Holy Ignorance: When Religion and Culture Part Ways [Hardcover]

Holy Ignorance is an excellent book. Not an easy read; in part, because of its original French academic writing style, in part, because of the rather mechanical translation, and, in part, because it forces the reader to think slowly and systematically. The sheer amount of information and the complex interrelationship between the various described phenomena makes understanding a slow process. The importance of the author's central thesis of the separation of religion and culture (public life) cannot be underestimated, nor can the complex social forms that manifest when institutional religion is decoupled from culture. The author's range of subjects is awe inspiring. Taking on such on wide and intricate religious subjects such as Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Judaism, as well as, difficult concepts such as secularism, ethnicity, and "nationality," he is equally comfortable delineating small groups like the Syriacs or Hebrew Catholics (an interesting political ploy by the late Pope, John Paul II).
The author's central thesis of the separation of religion and culture leads to the proposal that fundamentalism is very much a product of the triumph of secular culture in which an attempt is made to create a "pure" religion to counteract the seeming negative characteristics of secular life. Most often this impulse is devoid of any serious knowledge/acceptance of the religion in question, and is an emotional reaction to a specific social reality--hence the term "holy ignorance." A religion decoupled from culture essentially becomes a consumer product.
The separation of religion from culture and place (territory) on one hand, creates a global virtual community, on the other hand, makes the passing-on of this global religion to the next generation very difficult.
A book of the range and complexity of Holy Ignorance inevitable will have errors. Some errors are minor, but irritating, such as the misspelling of Russian term inorodtsy (foreign-born), others are more serious, such as neglecting to note that the Constitution of the Russian Federation recognized Judaism as one of the traditional religions of the Russian state. In my view, however, this is probably less likely the result of the author's lack of knowledge then the policy of hiring non-knowledgeable editors by Columbia Press.

Although the book is a tedious read because of its convoluted sentences, the author's arguments are supported with an excellent grasp of history in a variety of cultures. The author's central thesis is the separation of religion and culture, a monumental and praiseworthy task. As I followed the development of the thesis, I was impressed with the excellent job the author did of debunking religious fundamentalism or holy ignorance, especially Christian fundamentalism in the United States and Muslim fundamentalism in the Middle East. Moreover, I was impressed with the job he did of debunking arguments in support of multiculturalism, arguing that it is absurd to claim that cultures are merely alternative life styles and cannot be judged in terms of which one, or ones, among them do a better job than the others of providing people with the trappings of basic human dignity. As an economist, I applaud the author's treatment of religion as a product with a market for it like any other product--once territorial and now global. His examples provide support for his argument that suppliers of religion increasingly cater to demand, not simply in terms of packaging but in terms of substance. In short, demand creates its own supply, a principle put forth in economics by John Maynard Keynes. I enjoyed reading the book very much. It's uplifting to think about things that people with absolute truth consider unthinkable.

When halal turkeys sell for Thanksgiving, "Happy Holidays" drowns out "Merry Christmas," Easter egg hunts replace Mass celebrating the Resurrection, and sacred Catholic terms in Quebec serve only as swear words, culture has parted ways with religion. French professor Olivier Roy built his career analyzing Islam's political aspects, and in this new study, he broadens his view to also investigate Christian and Jewish reactions (with glances at Hindu and Buddhist contexts) to secularization. While the dense results in awkward prose, translated (from the 2008 French original) by Ros Schwartz, slow down any reader of this brief book, they deserve attention for Roy's explanations of what happens when multiculturalism and diversity produce a "holy ignorance" where an anti-intellectual reaction to modernization opposes a world of many opposed or divergent believers, or of none.

Religious advocates may boast of a comeback, but Roy labels this resurgence as a transformation. Even if religions appear more visible now, they are fading. More people are not returning to a familial religion, for many of their recent ancestors have already abandoned its practices. Rather, believers often come as converts or born-agains, and they may demand sudden acceptance by a religious community from which the individual seeker has been estranged. This "unsaid" culture, that of subtle customs and unspoken norms, may appear alien to the eager newcomer. Those who were raised within a religion they may follow to greater or lesser degree, casually as well as fervently, may disdain the bumptious aggression of the novice who demands too loudly to be accepted as genuine. Here, Roy shows, the cultural aspects have been, for many discontented seculars who wish to reconnect with religion, already attenuated.

Four reactions define historic and current responses by religion as it seeks to survive within its milieu. First, deculturation occurs when Christians try to wipe out indigenous faiths, or when orthodox Islam dominates the Indian subcontinent. Acculturation happens when the Jews of the Enlightenment adapt mainstream European values, or as India's natives integrate Christian or Islamic influences. Inculturation places liberation theology at the center of Latin American's indigenous ideologies. Finally, exculturation marks the Catholic or evangelical reactions we witness, as these powers fight a rearguard action against a worldly set of values now ascendant.

Religious defenders react in three ways. First, they may regard the competing culture as "profane," and look down upon it. The ultra-orthodox Jewish man may speak to God in Hebrew and to his family in Yiddish; the religious signifier separates from the everyday means of communication. Next, the religious movement may see the state as "secular," and regard it as parallel in function, as in the model of the First Amendment's separation of powers. The third approach treats the secular society as did the early Christians that of Rome: as the "pagan" enemy.

Two-thirds of this text explores cultural dimensions; the last third expands into globalization. Acculturation and deculturation both accelerate, as these two processes become more systematic, and more generalized. Acculturation expects that the dominant model imposes itself on a defeated group, which reacts by integrating or resisting. The free-market model counters that individuals choose now their affiliation, freed from territory or culture in which they were raised, and aided by the Net, tv, and media.

The professor concludes that "religion has lost its original and perhaps incestuous link with culture." Family life alters as individual choice determines partnerships. Self-realization, for converts alongside those who have grown up guided by a doctrine's decrees, trumps "natural law." Religions, for Roy, will continue to drift away from a uniform global culture even as their followers find themselves on archipelagos, in real or virtual spaces within but apart from the rest of the world.