American Academy of Political and Social Science

Active versus Passive Pluralism: A Changing Style of Civil Religion? Author(s): Richard D. Hecht Reviewed work(s): Source: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 612, Religious Pluralism and Civil Society (Jul., 2007), pp. 133-151 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. in association with the American Academy of Political and Social Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25097933 . Accessed: 07/03/2012 16:02
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The

1965 transformed what Robert Bellah identified as

civil religion"

reform

of the United

States

Immigration

Act

in

and one of its central compo At midcen unique religious pluralism. in functions showed how tury,Will Herberg religion what we call the creation of American identity through here "passive allowed This passive pluralism pluralism." to claim a presence of America the mainline religions within the nation. But the new immigration patterns "American nents: Americas have created what the author calls here "active

Active

versus

Passive

eruv

assertive claim to the ism," which meanings lays is lic time and space. This argument explored of an Orthodox the construction Jewish ritual in Los Angeles. active pluralism; ritual space;

plural of pub space through or

Pluralism: A Changing

Keywords:

civil religion

eruv; American

Style of Civil Religion? By

RICHARD D. HECHT

1965 reform of the United States Immi The gration Act has had dramatic effect upon the demography of the nation, ideas of citizen ship, politics, the ways America conducts busi its economics ness, how the nation develops its legal traditions, how and labor and interprets use media Americans and the marketing of how Americans articulate indi entertainment, vidual and collective identities and memories, and how the nation constructs and reconstructs its cultures from the local to the state to the federal levels. Arguably, no area of the daily life of Americans and how they project and under stand their pasts, presents, and futures has been left untouched by the repercussions of that reform. The reform was the extension of liberal discourses on the core identity of the more than any other nation; theUnited States far nation (and here we see a bit of that characteristic
Richard D. Hecht is a studies He at

author with Ninian Smart of The Sacred Texts of the World: A UniversalAnthologyand with Roger Friedland of To Rule Jerusalem.He is completingwith Wade Clark Roof and David Machacek a book-lengthstudyof
religion DOI: and public culture in Southern California. 10.1177/0002716207301071

the University

of California,

of religious professor Santa Barbara.

is the

2007 ANNALS, AAPSS, 612, July

133

134 American

THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

our self-conscious) was a "nation of immi at exceptionalism play in were But itsproponents who may have grants." thought they rekindling traditions of nineteenth- and twentieth-century immigration from central and eastern Europe have been startled by its results, with the great majority of post-1965 immigration coming from Latin America and itsCaribbean world and Asia, with immigration rates from the Middle East and Africa not very far behind. Scholarship has scrutinized many aspects of this immigration "transforma tion," but comparatively little attention has been given to what this transforma tion means for American religious cultures and the distinctive patterns of accommodation made by religious institutions to the separation of religion and statecraft. To be sure, we now know that every religious tradition of the world, whether historical or indigenous, even small-scale traditions that were either never assimilated or only superficially assimilated by the so-called "world-historical are now traditions," part of the American religious topography. In 1978, Ninian Smart quipped in his introductory course to the study of religion at the University no of California, Santa Barbara that a comparative religions scholar need longer an ticket for a distant and exotic locale where a religious tra expensive purchase dition may have arisen. One could simply go into his or her own neighborhood, into America's urban and suburban worlds, to find their presence. All the reli gions of the world are now in our own backyards. Over the next twenty years, Smart was fascinated by what this immigration transformation meant for the United States and other countries. For example, his Worldviews: Crosscultural Human Beliefs (1983) was intended to recognize the global reach Explorations of of the study of religion. The study of religion, Smart argued, had gone far beyond its Western origins so that important work on religions was now being conducted in India, China, Japan, Africa, and elsewhere by scholars from those places. The modern study of religion was global in its perspective, a quite natural phenome non, given, he wrote, that "our contemporary world is now bound together more We live in the age of the global city" (p. 2). The "global city" meant not tightly. that the study of religion is now conducted all over the world, but that the only were now found in new locations, far from their homelands. religions of theworld Smart also recognized that these new locations, the diasporas of religions, sig naled important transformations of religions that could only be documented and new environments in an essay on seriously. He noted interpreted by taking those the powers of diasporas that the global context of the past quarter century meant in that there were, for example, important transformations taking place Hinduism. Temple building outside of India had become an important element of Hindu tradition outside the homeland. He wrote that prior to the current was a global period, there long period when the survival of traditional Hinduism was threatened. "There is," he noted, "an increasing proportion of ex-Hindu Indians who have become Pentecostal Christians. This allows them to adapt bhakti religion to a more consciously individualistic religious pattern. We may in losing its old osmotic also note that traditional Hinduism, principle/potential, has become somewhat unintelligible to a new class of young people growing up in a modern environment" (Smart 1987, 291-92). Similarly, Mike Davis (2000)

ACTIVE VERSUS PASSIVE PLURALISM 135 noted the enormous changes taking place among Latin American the United States and particularly California. He wrote,
"Hispanic" and "Latino New World

immigrants to

as synonyms for "Catholic." can no be decoded Certainly longer Aztec and African with a thousand-and-one Catholicism, gods syncretic as santos, remains, with the mother tongue, the most important together masquerading common communities. And few cross-cultural trends are of Latino immigrant heritage as the recent as Catholics and even of other Latin American Anglo impressive flocking to the cult of Mexico's the power New (who also reincarnates Virgin of Guadalupe Agers as she has made laser her way al otro lado. (A of the Tonantzin) digital replica goddess a of the Los arch of her image most recently completed processions Angeles triumphal some 50 local toured diocese. "The 3-by-5-foot copy, blessed by the Pope, parishes in the L.A. Coliseum.") in front of 50,000 Yet before a farewell appearance worshippers radiant in her blue, star studded if murals of La Morena, shawl, sanctify the sides oitien to Atlanta, be a Pentecostal storefront will most the adjoining das from San Diego likely in the named "Nuestra Sefiora" that the pobladores church. Even (La Reina de Los city are run Protestant denominations Pentecostals) (especially Spanish-language Angeles), US Catholicism Latinos with the neck-to-neck reinvigorate (supply equally ning Pope. In this its since 1960) and energize 71 percent of its competitors. evangelical ing growth versus Protestant new col of Latino/Hispanic the traditional antinomy dispensation, as Carlos Monsivais the immigrant may now pray to the wryly suggests, lapses, and, even I am still faithful to you, who represents the Nation, "Jefecita, Virgin of Guadalupe: or Mormon." I now may be Pentecostal, Adventist, Baptist Jehovah's Witness, though

(pp. 13-14)

world and with them extraordinary religious people within the Greco-Roman use changes, adaptation, and accommodation. But Davis also suggested with his of "syncretic" thatwe are living in an axial age when religious change is the dom inant social discourse. This article takes up how religion changes in this global context. Indeed, the immigration transformation of the United States reflects global processes of movement of large-scale peoples and their cultures. While religious traditions in this environment, it is also the case that these same religious traditions change environments inwhich they are reembedded or relocated change the through the of immigration and globalization. Two of the most characteristic, processes indeed unique, features of American life are its civil religion and its pluralism. Since Robert Bellah advanced his thesis on American civil religion in 1967, ithas served as a lightning rod for many debates about the nature of religion in the modern world. However, how the immigration transformation may effect that civil religion has not been widely discussed. Equally important is the return of the debate about American pluralism. Certainly this was an important scholarly debate in midcentury, but pluralism has recently returned as an important dis cussion in a series ofworks on religion and modernity. This renewed debate is in

Davis recognized that religion is the essential dimension that persists and also is in such radical transformation. He suggested that this transformation is "syn cretic" and with that term conjured the Hellenistic world from the death of in the to the conversion of Constantine Alexander the Great in 331 B.C.E. early inwhich there was substantial movement of decades of the fourth century C.E.

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THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

part the result of the challenges of the immigration transformation. American so too will civil religion will certainly be affected by this transformation, but American pluralism. We will argue for a distinction between "passive pluralism," which perhaps characterized American pluralism in the firsthalf of the century so well and was documented (1955) and "active pluralism," by Will Herberg which has arisen from the immigration transformation. Last, we will take up a very recent case of active pluralism where Orthodox Jews in Southern California an eruv, a attempted to construct public spatial structure which would allow them to carry objects on the Sabbath and on the major Jewish festivals and would surround Santa Monica, Venice, and Playa del Rey.

The Civil Religion Thesis

Robert Bellah published his "Civil Religion inAmerica" in a Daedalus issue that surveyed the condition of "Religion inAmerica" (1967). The essays sought to explore how religion might respond to the tumult of the mid-1960s. Could institutional in the United States remain relevant in a culture that seemed so bound to religion question everything? Of course, other issues sculpted the decade that reached back to the 1950s, including the cold war, the expansion of communism in Eastern Latin America, and Southeast Asia. The Los Angeles-based political car Europe, toonist for the Los Angeles Free Press, Ron Cobb, raised the very same issue in one of his most famous cartoons from 1967, which showed the stacked stone blocks of American society?family, government, education, business, themilitary, capitalism, and religion?dissolving and being eaten away in a sea of LSD. Bellah argued that the separation of church and state in the United States had provided the social or an elaborate and weU-institutionalized civil reli religious space for the emergence of which was clearly differentiated from church and synagogue. gion inau The beginning point for Bellah s essay was John Fitzgerald Kennedy's address on January 20, 1961, where he made reference to God three times gural ("For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our fore bears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago"; "the belief that the man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of rights of God"; and "With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, judge of asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own."). Bellah rejected understanding these references as an example of what every American president must do or risk losing support. Nor were these refer ences ceremonial formalities. They told Bellah something important about the nature of religion inAmerican life (Bellah 1967, 2-3). Bellah noted that the ref was a erences are more more illuminating because Kennedy problematic and and chose not to give his references a distinctively Catholic form. Bellah Catholic wrote that not present a doctrinal deity because "these are matters Kennedy did of his own private religious belief and of his relation to his own particular church; are not matters relevant in any direct way to the conduct of his they public office.

ACTIVE VERSUS PASSIVE PLURALISM 137 Others with different religious views and commitments to different churches or are denominations equally qualified participants in the political process. The of separation of church and state guarantees the freedom of religious principle belief and association, but at the same time clearly segregates the religious to be essentially private, from the political one" sphere, which is considered (Bellah 1967, 3). Given this separation of church and state, Bellah asked, how could the president be justified in using the word "God"? He quickly answered his question?the separation of church and state does not deny the political realm a religious dimension. That separation of the state and particular and pri vate religious claims provided the social space for public religious dimension. It is the set of beliefs, symbols, and rituals of this public religious dimension that Bellah described as American civil religion.

[Robert] Bellah argued that the separation of church and state in the United States had provided the social or religious
space for the emergence

and well-institutionalized civil religion which was clearly differentiated from

church and synagogue.

of

an elaborate

the force of this civil religion is demonstrated by the theological of Kennedys the statements, especially the third reference where meanings young president reiterated that it is the nation s task on earth to work out the or that Gods work is our work. Bellah described this as an blessing of God "activist and non-contemplative conception of the fundamental religious obliga tion," which he believed was associated with American Protestantism. The civil was so strong that it overruled any theology that the president as a religion Catholic might have wanted to give it, and thus for Bellah the importance of the references is how deeply established civil religion is in the American outlook. Of course, the actual term "civil religion" was drawn from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract where Rousseau explained its central exis ingredients?the tence of the life to come, reward and punishment for virtue and vice, and deity, no exclusion of religious intolerance. But Bellah quickly admitted that there is causal connection between Rousseau and the founders of the nation. necessary Indeed,

138

THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

Similar ideas were a part of the climate of the late eighteenth century, and thus Rousseau and the founders of the nation shared a similar worldview. Bellah argued that American civil religion has its own myths, rituals, sacred on our places, and sacred objects. He commented myth and how ithas integrated traumatic events. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln was understood as a sac rificial death that guaranteed the unity of the nation. The ritual calendar of American civil religion includes Thanksgiving and July 4, and in both celebra tions, the myth of the nation is retold to new generations, just as any authorita in religious tradition. tive myth would be renarrated again themid-1970s and in thewake of the divisive Vietnam War and the By Watergate scandal, Bellah concluded that American civil religion was an "empty and broken shell." Civil religion was an external covenant to guarantee social existence. But this covenant must be loved by the citizens of the nation and not merely obeyed. He wrote, "What we face today,however, is not simply a low ebb in that spiritual rhythm such as we have faced many times before. It is not that our external covenant isper once a new measure of again to be filled with forming its function while waiting most responsible servants devotion. The external covenant has been betrayed by its and, what isworse, some of them, including the highest of all, do not even seem to understand what they have betrayed" (Bellah 1975, 140-41). Bellah felt that our was covenant but also not hardly knew what it political leaders only had betrayed the and how that betrayal had affected the entire nation. Their betrayal was much worse for they knew that therewould be no punishment for their breaking of the covenant. The covenant itselfhad lost any meaning. Here, I think Bellah also addressed him self to some of the critics of his American civil religion. Some might suggest that civil were a periods of sub religion is form of nationalism. However, the 1970s and 1980s stantial nationalism in the United States, and thuswe might conclude that civil reli gion may share much with nationalism, but it is not completely coextensive with it. The New York Times reported on a conflict that had arisen in theWoodland Hills Church in suburban St. Paul, Minnesota. There the Reverend Gregory A. to time to give his blessing and his church's to Boyd had been asked from time to conservative and causes. These included requests political candidates announce a candidates from his rally against gay marriage, introduce political set up a table to promote antiabortion activities in the social hall or lobby pulpit, of his church, have church members distribute voting guides thatwould endorse in the sanctuary. The and hang an American candidates, Republican flag before the presidential election of Reverend Boyd consistently refused, and 2004, he delivered six sermons titled "The Cross and the Sword." In those ser mons he must steer clear of politics, reject moralizing on argued that the church sexual issues, stop claiming that America is a Christian nation, and stop glorifying "when the church wins the cul military campaigns. He told his congregants that it conquers the world, it becomes the world. ture wars, it inevitably loses. When When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross." Boyd is a theological conservative who rejects abortion and thinks that homosexuality is not God's ideal. The response to the sermons was powerful. The politically and theologically con servative, middle-class evangelicals left his congregation. He lost approximately

ACTIVE VERSUS PASSIVE PLURALISM 139 one thousand of his church's five thousand members. The New York Times believed that the sermons Boyd gave are hardly typical in evangelical churches atWoodland Hills Church is an example of the internal today. "But the upheaval debates now going on in some evangelical churches" (Goodstein 2006). The of this example is that religion may not be equivalent to nationalism. importance course he would not be interested in civil religion, is that Boyd's position, and of and nationalism do not suit religion. politics More substantial criticisms might be raised with Bellah's thesis. First, he assumed that the Protestant tradition had a fundamental unity or conformity. He committed what we might call the "sin" of essentializing. Protestant unity and at the heart of civil religion. We know that the Protestant tradition conformity lay is exceedingly diverse. How does civil religion reflect that diversity? Bellah did in its own and cer not address that question. But this is not a powerful critique to this criticism not call his thesis into question. He might respond tainly does by seems or appears all-inclusive, out that in the same way that civil pointing religion its root tradition is a "normalizing" of that diversity. The dominant American Protestant model assumes that diversity and makes it a characteristic of itself. This first criticism suggests something else that is important. The rise of con servative religion may be the result of two factors. Bellah already pointed to one of these factors in his The Broken Covenant (1975) noted above. The events of the late 1960s and early 1970s?the war inVietnam, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr.and Robert Kennedy, the antiwar movement, and the duplicity of the nation s highest officers made civil religion that "empty shell" that provided a an opening, social-religious empty space to ascend. The second factor is that civil religion did not supply the distinct ideas and behaviors that conservative Protestants wanted?the seeming defeat of prayer in public schools and victory of Roe v.Wade demonstrated that faith in the nation, faith in its civil religion, was was no misplaced. Civil religion religion.

[C]ivil religion did not supply the

distinct
conservative

ideas and behaviors

Protestants wanted.

that
. . .

Civil

religion

was

no

religion.

The second criticism is more substantial. What is the relationship between American civil religion and American nationalism? Here it is important to think of nationalism as the most successful new religion of modernity. It is fabulously

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THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

successful,

much

more

successful

than

states have not clearly separated religion and state. There one might find nation alism, an official state religion (e.g., England) or an unofficial state religion (e.g., in France). There may be no civil Catholicism religions in these nations. Thus, nationalism may arise in many different contexts. Civil can only arise religion when there is a social place for it, in between, in the separation between church and state.

any

other

religion.

However,

some

nation

The Problem of Pluralism

Bellah carefully noted that civil religion reflects the dominant religion of the In the United nation-state. States before that meant mainline 1965, Protestantism. But at the very moment that Bellah was writing this important essay on religion in the United States, the U.S. immigration laws were changing. Over the next quarter century, immigration law would significantly change the of the nation, which in turn significantly changed the nature religious landscape of American civil religion and pluralism. A Muslim American or Hindu American may not be able to appreciate the authority of American creation myth. In 1955, a Will Herberg published his Protestant, Catholic, Jew, which rightfully enjoys as a classic statement about American place midcentury religions. Herberg to analyze the processes of acculturation in the United States and pro sought duced an analysis that is parallel to Bellah's a decade later. Herberg was critical of the "melting pot" conception inwhich individuals from all nations should melt into a new race or a new racial-cultural blend. This was not was pluralism, which the hallmark of American religions and American religious culture. Where was was on the side of what he called the pluralism? Pluralism, Herberg reasoned, "nationalists who want to perpetuate ethnic communities as integral to American was the society. In essence, this transplanting of Europe multinationalism which became ethnic groups in the United States" (Herberg 1955, 32). Neither the nor the nationalist model is correct. Ethnic identities are not melting pot easily erased by generations, and the pluralism of nationalisms fails to provide a com mon will, national or unification stability, through national education. else is necessary to understand acculturation or Herberg suggested something Americanization. He coined the term "transmuting pot" to describe how immi move toward the national an cultural ideal grants type that is Anglo-American and also a Protestant ideal. But they cling to religion. Religion is the only thing that is not transmuted in thismodel. Religion becomes the mechanism of differ entiation in the context of self-identification (Herberg 1955, 40, 47-48). He that the necessary connection between self-identification and religion argued arises from our history. From the very beginnings, American society was based on a diversity and substantial equality of religious associations. One had to be one to with Protestant, a Catholic, or a Jew. Americanization requires identify one of these three religions.

ACTIVE VERSUS PASSIVE PLURALISM

141

Pluralism, Herberg argued, ispart of the deep structure of American history and a secularized society. But theminority religions, the Catholics and Jews,must adopt Protestantism, which is called "the American Way of life" or "our common faith". Jews and Catholics must shape themselves to the secularized Protestantism that dominates America. There is some loss of particularism and uniqueness for both one kind of Jews and Catholics, but the loss guarantees their identity.But pluralism are in this process of acculturation. turn is this. Jews and Catholics passive They while at the same time adapting to and adopting this secularized inward Protestantism. Both Catholics and Jews have reacted defensively when their reli or were we find gions perceived to be threatened endangered. In both traditions, die development of antidefamation organizations, members of both traditionsmobi lize around issues of the intrusion of the church into public education, both have elaborate systems of religious education that guarantee the subject matter of public education and the faithmatters of their respective religious traditions, and finally both champion church-state separation. This is a pluralism that neutralizes any effort to claim anything more than a presence in the public arena, an acknowledge ment that there are other religious traditions.

Active

Pluralism

Some might argue that there are no parallels to our pluralism in other parts of the modern and contemporary world. It was perhaps Alexis de Tocqueville who first saw this pluralism and understood both its uniqueness and strength in America. He noted in his De la democratic en Amerique (1835-1840) thatwe were a very was struck so strong religious nation, and he by how religion could become was "diminished" when it by being separated from the institutions of political power. He wrote, "When I arrived in the United States, itwas the country's reli gious aspect that first captured my attention. The longer I stayed, the more I became aware that this novel situation had important political consequences. In I knew, the spirit of and the spirit of liberty almost France, religion always pulled in opposite directions. In the United States I found them intimately intertwined: same together they ruled the territory" (Tocqueville 1835/2004, 340-41). What is for us today is that more than 150 years after the interesting publication of in America is that he saw and politics having Tocqueville's Democracy religion in the nation's social and cultural life.He answered his coequal powers question inAmerica was not tied about how this could be possible by writing that religion to government, and thus itdoes not rise or fallwith the political fortunes of politi cians, parties, and governments. But religions isolation or separation from the meant among other political order things that itcould not be manipulated by polit ical leaders. He wrote that in times when beliefs are undermined by what he called "negative doctrines," the human spirit becomes the of superstitions. subject Even the unbeliever understands the importance of religion, despite his rejection of it.Much like Spinoza had argued in 1670 in his Treatise, Theological-Political

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THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

freedom of thought is the best defense against this manipulation. The republic thrives on diversity of thought and social life. Pluralism inAmerica has not remained static over the course of the nation's his tory. In the firstperiod ofAmerican history,when much of theAmerican population was located in the South, along the Eastern Seaboard and "pluralism" meant almost the pluralism of Protestant denominations that had come to the North exclusively America during the colonial period and sunk their roots into the early Republic. Certainly, that pluralism changed during the Second Great Awakening and with the in immigration of Catholics from Ireland and Jews from central and eastern Europe itsdistinctiveness was a passive pres the second half of the nineteenth century, but ence, with the new forms of Protestantism; with Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and "secular" or "cultural" Jews; and with ethnic Catholics, all claiming a presence in the United States. Passive pluralism meant the three mainline religions of the United States to claim of their place in the religious mixture sought only the acknowledgment of citizenship and social life. They created institutions thatwould maintain their religious identities, often mirroring the existing socio-religious institutions of the Protestant and churches were often dominant communities?synagogues and built by the same architects (many nineteenth-century and early designed in external appearance and interior twentieth-century synagogues often looked construction might have been taken for "high" Protestant churches). They built schools and colleges and other social institutions thatwere mirror images of one another. Patterns of charitable activities, what we today might call social justice programs, often took parallel paths toward realization, and patterns of philan were often thropy strikingly similar. In thisworld of "passive pluralism," presence the dominant form of participation in the cultural and political worlds provided to discrimination were also often similar. This of the United States. Responses was in some ways a realization of Moses Mendelssohn's hope passive pluralism that the social emancipation of Jews in Europe would yield a kind of doubled a a good Catholic, good Protestant, identity?a good citizen in the public domain, a at home and in the church and synagogue. Mendelssohn had and good Jew at the end of the eighteenth century that religion had no obligatory power argued and it could only hope to persuade its adherents to do or believe its central ritu als and dogma (Mendelssohn 1969). Indeed, this critique of religion is at the very heart of his Jerusalem (1783), which set out the major issues in the moderniza tion of Judaism in Europe. Certainly, there are many challenges to the traditional on the separation of religion and state in this amalgam of passive pluralism, but and Protestants sought to avoid conflict with the state in whole, Catholics, Jews, favor of the acknowledged presence of each community, especially at the most inauguration of presi important moments of the nation's collective life?the the inauguration of congressional calendars, and the responses to natural dents, disasters and calamities. But a second form of pluralism made its appearance with the extensive immi new Americans since 1965 who have brought with them their religious gration of traditions. Maintaining their religious identities has been as important as becoming

ACTIVE VERSUS PASSIVE PLURALISM 143 new citizens, to new becoming American, which leads hyphenated identities that were not present in earlier of our history. Indeed, maintaining identities periods among the sons and daughters of immigrants required a more assertive stance than was required in the earlier period of passive pluralism. Religious ecological spaces had to be carved out in new ways, tomake one's presence as a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Sikh, a Native American, and an African American in the
nation.

their religious identities Maintaining has been as important [to U. S. immigrants since 1965] as becoming new citizens, to new becoming American, which led identities that were not present in hyphenated earlier periods of our history.

Active

The religious and social processes thatwere involved in this creation of pres ence were affected by the acceleration of the larger social processes of the nation. a slower pace. Active In earlier periods, these processes evolved at pluralism became a way not only to demonstrate presence but also to participate in the fab ric of national identity. Of course, the rapidity of these processes also reflected the forces of globalization. A bomb in a Tel Aviv bus depot had immediate reac tion on the streets of New York and Los Angeles; rebellion in the Yucatan was felt among Latinos in East Los Angeles; economic downturns and world events were felt in the body of American pluralism inways that had no parallel in the past.
pluralism also meant that it was necessary to make one's presence a part

of the public arena, and especially the constructions of time and place?the cal endar that regulated the social, political, and economic activities of Americans no must include new in the significant religious times that had "standing" public of time. In short, this active pluralism made new claims on the meanings public arena thatwere without in earlier parallel periods. new Americans, it But while this active pluralism facilitated the assimilation of also created its counterpoint: total religious institutions that to re-create the sought American milieu within them. institutions could all of the neces Religious provide members. If coffeehouses were fashion sary ingredients of an American life for its able in the larger American society, they could be replicated within religious
communities. Alternative spaces, alternative times, alternative arts, and alternative

144

THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

education could be created and controlled within and under the control of religious organizations. These alternatives tomodern secular and pluralistic America could provide everything that the larger society thought fashionable and valuable.

An Eruv

at the Beach

on Active pluralism seeks to impress religious meanings public time and space. A very good of this active pluralism in Los Angeles is a recent effort example by the Pacific Jewish Center, an Orthodox synagogue in Venice Beach, to enclose Santa Monica, Venice, and Marina del Ray within an eruv, or a bounded mixed space. The Pacific Jewish Center, which is located on the boardwalk in Venice, to string a over several proposed fishing line between lampposts and sign poles miles to enclose all three areas within a continuous and unbroken bound square ary of several square miles. There are many eruvim (the plural of eruv) within the area of Los metropolitan Angeles, including Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Hancock West Hollywood, Westwood, and the San Fernando Valley. The Los Angeles Park, Times reported that the eruv would allow Orthodox Jews to "consider themselves to be 'at home' on the Sabbath. That eases restrictions of the holy day and allows to carry food, strollers and bring their house keys with them when people push writers noted that the congregation's they go out." The Los Angeles Times staff rabbi, Rabbi Gen Geiger "said the eruv would make it easier for people to prac tice their faith.With the eruv in place, synagogue members would be able to a own stroll the Venice boardwalk during the Sabbath and even bring picnic. His not have towalk the 1 Vzmiles from children?the ofwhom is 4?would youngest their home to the synagogue on Ocean Front Walk." Rabbi Geiger went on to a note that "part of Jew is that there are certain restric being Sabbath-observing as to how we can observe that tions of rest. . . .Observant Jews,' he said, day 'can't even push somebody in a wheelchair on Saturday, which has meant that at his synagogue a child who is confined to a wheelchair has been forced to stay " inside for 25 hours at a stretch?the entire night and day of the Sabbath.' The of the plan noted that the eruv would boost local tourism by making proponents to an Orthodox Venice an ideal destination for Orthodox Jews who might flock with an Orthodox eruv at the beach. synagogue The Monica

was reviewed and synagogue's proposal approved by cities of Santa and Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, and the California Department of Fish and Game. The last reviewing agency was the California Coastal Commission, which had final say over the proposal in that the eruv was within its jurisdictional space. In October 2006, the staff report of the Coastal Commission recommended that the commission not approve the proposal. The report argued that the eruv's monofilament line would obstruct the views of the oceanfront for some of the residents who live on the beach. The staffers also right suggested that the monofilament line constituted a significant danger to the Least Terns that nest in the area. In 1970, the Least Tern was put on the endangered species list because the development of the Pacific Coast Highway increasingly threatened

ACTIVE VERSUS PASSIVE PLURALISM 145 their habitats. The synagogue had designed into its proposal hanging streamers which might warn the terns. But the streamers also contributed to the staffers' concern of that the eruv would block the view of the beachside. One resident of Venice said that "if the string is kind of invisible, I don't want to be finding injured was birds around because quite adamant they're flying into it." This resident about the streamers thatwere intended towarn the terns. Itwould mean "thrash so the birds can see it, then we can see it, and to ing up the place. If you try fix it that wouldn't be OK with me." The proponents were willing to negotiate by that the birds might see, and removing the streamers, using blue monofilament also painting the poles blue so that theymight blend with the blues of the ocean and the horizon (Bernstein and Groves 2006). The Mishnah, the first codification of Jewish ritual law, stipulates that among the thirty-nine general categories of labor prohibited on the Shabbat (Mishnah Shabbat 7:2) is transferring something from the public domain to a private domain or from a private domain to the public domain (ha-motzi mereshut lir shut). The only way this can be done is by a person in the private domain and a person in the public domain equally carrying the object from one domain to the these two spaces was other (Mishnah Shabbat 1:1). The boundary between immutable for the sages of the Mishnah. However, they faced a significant social or ethical it be possible for one to provide food (prepared problem. How would in the private domain) for the poor (in the public domain)? The sages of the Mishnah created a third space thatwas a mixture of both the public and private that they called an eruv. The model for this space was the structure of residential in in housing units that opened up to a central buildings Judea. Families lived to courtyard, and often several families shared the courtyard. The courtyard led the street. The home of each familywas private space, and the street was public space. But what of the courtyard shared by the residents of the housing units? It nor a was neither private, and they understood this to be mixed space that public called an eruv. they The noun eruv is derived from a Hebrew verb thatmeans "to mix" or "to con fuse." The nouns that are produced from this verb all suggest a mixture or a sub stance which has been mixed. So the Hebrew word "evening "or erev means the to mixing of night and day produce "twilight." The fourth plague visited upon the in Exodus 8, arov, means a mixture of wild beasts. English translations Egyptians of thisword vary from gnats and flies towild beasts, the lattermeaning held by tra and in its iconography dition as witnessed in the text of the Passover Haggadah (Kasher 1950, 118-19). The important aspect is that the plague represents a mix nouns from this verb is ture of insects or beasts. A more fascinating deployment of aravi or "Arab," which suggest that in the biblical cosmology, aravim or Arabs were people who inhabited the mixed space between desert and agricultural land. The termmay also suggest that these were nomadic peoples who moved between and mixed the two spaces, desert and cultivated lands. The Mishnah contains an entire tractate that explicates in great detail the com even plexities of eruvim. The sages added several prohibitions against transferring something within private domains that could be confused with public domains.

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public domain (reshut ha-rabbim), the They conceived of four types of space?the domain (reshut ha-yahid), a space that could be either public or private private (karmelit), and finally a space thatwas either too small or too large and thus was eru or private (maqom pitur). Tractate exempt from being classified either public vim also sets out the regulations for how a private dwelling could become public or translated into space or how public space could be converted private space. This process of translating space requires there to be a single owner. If a space was was to be converted to a space that could be occu a or urban space and it public an individual or a group an eruv, itwould require being purchased by pied by as an individual. The tractate also takes up the issue of the Sabbath which is acting or techum shabbat, which was two thousand cubits fromwhere an indi boundary formulation of the Sabbath vidual might celebrate the Sabbath. The Mishnah is important because it is added to the eruv, so that a person might travel boundary as far as four thousand cubits. Some have estimated that thismight mean a bound ary of just under a mile and a half. Eruvim have been challenged inmany places throughout the United States. In some cases the issue of separation of church and challenge has been around the state. So, in the case of the Pacific Jewish Center's proposed eruv, Mark Massara, the director of the Sierra Club's California Coastal Program, described the project as nuts. ... To the extent thatwe're allowing public property to be used "really for religious purposes is very troublesome" (Jerusalem Post 2006). In the past quar ter century, many challenges raised this issue. For example, in 1983, an Orthodox in Lawrence, Long Island, attempted to expand an eruv that Jewish congregation was the village council in 1973. A decade later, the village's attorney approved by contended that approving the eruv would be unconstitutional because it violated the religious freedom principles of the constitutions of both the state and federal on the eve of the council government. The congregation withdrew the application some accommo meeting to consider their proposal, hoping that theymight reach dation where calmer minds might explore the ramifications of the eruv. The con is thiswire different from all other gregation's rabbi, Gilbert Klaperman said, "Why . . . which accrue money to the village. wires? They have cable television wires, it intrudes on our life.And they've had Christmas decora They rent the space and tions, and nobody blocked that." Klaperman also said that the eruv was neither reli nor social. "All it does is enable a person to move. In this country we gious our sidewalks to accommodate Women didn't handicapped people. redesigned all used to be able to vote, and I'd never dream of coming before the village and say remove the street-closing signs from around the parochial schools. ing they should There might be concern if thiswere a star or a menorah, but it'spurely a secular wire." In the end, the village and the congregation reached an "accommodation," which was to request that the congregation not put up wires where utilitywires did not exist before" (Baron 1983; Rothstein 1983). The most important of these challenges arose in Tenafly, New Jersey, and and a half years to its final resolution. The small Orthodox spanned nearly five inTenafly, approximately forty families in 2000, put up the eruv wires community without the city council's approval. Mayor Ann Moscovitz commented, "They're

ACTIVE VERSUS PASSIVE PLURALISM 147 to do that. The Law is very clear." The mayor was referring to a city permitted ordinance thatmade it illegal to put up posters on any city property. The mayor went on to comment that she and the city council had been approached by two members of the Orthodox community during summer 2000 about erecting the a a me that to rent the eruv. borough of Tenafly for dollar they had "They told the mayor said. "Even symbolically, it seemed inappropriate for the mayor year," and the council to rent the borough to anybody. How do you do that?" Here, the Orthodox Jews were acting in conformity to the religious law of the Mishnah, which required them to take possession of the public space, and that possession could also be a symbolic purchase. A rabbi outside the community commented that he was sympathetic to having an eruv in areas where there is a large Jewish went on to comment that community. For him, itmade people feel at home. He "on the other hand, to take possession of a town, even symbolically, also conflicts . . . with the separation of church and state,which is also very important tome. I think itdoes need some debate so that the issues are aired publicly and people We need to bring about mutual don't think Jews are trying to take over a city. But the members of the congregation that had put up the wires understanding." were convinced that the separation of church and state and even the antiposter a darker were just smokescreens to hide objective, controlling the ing ordinance into a community (Parry 2000). number of Orthodox Jewish families moving The Jews sought a stay of execution to stop the city taking down the wires of to the U.S. District Court, where the eruv. They appealed Judge William G. a enclosure had improperly been placed on Bassler refused ruling that religious Court to Say ifRitual Jewish Boundary Stays Up dur public property ("Appeals The Jewish Community through the Tenafly Eruv Association ingAppeal" 2001). in 2002 that the to the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled appealed eruv should remain. The noted that the borough often ignored appellate judges its own law about posting things on utility poles, and thus itwould be unfair to enforce the law selectively against Orthodox Jews. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the town's appeal in 2003, leaving in place the appellate court to pay the Tenafly Eruv Association's ruling. The court also ruled that the city had fees, which amounted to $325,000. Prior to the case going to the appellate legal court, the association had sought a compromise inwhich they would pay their eruv to stay. It was not until own legal fees if the city agreed to allow the November 2006 that the city council voted to designate the money from its bud not In November 2006, the California Coastal Commission to allow the agreed eruv to go forward in Venice, Santa Monica, and Playa del Rey. Their ruling allowed a three-year test period to determine if the monofilament would consti tute a threat to the Least Terns. Clearly, the Tenafly situation was not lost upon the commission, which stayed away from any consideration of a church-state con flict.But there are several important points that need to be underscored with the Pacific Jewish Center proposal for an eruv. The eruv "magically" transforms the or space within it. The eruv does not require non-Orthodox Jews non-Jews to or act in any way. The eruv exists for the Orthodox believe Jewswho know that the

Record). get (TheTenefly

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wires are there. The eruv would thus be a significant example of this active plu which changes the meanings of time and space, or minimally adds addi ralism, tional meanings to them. In this active pluralism there is no necessary conflict between synagogue and state. The eruvim have also become venues for conflicts within the Jewish community. The contest over an eruv in Palo Alto provoked considerable debate by Jewish were non-Orthodox. a licensed Marty Klein, marriage and family ther people who his e-mail message to the city council in thisway: "I am Jewish and an apist, began active member of a Palo Alto congregation." He went on to say that he was against "the eruv because it is the imposition of religious symbols and beliefs by one com . . .The eruv is not harmless, is munity onto everyone else. precisely because it loaded with religious significance" (Khanh 2000). In other cases, members of the an eruv. For Jewish community have been appalled by the "imposition" of example, an eruv in the northern in 1993, inLondon, therewas a proposal for neighborhoods of the city.The local city government blocked the plan, citing that it would consti tute "additional street furniturewhich would be detrimental to the charac visually ter and appears of the streets" (Cameron 1993; Merriweather 1993; Braid 1993; Whittle 1993; "Council Rejects Plans for Jewish Religious Zone" 1993). Some non Orthodox Jews saw this eruv as a return to the ghetto. This was the firsteruv pro was in the British Isles, and it in 1993. posed anywhere ultimately sanctioned later the Lawrence, New Jersey, case broke a decade before, there were an esti When mated four hundred eruvim in the United States. This suggests that the separation of church and state and our unique pluralism allow religion to interact with the state in powerful ways, much as Tocqueville had seen and commented upon in his inAmerica (1835/2004). Democracy

eruvim in the United [The four-hundred-plus States that the separation of church suggest] and state and our unique pluralism allow to interact with the state in powerful religion seen and as had ways, much Tocqueville commented upon in his Democracy in America.

On

In 1993,Williamsburg, New York, became the scene of a struggle over an eruv. one side were the ultra-Orthodox Satmar Hasidim and the other side other Hasidic groups that did not accept the religious authority of the Satmar and the

ACTIVE VERSUS PASSIVE PLURALISM 149 extreme position eruvim. The Satmar argue that the they took toward limited eruv desecrates the sanctity of the Sabbath and could lead Jews to ignore other as man religious laws of the Sabbath, such spending money. One Satmar young "ifwe carry,we'll go to the newsstand and buy newspapers, eat commented that won't look like (Shabbat) anymore." Members of both pizza, ride bicycles and it communities have staged guerrilla raids on the eruv, mounting wire cutters on some cases, the defenders of the eruv have long poles to cut the wires. In thewire and camouflaging itor placing thewire so high responded by restringing Some Satmars were arrested on charges they attacked up that it is unreachable. on the Sabbath and itwas not uncommon for people carrying objects shoving matches to break out on the streets between the two groups ("Orthodox Jewish Sects Divided over Eruv" 2003).

Matthew Frye Jacobson (2006) argued that President John F. Kennedy used the discourse of "we are a nation of immigrants" to sell a liberal immigration pol icy that culminated in the sweeping immigration reforms of 1965. This was a Eurocentric conception. The difference in the results of that reform and the his torical European waves of immigration between 1845 and 1924 has startled many. a commitment to far Kennedy argued that immigration "infused the nation with horizons and new frontiers and liberty,kept the promising spirit of American life, the spirit of equality and of hope, always alive and strong." in Kennedy's speech Ireland a few months before his assassination underscored his liberal vision. The immigrants brought characteristic talents and qualities with them to the nation. are treated far less But non-European groups do not share with these qualities and But religion is not considered. "Jews" refers to an ethnic group from thoroughly. Central and Eastern European nations. But in fact religion is the most important characteristic in the identities of the new immigrants; it would be very difficult for us to imagine that their religious identities are passively shaped in relationship to the dominant Protestant ideal (Jacobson 2006, 350-52). We think of passive pluralism as consensus and assimilation. This is precisely Herberg's model of religion and identity inmidcentury America. It is very much the sense of e pluribus unum. Passive pluralism is defined by the establishment of presence and equality, but without any claim to public space or public time. It assumes that one will become a citizen like other citizens. President Kennedy's liberal understanding of immigration understood that each immigrant group a brings distinctive characteristic to the nation. Ethnicity and religion are bridges, then, to citizenship, which would replace ethnicity completely; religion would be made exclusively into a private confession.
Neither nor can account for the condition of passive religion pluralism religious in the first years of the new we see I of what century. Everywhere, examples In the last months have called active was the site of 2005, Southern California pluralism. in protest to the discussion of of immigration reform going on in huge demonstrations were These demonstrations Washington. larger than many antiwar protests of the 1960s. Los Cardinal did the Angeles's Roger Mahoney something unparalleled by ordering in the Los to resist the criminalization churches archdiocese immi of Angeles illegal or undocumented workers. This sanctioned the actions in the grants already under way civil America parishes Mahoney where had priests originally made their churches into not been very positive about for the undocumented. refuges these actions. But his change is

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There are many other examples of this active pluralism. In Southern California over the past five years, it has been common for all-news radio stations to quite broadcast Ramadan messages that remind people when the daily fast ends at sun set. These ads seem directed at Muslims who do not affiliate with mosques and Islamic centers where this information is readily available. But these messages also were intended to educate non-Muslims about Islam and its values. This ismuch like the educational activities that have been used by Jewish communities for decades with regard to Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur. Just as in the Jewish the Ramadan announcements were followed by brief interviews with messages, Muslim personalities about the meanings of Ramadan. But these are not just educative messages intended forMuslims and non-Muslims. They are also claims to public time that, just like the eruv, impresses particular religious meanings onto time. The very nature of one of the nation's most distinct characteristics or public a marks of identity?its pluralism?is undergoing profound transformation.

another of active pluralism. He did what civil in the 1950s and example rights leaders did or issue into a moral turned a political issue, and that turning of early 1960s?he legal the issue is the result of an active onto the that impresses pluralism religious meaning issues of the day.

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rejects plans for Jewish religious zone. 1993. United Press International, London, February votes funding for Eruv. 2006. The Tenefly Record, November 21. Davis, Mike. 2000. Magical urbanism: Latinos reinvent the U.S. city. New York: Verso. steers clear of Laurie. 2006. Conservative Goodstein, evangelical pastor politics, and pays. New Times, July 30. Council Council Herberg, Will. 1955. Protestant, Catholic, Jew: An essay in American religious sociology. New Doubleday. Jacobson, Matthew MA: Harvard

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Orthodox over eruv. 2003. Associated Press, May 16. Jewish sects divided vs. Parry,Wayne. 2000. Tenafly religious enclosure pits Jewish law zoning Local Wire, September 28. Rothstein, Mervyn. 1983. A nylon cord. New York Times, September 11. 1983. Worldviews: Smart, Ninian. Scribners Sons. 1987. The nence Crosscultural explorations

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