Contenu du sommaire : Religion, secte et pouvoir

From a line of conduct to the heterodox group” : insight into the semantic evolution of the word `secta' from its origins to the early years of the late Middle Ages Derived from the verb sequi, “to follow”, the word secta long referred to a line of intellectual or moral conduct in Latin countries, devoid of negative connotations. It was often applied to schools of thought, particularly in philosophy. Christians, who were influenced by this acceptation, gave the term a religious overtone by using it, adjoined to the calque haeresis, to translate the Greek hairèsis, used even in the New Testament to designate dissenting or even heterodox groups. Secta suggested the malignant deviation and indiscipline of a circle placing itself outside the Catholic Church. This semantic shift towards the modern idea of a “sect” was for a long time incidental, until the agreements of Milan (313) confirmed the usage and the adoption of Christianity as a State religion (391 ­ 392) officialized it. The shift reflects the end of an old world : in the place of classical pluralism, when the variety of “sects” was seen as a sign of intellectual health and a condition of individual well-being (there was no studia liberalia without the freedom of choice!) came an exclusive religion imposing an indisputable dogma (“monodoxy”). The use of the terms haeresis and, more rarely, secta was henceforth blurred, and the use of the second term in a non-pejorative sense was limited to the domain of science (in medicine, notably).

Looking at problems raised by “political-religious opposition groups” (“sects”) in early Islam, it is seen that in the beginning there was no orthodoxy, but an Islam seeking self-definition, which continued more particularly in the first four centuries of the Moslem era. Historically, “orthodoxy” was built up over a long period, based on a certain consensus established by the foremost scholars in religious sciences, with the collaboration and sometimes against the will of the authorities. This held for Shiite and Sunni communities.

Protestant spokesmen were at pains to counter their image as a forbidden sect and to obtain the status of a tolerated church: their efforts can be comprehended within the categories of Webero-Troeltschian religious sociology. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) forced those who would not comply with it to resign themselves to adopting a sectarian form of organisation: they constituted groupuscules that valorised religious heroism and urged for a rupture with the social order. In the first phase of clandestine recomposition within the Churches of “the Desert”, no compromise could be envisaged; it was all or martyrdom. Gradually, this intransigence gave way to more moderate discourses, to attempts to negotiate with authorities, to offers of service and to protestations of citizenship, thus aiming to recover visibility and legitimacy by adhering to a Church modelled on Catholicism. It was a question of regaining a status in the public sphere, playing a part in the debates of the era, and guaranteeing the future of the group by new births.

A document issued by Rome in 1986, based on a “universal” and alarmist enquiry, analyses the reasons why sects have grown in popularity and numbers, particularly appealing to the vulnerable, materially or psychologically speaking. What characterises sects, when they are often so hard to distinguish from religious confessions? Intolerance, hard-hitting preaching methods, physical and moral pressure on their members often under the spell of a charismatic leader… Conversely, they offer personal recognition, integration within a community, simple answers to the perplexities of life, and a cultural identity, especially in third-world countries. Then pastoral solutions are put forward to oppose their influence.

Seen from the outside, the Soka Gakkaï appears as a lay community, both because it is made up of lay members, and because it upholds a humanist ideology of an officially unreligious character. The organisation's lay identity coupled with a fundamentally religious character bearing in mind the system of beliefs and ritual practices, must appear strange and paradoxical if we look no further than the explicit ideology without considering its insertion within a cognitive field. The network of socialisation or communalisation since we are speaking from a community level, may be likened to the cogs in the machine which selects reality in order to delimit a valid field of perception. The machine functions according to the system of known ­ unknown. Finally, the lay presentation of the religious structure, offering this religion as a non-religion, is a sort of finished product, packaging and adapting religious goods and services for modern or rather postmodern needs.