Alan Wolfe has written
yet another insightful article, which I usually enjoy. But I always feel dishearten that obvious points (at least to me) are lost in these sort of debates.
One side harps on the unique insight of the 'Insider'. The other side on the objectivity of the 'Outsider'. Who talks on the dynamic nature of it -- the fact that many of us in the passage of life change our position, and this has a very insightful and objective view on religion and secularity.
Of course, it happens both ways, and what we have escaped from -- the particular type of religion or secular experience -- also colours our view. Now, note that I wrote "c-o-l-o-u-r-s", not "colors". Not a problem with the spell checker, but an indication that the view here comes from outside of the United States.
Wolfe is writing on "American religion", which is fair enough, but the question doesn't seem to register with insiders -- both religious and secular -- that the phrase has a very different meaning to us outsiders, geographically speaking.
What I assume insiders are discussing is the American experience of religion and its contrasts within the nation. The questions are shape by notions of national identity. But here is the broader picture. "American religion" to those outside the United States -- that is, to those not immediately concerned with the question of American identity -- speaks of either international or global trends, or the reshaping and tensions within our non-American cultural experience.
I could be wrong, but I put forth a suggestion that the American debate on insider-outsider gets too caught up in the limited conception of "American religion". These ideas can too easily get caught up in arguments about cultural distinctiveness and the uniqueness of national identity without thinking about the relative fluidity of such concepts for insiders and outsiders.
I produced Ph.D. thesis ten years ago examining the American influence on Protestant belief and practice, within one of our Australian states (Queensland) in the period 1945 to 1985. It came at the end of a failed theological wave of opinion to reshape Christianity in the cultural language and perspective of the traditional national myths. A dismal failure! What instead transpired was a greater Americanization of religious practises than I had initially described in the Ph.D thesis. This was one chief reason why I became an outsider, in terms of belief. For sure there are many examples of religion shaping cultural practice, but my own survey of the history of ideas, particularly through Isaiah Berlin's value pluralism, convinced me that the 'power of ideas' were no longer coming from religion but from the secular landscape.
From outside of American religion, you can see that such a creature, or abstract conception, is more a cultural phenomena than an expression of some clearly understood set of religious doctrines. Alan Wolfe, however, is right -- the views from both sides, and also from those who have moved in-between (ideologically and geographically) are needed.
Finally I must add that Wolfe's words, "Perhaps they need an outsider to remind them of the costs they pay", is for me very profound. For every choice, there is some cost, and there has been a cost for me moving from being an insider to an outsider. This why the outsider needs to remind the insider of the cost she or he has to pay.
Neville.
