Generalizing from a single incident to attack a whole class of individuals or actions is an efficient technique utilized by the enemies of freedom of faith.
by Massimo Introvigne*
*A paper introduced on the founding assembly of the African Forum for Religious and Spirituality Liberty (AFRSL), in cooperation with FOREF, Cape Town, South Africa, December 8, 2023.
I’ll commit my quick remarks to provide you with a warning about an enemy which will hit you lethally and with out warning. It known as the “moral panic” and it has been studied by sociologists for a number of many years. It may be in comparison with a snake hidden within the grass. It stays there ready for victims. When you see it, it could be too late.
Moral panics about minority religions are created by generalizing a single incident. The incident is actual. It just isn’t invented. What is invented is the declare that the incident is typical of an entire class of occasions or organizations.
In the sphere of faith, as studied by Philip Jenkins and different social scientists, together with the undersigned, the mannequin of the ethical panic passes by three phases.
First, an incident happens, typically claiming human lives, that mightily impresses the general public opinion. It may be the dangerous ethical conduct of a number of non secular leaders or extra tragic incidents of terrorism or mass suicide of murder. Examples embrace scandals of pedophilia inside the Catholic Church, terrorist assaults perpetrated utilizing or abusing the title of Islam, mass suicides and homicides akin to these of the Order of the Solar Temple in France, Switzerland in Canada between 1994 and 1996, or the recent deaths by excessive fasting in an Evangelical church in Kenya.
Second, it’s alleged that these accountable for these incidents are usually not exceptions or anomalies however are typical representatives of bigger classes. It is argued that pedophile monks are typical representatives of monks basically, who’re all sexually annoyed and thus inclined to commit sexual crimes. That Muslim terrorists are simply typical examples of Muslims, as all Muslims reject the values of recent Western societies and have a tendency to dwell in a state of affairs of “separatism” from them, which naturally results in confrontation and violence. That so-called “suicide cults” are typical of “cults” basically as a result of in all “cults” leaders who’re malignant narcissists “brainwash” their followers and induce them to self-destructive conduct.
All these statements are false. Although quite a few sufficient and a dramatic drawback for the Catholic Church, pedophile monks signify a small proportion of the some 400,000 Catholic monks energetic all through the world. Pedophilia is equally or extra prevalent amongst married household males and non secular ministers than amongst celibate Catholic monks. Most Muslims on the planet don’t help terrorism. The overwhelming majority of teams their opponents label as “cults” are peaceable and law-abiding and definitely don’t help suicide or murder.
However, unfold by the media, these generalizations result in the third stage of the ethical panic. Politicians, who’re solely too comfortable to increase their management on faith, intervene and cross legal guidelines or create establishments to restrict the non secular liberty of broader teams that don’t have anything to do with the crimes some have perpetrated. In Australia and Ireland, the instances of the pedophile monks led to legal guidelines eliminating the confessional privilege and limiting the safety of confidentiality in communications between parishioners and non secular ministers not solely within the Catholic Church however in all religions. In France, terrorist assaults by radical Muslims generated legal guidelines limiting the rights of all Muslims to show their non secular symbols and freely arrange their communal life separated from the mainstream non-Muslim society. In France and elsewhere, the case of the Order of the Solar Temple supplied the chance to cross legal guidelines instituting governmental businesses whose mandate is to observe and unfold propaganda in opposition to “cults” basically and incriminating vaguely outlined “cultic deviances.” And in Kenya after the deaths by excessive fasting in Shakahola a Senate Committee launched a report this 12 months hailing the French mannequin and proposing to place all church buildings and religions, and their funds, below governmental supervision. The report in Kenya mentions comparable proposals in South Africa, the place ethical panics have been created by following the self-same scheme. If a pastor or prophet behaves unusually or asks his followers to eat grass, it’s proposed to create a mechanism of state supervision for all pastors and prophets—and their financial institution accounts.
Two concluding observations. Let me repeat as soon as once more that the incidents and crimes resulting in the generalizations creating the ethical panic are actual. Their perpetrators must be punished and can’t invoke freedom of faith as an excuse. But they need to be punished individually on a case by case foundation with out cracking down on whole classes and lumping collectively each the responsible and the harmless.
Second, coming again to the instance of the snake, not all of the snakes of ethical panics are wild. Some come from snake farms, the place they’re fastidiously nurtured and unleashed in opposition to non secular minorities when wanted. The students of ethical panics emphasize the determine of the “moral entrepreneurs” who arrange them. In our discipline, they embrace teams akin to FECRIS, the European umbrella organization of anti-cult actions, which was already talked about on this convention.
When they exploit an incident to focus on quite a lot of teams and restrict non secular liberty, it could be too late to oppose them. We ought to create buildings stopping the ethical entrepreneurs from creating ethical panics now.
