Waves and Cycles of Religious Tension in History

• Main Author: B. FILIPPOV
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: St. Tikhon's Orthodox University 2015-02-01
• Series: Вестник Православного Свято-Тихоновского гуманитарного университета: Серия I. Богословие, философия
• Subjects: waves; cycles; tension; renewal; the conditions fro salvation; types of piety; sects; secularization/de-secularization; Reformation; anti-clericalism; Jaspers; Eisenstadt; Schlesinger; Buné; S. Lebedev; Uzlaner; Filatov; Furman; Kääriä
• Online Access: http://periodical.pstgu.ru/en/pdf/article/2782

The notions of «religious awakening» and «religious revival» refer to processes which took place in the history of European civilization. These notions are widely used in academic language and literature. During the last third of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century, a global phenomenon emerged which can be described as «de-secularization», «religious revival» or «spiritual awakening». This was characteristic of all religions. Sociologists, researchers of religions and political scientists have begun to discuss its nature and character. The author attempts to place it in the broader context of Western European and Russian history of the last five hundred years. He wishes to examine it with reference to the cyclic-wave theory of social development. He introduces the concept of «religious tension» defined as the idea that mankind and the individual cannot be in a state of constant religious tension. Following the wave of spiritual tension or religious revival a «return wave» of spiritual indifference or tranquility succeeds. The two periods taken together constitute a single cycle. As a criterion for assessing the presence or absence of tension, the author highlights popular piety and the religious atmosphere just before the Protestant Reformation. These models are later employed as part of a pattern underlining similar characteristics of religious life at other times. The first section of the article presents the theory behind the problem and the characteristics of the return wave lasting from 1930 to 1960. This was the wave that served as the basis for the theory of secularization. The second section of the article highlights the religious tension characteristic of the second half of the twentieth and the start of the twenty-fi rst century.