Enseñanza de las ciencias y representaciones sociales

As we see it, at the end of this life, because we do believe that there‘s only one shot at it, we will be judged by God for what we have accomplished on earth (Regent University employee Madelyn Parris, interview with author, December 6, 2006).

Just tell me what I have to do to not come back (attendee at an ARE conference on breaking the karmic cycle of reincarnation, author‘s notes, July 22, 2006).

Looking Towards the Political Future

This conclusion, as the title implies, is more of an intermission, as I come to the end of the dissertation but feel there is so much more to say. Perhaps it is Christian Smith‘s description of the secular as comprising cultural and institutional structures of science, higher education, public school education, public philosophy, the ―judicial sphere,‖ media, and ―the basic cultural understanding of the human self and its care‖ (2003:2-3) that inspires me to continue looking at the ways parachurches respond to the incredibly broad authority of the secular beyond the three institutions I have addressed with specificity. This is why I hope to pause here, to return to the field with more specific and targeted questions, my eyes open to issues that did not crystallize for me until the end of my time in the field.

In fact, I have left the most interesting element of the parachurches‘ relationship with the secular, their engagement with governmental law and politics, until the last, where I will end with a few comments suggesting the course this discussion will take in the future. Although everything addressed in this dissertation reflects deep political voice and positioning, the parachurches encouraged vastly different attitudes toward explicit

political activism. The more time I spent in the field with CBN and ARE, the more curious I became about how CBN seemed to inspire members‘ political engagement and ARE seemed to dissuade it. This was, in fact, a question I put to a director at the ARE, Lucas Contadino, who responded:

Let me answer this briefly three ways. Part of the inaction comes out of the readings themselves in that the readings make it very clear that we are not a dogma, that we do not have a set of belief systems, that we do not have ―this is what you have to do‖ or ―this is what you have to believe.‖ So the next step in that is that it would be completely contrary to the readings to say ―you need to vote democratic‖ or you need to do whatever, because each soul has to find his own way. …[W]e do not have the same makeup as Pat Robertson with all our membership as the same kind of person – it‘s not. They are all working on individual stuff and they don‘t want to hear about your belief system necessarily. The third answer is going to be that there are definitely things that we could do better – taking a stand and presenting a perspective or presenting a ―what about‖… (December 21, 2006).

As Lucas describes, there may be ways the ARE could be more proactive, but its lack of dogma is intimately connected to its lack of political positioning, just as the opposite is true at CBN.

However, it is not simply about a lack of dogma but also about a vision of the future and the role that members can expect to take. ―Edgar Cayce talked about a

thousand years of peace [arriving soon], and it‘s almost like the ARE thinks that that will

be its time‖ (ARE employee Simon Stonerock, interview with author, April 3, 2006). In contrast, Simon said, ―I am interested in the politics of urgency. CBN has a sense of urgency about current political situation so it acts but ARE has belief in the divine order, and it‘s like they‘re just waiting for it to unfold‖ (ibid).

In both cases, the parachurches are witnesses to the unfortunate goings-on of the outside world, a world that has promise but persists in misunderstanding the true nature of God and humanity. More specifically, there is a cultural-political Other, the

construction of which both CBN and ARE share. This is the aspiritual Other, the materially-obsessed Sons of Belial or the agents of Satan that lead the flock away from God. It is a force described as cultural and social, demonstratively powerful in law and policy and subtly powerful in its persuasion and logic.

More specifically, it is what I have identified, with the help of theorists like Talal

Asad and Christian Smith, as the secular. It is the Academic Other in chapter 2 against

which the parachurches‘ histories and truths are constructed. It is the Scientific Other in chapter 3 which is borrowed, applauded, maligned, and contested as CBN produces their image of the world and how it functions. Is it the Medical Other in chapter 4 which is illuminated in stark contrast to the ARE‘s construction of the interconnected body-mind- soul and how it heals.

Hegemony of the secular

What is common to these portrayals of the Secular Other is its combination of

social power and ill-definition. At both parachurches, it is vaguely defined as a social

movement90 but one whose power lies in blinding others to the truth, often by making the

truth ridiculous.

One crucial question when understanding these discourses on the secular (whether academic or popular) is: where is the secular located? In fact, the very definition of the secular is bound up in this question. For most anthropologists writing about the secular, it is described as being unequivocally tied to the state, which attempts to divide religious dogmatic influence from the rationalist workings of a democratic (or communist) government. Yet the primary discussions I had about the secular at CBN and ARE were

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not about the secular nature of government, but about social spheres of influence in which the secular policies of the government had been adopted. The parachurches are clearly trying to make a voice for themselves and an impact on secular organizations, seeking power in their own ways. Members of both parachurches discussed institutions of science, academia, and media as being infused with a hegemonic secularist culture far more insidious and persuasive than overt government action.

In this question it is very useful to reexamine Antonin Gramsci‘s struggles to understand hegemony and the relationship between civil society and the state. Gramsci speaks of hegemony both as an effort on the part of the proletariat and as the tool of domination by the bourgeois ruling class, but on a broad level, hegemony can be

understood as an alliance among groups that achieves ideological integration in society. This alliance presumes a match of interest and tendency among the groups, but also entails a balance of compromise that is both economic and corporate (Gramsci

2003[1971]:161). The rise to power, and the maintenance of power once achieved, relies on a cultural integration of a particular ideology; the creation in society of a unison of economic and political aims as well as intellectual and moral unity (Gramsci

2003[1971]:181-82; Anderson 1977:19). The importance of compromise over violence is strongly emphasized here: ―If the union of two forces is necessary in order to defeat a third…[t]he only concrete possibility is compromise. Force can be employed against enemies, but not against a part of one‘s own side which one wants to assimilate rapidly, and whose ‗goodwill‘ and enthusiasm one needs‖ (Gramsci 2003[1971]:168). In

allowed for the creation of ―a new, homogeneous, politico-economic historical bloc, without internal contradictions‖ (Gramsci 2003[1971]:168; Anderson 1977:19).

However, while the concept of hegemony offers a contrast to the power of domination, they are both exercised in society to differing extents. Through his Prison Notebooks, Gramsci questions where hegemony and domination were located and how they were exercised (Anderson 1977:21). His resulting search for answers creates what Perry Anderson refers to as ―a persistent slippage‖ in his understandings of hegemony and domination and how they relate to the ―State‖, ―civil society‖, and ―political society‖ (Anderson 1977:1). In trying to locate where cultural hegemony drew its strength and guidance, Gramsci postulates first the dominance of the state, then of civil society, before theorizing that power is located in between the two, with institutions of civil society (media, advertising, popular culture) guiding possible public understanding (or creating authorizing discourses?) while relying on the institutions of the state (military, tax revenue system, law) to support the interests of civil society.

As Anderson points out, however, the ideological power of the bourgeoisie is located not just in civil society but in the capitalist State itself. While means of

communication are important in maintaining the stability of the class order of capital, the power of the consent to bourgeois ideology is ―that it takes the fundamental form of a

belief by the masses that they exercise an ultimate self-determination within the existing

social order‖ (Anderson 1977:30). In other words, ―It is thus not acceptance of the superiority of an acknowledged ruling class (feudal ideology), but credence in the democratic equality of all citizens in the government of the nation – in other words, disbelief in the existence of any ruling class‖ (Anderson 1977:30). The State is thus a

crucial part of the making of ―consent‖ because the belief of self-determination hinges on the myth of democracy inherent in a parliamentary representative State (Anderson

1977:31).

Similarly, the power of the secular is in the ―myth of the secular,‖ the belief of its political and religious neutrality. Clearly, the history of the idea of secularity was a partisan one, arguing against mainstream Protestant politics and moralities (Smith 2003). Behind the idealism of equal and fair treatment of all religions was a hostility toward the dominant expressions of Protestant faith, a hostility that some (including those at CBN and ARE) argue has spread to include all expressions of faith today.

At the same time, the idea of the secular in American culture and government has become so revered and protected that its logic appears self-evident. Whether fictional

portents of doom like The Handmaid’s Tale or real-life examples like the Taliban in

Afghanistan, horrifying examples of the collapse of the secular abound. The terms of the secular may be perpetually in contest (e.g., where is the line between free practice of religion and the separation of church and state?) but the need for the secular realm is considered irrefutable, even (especially?) among institutions of faith, as evidenced by Regent professor Thomas Winston‘s admonition, ―Jesus said ‗you are in this world not of it‘‖ (informal interview with author, February 22, 2006)., ―People say ‗[CBN] want[s] to turn America into a church,‘‖ Regent employee Ben Johnston protested. ―We don‘t. My God, we want separation of church and state‖ (Johnston interview, March 30, 2006).

Woven into Johnston‘s protest, however, is a defensiveness based on public perception of CBN as threatening the neutrality of the secular. Far more than ARE, CBN relates to what Smith describes as the ―Protestant establishment‖ that was ―routed from