It seems that ideology, like nationalism and ethnicity, has the ability to motivate people on the basis of group factors. Members will engage in actions to perpetuate the group, help it survive, etc. Think about people dying for their country.

One potential difference between religion and all of these things is that while religion “shares” with them the ability to motivate people on a group basis, there is an added individual basis for motivation due to the possibility of salvation. That is to say, religion shares with nationalism or ideology (which could be a nationalist ideology) the ability to motivate people to engage in actions, even to die, for the group.

However, religion adds the possibility for individual benefits in the form of the afterlife/salvation/etc.

So it is the combination of both individual and group benefits that might, conceptually, make religion interesting.

Michael Horowitz is a member of MESH.

I do, however, disagree with Moghadam on a few analytical points. First, the contention that ideology is a group phenomenon while religion is an individual one does not strike me as correct. Ask any anthropologist of the Middle East, or of any other traditional society, and he or she will tell you that religion is for the most part organic to a community, and particularly so to the endogamous social organizations that still characterize many Middle Eastern societies. A person is born into a religion by virtue of being born into a tribe. No one particularly cares what a person believes privately so long as he or she conforms to expected social roles, and these are sanctioned by religion. That leaves room for some non-conformism in belief in a way that need not upset social relations. This is pretty wise and stable an arrangement, for the most part—one that certain forms of modernity miss. In the West, after Hobbes and Locke and the rest, yes, religion has been confessionalized and privatized. And yes, in theological terms, a Muslim (like a Jew) engages God directly and individually. But in terms of politically sociology, no, religion is a very social business in most societies, and that certainly includes most Middle Eastern societies.

Nor do I think it possible to show that religion is always status quo and ideology always anti-status quo. Revitalization movements in religion can be very anti-status quo. Think Muhammad himself. Think the Almohads. Think the jointure of the Al-Saud and the Al-Wahhab. For that matter, think the White Lotus societies that overthrew a Mongol dynasty in China in the 14th century. Think radical Protestants like Luther or, better, Thomas Muntzer in the Peasants Rebellion. Now, if one ipso facto tries to define all such episodes as ideology just because they are anti-status quo, then one has a rollicking case of circular thinking, if ever there was one. And ideology can be status quo, too—even the formal kind. Think Brezhnevian stagnation; think the latter day Stasi state in the DDR.

No, the key difference between religion and ideology, as Anna Simons and others have pointed out, is that religion is indeed organic to society and so does not need day-in, day-out enforcers. But when there are no enforcers of ideology, it dries up and blows away. It does not link into the mazes and traditions of people to be able to do without artificial forms of sustenance. The other difference is that religion promises understanding and salvation when it comes to cosmic mysteries. It thus brings solace. Ideology, on the other hand, is limited in what it can promise to outcomes on earth. This may seem a trivial matter, but it isn’t. Religion has a way of providing balance for people as to what they can affect in life and what they cannot affect. It provides a practical philosophy for coping with difficulties. Ideology, on the other hand, has no innate balance. Its general tendency is not to promote calm and balance, but always to stimulate action, to marshal discontent or angst in order to go out and do something, whether on behalf of change or on behalf of defending the status quo from real or imagined assailants. The cumulative social impact of this difference can be significant.

All of which brings us back to the problem Moghadam has so wisely identified. Is Salafi Jihad comprised of ideological or religious energies? Well, it is some of both, as he says. It is, as Mark Lilla would put it, an example of political theology (The Stillborn God, Knopf, 2007 and well worth reading). Here’s a thought experiment for you: Suppose you stopped saying and thinking “Protestant Reformation” and “French Revolution” and started thinking instead “Protestant Revolution” and “French Reformation.” In other words, suppose you scrambled categories in your head between what is religious and what is political in terms of Western history. Notwithstanding the differences between religion and ideology noted above, you would find perhaps, as I have, that thinking about creedal systems as a whole, in which theology is either implicit or explicit but always present, and in which political ideology is either implicit or explicit but also always present, is an interesting exercise. It forces us to re-think the associations we have learned, and it generates new questions that our old scheme of compartmentalization prevented us from formulating. Assaf Moghadam is trying to wrap his mind around a really difficult question. My hat is off to him for trying. As for myself, I have generated plenty of questions from this exercise but, alas, not yet many answers. I just don’t know enough yet.

Adam Garfinkle is a member of MESH.