Trends in Post-modern Religion

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H. Connor Moss

Professor Dale Wright

Rels 360: Philosophy of Religion

December 13, 2012

Trends in Post-modern Religion

It is clear that in the last one hundred years our studies and understandings of the

world around us have changed drastically. As we emerge from the modern era into

something else, an as-yet-unnamed transitional period, a redefining of our

understandings, certain trends have dominated in the fields of religion and philosophy.

Following Nietzsches death of God, philosophers have increasingly moved towards an

anti-essentialist approach to their study of the world. In this approach, we are left to elect

morals and religious beliefs that necessarily will only serve us instrumentally serving

the specific context we are in but lacking inherent, objective worth. In a schismatic,

pluralist society with many different contextual approaches to belief, the existence of an

alternative makes each context fragile.1 Therefore the pluralization of religious myths

and the secularization of our modern culture have led to a situation where essentialism is

no longer plausible there can be no single correct approach to religious devotion, but a

multitude of instrumentally useful ones.

Because of the many varying approaches to religion, we can no longer think of

religion as holding absolute, metaphysical truth. Some religious groups have moved

towards a more private, individual sense of religion in which there are many paths to

truth, as opposed to one correct path. As explained by Richard Rorty, this trend can be

characterized as the anti-clerical approach to religion, where people focus on private1 Charles Taylor, p. 47.


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Moss3relatively privatized realms of religious devotion we find more anti-clericalism, while in

the public, organized realms of religion we find an emphasis on absolutism and

essentialism in belief.

As a post-modern religious practice emerges in the more private, tolerant realms

of religion we find the possibility of a new approach to truth and morals which can be

characterized as the aestheticist attitude. As described by Rorty, the aestheticist approach

can be seen as a shift away from the essentialist attitude that if a belief is true,

everybody ought to share it2. The beauty of a post-Nietzsche religious pursuit is that

philosophers no longer accept Kants pejorative characterization of aesthetics.

3

No longer

is religious and philosophical relativism demoted to merely a matter of taste for there is

nothing mere about aesthetics. As Nietzsche states in hisBirth of Tragedy, only as an

aesthetic phenomenon are existence and the world justified.4

Aestheticism means that

any activity is justified as meaningful to the extent that it brings perceived meaning to the

religious devotee. In this way dance, music, art, and other expressions of creativity and

aestheticism become important new ways to live religiously and to create and experience

meaning in ones life.

An aesthetic religious practice opens the doors for a blossoming of a new

approach to religion and God, which is spurred on by the secularization and privatization

of religious practice. An anti-clerical, privatized religious practice, in which

philosophical and religious truth are (merely) instrumentalopens the doors to radically

new types of prayer, radically new relations with God and the public sphere, and a radical

new Religion. The importance of such a movement is that it removes religious belief

2 Richard Rorty, Anti-clericalism and atheism, p. 40.3 Richard Rorty, p. 38.4 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy,p. 38.


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Moss4from the public sphere and removes the notion that beliefs need to hold true for every

member of society. As Rorty notes, anti-clericalism is a political view, not an

epistemological or metaphysical one.5

That is to say, with an anti-clerical, aestheticist

approach to religion, beliefs are removed from the political and the public, instead what

you believe is a matter of taste or opinion, and others may hold radically different tastes.

By removing the metaphysical aspect of religious belief, we can open the door to a

multiplicity of individual paths to religious devotion, as there is no longer a single correct

path to God.

As opposed to the anti-clericalists who seek justification in the aesthetic and

instrumental approach to religion, another group of hard-line believers react against

organized religion by refuting their claims with an essentialism of their own. These are

the atheists, whom I am arguing are the latest form of essentialistm in modern times.

Atheism is just as much a faith as any of the theisms they are reacting against, as George

W. Bush aptly pointed out, atheism is a faith because it is subject to neither

confirmation nor refutation by means of argument or evidence.6 That is to say, Atheism

takes an absolutist stance (that their belief is universalrather than merely instrumental)

and claims supremacy over all other faiths. Atheism is no more justified than

Christianity, Judaism, or any others in its claim to universality, however it has an edge

over classical religious traditions that grant it popularity, especially among the younger

generations. This is the fact that while (specifically clerical, essentialist) Religion claims

its truth through metaphysical and theological justification, atheism claims the basis of its

truth in the rock-solid ground of epistemology and science. Because of the perceived

5 Richard Rorty, p. 39.6 Richard Rorty, p. 39.


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Moss5universality of epistemological characterizations of the physical world, as evidenced by

the rise of the scientific image and materialism, atheism claims its truth supersedes the

metaphysical justification of traditional religious practice.

I posit that the essentialist claims of epistemology and atheism are unfounded, and

that epistemology is only one of many conflicting representations of experienced reality

that has no more inherent universal value than the metaphysical justifications of religion.

Materialism, however, is taken as the manifest image as given to us by science, and is

considered absolutely true in many realms of our culture. There is no more striking

evidence of the supremacy of epistemological understandings of reality than in the

political sphere. In our current times religion is merely symbolic in the political realm.

Mitt Romney flaunts his Mormonism and Barack Obama assures his Catholicism merely

as a side note, as an instrumentally true fact that has no effect on his choices in the oval

office. We elect politicians who are symbolically Christian, but strictly rational and

materialist in their understandings of real world problems. We want a president who

believes in God on Sunday, but believes in science and materialism Monday through

Friday. This is due to the reliance on science as the only source of unbiased, universal

truth in our society. However, there is nothing universal nor essential about

epistemological claims at truth. Epistemology, is simply one form of a Closed World

System, which justifies its claims at truth internally, that is by means of its own

arguments, and has led to the latest form of essentialism under the guise of a neutral

approach to reality.

Charles Taylor describes a Closed World System as a set of beliefs or a system of

belief which sets up certain perspectives and approaches to reality that close it off from


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Moss6any alternative viewpoint, including the possibility of transcendence (vertical) out of the

system, or alternative (horizontal) refutations of the belief. CWSs make claims at

neutrality and universality by justifying themselves through their own set of beliefs.

CWSs such as modern epistemology is manufactured in a way that is meant to naturalize

a certain point of view. Epistemic readings of reality are presented as a neutral approach

to reality by setting up priority relationships about the nature of the world. Closed World

Systems assume certain hierarchies about the nature of self and its relation to the world,

and in doing this (intentionally or unintentionally) they color the description of reality to

highlight certain aspects and relationships.

7

By naturalizing the perspective of

materialism, the CWS of science and modern epistemology closes itself off to criticism

and alternatives. However, despite epistemologys claim at essential, universal

importance, such a system is necessarily only an instrumental, contextually true

interpretation of reality which only serves us in particular areas of study.

The problem with the atheist-materialist manifest image is that it claims neutrality

and therefore universality by its self-reinforcing Closed World System. In truth, however,

no CWS or approach to interpreting experience can claim a shred of neutrality. The

problem with the perceived neutrality of any CWS is that any set of values (especially the

epistemic, materialist values) comes about as the realization of an underlying ethic or

theoretical justification. In the example of epistemology as a belief system, its view on

things is a result of the underlying ethic of the independent, disengaged subject,

reflexively controlling his own thought processes8. In the formation of a CWS, certain

values and ethics give rise to the entire structure of beliefs that ground the system of

7 Charles Taylor, p. 51.7 Charles Taylor, p. 51.


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Moss7thought. In other words there can be no neutral, universal approach to reality. We

inevitably set up hierarchical binaries based on our historical conditioning and these

hierarchies necessarily prioritize a certain viewpoint while marginalizing another. In a

historicist view of reality there can be no neutral conceptual posture, and to claim one is

dangerous because it elects certain, necessarily instrumental values as universal,

essential, inherent values. Therefore it is important to recognize the relative and tentative

roots of any system of thought, including the CWS of epistemologically defended

atheism.

The problem with claiming instrumental values as universal ones becomes readily

apparent when examining religion in a post-modern world. Any essentialist stance,

including atheism, necessarily marginalizes its alternatives. This means is that if a

religion (or atheism) is a belief in metaphysical absolutism, then it the religion must be

true for everyone, and it is the only correct way to live. This marginalizes the more

private, anti-clerical aestheticist approach to religion as described earlier, and rules out

other possibilities and interpretations of reality. A CWS that is built to naturalize a certain

set of beliefs about reality can succeed in presenting those beliefs in an essentialist light,

as if they are universally true. However, such an attitude snuffs out the blossoming

possibility of new approaches to religion and prayer as exemplified by the aesthetic

approach. An anti-clerical approach shies away from essentialism, and recognizes the

necessarily relativist, instrumental truth of any system of thought. In order to maintain

this plurality of religious practice we must recognize that instrumental, relativist, and

aesthetic are no longer pejoratives. These beliefs that recognize their shaky ground are


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Moss8the most forward moving because they accept a multitude of paths to progress in the

future.

It is in this way that the Closed World System of epistemologically justified

atheism can be thought of as a metaphysical claim. Atheism is popular in its claim to

universality and essential importance because we still associate absolute,objective, and

inherentas superior to contextual, relative, and instrumental. Atheism claims neutrality,

however this neutrality is, as Rorty calls it bogus. There is no neutral approach to

reality; each CWS naturalizes a certain theoretical background by reinforcing the

underlying ethic of the system of belief. In order to keep an open mind to progressive

aestheticist approaches to religion we must recognize the merely contextual approach of

any CWS, and shed the pejorative associations to an instrumental, relativist approach to

religion.

The problem with any essentialism, including atheism or fundamentalist

organized religion is that by claiming metaphysical justification they imply that everyone

must agree with their interpretation of reality. In such a schismatic, cosmopolitan society

as the United States, we cannot afford such a simplistic, universal account of things. We

must recognize that each truth and each belief is a instrumentally true for certain people

only in the specific context it is intended to serve what works for one group of people

will not necessarily work for another. The anti-clerical approach to religion is a more

progressive and forward-looking stance because it removes religious belief from the

realm of public and political debate. A post-modern approach to religion implies that

there are an unlimited number of ways to live; each person will find their own personal


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Moss9path that will be instrumentally important to their specific lives, but will necessarily lack

essential truth.


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Moss10Works Cited

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. The Birth of Tragedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2000.

Rorty, Richard. Anti-clericalism and atheism.Religion after Metaphysics. Ed. Mark

A. Wrathall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 37 46.

Taylor, Charles. Closed world structures.Religion after Metaphysics. Ed. Mark A.

Wrathall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 47 68.

Documents

Trends in Post-modern Religion