[MUSIC] Religion in Espace Mondial can be proved at three different levels. We have to distinguish between these three levels of analysis. The first one would be the level of actors, how actors are socialized. What are the real influence of religion in the social and political behavior of individuals and how these behaviors are organizing, shaping the main issue and the main mobilization around the world? The second level would be the system and the political system. Commonly, we hear from medias and from public opinion or opinion leaders. We hear some sentences like the Muslim political system, the Christian political system, Islam in politics, as if religion was able to shape and organize a political system. In reality, in fact, the difference is much more important that we can imagine. It's very difficult to coin a system as a Muslim political system or as a Christian political system, as it is obvious that many, many kinds of Islam do exist around the world. And it's not possible to conceive a single model of Islam and politics, or of Christianism and politics, so we have to debate about it. And the third level is the level of mobilization, is religion able to mobilize and to create, to generate a particle mobilization? Or is religion only an emblema of a political mobilization? Is religion a [FOREIGN] or is it a [FOREIGN]? And this is probably one of the main points we have to discover together. But the first question is the most important because not so easy to solve is what is a religion? What is a religion, we have to go back to the famous french sociologist, Emile Durkheim, who published a very important book dealing with religion in our world. And Durkheim in this book opposes sacred to profane. And this opposition is considered by Durkheim as a main founding opposition for descending and approaching the manifestation and the expressions of religion and politics. Sacred is the country of profane as sacred is considered as out of reach for human beings. Sacred is the field which is not able to be shaped and organized by human beings, when profane is the real field of the human action and human creation. If now, sacred is considered as out of reach, we can imagine our sacred is a very strong argument for mobilizing people in a society. If sacred is conceding illegitimacy which is out of reach of individuals, it's very strong useful and successful instrument for mobilizing and convincing individuals. That's why sacred is so used in politics. Using a formula which is coming from a field which is out of reach of individuals is very good instrument for convincing people. Inside sacred, there came distinguishes, rituals, and beliefs. And religion is the combination of rituals and beliefs. Now the question is why sacred is so important in our modern or even post modern world. If we follow Durkheim, sacred is supposed to decline when modernization takes place. And so Durkheim was writing in a positivist time, positivist period. Consider that religion was to be faded when modernization takes place. And however, we can observe something which is quite different from what you came for so. So, three hypothesis can be modernize. If sacred is so present in our modern or post modern world, it's first because maybe sacred is now creating a new modernity, that is the first hypothesis. And even we can consider that [FOREIGN] would be something like a new secular religion. But in [FOREIGN], you can also find something like beliefs and even rituals. Can we consider that we are now facing a new sacred modernity, that's the first hypothesis. Our second one, we need to consider that sacred is a kind of substitute. That's to say, in our modern world, some structure are not really operating, sometimes states doesn't work, sometimes political parties doesn't work, sometimes ideologies don't work anymore. And when these instruments of governing, ruling, mobilizing, protesting are not working, religion and sacred can be a very useful and functional substitute. The third hypothesis would be to consider religion as a culture. Different religions are also expressing different cultures as I define them in my previous lecture. And so religions will be back for expressing this diversity of cultures which is really at stake in our present world. So now, how can we consider religion, religious actors? Religious actors must be considered as individuals because, first of all, we have to take into account the fact that religion belongs to the individual. And that every individual, each individual is shaping his own religion. So there is an individual level for approaching, this a very important notion of religious actor. And the second level will be the level of religious entrepreneurs. Religions are organized as structures by entrepreneurs as Max Weber defined then, that's to say as organized group with an administrative interaction. And so we have to build up a typology of these religious actors and to consider that this religious entrepreneurs are not working in the same manner. Because all the religious entrepreneurs are different and must be considered separately. For instance, if you take into account the Roman Catholic Church. This is a religious entrepreneurs which is strongly centralized and which can be compared with the nation state. There is some similarities between the issue of the church, this very centralized organization, and the nation state. But now, if we move to the Protestantism, to the Christian reform, we are facing another model in which the individual is much more important. And in which the church is fading as a transnational structure and don't exist as a unified church like the case in the Roman Catholic Christianism. A third example would be the Orthodox Christianism in which church was merging with empire when politics and religions are combined in the kind of dual structure. And now if we move to Islam, we are facing another model in which there is no church, no centralization, no organization, but a very complex network of preachers. And in which the Muslim community, the ummah, is playing the role of integration. Now if we move to other religions from Asia like Hinduism, we are facing another feature which is a kind of depreciation of power, a depreciation of politics. When on the contrary, Buddhism is contesting power, was created as a kind of protest gain of power and which is creating new structures especially around Monarchism. And so, that's why when we consider religion and politics in the Espace Mondial, we have to take into account this diversity of actors. [MUSIC]
