Religion and the Crisis of the Self

Secularization: The crisis as I see it

According to Kirwan (2012) the essential crisis in modern spirituality is the secular nature of modern political life, which demands a split between religious and civic existence. This is evident both on the right and on the left, although this is often framed as a liberal versus conservative issue. From a current sociological point-of-view, there seems to be increasing polarization both in politics and in religion. Conservatives complain about the need to provide birth control as part of company healthcare plans; inclusive concepts of marriage; and the teaching of evolution in schools. Liberal believers decry what they see as too much emphasis on material versus spiritual values in modern culture and policy. Despite the separation between church and state within the Constitution's Establishment Clause, people do not compartmentalize their religion away from their civic souls when entering the ballot box. But Kirwan sees the world crying out for the unique theological insights only meaningful religious debate can provide. Totalitarian capitalism, he states, has "become a religion," and even contemporary Christians accept the progressive narrative of "humanity moving into an optimistic future; one which will transcend the suffering of the past and present" (Kirwan, 2012, pp. 4-5). All crises are seen as unique, there is no moral connection made between past in present and the focus remains on what is right to do in the short-term rather than taking a long-term view. The current debate about religion in political life has become stale.

Kirwan cites Metz's critique of postmodernism as immaturity as evidence that people today are ignoring their responsibility of being a full subject, in other words that people are compartmentalizing their morals and religion using the fragmentation of the self as a kind of excuse for shying away from the moral demands in front of them such as the costs of their way of life to others (Kirwan, 2012, p.5). Sweeney (2008) further argues that both modern sociology and science are inadequate to address the needs of religion, given that sociology reduces religion to a historical curiosity rather than a source of truth. The paradigm of science is inadequate to address the types of moral knowing called upon in a religious understanding of the world. Secularized sociology may provide some interesting reflections on, for example, how the Judeo-Christian tradition has influenced our current system of ethics but it is merely explanatory when it fulfills such functions. "Religion's future must remain opaque to the sociological gaze," Sweeney insists; in other words, it must offer another dimension of analysis to justify its existence versus being reduced to a mere phenomenon to be studied (Kirwan, 2012, p.22).

There are clearly political movements which are striving to question how "the personal autonomy which our culture urges them to nurture and celebrate is less extensive and more problematic than they are led to believe" (Kirwan, 2012, p.10). For example, radical environmentalism in the name of respecting the planet insists upon de-centering the human subject and questioning the fixation upon self-gratification through materialism. Feminist and multicultural theory has also radically critiqued the concept of an autonomous self as the moral ideal and stressed the need for a sense of responsibility and connection to others. This suggests that sociological and critical theory can support Sweeney's project, even when the values it champions are not explicitly religious. The notion that prayer strengthens the self and "meditation 'reminds us of ourselves'" and works to counteract the social forces which render us into "fragile and endangered" subjects rather than consequential actors is also reflected in the idea that intense self-criticism of our current value system is needed to sustain human life from an external as well as an internal perspective (Kirwan, 2012, p.7).