montanism, Papal supremacy

Sociologyof Religion2001, 62:4 415-441 2000 PresidentialAddress

Religion, the New , and Globalization

JoseCasanova* NewSchool for Social Research

It seemswe all havesurvived the passageof the millenniumwithout many visibletrials and tribulations.Actually, one couldcontend that Dionysius Exiguus,the monkwho around525A.D. came up with the A.D. calendar divisionnow in usearound the globe,miscalculated and postdated the birthof Jesusby at leastfour years, in whichcase our millennialcelebrations were actuallya few yearslate.1 Alternatively, one couldbelieve that Dionisius Exiguuswas misguided in choosingthe Incarnationrather than the Passionand Resurrectionof Christ as the annoDomini, in whichcase we werea fewdecades early.Or one mightfollow the Jewishcalendar, or the Islamicone, or the Chinese,the Aztec,whichever, in whichcase the B.C./A.D.convention is meaningless.Or one could be a strictseparationist and deem it unconstitutional to imbueour strictly secular calendar conventions with any particular denomi- nationalreligious meaning and, therefore one wouldcarefully lowercase the B.C./A.D.signs into the religiouslyneutral b.c.la.c., before and after "our com- mon era."Which, of course,only opensup the questionwho are the we? Commonto whom?Which era are we talkingabout? We couldcontinue this exercisead infinitumand ad absurdum. The fact is that mostChristian believers, whether pre-millennial, post- millennial,or simply a-millennial accept the fact that only the Fatherknows the hourand the dayand despite all numerology,it may be futileto tryto curtail God'sfreedom by tying the divine eschatologicalplans to our own secular calendarsand human deadlines. Sacred time and secular time arerelated, for sacredtime can onlyhappen within worldly time. But the relationshipis not objectiveor automatic, and therefore believers are compelled to searchfor God's

*Directall correspondenceto: Dr. JoseCasanova, Sociology Department, New Schoolfor SocialResearch, 65 Fifth Avenue,New York,NY 10003.E-mail: [email protected].

1 The BC dating was first introduced two centuries later around 731 by the Anglo-Saxon , the Venerable .

415 416 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION signs in worldlyevents, with or withoutthe help of propheticrevelations. Very few Christianmillennialists, however, looked at the year 2000 as a significant event in God'scalendar. Most of the hooplaconnected with the year2000 was predominantlysecular in originand character. Indeed, looking at the year2000 preparations,anticipations, and celebrations a few strikingthings stand out. I am goingto selectfive: 1) The most strikingthing perhapsis how little millenarianthe turnof the secondmillennium has turnedout to be. This is the moresurprising given the manybuild-up signs anticipatingmuch greater outbursts of millenarianfervor aroundthe year 2000 (Clagett 1999;Strozier and Flynn 1997;Stearns 1996). The few well-publicizedincidents of apocalypticmayhem induced by millenar- ian doomsdaycults, beginning with the collectivesuicide of the PeoplesTemple in Jonestownin 1978, and followed by the apocalypticimmolation of the BranchDavidians in Waco, TX in 1993, by the ritualmurders and collective suicides of membersof the Orderof the Solar Temple in Switzerlandand Quebecbetween 1994 and 1997, culminatingin the 1997 masssuicide of the Heaven'sGate UFOcult in California,led manyexperts to anticipateincreasing eschatologicalmillenarian activity (Robbinsand Palmer1997). The fact that l'affaireTemple Solaire happened in francophoneEurope and Canadaand that it was contemporaneouswith the Aum Shinrikyosarin gas attacksin Japan,led some people to the conjecturethat apocalypticmillenarian movements were assuminga globalcharacter and wereno longerprimarily Christian or restricted to their traditionalbreeding ground in the United States (Hall and Schuyler 1997; Mullins 1997). Here in the United States, the public re-emergenceof ProtestantFundamentalism in the 1980s had exposed to public view this peculiarcultural survival of Anglo-AmericanProtestantism, dispensationalist pre-millennialism(Marsden 1980). Traditionalpre-millennialist images and beliefs,now filteredthrough the popularmedia of religiousradio, , and the best-selling books of Hal Lindseyhad entered the mainstreamof Americanmass culture and werenow routinelyexploited by secularHollywood (The Rapture,Armageddon), were strangelyinforming American geo-political debates,particularly on the MiddleEast, and were feeding the paranoidanxieties of extremistfringe groups from Marianapocalypticism to the right- wing militiasof Survivalistsand the ChristianIdentity movement (Boyer 1992; Benjamin1998; Wojcik 1997;Cuneo 1997;Lamy 1996). Not surprisingly,given suchan apocalypticcauldron, millennial outbursts were anticipated by academic expertsand sensationaljournalists alike. Alas! The fearedmillennial frenzy did not materialize. 2) In this respect,the secondmillennium has turnedout to be not unlike the firstone. The visionsof millennialterror and frenzy around 1000A.D., most historians now admit, were concocted by 18th and 19th century rationalist or romantichistorians. Particularly,the great Frenchhistorian Jules Michelet wrote such a vivid and realistic narrative of the "Terrorsof the year 1000," that it 2000 PRESIDENTIALADDRESS: RELIGION, MILLENNIUM, & GLOBALIZATION417 becamea standardaccount (Bernstein1999). RichardLandes'(1997) recent revisionistattempt to reopenand give new life to the apocalypticatmosphere of the year1000 is unconvincing.People throughout Europe used different calen- darsand were probably not muchaware of livingthrough 1000A.D. But Landes maybe moreright in arguingthat the period,albeit for reasonsthat mayhave little to do with millennialism,marks a turningpoint in WesternEuropean ,preparing the groundfor all the reformmovements of the 11th century:the Peace of God, the Cluniac reform,the Papal ,the (Head and Landes1992). Indeed,one could even say that the period constitutesthe veryformative foundation of WesternChristendom as a civili- zation.We areaccustomed to thinkof WesternEuropean Christianity as a 2000 yearold civilization.As a systemof religiousbeliefs and practicesthis maybe the case, but sociologicallyspeaking the core institutions and social forms of WesternEuropean which formone of the foundationsof modern Westerncivilization are only 1000 yearsold: the first 500 yearsas Medieval EuropeanChristendom centered around the Papacyand the next 500 yearsas modernWestern Christianityin its post-Reformationmulti-denominational formsand in its expandedWestern colonial and post-colonialforms. Let's not forgetthat the coreof WesternChristendom, the Holy RomanEmpire with the Papacyas its spiritualhead, was only establishedin 962 andthat its internaland externalboundaries only becamefixed around1000, with the conversionof Norse and Vikings, Magyars,and Western and EasternSlavs and with the consolidationof the schismbetween Eastern and Western Christianity in 1054 with the excommunicationof the Patriarchof .None of the other non-Westernforms of Christianity- Byzantine,Alexandrian-Coptic, Antiochian-Syrian-MiddleEastern, Armenian, etc., - which are mucholder and institutionallycloser to early Christianity,and thus one could say more primitivelyChristian, none of them has evinced the historicaldynamism of WesternChristianity in its Europeanand New Worldforms. As we areentering the thirdmillennium, however, we are witnessingthe end of hegemonicEuro- pean Christianitydue to a dual processof advancedsecularization in post- ChristianEurope and of the increasingglobalization of a de-territorializedand de-centeredChristianity. Thus, the one thousandyear old associationbetween Christianityand WesternEuropean civilization is comingto an end. Western Europeis less and less the core of Christiancivilization and Christianityin its mostdynamic forms today is lessand lessEuropean. 3) If the turnof the secondmillennium was not unlikethe firstin its lackof eschatologicalmillenarian fervor, the end of the 20thcentury was muchunlike the end of the 9thcentury. Last turn of the centurywas characterized by a dual atmosphereor spirit,by post-millennialprogressive fever and by fin de siecle anxiety(Briggs 1985; Schorske 1981; Weber 1986;Schwartz 1990). Both pro- gressivefever and anxiety have been manifestlyabsent from the year 2000 millennial celebrations, as well as from its much shorter anticipatory 418 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION preparations.Despite all the millennialmedia hype, the attitudehas been much moresubdued, even blase,than a centuryago.2 It is of coursetoo earlyto tell, and futurehistorians analyzing the spiritof ourown age mayor maynot confirm it, but it is my impressionthat we may be witnessing the end of post- millennialismas a progressivephilosophy of history. The view that modernprogressive and teleologicalphilosophies of historyas well as Enlightenmentrationalist beliefs in progresshave a Judeo-Christian originand maybe viewedas secularizedforms of Biblicalmillennialism, has an old pedigreeand has been stated in many differentforms, perhaps most per- suasivelyand systematicallyin KarlLowith's Meaning in History.The thesis founda forcefulrebuttal in HansBlumenberg's The Legitimacy of theModem Age. In an attemptto defendthe Enlightenmentand modernscientific rationalism fromNietzchean-based critiques, Blumenberg (1983) tracesequally convincingly the modernviews of historicalprogress and the self-confidentsense of - ity of "themoderns" over "the ancients" back to the actualhistorical experience of Western Europeansocieties from the late , through the Renaissance,the early modernScientific Revolution, and the expansionof capitalism,as well as to the utopianvisions of a new anthropocentricsocial orderwhich originatedin such historicalexperiences. Blumenberg's aim wasto show that modernitydoes not have a religiousand thereforean irrationaland illegitimateJudeo-Christian pedigree. Inadvertently, for he seemedto have been unawareof the heatedGerman debate, Theodore Olson (1982) offereda con- vincing resolutionto the debateby showingthat the modernbelief in progress, as it crystallizedin the 18thcentury as a dominant,pervasive, and taken for grantedworldview, was equallydependent on contributionsfrom both, millen- nialismand utopianism.It was the peculiarcombination of millennialismand utopianism,two old separatetraditions almost antithetical in characterand with verydifferent roots, that explainsthe natureof modernbeliefs in progress.From this perspective,post-millennialism can be viewed as secularizedChristian millennialisminfused with utopianEnlightenment rationalism. If the thesis is correct, we may be witnessingthe end of post-millennialismnot so much becauseof the decline of Christianmillennialism due to furthersecularization, but ratherbecause of the collapseof utopianism,one of the two legs sustaining the modernbelief in historicalprogress. The post-moderncritiques of Enlightenmentrationalism and historical grand narratives,as well as the post-colonial deconstructionsof Western modernityshould be viewednot so muchas the cause,but ratheras evidential expressionof the collapseof utopianism.As we enterthe 21Stcentury, history is

2 The concept of century as a one hundred year calendar unit emerged first around 1300 and became firmly established in its secularusage only in the 16th century. The year 1700 marksthe first public turn of the century celebration in Europe, a practice which became increasinglywidespread and globalized in the next three centuries (Schwartz 1990; Gould 1997). 2000PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: RELIGION, MILLENNIUM, & GLOBALIZATION419 no longer taken for granted as a meaningful,teleological, progressive,and immanentlydriven process, a worldviewthat has beenso uncontestedfor almost threecenturies that even the unequaledhistorical catastrophes and the unprece- dentedinhuman barbarisms of the 20thcentury could at firstnot makea dent on it. FrancisFukuyama's (1992) "endof history"thesis may be rightafter all, but not, as he implies,because history has reachedits immanenttelos with the realizationof the Hegelian dialectic of masterand slave through the final triumphof liberaldemocracy, (as much as this may be indeed a prodigious historicalachievement), but ratherbecause of the collapseof the utopianism whichhad sustainedmodern conceptions of history.Paradoxically, the collapse of utopianvisions is happeningat a time of acceleratingtechnological and scien- tific revolutionsand at the veryinception of a newglobal age. Justthree symbolic illustrations of ourflattened utopian vision:

a) Contrastthe long-list of utopian,science-fiction, and futuristicscientific works centeredon the year2000, fromRestif de la Bretonne's1789 play The Year 2000 to Herman Kahnand Anthony J. Wiener's1967 exercise in social-scientificforecasting, The Year 2000, withthe dearthof anykind of forecastingof the 21stcentury, not to speakof anybodydaring to imaginewhat the next century,the 22nd,may look like. b) Thinkof how the Clinton-Goreelectoral slogan "a bridge to the 21stcentury" failed to catchthe popularimagination. We can only thinkof the next centuryas moreof the same and not as somethingradically new, and thereforewe are possessedneither by progressive fevernor by existential angst. c) Consider the perplexing lack of excitement generated by the news of the extraordinaryachievement of the humangenome project, notwithstanding the fact that it happenedin the midstof the millenniumand is certainto have revolutionaryconsequences for human life on earth. Our utopianvision deadened,we've learnedto take the most astoundingscientific and technological breakthroughs in stride.

The end of post-millennialismas we'veknown it, however,does not neces- sarilymean the end of Christianmillennialism. On the contrary,it is the crisis of utopianismand of the imminentprogressive philosophy of historyit entailed that opens the wayfor the unexpectedrevival of transcendentmillennialisms, Christianas well as non-Christian.Thus, the surprisingvitality of traditional Protestant pre-millennialismand the enduring fast growth of the most millennialistof Christiandenominations - Mormons,Jehovah's Witnesses, and SeventhDay Adventists. The moderninterpretive understanding of Jesusas the charismaticleader of an eschatologicalcult helps to explain the perennial presence of millenariansects in the (Cohn 1970; Baumgartner1999; Weber 1999). One only needsdirect access to the unmediatedby historicaltraditions and unencumberedby churchdoctrines to findthere the paradigmaticmodel of a successfulmillenarian cult. 4) Equallystriking and even paradoxicalis the fact that the least mil- lennialistof all Christiandenominations, the CatholicChurch, had the greatest millennialcelebration and preparedfor the coming of the millenniumwith almostmillenarian anticipation. The traditionalamillennialism of the Roman 420 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION

Catholic is well known. It was consolidated in the fourth century in its conflict with the North African millennialist Donatist sect.3 St. set the basis for Catholic amillennialismby deridingthe idea of a thousandyears earthly kingdom of God as a fable and St. Augustine gave it the standard definitive form. Thereafter,the rejected the vision of a Kingdom of God on earth as well as the idle numerical millennial calculations. In other words, the Kingdom of God was both otherworldly and eternal and thus unrelated to the saeculum,to the secularworld and the secularage. The Vatican aggiornamento of the 60s altered radically the traditional Catholic position by embracing the saeculum, that is, the modern secular age and the modern secular . In its temporal dimension, the legitimacy of the modern age entails the acceptance of the principle of historicity, the continuous of God's plans of in and through history, and thus the church'sobligation to discern prophetically"the signs of the times."In its spatial dimension this processof internal secularizationentails an innerworldlyreorien- tation. From now on, action on behalf of peace and justice and participation in the transformationof the world will become not an added but a constitutive dimension of the church's divine mission. This innerworldlyhistoricist reorien- tation has led Catholicism to embrace a progressiveview of history to such an extent that Catholicism may be today the most post-millennialist of all major Christian denominations. Considering that traditional Catholicism had been characterizedby a negative philosophy of history which viewed the modern age as a concatenation of relatedheresies from Protestantismto atheist communism, the reversalis quite remarkable. This general Catholic reorientation was reinforced and shaped in a parti- cular direction by the personal millennialism of the present John Paul II, who despite his advanced age and fragile health devoted himself with amazing vigor to the year-long millennial celebrations, he carefully prepared and anxiously anticipated for years.The very fact that he was alive to celebrate the special Jubilee year 2000, he and many Catholics interpretedas a clear sign of and as confirmationof his papal mission.4

3 EmperorConstantine, even before his , used the repressive power of the state to enforce church unity. It was the first time that state authority was used to repress a dissenting movement within Christianity, thus setting a fateful precedent of state repressionagainst millennial groupsand establishing the model of church in the Weberian sense, as an institution claiming the monopoly of the means of grace over a territory.The reaction of the Donatists was fraughtwith equally fateful precedents.They embracedmartyrdom proudly, frequently through self-immolationby fire, and redirected the apocalyptic invectives of the against the first Christian emperor,"the ,"and against the Pope and Roman church, "the whore of Babylon,"establishing images which have endured with every millennialist sect until the present. The more Roman the Christian church became, the more it had to shed its millennialism and the anti- imperialanti-Roman vitriolic of the Apocalypse.

4 The Catholic traditionof Jubileeyears goes back to 1300AD, when Pope Boniface VIII issued the bull Antiquorum,granting indulgences to those who visited the main Roman basilicas during the year in commemorationof the century past and in celebration of the new age to come. It marked, therefore, the first celebration of the end of a Christian century. By the end of the 15th century the custom of celebrating a 2000 PRESIDENTIALADDRESS: RELIGION,MILLENNIUM, & GLOBALIZATION 421

But for KarolWojtyfi the modelfor the Jubilee2000 wasthe experienceof the celebrationof the millenniumof Polish Christianityin 1966. This cele- bration constituted a turning point in the protractedbattle between the Catholic Church and the Communistregime over the minds of the Polish people.The massiveeffervescent celebration served as the culminationof a plan devisedand implementedby CardinalWyszyrisky upon his releasefrom prison, to keepthe churchand the nationmobilized, for 26 years,around the traditional Mariandevotion to OurLady of Czestochowa.It beganwith the rededicationof the nationto the "Queenof Poland"in 1956,followed by the yearlyvows of the Great Novena culminatingin the 1966 millenniumcelebrations of Polish Christianity.The attemptof the regimeto upstagethe churchby organizing competingcelebrations of the millenniumof Polishstatehood failed miserably. This triumphwas cappedby the annualprocession of the BlackMadonna to every single town in Poland, leading up to the celebrationof the ninth centenaryof the martyrdomof SaintStanislaw in 1979,and culminatingin the unanticipatedvisit of the recentlyelected Polish pope. The crescendoof the collective effervescence was palpable to participantsand observersalike (Casanova1994). It shouldbe clearthat this is a verydifferent kind of millennialismthan the dispensationalistone. We couldcall it Durkheimianmillennialism, with altoge- therdifferent numerical calendar calculations oriented to the commemorationof past events, ratherthan futureones. It certainlyillustrates in paradigmatic fashion the power of religiousbeliefs and ritualsto serve the cause of social integrationby re-creatingthe bondsof solidarityof the imaginedcommunity of the nation.It also linkssacred history and secularhistory in an intricateway; it scrutinizesthe "signsof the times" in order to divine propheticallyGod's redemptiveplans; and it demandsfrom believersthe appropriateattitude of penance,change of heart,and commitmentas conditionfor the successof the divine plans. Furthermore,this formof revivalismis often linkedto a call for action which has not merelyconservative or traditionalistimplications. As the rise of Solidarityone year after the completion of the Marianprogram of mobilizationclearly indicates, it can also preparethe groundfor radicalsocial transformation. Inspiredby the Polish revivalistexperience and imbuedwith a powerful sense of divine mission, John Paul II has tried to recreatethis millennial revivalismwithin the entireCatholic Church, with moremixed results. As the first non-Italianpope in almostfive centuries,and as the first Slavic pope in history, he felt a special mission to liberate the Slavic peoples from the communistyoke and to furtherecumenical dialogue with the Easternchurches. jubileeevery 25 yearswas well establishedand despite Luther's critique of the indulgencestrade, the practice continuedalbeit with muchdiminished popular support until its recentrevival and vigorousreaffirmation by the presentpope. 422 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION

The fall of the BerlinWall confirmedhim in his mission,now redefinedas the reunificationand spiritualregeneration of ChristianEurope. But his visionhad to confrontthe presenceof a stubbornlymaterialist capitalist Western Europe, the traditionalcore of Western Christendom,that he came to perceive as increasinglypagan, hedonist and unresponsiveto his revivalist message. Frustrated,he turnedto EasternEurope, particularly to Catholic Poland,still untouchedby capitalist materialism,urging them to serve as the "spiritual reservoir"of ChristianEurope, only to find out that Westernmaterial goods and materialistvalues were flooding the Easternspiritual reservoir. The failed assassinationattempt and the recoverywhich he attributedto a miraculous Marianintercession confirmed him in his millennialvision and mission,now tingedwith sufferingmessianism and Marianapocalypticism connected with the thirdsecret of Fatima.The celebrationof the secondmillennium became now a millenariangoal in itself. 5) The fifth strikingthing, now focusing narrowlyupon the Y2K'sNew Year'sEve celebration,is that it was the first commoncollective globalcele- brationin the historyof humanity.The simultaneousand reciprocalbroad- castingof the 24 hour-longparty celebrations around the globemade them into somethingmore than a globalparty hyped by the media.What madethe event specialand differentfrom other televised spectacleswith perhapsas largean audiencewas the reciprocalreflexivity virtually built into it and sharedby the active participants,making them reflexivelyaware of partakingin the same commonglobal human celebration.Strictly speaking,it was a secularparty devoidof religioussymbolism or meaning.Indeed, most religiouspeople around the worldmay have purposefullystayed away from it. Yet froma Durkheimian perspective,it maybe viewedas a sacredevent, as the firstcollective celebratory virtualgathering of humanity.For the first time in historyhumanity shared virtuallythe sametime and the samespace. Indeed, tongue in cheek,I am even going to proposethat ASR sponsorsa resolutionaddressed to humanitysug- gestingthat we humansredate all ourcalendars globally and resetY2K as YOac, that is, as the firstyear of ourtruly common era. Now a bit moreseriously, the imageof a yearzero is not so far-fetchedif one considersthat the millenniumcelebration had, despiteits name,absolutely no temporalreferent. The con-celebrantswere not commemoratingsome common historyor some commonpast event, historicalor mythical.Humanity, in this sense, has no commonhistory. Only now in the age of globalizationare we writingand constructingthe first world histories.If there was any temporal referentit was solely to the present,to the commonpresent shared by global humanity.The referentand the symbolismwas primarily spatial, the globeand the 24 time-zonesor spaces.One could say that with globalizationthe spatial metaphorhas come to replacethe dominanttemporal-historical metaphor of modernity.Globalization is the new philosophyof space that has come to replaceprogress, the old philosophyof history.Both are conceivedsimilarly as 2000 PRESIDENTIALADDRESS: RELIGION, MILLENNIUM, & GLOBALIZATION423 meaningful, teleological, immanently driven, and forward advancing processes. Both processes just happen before humans become reflexively aware of them and of their own actions' complicity in bringing them about. Only then can they become "projects." Of course, globalization is also a temporal-historical process in so far as it happens in historical time, but its primary reference is not temporal but spatial, in the same way as history also happens in space, but has no intrinsic spatial referent.

GLOBALIZATION?

So what do we mean by globalization and how does it affect religion? Obviously, I cannot try to offer a systematic, much less a comprehensive, answer. I can only select arbitrarily a few entry points in the hope that they may illumi- nate some areas of the complex and fluid field. I will begin with a series of general statements about globalization, upon which I cannot elaborate further thus they will have to be taken at face value:

* Globalizationis not a historicalprocess whose origins can be dated. * Historically,globalization is a processcontinuous with modernity,with the capitalist worldsystem, and with the worldsystem of states. * Globalizationserves as an analyticalcategory to indicatethat these processes,while continuous,have entered a qualitativelynew phase. * While continuouswith modernity,globalization breaks with the grandnarratives and philosophiesof history,undermines the hegemonicproject of Westernuniversalization, anddecenters the worldsystem. In this sense,globalization is post-modem,post-colonial, andpost-Western. * Globalizationis surelycontinuous with the worldcapitalist system, but it freescapitalism fromits territorial-juridicalembeddedness in stateand national economies, and therefore fostersits furtherdevelopment, quantitatively as well as qualitatively,unencumbered by extrinsicpolitical, cultural, or moralprinciples. * Globalizationis alsocontinuous with the worldsystem of states,but it altersradically that systemby dissociating the elementswhich were clustered together within the nation-state: administrativeterritorial state, political society or bodyof citizens,market economy, civil society,and nation, all embeddedterritorially within a systemgoverned by the principleof undividedand exclusive sovereignty. Globalization limits and relativizes state sovereignty; freescapitalist market and civil societyfrom its territorial-juridicalembeddedness in state and nation; and, as a result,dissolves the particularfusion of nation and state which emergedout of Westernmodernity and becameinstitutionalized worldwide, at leastas a model,after the FrenchRevolution. Globalization does not meanthe end of statesor the end of nationsand nationalism,but it meansthe end of their fusion in the sovereign territorialnation-state.

Globalizationand Religion

Now let's bring religion back in! Obviously, I am not going to try to discuss the different ways in which globalization may affect religion or vice versa. For instance, I am not going to touch upon the kind of issues which have been the 424 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION analyticalfocus of our dean of globalizationtheory Roland Robertson (1992) and associates,since I could only rehashtheir argumentsin less eloquentform (Robertsonand Chirico 1985; Simpson 1996; Beyer 1994). Following the line of argumentationinitiated above, I am particularlyinterested, as I've alwaysbeen, in reviewingfrom a long-termhistorical perspective the changesin the patterns of relationsbetween church, state, nation and civil society broughtabout by processesof globalization.After reviewingthese changesanalytically, I'll offer some illustrationsfrom two contemporaryforms of globalreligion: Catholicism and .

Churchand State

As the Weberiandefinitions of both indicates,there is an intrinsicrelation between church and state. Both are defined by the same dual principle of territorialityand monopolisticclaims, over the meansof salvationin the case of the church,over the meansof violence in the caseof the state (Weber1978:54- 56). Bothare either mutually dependent, enforcing and legitimating each other's claims, or mutuallyexclusive and antagonistic.As I've written elsewhere (Casanova1994:45-48), the churchis a particularhistorical fusion of two types of religion which, following Weber, we should distinguishanalytically: the communitycult and salvationreligions. Not everysalvation religion functions as a communitycult, i.e., is coextensivewith a territorialpolitical community or plays the Durkheimianfunction of societal integration.Think of the many denominations,sects or cults in Americawhich function primarily as religionsof individualsalvation. Nor does every communitycult functionas a religionof individualsalvation offering the individualqua individual salvation from sick- ness, poverty, and from all sorts of distress and danger. Think of state Confucianismin China, Shintoism in Japan,or most caesaro-papistimperial cults. Historicallythe formationof the modernEuropean system of states, the Westphaliansystem which later gained worldwideexpansion, and the post- Reformationdissolution of WesternChristendom into competingchurches were interrelatedand reciprocallyconditioned processes. In the earlyabsolutist phase everystate and churchin Europetried to reproducethe modelof Christendom accordingto the principlecuius regio eius religio, which de facto meant that all the territorialnational churches fell underthe caesaropapistcontrol of the absolutist state. This modelof church-statefusion was alreadychallenged by the liberal- democraticstate and is now underminedfurther by processesof globalization. The liberalstate challenged the monopolisticclaims of churchesby introducing either principledconstitutional separation and religiousfreedom or expedient religioustoleration. Globalizationfurthers this processby underminingthe principleof territorialityat variouslevels. The universalizationand globalization of humanrights deterritorializes their state-basedjurisdiction, i.e., the human 2000 PRESIDENTIALADDRESS: RELIGION, MILLENNIUM, & GLOBALIZATION 425 personis the carrierof inalienablerights, and freedomof conscienceis the most sacredof these personalrights. The worldsystem of statesand its supranational rulesand institutionslimit state territorial sovereignty and underminethe tradi- tional etatist principleof non-externalinterference in the internalaffairs of states.By underminingthe territorially-basedfusion of state,market, nation, and civil society, globalizationalso underminesthe model of territoriallybased national religionor culture.At the very least, we can say that globalization makesWeber's definition of both, churchand state,outmoded and increasingly irrelevant.

Churchand Nation as ImaginedCommunities

As BenedictAnderson (1991) has pointedout, the modernnation has to be understoodas the combinedsuccessor of the dynasticmonarchy as political systemand of the churchas a religiouscommunity. With the dissolutionof medievalChristendom, the old transnationalsacred community integrated by Latinas a sacredlanguage was transformed into fragmented,pluralized, and terri- torializedchurches. The new state churchesfunctioned as communitycults of the absolutiststate and as national religiouscommunities integrated by the emergingnational vernaculars which were gradually transformed into high liter- ary languagesby the printingpress. The processof nationalizationof the state churches,exemplified by the Anglicanizationof the Churchof England,was mostpronounced in Protestantcountries, but becamegeneralized also in Catho- lic and Orthodoxcountries, as shown by the Gallicanizationof the French CatholicChurch and by the Russificationof the OrthodoxChurch under the Great.Similar versions of the samenational millennial myth, using biblical archetypesof the New ,the New Israel,and the chosen people,first used probablyby Savanarolain 15th centuryrepublican Florence, are to be found throughout 16th century Europe: in Spain, Portugal, , and England.5The archetypicalmyth serves to link togethersacred land, sacred history,and sacredpeople, anticipating the samecombination one findsin 19th century secular nationalism.The great French nationalist historian, Jules Michelet,was consciousof recreatingthe myth when, convincedthat church and Christianitywere dead, he decidedthat Francehad to takethe placeof God "whomwe miss"and that his belovedcountry had to fill the "incommensurable abyssleft by an extinguishedChristianity"(Bernstein 1999:114). Thus spoke Michelet beforeZarathustra. Durkheim's secular republicanism is equallyself- conscious of filling the same void. Again, following Anderson (1991:12), modernnationalism has to be understoodnot as a formof "self-consciouslyheld

5 The mythof Moscowas the ThirdRome, after the Fallof Constantinople,the SecondRome, plays a similarfunction in 16thcentury Russian state nationalism. 426 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION political ideology,"but as a secularizedform of the religiouscultural systems, "outof whichas well as againstwhich - it cameinto being."

Excursuson Secularization

It should be evident, I hope, that therein lies the key to the radical secularizationof ChristianEurope. Do not worry!I am not goingto rehashthe fruitlesssecularization debate between Europeans and Americansall over again (Bruce 1992). But allow me a briefexcursus which is relatedto our topic at hand, religion and globalization.After all, the relative validity of the two theorieswill be measuredeventually not by how muchthey areable to account for what happens to religion in Europeor the United States, but for what happensto religionin the restof-the world. We have reachedan impassein the debate.I say we, becauseI am caughtin the middleurging both sides to take each other'sarguments more seriously in orderto learnfrom the validpoints and the blind spots in both positions(Casanova 1994). The traditionalEuropean theoryof secularization,which postulatesa structurallink betweensocial differ- entiationand religiousdecline, offers a relativelyplausible account of European developments,but is unableor unwillingto take seriously,much less to explain the surprisingvitality and extreme pluralismof denominationalforms of salvationreligion in America,notwithstanding the pronouncedsecularization of state and society (Casanova2001). What Stephen Warner(1993) has called "theemerging American paradigm" turns the orthodoxmodel of secularization on its head and uses the Americanevidence to postulatean equallystructural relationshipbetween disestablishment, an open, free, competitive,and plural- istic religiousmarket, and high levels of individualreligiosity. Low levels of religiosityin Europeought to be explained,accordingly, by the persistenceof eitherestablishment or of highlyregulated monopolistic or oligopolisticreligious markets(Caplow 1985; Stark and lannaccone1994; Finke 1997). But as Steve Bruce(2000) has shown convincingly,internal comparative evidence within Europesimply does not supportthe basic tenets of the American theory. Monopolisticsituations in Polandand Irelandare linked to persistentlyhigh levels of religiosity,while increasingliberalization and state deregulationelse- whereare often accompaniedby persistentrates of religiousdecline. Thus, the impasse.The orthodox model works relatively well for Europebut not for America,the Americanparadigm works for the U.S. but not for Europe.The supplyside theoryof religionneeds to explainwhy there is no greaterindividual demandfor religioussalvation in Europein the face of open free marketsand, even moreso, why religioussuppliers, and there have been plentyof religious entrepreneurswho have failed lately in Western Europe,seem unable to gener- ate or mobilizegreater religious demand. The notion of a constant religious demandor of a constantdemand for supernatural compensators is a-historical,a- sociological,and flies in the faceof Europeanfacts. 2000PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: RELIGION, MILLENNIUM, & GLOBALIZATION427

ImaginedCommunities, Religions, and Globalization

If we want to make sense of religion today not only in Europe but throughoutthe world,and with this we are back to our topic, we simplymust think of religionsmore as culturalsystems and less as religiousmarkets. Surely, ourtheories will be lesselegant and less scientific, but they will makemore sense of complexhistorical realities and will lead to greaterunderstanding. They will also be less-UScentric.The trulypuzzling question in Europe,one we need to address,is why churchesand ecclesiasticalinstitutions, once they cededto the secularnation-state their traditional historical function as communitycults, that is, as collective representationsof the imaginednational communities, also lost in the processtheir abilityto functionas religionsof individualsalvation. The issueof greateror lessermonopoly is relevantbut not the most crucialone. In this context, it maybe morehelpful to think of churches,in the Durkheimian senseof the term,as collectiverepresentations of imaginedcommunities, than to think of them, in Weber'ssense, as monopolisticsalvation institutions or firms. Irelandand Polandillustrate the case of churcheswhich werestrictly speaking not monopolisticallyestablished, in the Weberiansense, yet continued to functionas communitycults of the nation in the absenceof a secularnation- state,and have maintainedtheir ability to functionalso as religionsof individual salvation.Elsewhere in Europe,by contrast,once the secularnation takesover their functionas communitycults, churches tend also to decline as religionsof individualsalvation (Davie 2000).For a vivid illustration,closer to homeso that you do not think that this is strictlyspeaking a Europeanproblem, think of Quebec,so similarto Polandand Irelandotherwise, and the suddencollapse of Catholicismthere with the rise of Quebequoissecular nationalism. Once the Catholic Churchceased being the communitycult of Quebec,people ceased goingto churchand stopped looking for alternatives, having apparently lost also the need for individualreligious salvation, so evidentonly a decadebefore. We could rephrasethe questionand ask,why individualsin Europe,once they lose faith in their national churches,do not bother to look for, or actuallylook disdainfullyupon alternative salvation religions. Such a kind of brandloyalty is hard to imagine in other commodities'markets. Why does religion today in Europeremain "implicit" instead of takingmore explicit institutionalforms? If we wantto answerthe questionwhy the lackof appealof religionsof individual salvation in Europe,we cannot skip the Weberianquestion, "salvation, from what,and for what?"The interestingsociological question, the one we sociolo- gists of religion should be addressing,is not whether religiousand salvation needs remainuniversally constant across time and space,let psychologistsand economistsaddress this question,but ratherthe changingcharacter of their culturalmanifestations across societies and through history. 428 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION

Territorialization,Civilizations, and Global Civil Society

So how does globalizationaffect all culturalsystems, including religious ones? I would suggest that one of its most importanteffects is their "de- territorialization"(Basch, Schiller, and Blanc 1994). By de-territorializationI mean the disembeddednessof culturalphenomena from their "natural"terri- tories.Cultural systems throughout history have been territoriallyembedded. I do not mean simplythat culturalphenomena are in space.Everything in the worldis in space,in the samesense as everythingis in time. But not everything that happens in time is historical, i.e., has historical meaning. Temporal phenomenaare historical only when they becomepart of meaningfulnarratives. Similarly,spatial phenomena become meaningful when they areembedded in a territory.By territory,I alsodo not meansimply ecology in the strictsense of the term, as the relations between organismsand their physicalenvironments. Territoriesare imaginedspaces, mental mappings. The nation,for instance,is as muchan imaginedterritory as an imaginedcommunity. Territories, moreover, have a proprietaryand purposefulcharacter. The dictionaryI was usingwhile writingthis addressin the mountainsdefined territory, first, as "thedomain over which a sovereignstate exercisesjurisdiction" and, second,as "anarea assigned fora specialpurpose." With the triumphof Europeanmodernity and of the worldsystem of statesit carriedwith its global colonial expansioneverywhere, the entireworld under- went a particularform of territorialization.Every space, every piece of land,and largeportions of the seas,the so-calledterritorial waters, have beenparceled out, appropriated,and territorializedwithin the fixed boundariesof nations-states. But the samehappened to peoples,cultures, religions, sciences, markets, civil society,all becameterritorially embedded within the nation-state.People, for instance,became territorialized through the universalizationof the principleof citizenshipafter the FrenchRevolution (Brubaker 1992 ). As an institution, citizenshipis basedon the principleof universalinclusion within a territoryand universalexclusion outside. Consequently, everybody, individual or group,was forcedto becomepart of a state territory.The samehappened to religiousand culturalsystems, indeed, to civilizationsand world religions. The point I am tryingto make is that this logic of territorializationwas initiatedby the dissolutionof WesternChristendom and its pluralizationinto territorialstates and nationalchurches. Outside the state,no legalperson. Extra stato nulla personais a version of the church principle extraecclesia nulla salus. Beforepeople became subjects or citizensof states,they becamemembers of state nationalchurches. The expulsionof Jewsand Moorsfrom Spain, which may be viewedas the startingpoint of the modernprocess of universalterritorialization and was certainlythe first instanceof modernethnic cleansing,was required preciselybecause Jews and Muslimscould not become subjectsof the new Catholicnational state. Spain,a countrywhere the threeAbrahamic religions 2000PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: RELIGION, MILLENNIUM, & GLOBALIZATION429 and civilizations,Jewish, Christian, Muslim, had coexisted for centuries,as central to the mental mapsof Jews and Muslims,as to the mental mapsof Christians,became now exclusivelyCatholic territory, even beforeReformation and Counter-Reformationhad dividedup Europeinto Protestantand Catholic territories. WesternChristendom was the first civilizationto be territorializedinto nation-states.Others wouldfollow. Islamwas the last to be forced into the straight-jacketof sovereignterritorial states (Piscatori 1986). Civilizations appearedto have lost their relevanceas units of analysis,at least for social scientists.When sociologists talked of societies,they meantas a matterof course nationalsocieties. But globalization is beginningto loosenup the straightjacket of the sovereignstate, its boundariesare becoming ever moreporous. The world systemof statesis not disappearing,but statesare becomingless undividedand exclusive sovereignterritorial domains and more regulatoryadministrative territorial networks interlinked and overlapping with wider networks (Guehenno1995; Shaw 1997).The solid territorialembeddedness of all social phenomenaunder the sovereignjurisdiction of the state is dissolvinginto more fluid conditions.Peoples and their identities,commodities and firms,informa- tion systemsand media, social movementsand public spheresare not only increasinglytransgressing those boundariesbut also overlappingnational terri- toriesand thus becoming transnational (Beck 2000; Rajaee 2000). Glocalization,another of these awful neologisms we social scientists (Robertson1992) like to use as shorthandanalytical terms to characterizecom- plex processesand phenomena,refers to the simultaneousreassertion and increasingrelevance of the localand the globalover the national.The national is fragmentedwithin into smallerparticularistic units and transcendedwithout into ever largerunits. Glocalizationcan also be interpretedas a dimensionof what I call de-territorialization.Local and regionalspaces, communities real or imagined,identities, subcultures and ethnic groupsall gain spatialautonomy fromthe state-nationalterritories within which they have been embeddedand circumscribed.The local gains a territoryof its own independentfrom the nation.I do not need to emphasizethe relevanceof the global.Global markets, globalmedia and informationsystems, global subcultures and identities(youth, indigenouspeople), global movementsand organizations(Amnesty Interna- tionaland human rights, feminism, Greenpeace, Doctors Without Borders) of a global civil society, all proliferateand become increasinglymore relevant traversingnational borders and transcending national territories (Castells 1997). The globe itselfbecomes the physicalspace and mentalterritory within which the nation-stateitself and everythingembedded within its territorybecomes circumscribed. Consequently,global humanity becomes a self-reflexiveand self-referential unit, the reflexivepoint of referencefor all societiesand peoples (Robertson and Chirico 1985). But humanityitself can hardlybecome an identitygroup or an 430 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION imaginedcommunity. Individual and collectiveidentities are necessarilyplural, they need an other to becomereflexively aware of their own particularityand singularity.The end-resultof the processof globalization,much less its telos, is unlikely to be one world government,one world society, one single global community.Global civil society is a transnationalspace, a transnationalnet- work of associations,movements, organizations, and communicationsthat transcendsthe territorialnation-state, but it is not itselfa territoriallyorganized societyor domain. None of you, I suppose,expects the formationof one singleglobal religion. The religion of humanity, its sacralization,and the cult of the individual announcedby the foundingfathers of sociology,by -Simon,by Comte,by Durkheimhas indeed arrived(Casanova 2000). The triumphand the global expansionof human rightsdoctrines and movementsat the end of the 20th centuryseems to confirmat leastpart of their visions.But they werewrong in assumingthat the new religionof humanitywould sooner or laterreplace the old theocentricreligions, that, in Durkheim's(1965:475) words, "the old godswere dying while the new ones had not yet been born." What none of the Enlightenmentprophets and positivistsociologists could have anticipatedwas that,paradoxically, the old godsand the old religionswere going to gainnew life by becomingthe carriersof the processof sacralizationof humanity. Globalizationfacilitates the return of the old civilizations and world religionsnot only as units of analysisbut as significantcultural systems and as imaginedcommunities, overlapping and at times in competition with the imaginednational communities. Nations will continueto be, for the foreseeable future, relevant imaginedcommunities and carriersof collective identities withinthis globalspace, but local and transnationalidentities, particularly reli- giousones, are likelyto becomeever moreprominent. While new transnational imaginedcommunities will emerge,the mostrelevant ones are likelyto be once againthe old civilizationsand worldreligions. Therein lies the meritof Samuel Huntington's(1996) thesis "the clash of civilizations,"in recognizingthe increasingrelevance of culturalsystems and civilizationsfor worldpolitics. The thesis has been widely and rightly criticized,most frequentlyfor its "essen- tialism"and for its undilutedWest-centric hegemonic vision (Huntington1996; Riesebrodt2000). But in my view, whereHuntington is particularlywrong is in his geo-politicalconception of civilizationsas territorialunits akin to nation- states and superpowers,which leads him to anticipatefuture global conflicts along civilizationalfault lines. The analysismisses the fact that globalization representsnot only a great opportunityfor the old civilizationsand world religionsto freethemselves from the straightjacket of the nation-state,to regain theirtransnational dimensions and their leadingroles in the globalcenter stage. Globalizationalso representsa great threat insofar as it implies the de- territorializationof all culturalsystems. Globalization threatens to dissolvethe intrinsiclink between sacred time, sacred space and sacred people common to all 2000 PRESIDENTIALADDRESS: RELIGION, MILLENNIUM, & GLOBALIZATION431 worldreligions, and with it the seeminglyessential bonds between histories, peoplesand territorieswhich have definedall civilizations.Let me offerbrief illustrationsof someof these threatsand opportunitiesfrom a summaryand very selectivereview of two worldreligions, or ratherof two versionsof Christianity: Catholicismand Pentecostalism.

TransnationalCatholicism

Of all the worldreligions none was as threatenedat its core by the emer- gence of the modernworld system of sovereignterritorial states as the Roman church.The ProtestantReformation undermined its claimsto be the One, Holy, Catholic,and ApostolicChristian Church. Catholic lost its originalconnota- tion of universalityand became simply a denominationalterm distinguishing the Romanchurch from other Christian denominations. The dissolutionof Wester Christendomundermined the role of the Papacyas the spiritualhead of a universalChristian monarchy represented by the Holy .The Papacylost controlof the nationalCatholic churches to caesaro-papistCatholic monarchsthrough and it itselfbecame territorialized into the , reducedto being just another marginaland increasinglyirrelevant sovereignterritorial state. One by one, mostof the transnationaldimensions of MedievalCatholicism receded or disappearedaltogether. It is not surprising thereforethat the Catholic church remainedfor centuriesadamantly anti- modernand developed a negativephilosophy of history(Casanova 1996, 1997). Ironically,it was the loss of territorialstate sovereigntywith the incor- porationof the PapalStates into the new Italianstate, that allowedthe Papacy to be reconstitutedanew as the hegemoniccenter of a much revivedtrans- nationalreligious regime. In 1870,the verysame year that the PapalStates were lost, the FirstVatican Council proclaimed the dogmaof papalinfallibility and reaffirmedthe papalsupremacy over the entireCatholic church. In this respect, 1870 representsthe originalmilestone in the modernprocess of globalizationof Catholicism.From now on, throughthe control of the nominationof the papacyprogressively will gain controlover the nationalCatholic churches. This processwas facilitated by the expansionof the liberalsecular state which gave up the old caesaro-papistetatist claimsto controlthe nationalchurches. Not surprisingly,non-Catholic liberal states were the first ones to accept the transnationalpapal claims, while Catholicmonarchs and states tried to preserve theirold claimsof statesupremacy. The papacyof Benedict XV marksanother milestone in the processof globalizationof Catholicismfor two reasons.Elected shortly after the outbreak of WorldWar I, the firstgeneral conflagration of nation-states,he condemned bitterlythe senselessslaughter and the generalchauvinist frenzy, worked tire- lessly for peace negotiations,and supportedthe organizationof a Leagueof Nations, which wouldmediate national conflicts and establishthe conditions 432 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION for a just peace,not one imposedon the defeated.The pope'sintervention fell on deafears. Catholic priests everywhere answered enthusiastically the patriotic calls to arms.Even transnationalreligious orders, including the most trans- national and papal of them, the Jesuits,who had been expelled from their countriesby anti-clericallaws returned home to die for theircountries (Holmes 1981). Nationalsolidarity proved much stronger than humanor Christiansoli- darity.Despite its failure,however, the papalintervention marks the reinsertion of the papacy in internationalaffairs, the renewalof its historical role as internationalmediator and court of appeals,and the point of departureof its growinginternational recognition. Thereafter, the popeshave been consistent advocatesof world-wideinternational bodies, from the World Court to the United Nations,which limitabsolutist state sovereignty,arbitrate international disputes,and representthe interestsof the entire familyof nations (Hanson 1987). In addition,it was underBenedict XV's papacythat the Vaticanbegan to promote the recruitmentof indigenousclergy and the formationof native Catholichierarchies, breaking with the Europeancolonial legacy and preparing the groundfor the moderninternationalization of the Catholic church.The modernexpansion of Catholicismbeyond its traditionalEuropean territories had been connected until the mid-nineteenthcentury with the global European colonial expansion.Even its missionaryefforts, with the exception of inde- pendentJesuit initiatives, had been led and controlledby Europeannational churches.The massiveimmigration of IrishCatholics to the United States and other Britishcolonies, followed by the generalimmigration of other European Catholics,had expandedthe Catholic presencebeyond Europe. But until the ,overseas Catholicism had been primarilya transplantedEuropean institution.Vatican I still had been a predominantlyEuropean council, even thoughthe 49 prelatesfrom the United Statescomprised already one-tenth of the gathered bishops. Vatican II, by contrast, was the first truly global in the history of Christianity.The 2500 Fathers in attendance came from all over the world. Europeansno longer formed a majority.The U.S. delegationwith over 200 bishopswas the secondlargest, yet smallerthan the combined228 indigenousAsian and African bishops.The numbersrepresent the notabledisplacement of the Catholicpopulation from the Old to the New Worldand from North to South. The papacy of John XXIII marks another milestone in Catholic globalization,not only because of the convocation of the and the process of aggiomamentoit instituted,but because of the definitive incorporationof the modern discourseof human rights in his encyclical Pacemin Terris(1963). Until then the Catholic church had con- sistentlyopposed modern conceptions of humanrights. Pope Pius VI in his 1791 papalBrief Caritas had adamantlycondemned the Declarationof the Rightsof Man by the FrenchNational Assembly,arguing that the rightsto freedomof 2000PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: RELIGION, MILLENNIUM, & GLOBALIZATION433 religionand freedomof the press,as well as the Declarationon the Equalityof all Men, were contraryto the divine principlesof the Church. The papal condemnationwas reiterated throughout the 19thcentury and PiusIX included the principleof humanrights and most modernfreedoms in the Syllabus(1864) of errors.Religious freedom was particularly odious since it impliedequating the truereligion and the falseones, as well as the separationof churchand state.As we all know,Vatican II's Declaration on ReligiousFreedom, Dignitatis Humanae, radicallychanged the Catholic courseby recognizingthe inalienableright of everyindividual to freedomof conscience,grounding it in the sacreddignity of the humanperson. Thereafter, the churchhas adoptedthe discourseof human rightsas its own, makingit partof everypapal encyclical and of mostepiscopal pastoralletters throughout the world.This has had dramaticworld-historical effects, as evidencedby the global role of the Catholic churchand Catholic movementsin the "thirdwave of democratization"from the mid-70sto the 90s (Casanova1996; Huntington 1991). Indeed,the Catholicchurch has been at the vanguardof the globalhuman rights revolution. John Paul II in particularhas servedas one of the most effective spokes- personsof this globalrevolution and representsthe definitiveglobalization of the Catholicchurch. The churchat its apex- pope,Vatican Curia, - has ceasedto be a predominantlyRoman-Italian institution.6 As Bishopof ,he has assumedeagerly its role to speakliterally, urbi et orbi,to the city and to the globe (Weigel 1999). He also becamean untiringworld travelerproclaiming everywhere the sacreddignity of the humanperson. He wantsto be viewednot justas Holy Fatherof all Catholicsbut as commonfather of God's children and as self-appointedspokesman of humanity,as defensor hominis.In the processthe pope has learnedto playmore effectively than any competitor,the role of first citizen of a catholic, i.e., global and universal, humansociety. The Catholicchurch has embracedglobalization, welcoming its liberationfrom the strait-jacketof the territorialsovereign nation-state which had restrictedits catholic universalclaims. But the embraceis not uncritical. The churchhas remainedone of the publicvoices left still questioningcapitalist globalizationand demandingthe humanizationand moralizationof market economies and a more just and fair internationaldivision of labor and distributionof worldresources. The contemporaryglobalization of Catholicism,moreover, does not have only a radialstructure centered in Rome. In the last decadesthere has been a remarkableincrease in transnationalCatholic networksand exchangesof all

6 At the end of World War II two-thirdsof all cardinalswere still Italian. The College of Cardinalsthat elected the first non-Italian pope in four centuries alreadyhad a much more global representation:27 Italians, 29 other Europeans,12 Africans, 13 Asians, 11 North Americans, 19 Latin Americans. John Paul II himself has now nominated 166 cardinals - more than any other pope in history. Forty one percent of the 135 cardinals presently eligible to vote for the next pope are from the third world. The fact that there is even speculation that the next pope may be African indicates how far and how fast the church has changed. 434 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION kinds,which crisscross nations and world regions, often bypassing Rome. Indeed, throughout the century one can observe an amazing resurgence of the transnationaldimensions of medievalCatholicism which for centurieshad been recessiveor dormant:not only papalsupremacy and the centralizationof the church'sgovernment, as well as the convocationof ecumenicalcouncils already mentioned,but also transnationalreligious cadres, transnational religious move- ments,transnational schools, centers of learningand intellectualnetworks, and transnationalcenters of pilgrimageand internationalencounters (Casanova 1997). Let me give two anecdotalillustrations of the potentialimplications of this process.In his last visit to Mexico in 1999, Pope John Paul II gatheredthe bishops of all the Americas, north and south, consecrated Our Lady of Guadalupeas the Virginof all the Americas,and urgedthem to cease viewing themselvesas nationalCatholic churches and to becomeone single American Catholic church. In a lecture at the Libraryof Congressin 2000, Catholic Christianityand the Millennium, Francis Cardinal George offered an equallyglobal vision:

In the next millennium,as the modemnation state is relativizedand national sovereignty is displacedinto societalarrangements still to be invented,it will be increasinglyevident that the majorfaiths are carriers of cultureand that it is moresectarian to be French,American or Russianthan to be Christianor Muslim,Hindu or Buddhist.Inter-religious dialogue is more basicto the futureof faith,therefore, than is Church-statedialogue, important though that remains.And amongthe dialogues,that betweenChristians and Muslims promises to be the mostsignificant for the futureof the humanrace.... The conversationbetween Christianity andIslam is not yet faradvanced, but its outcomewill determine what the globewill looklike a centuryfrom now.

GlobalPentecostalism

The transformationof contemporaryCatholicism illustratesthe oppor- tunities which the processof globalizationoffers to a transnationalreligious regime with a highly centralizedstructure and an imposing transnational networkof human,institutional and materialresources, which feels therefore confident in its abilityto thrive in a relativelyopen globalsystem of religious regimes. ContemporaryPentecostalism may serve to illustrate the equally favorableopportunities which globalizationoffers to a highly decentralized religion,with no historicallinks to traditionand no territorialroots or identity, and which thereforecan makeitself at home anywherein the globe wherethe Spiritmoves. Since the riseof Montanism,the firstPentecostal Christian sectarian move- ment, in 2ndcentury , when Montanusbegan prophesying in ecstasyand speakingin tongues,declaring that his visions, the "ThirdTestament," came from the Holy Spirit,the spiritof Pentecosthas movedChristians confirming them in theirfaith that the apostoliccharismatic age of revelationis not closed 2000 PRESIDENTIALADDRESS: RELIGION, MILLENNIUM, & GLOBALIZATION435 and that a "thirdage of the Spirit"is nearif not alreadyhere. Joachim of Fiore's speculativemillennial theology and the movementit spun is only one of the most famousand intellectualizedversions. One could view such Pentecostal sectarianmovements as prefigurationsof contemporarydevelopments. But in fact PentecostalChristianity is a 20th centuryphenomenon, yet is alreadythe most dynamicand fastestgrowing sector of ProtestantChristianity worldwide and is likelyto becomethe predominantglobal form of Christianityof the , possibly linking all the Christian churches (Poewe 1994; Hunt, Hamilton,and Walker 1997). In this sense, the "thirdage of the Spirit"is alreadyupon us as we enterthe thirdmillennium. I am using Pentecostalismhere in the widest possiblesense to include Pentecostalchurches and denominationsin the strict sense of the term, the broad charismaticrenewal lately grippingmuch of EvangelicalChristianity worldwide,particularly in the Third World, and all kinds of independent syncretisticneo-Pentecostal mega-churches, such as the UniversalChurch of the Kingdomof God in Brazilor The Lightof the Worldin Mexico.Indeed, the field is so complexand fluid that I do not think it wouldbe either possibleor helpfulto stickto rigorousanalytical categories from the past.I mustconfess, the more I read from what experts in the field have to say, and they say very different,often contradictorythings, the morecomplicated the fieldgets, at least for me (Martin1996; Lehmann 1996; Corten 1999;Westmeier 1999). Perhaps only my ignoranceallows me to make bold generalizations.So, take the followingwith a grainof salt, as the attemptof an outsiderto organizea chaotic fieldby bringinghis own externalprejudgements. What all the phenomenagathered under the termPentecostalism have in commonis an emphasison the charismatic"gifts of the spirit,"including any combinationof healing,, , and speakingin tongues,as well as an emphasis on emotional and experiential expressionsover and against discursiveand doctrinalones. Moreover,although I am referringprimarily to ProtestantChristianity, in orderto come to termswith the trulygeneral and global characterof the phenomenon,we mustconsider as well the increasing relevanceof the charismaticrenewal taking place within Catholic and even EasternChristianity. When charismaticrevivalism reaches as farand wide as the Coptic church in Ethiopia,the Catholic church in ,and the Orthodox church in Romania,then we can confidentlysay that the phenomenonis a globalChristian one. Strictlyspeaking of course,Pentecostalism originated in the UnitedStates at the beginningof the centurywith dual roots in transplantedAmericanized Methodismand African-AmericanChristianity. In this respect,it was simul- taneously typically American and transnationalfrom the start. Its initial transnationalexpansion followed at firstalso the typicalevangelical missionary pattern.It is revealing,however, that the two oldest Pentecostalchurches in Brazil, the CongregaiioCrista do Brasil (Christian Congregation)and the 436 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION

Assembleiade Deus(Assembly of God), wereestablished respectively in 1910and 1911, thus only a few yearsafter the first AmericanPentecostal churches, by non-Americanmissionaries. The ChristianCongregation of Brasilwas establishedby an Italian immi- grantfrom , who led a typicalsectarian from a local Brazilian Presbyterianchurch. It remaineduntil the 1930sprimarily a Pentecostalchurch of Italianimmigrants in Brazil.The Assemblyof God, the largestPentecostal church in Braziland probablyin the world,at least until very recentlywith approximately8 millionmembers, was founded also via Chicagoby two Swedish pastors. The transnationalcharacter of BrazilianPentecostalism is inscribedin its very beginnings.It arrivedfrom the United States, even before it had taken roots there, and immediatelyassumed an indigenousBrazilian form. In this sense, BrazilianPentecostalism represents a dualprocess of de-territorialization: AmericanChristianity is de-territorializedby takingindigenous roots in Brazil,a Catholic territory, which therefore leads to the de-territorializationof Catholicism from Brazil. This is the most importantconsequence of the explosivegrowth of Pentecostalismthroughout Latin America. Latin America has ceased being Catholic territory,even if Catholicism continues to be for the foreseeablefuture the majorityreligion of all Latin Americancountries. I do not believe that the often fantasticprojections of contemporaryrates of growthof Protestantismin LatinAmerica into the future are realisticor sustainable(Martin 1990; Stoll 1990). Yet, Latin American Pentecostalismis neithera foreignimport nor a local branchof a transnational religiousfirm, as the first misleadinginterpretations tended to suggest,but an authentic Latin Americanproduct. It is not anymoreProtestantism in Latin America,but LatinAmerican . Indeed, I'd ventureto say it is as LatinAmerican as liberationtheology. Both, irrespectiveof their transnational roots or origins, are Latin Americanreligious responses to Latin American conditions.Today, at last, afterso many misguidedone-sided interpretations juxtaposingthe supposedlyradical differences between the two phenomena,we are beginningto see trulyilluminating comparative analyses bringing the two phenomenatogether in all their intriguingsimilarities and complexdifferences (Lehmann1996; Corten 1999). Be it as it may,there can be no doubtabout the local nature,the widespread though not uniformexpansion, and the dynamicgrowth of Latin American Pentecostalism.Protestants now constitute 10 percentof the LatinAmerican population.The proportionsare higher in Chile (over 20 percent)or Guatemala (over 30 percent).The proportionin Brazilis smallerbut it dwarfsevery other LatinAmerican country in absolutenumbers (25 million).In Rio de Janeiroone new evangelical church pops up every day and 90 percent of those are Pentecostal-Charismatic.Today two-thirds of all LatinAmerican Protestants are Pentecostals-Charismatics.Indeed, Latin America, particularlyBrazil, has 2000 PRESIDENTIALADDRESS: RELIGION,MILLENNIUM, & GLOBALIZATION 437 becomein a veryshort time a worldcenter of PentecostalChristianity, where- fromit has now begunto radiatein all directions.7 Yet LatinAmerica is not the only worldcenter. The growthof Pentecostal Christianityin Sub-SaharanAfrica (Ghana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, South Africa) is equallyexplosive. Moreover, African Pentecostalism is as local, indigenous andautonomous as its LatinAmerican counterpart. The samecould be repeated about Pentecostalismin Korea or China. Indeed, as Hexham and Poewe (1994:61) have pointed out, global Pentecostalismmust be seen as "a multi- source diffusion of parallel developments,"encompassing Europe, Africa, America,and Asia. It is trulythe firstglobal religion. Global Pentecostalism is not a religion with a particularterritorial center like Mormonism,which is rapidlygaining worldwide diffusion. Nor is it a transnationalreligious regime like Catholicism,with globalreach. In the wordsof PaulFreston (1997:185), the foremostscholar of BrazilianPentecostalism, "new churches are local expressions of a globalculture, characterized by parallelinvention, complex diffusion and internationalnetworks with multilateralflows." We could also think of it as a global "greatawakening" with multiple, separate,and distinct "burned-over districts." Yet the parallelonly gets us so far, since"the Second " was a nationalphenomenon with multiple focal points. Pentecostalism,by contrast,is simultaneouslyglobal and local. In this respectit is historicallyunique and unprecedented.It is the historicallyfirst andparadigmatic case of a de-centeredand de-territorialized global culture. Buthow can it be de-territorializedand localat the sametime? Because it is an uprootedlocal cultureengaged in spiritualwarfare with its own roots.This is the paradoxof the local characterof Pentecostalism.It cannotbe understoodin the traditionalsense of Catholic ","that is, as the relationship betweenthe catholic,i.e., universaland the local,i.e., particular.It is actuallyits veryopposite. Pentecostalism is not a translocalphenomenon which assumes the differentparticular forms of a localterritorial culture. Nor is it a kindof syncretic symbiosisor symbioticsyncresis of the generaland the local.Pentecostals are, for instance, everywhereleading an unabashedand uncompromisingonslaught againsttheir local cultures:against Afro-Brazilian spirit cults in Brazil;against Vodou in Haiti;against witchcraft in Africa;against shamanism in Korea.In this they are differentfrom both, from the traditionalCatholic patternof generousaccommodation and condescendingtoleration of local folkloreand popularmagical beliefs and practices,so long as these assumetheir subordinate statuswithin the Catholichierarchic cosmos, and from the typicalsober, matter- of-fact, rational, and disenchanting monotheistic attitude of ascetic Protestantismagainst magical or supernaturalforces or beings,by denyingtheir veryexistence. The Pentecostalattitude is neithercompromise nor denial but frontal hand-to-handcombat, what they call "spiritualwarfare." In David

7 Rios de Vida (Life's Rivers), an Argentinian church founded by an Spanish immigrant in 1967 in BuenosAires is expanding in Latin Europeand the United Kingdom,acquiring a transnationalcharacter. 438 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION

Martin's (1996:29-30) words, "when it comes to witchcraft, Pentecostals fight fire with fire throughexorcism," and against the power of spirit cults they invoke the cult of "the most powerful Spirit of all." It is in their very struggle against local culture that they prove how locally rooted they are. Obviously today I could at best only scratch the surfaceof the phenomenon. Similar illustrations could be offered from other branches of Christianity and from the other world religions. The dynamic core of no longer resides in England.The Patriarchof Constantinople has re-emergedas a global center of EasternChristianity. For the world religions globalizationoffers to all the opportunityto become for the first time truly world religions, i.e. global, but it also offers the threat of de-territorialization.The opportunitiesare greatestfor those world religions like and Buddhismwhich alwayshad a transnational structure.The threat is greatest for those embedded in civilizational territories like Islam and Hinduism. But through global immigration they are also becoming global and de-territorialized. Indeed, their diasporas are becoming dynamic centers for their global transformation.Ironically, the diasporareligion par excellence, Judaism, forced to become de-territorializedfrom the Land of Israelmillennia ago, has become tied again to the physical Land of Israel in the very age of globalization.

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