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Sociologyof Religion2001, 62:4 415-441
2000 PresidentialAddress
JoseCasanova*
NewSchoolforSocialResearch
*Directallcorrespondence
to:Dr.JoseCasanova,Sociology New SchoolforSocialResearch,
Department, 65 Fifth
Avenue,NewYork,NY 10003.E-mail:casanova@newschool.edu.
1 The BC dating was first introduced two centuries later around 731
by the Anglo-Saxon monk, the
Venerable Bede.
415
416 SOCIOLOGY
OFRELIGION
2 The
concept of century as a one hundred year calendar unit emerged first around 1300 and became
firmlyestablished in its secularusageonly in the 16th century.The year 1700 marksthe first public turn of the
century celebration in Europe, a practice which became increasinglywidespreadand globalized in the next
three centuries (Schwartz1990;Gould 1997).
2000PRESIDENTIAL
ADDRESS:RELIGION, & GLOBALIZATION419
MILLENNIUM,
Catholic Church is well known. It was consolidated in the fourth century in its
conflict with the North African millennialist Donatist sect.3 St. Jerome set the
basisfor Catholic amillennialismby deridingthe idea of a thousandyearsearthly
kingdom of God as a fable and St. Augustine gave it the standard definitive
form. Thereafter,the Catholic Church rejected the vision of a Kingdomof God
on earth as well as the idle numerical millennial calculations. In other words,
the Kingdom of God was both otherworldlyand eternal and thus unrelated to
the saeculum,to the secularworldand the secularage.
The Vatican aggiornamento of the 60s altered radically the traditional
Catholic position by embracing the saeculum, that is, the modern secular age
and the modern secularworld. In its temporaldimension, the legitimacy of the
modern age entails the acceptance of the principle of historicity, the continuous
revelation of God's plans of salvation in and through history, and thus the
church'sobligation to discernprophetically"the signs of the times."In its spatial
dimension this processof internalsecularizationentails an innerworldlyreorien-
tation. From now on, action on behalf of peace and justice and participationin
the transformationof the world will become not an added but a constitutive
dimension of the church'sdivine mission. This innerworldlyhistoricist reorien-
tation has led Catholicism to embrace a progressiveview of history to such an
extent that Catholicism may be today the most post-millennialist of all major
Christian denominations. Considering that traditional Catholicism had been
characterizedby a negative philosophy of history which viewed the modern age
as a concatenation of relatedheresies from Protestantismto atheist communism,
the reversalis quite remarkable.
This general Catholic reorientation was reinforced and shaped in a parti-
cular direction by the personal millennialism of the present Pope John Paul II,
who despite his advanced age and fragile health devoted himself with amazing
vigor to the year-long millennial celebrations, he carefully prepared and
anxiously anticipated for years.The very fact that he was alive to celebrate the
special Jubilee year 2000, he and many Catholics interpretedas a clear sign of
divine grace and as confirmationof his papal mission.4
3 EmperorConstantine, even before his baptism, used the repressive power of the state to enforce
church unity. It was the first time that state authority was used to repressa dissenting movement within
Christianity, thus setting a fateful precedentof state repressionagainst millennial groupsand establishingthe
model of church in the Weberian sense, as an institution claiming the monopoly of the means of grace over a
territory.The reaction of the Donatistswas fraughtwith equally fatefulprecedents.They embracedmartyrdom
proudly,frequently through self-immolationby fire, and redirectedthe apocalyptic invectives of the Book of
Revelation against the firstChristianemperor,"the Antichrist,"and against the Pope and Roman church, "the
whore of Babylon,"establishing images which have endured with every millennialist sect until the present.
The more Roman the Christian church became, the more it had to shed its millennialism and the anti-
imperialanti-Romanvitriolic of the Apocalypse.
4 The Catholic traditionof Jubileeyearsgoes back to 1300AD, when Pope Boniface VIII issuedthe bull
Antiquorum,granting indulgences to those who visited the main Roman basilicas during the year in
commemorationof the century past and in celebration of the new age to come. It marked,therefore, the first
celebration of the end of a Christian century. By the end of the 15th century the custom of celebrating a
2000 PRESIDENTIALADDRESS:RELIGION,MILLENNIUM,& GLOBALIZATION 421
GLOBALIZATION?
Globalizationand Religion
Now let's bring religion back in! Obviously, I am not going to try to discuss
the different ways in which globalization may affect religion or vice versa. For
instance, I am not going to touch upon the kind of issues which have been the
424 OFRELIGION
SOCIOLOGY
ChurchandState
ChurchandNationas Imagined
Communities
on Secularization
Excursus
It should be evident, I hope, that therein lies the key to the radical
secularization of ChristianEurope.Do not worry!I am not goingto rehashthe
fruitlesssecularizationdebatebetweenEuropeansand Americansall overagain
(Bruce 1992). But allow me a briefexcursuswhich is relatedto our topic at
hand, religion and globalization.After all, the relative validity of the two
theorieswill be measuredeventuallynot by how muchthey areableto account
for what happensto religion in Europeor the United States, but for what
happensto religionin the restof-theworld.We have reachedan impassein the
debate.I say we, becauseI am caughtin the middleurgingboth sidesto take
each other'sargumentsmoreseriouslyin orderto learnfromthe validpointsand
the blind spots in both positions(Casanova1994). The traditionalEuropean
theoryof secularization, whichpostulatesa structurallink betweensocialdiffer-
entiationand religiousdecline,offersa relativelyplausibleaccountof European
developments,but is unableor unwillingto takeseriously,muchless to explain
the surprisingvitality and extreme pluralismof denominationalforms of
salvationreligionin America,notwithstanding the pronouncedsecularization of
state and society (Casanova2001). What Stephen Warner (1993) has called
"theemergingAmericanparadigm" turnsthe orthodoxmodelof secularization
on its head and uses the Americanevidenceto postulatean equallystructural
relationshipbetweendisestablishment, an open, free, competitive,and plural-
istic religiousmarket,and high levels of individualreligiosity.Low levels of
religiosityin Europeought to be explained,accordingly,by the persistenceof
eitherestablishment or of highlyregulatedmonopolisticor oligopolisticreligious
markets(Caplow1985;Starkand lannaccone1994;Finke 1997). But as Steve
Bruce(2000) has shownconvincingly,internalcomparativeevidencewithin
Europesimply does not supportthe basic tenets of the Americantheory.
Monopolisticsituationsin Polandand Irelandare linked to persistentlyhigh
levels of religiosity,while increasingliberalizationand state deregulationelse-
whereareoften accompaniedby persistentratesof religiousdecline.Thus, the
impasse.The orthodox model worksrelatively well for Europebut not for
America,the Americanparadigmworksfor the U.S. but not for Europe.The
supplysidetheoryof religionneedsto explainwhythereis no greaterindividual
demandfor religioussalvationin Europein the face of open free marketsand,
even moreso, why religioussuppliers,and there have been plentyof religious
entrepreneurswho have failed lately in Western Europe,seem unable to gener-
ate or mobilizegreaterreligiousdemand.The notion of a constantreligious
demandor of a constantdemandforsupernatural is a-historical,a-
compensators
sociological,andflies in the faceof European
facts.
2000PRESIDENTIAL
ADDRESS:RELIGION, & GLOBALIZATION427
MILLENNIUM,
Communities,
Imagined andGlobalization
Religions,
Territorialization, andGlobalCivilSociety
Civilizations,
imaginedcommunity.Individualandcollectiveidentitiesarenecessarilyplural,
they need an other to becomereflexivelyawareof theirown particularity and
singularity. The end-result of the of
process globalization, much less its telos, is
unlikely to be one world government, one world society, one single global
community.Globalcivil society is a transnationalspace,a transnationalnet-
work of associations,movements,organizations,and communicationsthat
transcendsthe territorialnation-state,but it is not itselfa territoriallyorganized
societyor domain.
None of you, I suppose,expectsthe formationof one singleglobalreligion.
The religion of humanity, its sacralization,and the cult of the individual
announcedby the foundingfathersof sociology,by Saint-Simon,by Comte,by
Durkheimhas indeedarrived(Casanova2000). The triumphand the global
expansionof human rightsdoctrinesand movementsat the end of the 20th
centuryseemsto confirmat leastpartof their visions.But they werewrongin
assumingthat the new religionof humanitywouldsooneror laterreplacethe old
theocentricreligions,that, in Durkheim's(1965:475)words,"theold godswere
dying while the new ones had not yet been born." What none of the
Enlightenmentprophetsand positivistsociologistscouldhave anticipatedwas
that,paradoxically, the old godsandthe old religionsweregoingto gainnew life
by becoming the carriers of humanity.
of the processof sacralization
Globalizationfacilitates the return of the old civilizations and world
religionsnot only as units of analysisbut as significantculturalsystemsand as
imaginedcommunities,overlappingand at times in competition with the
imaginednationalcommunities.Nationswill continueto be, forthe foreseeable
future,relevant imaginedcommunitiesand carriersof collective identities
withinthis globalspace,but local and transnationalidentities,particularly reli-
gious ones, are likelyto become ever more prominent. While new transnational
imaginedcommunitieswill emerge,the mostrelevantones arelikelyto be once
againthe old civilizationsand worldreligions.Thereinlies the meritof Samuel
Huntington's(1996) thesis "the clash of civilizations,"in recognizingthe
increasingrelevanceof culturalsystemsandcivilizationsforworldpolitics.The
thesis has been widely and rightlycriticized,most frequentlyfor its "essen-
tialism"andfor its undilutedWest-centrichegemonicvision(Huntington1996;
Riesebrodt2000). But in my view,whereHuntingtonis particularly wrongis in
of
his geo-politicalconception civilizations as units
territorial akin to nation-
states and superpowers,which leadshim to anticipatefutureglobal conflicts
along civilizationalfault lines. The analysismissesthe fact that globalization
representsnot only a great opportunityfor the old civilizationsand world
religionsto freethemselvesfromthe straightjacketof the nation-state,to regain
theirtransnational dimensionsandtheirleadingrolesin the globalcenterstage.
Globalizationalso representsa great threat insofar as it implies the de-
territorializationof all culturalsystems.Globalizationthreatensto dissolvethe
intrinsiclinkbetweensacredtime,sacredspaceandsacredpeoplecommonto all
2000PRESIDENTIAL
ADDRESS:
RELIGION, & GLOBALIZATION431
MILLENNIUM,
Transnational
Catholicism
6 At the end of World War II two-thirdsof all cardinalswere still Italian. The College of Cardinalsthat
elected the first non-Italian pope in fourcenturies alreadyhad a much more global representation:27 Italians,
29 other Europeans,12 Africans, 13 Asians, 11 North Americans, 19 Latin Americans.John Paul II himself
has now nominated 166 cardinals - more than any other pope in history. Forty one percent of the 135
cardinals presently eligible to vote for the next pope are from the third world. The fact that there is even
speculationthat the next pope may be African indicateshow farand how fast the church has changed.
434 SOCIOLOGY
OFRELIGION
kinds,whichcrisscross nationsandworldregions,oftenbypassingRome.Indeed,
throughout the century one can observe an amazing resurgenceof the
transnationaldimensionsof medievalCatholicismwhichforcenturieshad been
recessiveor dormant:not only papalsupremacyand the centralizationof the
church'sgovernment,as well as the convocationof ecumenicalcouncilsalready
mentioned,but alsotransnational religiouscadres,transnationalreligiousmove-
ments, transnational schools,centersof learningand networks,and
intellectual
transnationalcenters of pilgrimageand internationalencounters(Casanova
1997).
Let me give two anecdotalillustrationsof the potentialimplicationsof this
process.In his last visit to Mexico in 1999, Pope John Paul II gatheredthe
bishops of all the Americas, north and south, consecratedOur Lady of
Guadalupeas the Virginof all the Americas,and urgedthem to ceaseviewing
themselvesas nationalCatholicchurchesand to becomeone single American
Catholic church. In a lecture at the Libraryof Congressin 2000, Catholic
andtheMillennium,
Christianity FrancisCardinalGeorgeofferedan equallyglobal
vision:
GlobalPentecostalism
7 Rios de Vida (Life's Rivers), an Argentinian church founded by an Spanish immigrant in 1967 in
BuenosAires is expanding in Latin Europeand the United Kingdom,acquiringa transnationalcharacter.
438 SOCIOLOGY
OFRELIGION
REFERENCES