Křivda a odpor : konstrukce alternativní modernity a mobilizace amerických konzervativních věřících

Abstract

This article explores much debated contemporary development in the contestation of the dominant, liberal interpretation of modernity by conservative Christians in the United States through counter hegemonic discourse that is deployed in the political arena and facilitates broader cultural struggle. The examination combines the analysis of discourse from the extensive corpus of data produced by five elite actors in the American religious and political milieu and its interplay with the socioeconomic factors of their constituency on the one hand and the institutional and historical context of accounts. Following in the footsteps of critical sociology of religion, emphasis was placed on processes through which the actors establish a claim for power and legitimize the application of moral rationality as the different path to modern society. Employment of discursive instruments in form of myths, narratives, and negative representations tied to specific religious language, is not only showing the permeability of the church-state separation in supposedly secular political arrangements. More importantly, it is unrevealing the authoritative, mobilizational power of the religious matrix of emotionally motivating meanings and identity-making narratives in face of shortcomings and crises of the hegemonic socio-political constellation. In this manner, it serves as a tool to challenge established interpretations of commitments to freedom and equality, or in many instances reinterprets them to legitimize policy entailed in the notion of collective morality. However, this considerable engagement also creates points of contention in society and in religious formations, which leads to their fragmentation between different interpretations of such commitments.