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Conclusion: Religion and the Creation of Pious Citizens
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196 Conclusion Religion and the Creation of Pious Citizens Over the course of the period 1830–1940 Zoroastrian reformers in India and Iran arrived at a remarkable consensus concerning the form and function of enlightened (that is, rational) religion. What had begun as an act of self-defense against Protestant missionaries and their claims to ownership of “true” religion developed into a comprehensive theological reform movement. Armed with both the destructive and the creative capacities of historicism, reformers reevaluated their own religious Tradition. They molded Zoroastrian belief and practice according to contemporary ideas of rational religion and its potential to create pious citizens. Reformers radically reconceived of the nature of religion as a human phenomenon that altered Zoroastrianism’s relationship to its own tradition as well as to other religious traditions. They fundamentally reshaped the way that individual Zoroastrians understood their history and their religious customs and practices. Self-styled Orthodox Zoroastrians, while disagreeing with their Reformist brethren on a number of central issues, were themselves also profoundly affected by new ideas of historicism and evolutionism. Quite simply, Zoroastrianism as understood and practiced in 1940 was qualitatively different from its understanding and practice in 1830. Rational religion was recovered and resuscitated from the ancient “core” of Zoroastrianism through the twin processes of historicization and essentialization . Its principal characteristics included monotheism, a stress on the individual ’s spiritual relationship to God, and a denunciation of formalism and ritual. Ethics, formerly understood and the practice of prescribed rituals that aided God and God’s supernatural minions in the ultimate battle between good and evil, was recast as ethical behavior in this world. The rationalization of ritual involved Conclusion | 197 discerning God’s intent, which was cast as moral responsibility. In other words, individual moral responsibility toward oneself, toward others, and toward society was cast as divinely ordained. The central feature of rational religion, and its chief attraction, was its causal relationship to social change. Rational religion was believed to be generative of “progress” and “civilization.” In other words, certain beliefs concerning the nature of an individual’s relationship to God, and the resulting modes of practice, were believed to create different sorts of individuals and consequently different kinds of societies. Society and, by extension, states were believed to be stronger and more powerful through the agency of particular forms of religious belief and practice. Reformers were convinced that there could be no social change without religious change.1 The individual was thus the motor for social change. As such, religion had a formative role in shaping the character of individuals who would then be active in society. Rational religion emphasized that God’s intention for mankind was to behave ethically in society. Reformers thus presumed to be able to discern God’s intentions and to identify the “essence” or “true” core of their religious traditions and texts. They held that ethical behavior did not entail participation in and allegiance to a particular religious community , nor yet was it embodied in correct performance of ritual. Rather, reformers repeatedly insisted that God’s intent was for individuals to behave ethically in society. The generation of the modern state thus depended ultimately on the creation of pious citizens. It was the deliberate, conscious assumption of ethical responsibility of the individual in society that was so fundamental to reformed religion. Ritual and performance were believed to lack, or even obscure, individual moral consciousness and to circumscribe ethics to limited performances and ritual duties. The truly pious, according to the new understanding of religion , imbued all their worldly actions with a conscious responsibility toward God and moral behavior. This focus on the individual character also explains the emphasis on the family and the role of women as mothers and thus targets of social reform. Women’s role in the religious and moral education of children as future citizens is a common theme in Reformist literature. Karkaria vehemently pursued this idea when he asserted that “a State is based on the family, and before trying to reform the former, attempts must be made to improve the latter.”2 The social condition of women in particular was a cause of much concern. Karkaria [18.217.220.114] Project MUSE (2024-04-19 13:17 GMT) 198 | Pious Citizens explained that “a people with their homes debased, their women ignorant and superstitious, a people trammeled with all the old-world prejudices and subject to the most cruelly one-sided customs and usages, can never hope to enjoy or exercise high...