Humiliation and the Ultimate Altar Call

In his book, The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman contrasts the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001 with the tearing down of the Berlin Wall on 11/9/1989 One action was motivated by the fear of change and the other was motivated by the pursuit of change. Friedman makes the point that those responsible for 9/11 and the ongoing acts of terror around the world tap into a prevailing sense of humiliation in young Muslim men that is so strong that these young men are willing to become suicide bombers. This humiliation is fueled by the feelings of frustration and powerlessness that comes with the reality that 26% of unemployed men around the world between the ages of fifteen to twenty-four are in the Middle East and North Africa. There is little hope for improvement when the geo-political climate in this region is not conducive to the investment necessary to create new industry and jobs.

Friedman writes, "When you take the economic and political backwardness of much of the Arab-Muslim world today, add its past grandeur and self-image of religious superiority, and combine it with the discrimination and alienation these Arab-Muslim males face when they leave home and move to Europe, or when they grow up in Europe, you have one powerful cocktail of rage" (p. 400).

This connection with religious affiliation and humiliation struck a chord with me. Being an educated white male in America has spared me from the levels of humiliation that many people experience every day. However, I have very strong memories of humiliating experiences during the worship services of my youth. Memories of being held hostage by preachers who gave fire and brimstone sermons, then made the congregation stand through multiple verses of "Just As I Am" until one or more persons became so burdened with guilt and fear that they would step out of the pew and kneel at the altar in a catharsis of body sobs and tears in front of the whole congregation. It was access to education that empowered me to visualize and create a different reality for myself.

It seems to me that the final journey of the suicide bomber is the ultimate trip to the altar and the ultimate humiliation of an individual who is not able to visualize and create a different reality. It also seems to me that one factor that resists or prevents the visualization of a different reality is the self-image of religious superiority that Friedman mentions. The humiliated person takes comfort in the humiliation, interprets it as a trial through which they have successfully passed and now will reap the rewards of having submitted themselves to the humiliating experience. I well remember the smug feeling of knowing that I had been "born again" and being truly saved when so many other so-called Christians were only fooling themselves because theirs was an easy faith that did not require such public humiliation.

I am struck by the difference in the words "humbleness", defined as "marked by meekness or modesty; not arrogant or prideful" and "humiliation", defined as "an instance in which you are caused to lose your prestige or self-respect". It seems to me that true religion should be about the former rather than the latter. Humbleness is motivated by the power of 11/9 and humiliation is used by those motivated by the power of 9/11.

Fear leads us to build up walls to divide us. Humbleness enables us to tear down the walls so that fear no longer has a place to hide.

The complexity of religion and authoritarianism

In my last posting, I made the statement that religion is based on fear and I have fretted ever since over that being too simplistic of a statement. Thankfully, I came across a journal article that has helped to clarify things a bit for me by demonstrating the challenge of understanding the affects of religion.

In the September 2007 issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Paul Wink, Michele Dillon, and Adrienne Prettyman report on their findings of their study contrasting “the relation of church-centered religiousness and spiritual seeking to authoritarianism” (Religiousness, Spiritual Seeking, and Authoritarianism: Findings from a Longitudinal Study, pp. 321-335).

Informants in the study scoring high on the religiousness scale indicated that

“institutionalized religion or church-centered religious beliefs and practices played a central role in [their] life, demonstrated by belief in God, an afterlife, and prayer, and/or frequent attendance (once a week or more) at a traditional place of worship” (p. 326).

Informants scoring high on the spiritual seeking scale indicated that

“noninstitutionalized religion or nonchurch-centered religious beliefs and practices played a central role in [their] life” and “typically reported a sense of sacred connectedness with God, a higher power, or nature and systematically engaged in intentional spiritual practices on a regular basis (e.g., meditation, Shamanistic journeying, centering, or contemplative prayer)” (p. 326).

The findings of the study confirm previous studies that indicate “that religiousness (beliefs and practices) is a better predictor of authoritarianism that denomination” and that church attendance and participation is a better predictor of authoritarianism than denominational affiliation. Wink, Dillon, and Prettyman conclude, “That there is something specific to being religious that predicts authoritarianism above and beyond the effects of religious conservatism, and independent of sociodemographic and personality characteristics” (p. 331). I was also very intrigued with their finding that “religious questing and spiritual seeking acts as a suppressant of authoritarianism” (p. 332)

This made me think of the informant for my doctoral dissertation. He described himself as very conservative when it comes to the authority of Scripture and articulated that the authority of Scripture takes precedence over the authority of church or human. It was probably my experience with the informant that made me most fretful over my statement about religion being based on fear for he was anything but fearful. Rather, this article has helped me to understand that he is on a religious quest and is a spiritual seeker even while being very much a part of institutionalized religion. So in some ways, the complexity of this issue has increased along with the clarification.