Postsecular Conflict – Debating tradition in Russia and the United States

Abstract

Postsecular Conflicts non-religious people could lead to better mutual understanding and thus to a better quality of the democratic process. Against Habermas, one could argue that there already exists a sociological model that conceptualizes the moral and religious diversity of modern societies, only in less consensual terms: the model of culture wars described by James D. Hunter. 10 In the United States this concept denotes the conflict between representatives of a culture holding on to traditional teachings, values, and life plans on the one hand, and the representatives of a culture of change and individual freedom on the other. Where Habermas's idea of postsecular society highlights consensus, the culture wars model highlights conflict. Both operate under the assumption that pluralism is the default condition of modern societies, but they come to different conclusions. Habermas's conclusion is optimistic, Hunter's is pessimistic. Culture wars, Hunter writes, precede shooting wars. 11 This introduction is not the place to settle the question whether conflicts over values in modern pluralistic societies always take the form of a postsecular consensus or a culture war. Instead, what this introduction, this edited volume, and in general the whole Postsecular Conflicts research project 12 tries to do, is to define in greater detail the conditions of these conflicts. By "conditions" we mean what actors, what political dynamics, and what ideas and intellectual genealogies are at play in today's postsecular conflicts? 13 James Davison Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America

The Religious Right and Russia: Christian Nationalism and Americans’ Views on Russia and Vladimir Putin Before and After the Ukrainian Invasion

“…Following Trump's election in 2016, voices on the political and religious right warmed toward both Russia and Putin, likely reflecting a variety of historical, political, and ethno‐cultural conditions (Moreton 2022; Riccardi‐Swartz 2021; Stoeckl, and Uzlaner, eds. 2020). Even after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, prominent far‐right and Christian Right voices have expressed admiration toward Putin and warmer feelings toward Russia than Ukraine.…”

“…Part of this was almost certainly because of well-documented financial ties between Trump and Russian oligarchs (Snyder 2018). But the other part is that while the former USSR was demonized because of "godless communism," Putin's Russia now represents much of what Trump advertised and valued in his own leadership: law and order, challenging mainstream media, white ethno-nationalism, and traditional (in Putin's version Orthodox) "Christian" values that did not depend on personal piety, but on nativism and traditionalist moral stances (Stoeckl and Uzlaner 2020;Riccardi-Swartz 2022a, 2022b. 4 In this sense, the "Christianity" of both Russian and American Christian nationalism cannot be understood apart from their connection to ethnicity, in the latter case, whiteness (Butler 2021;Perry 2023).…”

“…Despite long‐held suspicions toward Russia, certain political transformations in the former Soviet Union since perestroika have struck an ideological chord with many Americans on the cultural and political right. Especially since the ascendancy of Vladimir Putin, growing networks of conservative actors in the United States and abroad have drawn together the potential political futures of both countries (Riccardi‐Swartz 2021; Stoeckl and Uzlaner 2020). Since the mid‐2010s, conservative support for Russia has increased, with polls showing that Republicans, in particular, had warmed toward Russia and Putin leading up to the Ukrainian invasion in February 2022 (Gallup 2022; Huang and Cha 2020; Pew Research Center 2019; Reinhart 2018; Swift 2017).…”

Orthodox Christianity in the United States: A challenge for the study of American religion

“…Sociologist Kristina Stoeckl and philosopher Dmitry Uzlaner, who work primarily in Eurasia, have drawn out the dynamic social histories between conservative American and Russian actors who are active participants in the perpetuation of the new global culture wars (Anderson, 2014; Stoeckl & Uzlaner, 2022; Stoeckl and Uzlaner, eds., 2021; Uzlaner & Stoeckl, 2018). My own work on religious conversion in relationship to U.S.‐Russian geopolitics, alternative forms of far‐right American conservatism, and Orthodox Christian Nationalism, has shown forth the globalized political dimensions of spiritual conversion (Riccardi‐Swartz, 2022).…”