Friday, January 12, 2007

An Appraisal of the Evangelical Power Structure: A Duality between Faith and Enlightenment

[1] The influence of religion in America (and throughout history) is a demonstration of the considerable power of collectivized faith and belief over other forms of persuasion such as individual cogitation and even scientific experimentation. In fact, as recent events show and as several studies suggest, collectivized faith and belief as a form of persuasion can work in opposition to individual cogitation and even work in opposition to scientific experimentation.

[2] Before November 1st, 2006, Reverend Ted Haggard’s credibility was almost absolute. It is generally assumed that visible fundamentalists such as Haggard are distinctly characterized by a livelihood based on their faith and their religion’s moral obligations (especially by the followers of the religious right.) This reputation gives power to the visible fundamentalists’ moral authority, which they preach to the general public quite literally from their pulpits about issues concerning personal lifestyle, scientific research, and human rights. Their influence is based upon their ability to lead others by their example and their convictions. However, on November 1st, 2006 Mike Jones, a former male escort, alleged to the press that he had been paid for sex on several occasions from a prominent evangelical leader. Two days later on November 3rd, news broke that Reverend Ted Haggard of the National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella organization which comprises of almost thirty million members in the United States, was stepping down amidst allegations of drug use and sexual misconduct with another man[i].

[3] Haggard was an outspoken critic against gay marriage and adamantly condemned homosexuality. However, even though Haggard had been “outed”, this event did little to change the mindset of many Christian fundamentalists who still believe that homosexuality is a sin, and who continue to vote for measures that prohibit gay marriage. Before this incident, Ted Haggard was one of the visible representatives of religious fundamentals who acted as an advisor to President Bush and who in 2005 was a member of TIME Magazine’s 25 Most Influential Evangelicals list[ii]. If religion is truly a collectivization, a finely tuned organizational machine, then Haggard’s “outing,” having had little effect on the mindset of Christian fundamentalists indicates that individuals themselves have little moral authority over the religious establishment. Rather, it is the faith that others place on these individuals that lends them their authority. Once that respect is withdrawn, the individual is then discarded because he is no longer useful in organizational activities. In essence, the religious establishment acts somewhat similarly to a machine with expendable parts. When one part is no longer useful, it is replaced. However, even though individual components of the machine are expendable, the effectiveness of the religious establishment is highly influenced by the collectiveness of the whole. Currently, the machine seems to be working extremely well, as the religious right has grown more active since the countercultural and social movements of the sixties and seventies, and has tipped the majority of the presidential elections since the 1980s in the Republicans’ favor.

[4] When St. Augustine of Hippo coined the phrase, “Crede, ut intelligas” (“Believe, in order that you may understand”), he was espousing the idea that faith was the basis for knowledge and comprehension. Unsurprisingly, this principle makes perfect practical sense. This philosophy assumes that our ideological convictions are only attainable through our confidence in the truth of those beliefs in various ideas, persons, or things. If we do not believe or refuse to believe in an idea’s or an argument’s or a person’s merit, then we cannot be persuaded by what is essentially unacknowledged. On the flip side, belief also serves as a powerful tool that helps preserve one’s convictions in spite of contradictory evidence otherwise. St. Augustine’s idea that faith is the basis for knowledge and comprehension opens the door to explaining how religious persuasion, rooted in faith, has ultimately been one of the most historically and currently successful forms of persuasion born to man. Some of mankind’s most crowning achievements and most vivid historical events have been due to the influence of religion and faith-based beliefs. General estimates of adherents to the top two religions alone, Christianity and Islam, account for approximately half of the entire world’s population[iii]. And according to the American Religious Identification Survey conducted by Egon Mayer, Ph.D., Barry A. Kosmin, Ph.D., and Ariela Keysar, Ph.D., approximately 75% of Americans identify themselves as religious or somewhat religious.[iv] These numbers are an indication that faith, (and by extension the philosophy “Crede, ut intelligas”), implicitly plays an important role for a good proportion of the human population, at least on issues concerning the existence of a higher power and other general faith-based beliefs, and which, compared to science and philosophy, has remained comparatively consistent.

[5] However, how are we to assume that religious behavior and faith-based information processing and decision-making is mutually excludable, or even separate and different from, individual cogitation? There is some scientific foundation that describes the discrepancy and autonomy between faith and individual cogitation forms of processing. Epstein, Pacini, and Denes-Raj (1991) in “Individual Differences in Intuitive-Experiential and Analytical-Rational Thinking Styles” found that the results of their study “favored the independent relation of the two systems.” Although the study did not specifically link religion and individual cogitation to one form of processing over another, we can assume via each of the different characterizations of the two classifications which form of thought processing belongs to which classification. According to the Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory (CEST), people process information in essentially two different systems, an experiential system and a rational system[v]. The experiential system is characterized to be more intuitive, “automatic and effortless, pleasure-pain oriented, more crudely differentiated, [and] self-evidently valid.” On the other hand, the rational system is less intuitive, more “analytic, intentional, effortful, logical, more highly differentiated, [and] experienced actively and purposefully”[vi]. Members of the church whose faith influences their daily decision making processes and who, for better or for worse, readily accept the written word of the Bible fall under the experiential information processing and decision-making system. People whose individual cogitation are indicated through their pursuit of truth via the scientific method and logical thinking can be characterized as representative of the rational system. It seems that through these characterizations, experiential thinking is more easily attainable and less intellectually stimulating, while the rational system somewhat suppresses intuitive thought.

[6] In essence, faith is a natural form of ideological collectivization because there can be comparatively little room for differentiated opinions and information interpretation in religion. Religious studies essentially require acceptance of the written word of God. For an institution whose history can be traced back several millennia, the basic principles and tenets from the organized Christian faith are relatively similar to those from its founding. It can be argued that the scientific method, even though it has been in existence for a shorter time period, is similar to fundamental Christian tenets in that the scientific method has also become a tradition and a tenet for followers of science. However, the essential difference between the scientific method and fundamental Christian beliefs are that the scientific method is a methodology in which truth is an attainment rather than a preconceived notion (truth must be teased out through experimentation, and even then truth is still debatable). The key difference between the two forms of processing are the differences in the ability of its practitioners to challenge its teachings—it is harder to challenge traditional values than it is to challenge say, a humanist’s claim that religion and science are mutually exclusive (this is not an endorsement of that idea). Thus, there is more disagreement and individuation under the scientific method than under the Christian faith. Because of those disagreements, practitioners of individual cognition appear less organized than members of the Christian faith.

[7] It is easier for Christian leaders to represent Christian fundamentalists because there is more consensus, and a more thorough and stable consensus, among members of the religious right. This greater group togetherness can partially be attributed to the leadership, and the type of leadership, of the moral authority. John Levi Martin, in his article “Power, Authority, and the Constraint of Belief Systems” (2002), attempted to examine “the formal properties of the belief systems of groups.” In his study, he examined the degree of consensus among group members. He found that “the mean tightness for groups with authorities [is higher] as opposed to […] the groups without authorities.”[vii] Among the types of groups with more group consensus Martin included religious and political organizations. However, simply acknowledging the effect of the evangelical leadership on their organization does not wholly recognize the persuasive elements behind the authority of evangelical leadership. To answer part of this question, we can turn to many of these religious leaders themselves.

[8] Fundamentalist leaders naturally admit that they are serving a higher power through their actions. Prominent evangelist leader Billy Graham has been proudly quoted stating, "My one purpose in life is to help people find a personal relationship with God, which, I believe, comes through knowing Christ."[viii] (Emphasis added.) In an interview, Jerry Falwell, another influential fundamentalist, also acknowledged that one of his primary reasons for becoming a pastor was that “I wanted to study the Bible and prepare myself for whatever God wanted me to do. My heart was burning to serve Christ.”[ix] The difference between serving a higher power and serving truth are twofold: one of the differences concerns the objective of the claimant, and the other difference concerns how the claimant goes about (or can go about) accomplishing those objectives. In the experiential system, which more accurately depicts faith and religion, truths tend to be more self-evidently valid. This means that truths in the experiential system intuitively feel better. Chaiken and Maheswaran (1994) acknowledge that

“Numerous experiments have shown that the attitude judgments of low motivation or low-capacity subjects are influenced very little by the caliber of a message’s persuasive arguments but are influenced quite substantially by heuristic cues such as source credibility, other people’s opinions, or the sheer length of a message.”[x]

Quite simply, the appearance of a strong or natural argument is more important to “low-motivation or low-capacity subjects” than message content. Chaiken and Maheswaran (1994) additionally affirm that “most persuasion tests […] have included conditions in which message content contradicts the validity of heuristic-based inferences; for example, expert sources or lengthy messages present weak arguments (e.g. Petty & Cacioppo, 1984a; Petty et al., 1981; Wood & Kallgren, 1988; Wood et al., 1985).”[xi] That is not to say that observers of religious practices are “low-motivation or low-capacity subjects”, but the fact of the matter is that most members of the Church are not required to be relentless scholars of the Bible. Many are expected to accord themselves of their faith’s basic principles and faithfully comply with the teachings of the Bible, but relatively few (only a small percentage) of Christians are priests or pastors or actively promote or educate others on the teachings of the Bible. Because of this relative lack of religious scholarship, churches rely on active volunteers and dedicated priests and pastors to spread the word of God and keep the local religious community active. These local leaders, who in turn are somewhat directed by their superiors (people higher up in the religious hierarchy), are the source from which religious teachings can be provided to the public. This hierarchical structure, with the bottom populated by the people who merely believe in and attend religious services, is led by a smaller group of highly respected pastors and religious leaders who are almost identical (collectivized) in their convictions and their teachings.

[9] Organizationally, the religious evangelical establishments are also one of the most successful social organizations in the country. An Economist article “Therapy of the masses” (2003) describes the following:

On any Sunday, over 3,000 people from the suburbs of southern Los Angeles flock to the main Worship Centre, which looks less like a cathedral than an airport terminal. If you want to experience the rock bands, theatrical shows, and PowerPoint sermons in a traditional church, you can: they are piped into one by video link. Or you can watch the service on huge video screens while sipping a cappuccino in an outdoor café. [xii]

Thus churches, in addition to being reputable charitable social organizations, have also provided a means for social mobility by allowing individuals and participants to obtain social networks and build social capital. Pui-Yan Lam (2002) touches upon this idea and summarizes Greeley (1997) by stating that these social events, organized by religious institutions, “encourage voluntary activities in other arenas. In addition, church participation provides individuals with specific skills that they can use in secular organizations.” [xiii] which, for example, can include politics. These social activities encourage an emotional attachment to the church which directly encourages the pleasure of the “pleasure-pain” component of the CEST model of the experiential system of thought.

[10] Evangelical leaders tend to take advantage of experiential methods of persuasion. Faith is expressed biblically, through consumerist media, and through popular culture such as in movies, television shows, rock concerts, and best sellers. The American Christian, inundated with messages and news and promotions concerning church and religious activities, can hardly avoid the continual adjuration of pastors and religious fundamentalists. Most of these visible, fundamentalist leaders are supported argumentatively in two respects, first by their credentials and second by their targeted messages to the American public. Chaiken and Maheswaran (1994) have already established that credibility is an important factor in experiential persuasion, which requires comparatively little cogitation as compared with rational persuasion. In a separate study, Arpan and Raney (2003) indicate that the perception of credibility is also influenced by how consistent a news outlet’s reporting is in comparison with its audience’s point of view. “More recent research shows, however, that a news outlet’s ability to be perceived as credible may stem less from reporting efforts and more from issue involvement and cognitive processes of audience members.”[xiv] In a complementary article, Slater and Rouner (1996) conclude that “this study suggests that source credentials may not matter to readers so much as the superficial plausibility and quality of what is said […] Under such circumstances, credentials regarding expertise and bias simply do not have a very large effect on beliefs, compared to the quality of the message.” So that in some respects, credentials and charisma appear to not be as mutually excludable as they would seem. This tells us that a character’s charisma can compensate for any lack of credentials. In both cases, whether or not credentials (and similarly, reputation), or charisma is most appealing to audience members, evangelist leaders can take advantage of both concepts. Because most of them have been or are currently pastors in a church, most can generally be assumed to have charisma. Some, like Pat Robertson, are the hosts of popular television shows. Every evangelist leader also has the advantage of being able to claim to serve a higher power. They do not have to ask members of the church or their local congregation for their votes or their money. Instead, they elicit donations for charitable causes, and are on energetic quests to “save souls”. Their reputation, therefore, is often assumed to be impeccable, and geared toward serving the public good. They also tend to appeal to their listeners emotions, including hope, fear, and charity in their presentations and adjurations.

[11] Reverend Ted Haggard was one of these influential figures, and proved very useful to the fundamentalist organization. But after being “outed”, Reverend Ted Haggard found himself abandoned and politically friendless in the eyes of the public. In spite of his almost weekly consultations with the White House, and other evidence of his influence (including a White House phone call asking for his consultation with the Harriet Miers Supreme Court Nomination), even the White House attempted to distance itself from Haggard by painting him as inconsequential. According to CNN.com, “Spokesman Tony Fratto told reporters Friday that it was inaccurate to portray him as being close to the White House, insisting Haggard was only an occasional participant in weekly conference calls between West Wing staff and leading evangelicals.”[xv] He had little support because he had quickly become the opposite of what the evangelical machinery needed to function as it had. Evangelicals, who for years have been preaching about homosexuality as a sin, could not afford to have such an iconic contradiction in the midst of their leadership. Because of his loss of credibility, Haggard could no longer avail himself to the experiential method of persuasion and was useless as a public figure. Therefore, Reverend Ted Haggard quickly and quietly resigned and after a couple days his name has hardly mentioned in the mainstream press ever since. Thus is the nature of the politically and socially influential religious organization. The political machinery of the religious right continues to function swimmingly even though the Republicans lost the Legislative Branch this past midterm election. Their next biggest challenge on the horizon will be the 2008 Presidential Election.


Works Consulted:

[i] Cooperman , Alan and Brubaker, Bill “Church Leader Admits Buying Drug and Getting Massage From Gay Escort” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/03/AR2006110300317.htmlhttp://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/03/haggard.allegations/ and Gallagher, Delia “Church Leader Admits Buying Drug and Getting Massage From Gay Escort”

[ii] TIME Magazine, “25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America”, January 30, 2005 http://www.time.com/time/press_releases/article/0,8599,1022576,00.html

[iii] A comprehensive list can be found on http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html “A major source for these estimates is the detailed country-by-country analysis done by David B. Barrett's religious statistics organization, whose data are published in the Encyclopedia Britannica (including annual updates and yearbooks) and also in the World Christian Encyclopedia (the latest edition of which - published in 2001 - has been consulted).”

[iv] Egon Mayer, Ph.D., Barry A. Kosmin, Ph.D., and Ariela Keysar, Ph.D. “American Religious Identification Survey” http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris/religion_identity.htm

[v] CEST is descried in the research of Epstein, Pacini, and Denes-Raj in their paper “Individual Differences in Intuitive-Experiential and Analytical-Rational Thinking Styles” published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1996 Vo. 71, No. 2, 390-405

[vi] The characterizations of the experiential and rational CEST systems was summarized from a table referenced in Epstein, Pacini, and Denes-Raj (1996) and was adapted (with permission) from “Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory: An Integrative Theory of Personality” by S. Epstein, 1991, in R.C. Curtis, Editor, The Relational Self: Theoretical Convergences in Psychoanalysis and Social Psychology New York: Guilford Press Copyright 1991.

[vii] Martin, John Levi “Power, Authority, and the Constraint of Belief Systems” published in the American Journal of Sociology Vol. 107 No. 4 (January 2002): 861-904 Copyright by The University of Chicago. Numerical figures in this specific reference are not included, this information is summarized in the brackets.

[viii] Quote obtained from an online biography of Billy Graham available at http://www.billygraham.org/mediaRelations/bios.asp?p=1

[ix] Quote available online from a transcript of an interview by Brenda Clements of the Lynchburg News and Advance available at http://falwell.com/meet_dr_falwell.php

[x] Chaiken, Shelly and Maheswaran, Durairaj “Heuristic Processing Can Bias Systemic Processing: Effects of Source Credibility, Argument Ambiguity, and Task Importance on Attitude Judgment”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1994 Vol. 66, No. 1, 460-473 Copyright 1994 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

[xi] The following are referenced in Chaiken and Maheswaran (1994) article: Petty, R.E., & Cacioppo, J.T. (1984a). “The effects of involvement on responses to argument quantity and quality: Central and peripheral routes to persuasion” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 46, 69-81; Petty, R.E. and Cacioppo (1981) Attitudes and persuasion: Classic and contemporary approaches Dubuque, IA: Brown; Wood, W., & Kallgren, C.A. (1988) “Communicator attributes and persuasion: Recipients’ access to attitude-relevant information in memory” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin; Wood, W., Kallgren, C.A., & Preisler, R.M. (1985) “Access to attitude relevant information in memory as a determinant of persuasion: The role of message attributes” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 21, 73-85

[xii] Author unknown “Therapy of the Masses” Economist; 11/8/2003, Vol. 369 Issue 8349, 12-16

[xiii] This summary of Greeley’s contention can be found in “As the Flocks Gather: How Religion Affects Voluntary Association Participation” by Lam, Pui-Yan (2002) Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion Vol. 41:3 405-422. Greeley’s article can be found in “The other Civic America: Religion and Social Capital” by Greeley, A. (1997) American Prospect Vol. 12; 68-73

[xiv] Arpan, Laura M., Raney, Arthur A. “An experimental investigation of news source and the hostile media effect” (Summer 2003) Vol. 80 Iss. 2; 265-275

[xv] “Church forces out Haggard for 'sexually immoral conduct'” http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/03/haggard.allegations/index.html

4 comments:

Carey Anthony said...

Great paper Jason.
The last sentence couldn't ring more true. Let's hope for the best in November!

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