Meerten and Berend ter Borg’s maintenance mechanisms, in my adapted version that includes a differentiation between disturbances, an identification of shared elements, and the addition of judgment and expulsion, is of great value to understanding the means through which communities seek to cope with change. Surprisingly, aside from Meerten ter Borg’s publications, no scholar of religion has ever applied these maintenance mechanisms to any religious group or organisation. Even Ter Borg’s own monographs did not constitute research, but rather were exposés of a suggested theoretical model.
In the above case studies, I provided three contributions to Meerten and Berend ter Borg’s model. In the first place, I suggested the significance of disturbances. I argued that the location and nature of disturbances influences the type of maintenance mechanisms chosen. I regard primary disturbances as generally practical in nature, whereas secondary disturbances are likely to be interpreted as theologically threatening. In the second place, I enhanced the structure of maintenance mechanisms. I made Meerten and Berend ter Borg’s implicit claim that each integration mechanism has a defensive counterpart explicit, I identified shared elements between these mechanisms, and I argued that, from manifestation to relativising and from negation to fundamentalism, they increase in terms of mental effort required to carry them out. And in the third place, I identified the missing maintenance mechanism of judgment as theodicy’s defensive counterpart, differentiating between them on the basis of the practical effort they demand in response.
69 Following this analysis, the model may be applied to a plethora of religious groups. These do not need to be moving toward the stage of assimilation. Muslim groups in the Netherlands, arguably in the process of constructing their own pillar, may be similarly analysed. But so can the negotiation of Hinduism in India, the Salafi strife for theological purity, or the motivations of Buddhist extremists in Myanmar. Its analytical power is not limited to religious groups, however. With a few alterations – theodicy and judgment might prove less relevant in non-religious contexts – its usefulness extends to far-right movements, anarchists, and even free-market capitalists. All that is needed is a clearly identifiable social group with a shared ontological framework and, preferably, an ongoing discourse continuously reconstituting this framework’s maintenance. That includes business, political, and social organisations. It is especially useful to analyse the pattern of directional struggles within these organisations. Once such patterns have been analysed, either of these parties may seek to find common ground based on this new strategic knowledge.
Establishing the effect of the above-described maintenance mechanisms on the reformatoric community is beyond the scope of this study. It must be noted, however, that both progressives and conservatives seek to preserve what they regard as the community’s shared Calvinist and traditionalist ontological framework. But the differences in their approaches may indicate something more: a disagreement on the framework’s nature. If theological understandings of bible interpretation and the importance of tradition differ too greatly, the community may not be able to maintain its relative consistency. To some extent, further pillarising fragmentation has already taken place. The Reformed Congregations in the Netherlands, one of the community’s most conservative denominations, has its own churches, schools, and publications, and a stricter version of the tale Kanaäns. If disagreement on its fundamental ontological framework persists, as it now seems it will, denominations like these may seek to break with the wider community.
Such observations are in line with the three-generation model of pillar development proposed in paragraph 1.2. First constructed in the late-1960s and early-1970s, the reformatoric pillar has undergone a period of establishment and consolidation during the first generation (25 years) since approximately 1965. For the following generation, it rigidised into an immobile pillar with unquestionable truths. Since the mid-2010s, part of the pillar started on the road to assimilation. If this process continues, the pillar will disappear in its current by approximately 2040. But its basic tenets will survive. In conjunctural fashion, one or multiple conservative groups might branch off and survive
70 on their own merit in a way similar to the emergence of the reformatoric pillar from the then- assimilating reformed pillar in the 1960s. In fact, that is what the Reformed Congregations in the Netherlands may have already begun doing.
New research may therefore focus on three types of studies. Longitudinal studies of the reformatoric community are needed to trace its current development. If the analysis that the community has moved to the assimilation stage is correct, closely following the way in which the pillar unravels, its internal changes, and the emergence of a new orthodox community from its ashes will shed light on general pillar development. In addition, the wider application of the model to a variety of communities, whether religious or otherwise sharing an ontological framework, will elucidate not only the community itself. More importantly, it will test the model’s generalisability and calibrate its still- unpolished prototype. Finally, further studies must seek to identify and analyse the conditions in which specific maintenance mechanisms are invoked. What prompts a social community to choose escapism over nihilation? Or why does a religious group choose to routinise a disturbance rather than taboo it? While tentative answers may be found in this study, only its repeated multiplication among widely divergent groups can lead to the systematisation of the invocation of maintenance mechanisms.