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COPYRIGHT 2005 Professors World Peace Academy
Recent discussions of religion and terror suggest important considerations for theology and politics in the post-9/11 era. This era will, in all likelihood, be characterized by intense religious activity. Comparative and historical analysis show that religious activity is morally multivalent and can lead to violence or peace. Common rhetoric about church-state separation is inadequate to deal with these issues. Religions are pluralistic entities and engage societies in a range of ways. But in the post-9/11 era, religious relativism is irresponsible. Thus, it is important to synthesize public theological resources that foster critical judgment and social-historical analyses that promote broad understanding of the world religions. Since violence is especially problematic in the post-9/11 era, special attention should be given to religious sources of violence, religious resources of peace, and possible religious support of democratic institutions.
********** Men undertake to be spiritual, and they become ascetic; or, endeavoring to hold a liberal view of the comforts and pleasures of society, they are soon buried in the world, and slaves to its fashions; or, holding a scrupulous watch to keep out every particular sin, they become legal, and fall out of liberty; or, charmed with the noble and heavenly liberty, they run to negligence and irresponsible living; so the earnest become violent, the fervent fanatical and censorious, the gentle waver, the firm turn bigots, the liberal grow lax, the benevolent ostentatious. Poor human infirmity can hold nothing steady. --Horace Bushnell Nineteenth century American Theologian (2) Since the terrifying acts of September 11, 2001, the relationship of religion and politics--especially purported failures and dangers of Islam--has dominated scholarly and popular discussions. From the ashes of this catastrophe, Islamophobia, an irrational fear of things Muslim, has taken on new urgency. In the last few years, scores of books have been written either denouncing or defending Islam. (3) Authors have insisted that the West and Islam are at war. In the same broad strokes, Islam has been heralded as a religion of peace. When authored by westerners these claims are often couched in, but not sufficiently critical of, the prevalent Western view that all religions should honor the separation of church and state. When authored by non-Western Muslims, these claims generally reject church-state separation as a secular system devoid of theology, instead of viewing it as an ecclesiology. (4) Beguiled by assumptions entailed within this ecclesiology, Islam's detractors have more often misunderstood than understood the religion, and Islam's defenders have more often misrepresented than represented it. The ecclesiological-theological, and not merely secular, dimension of church-state separation has often gone unrecognized. In the post-9/11 era, renewed conversation about religion, politics, and violence and peace is mandatory. In this discussion, comparative analyses of the major religions that treat social, political, economic, and cultural contexts will be most fruitful. Since the post-9/11 era is fraught with violence, ethical concern to understand and uproot violent tendencies is also a crucial starting point.
Two recently published books--Sam Harris's The End of Faith (5) and an edited volume entitled World Religions and Democracy (6) by Larry Diamond, Marc Plattner, and Philip Costopoulos--address and partly satisfy these needs. Harris reflects ethically on the capacity of religious faith to precipitate acts of madness, and Diamond et al. examine the capacity of world religions to support development of large-scale social systems, especially democratic politics. On the face of it, the conclusions the authors draw are diametrically opposed. In brief, Harris argues that faith is poisonous to the prospect of civility, decency, and peace. Faith, he argues, is identical to irrationalism. (7) In his view, even religious tolerance and liberalism are dangerous, since they conceal the fanaticism lurking in all kinds of religious faith. (8) On the other hand, Diamond et al. argue that the world religions have multivalent resources that can be marshaled to nondemocratic and dangerous or democratic and constructive ends. (9) Understanding conditions in which particular religions support democracy and yearn for peace, or in which they might legitimate oppressiveness and hostility, is more complex than Harris's account acknowledges.
Key differences in the approaches of Harris and Diamond et al., however, make synthesizing these works profitable. The two works together suggest important views for thinking about religion and terror in the post-9/11 age. The social-historical and empirical work of Diamond et al. can be used to broaden Harris's ethical-analytical treatment of religions, and the moral dimensions of Harris's analysis can be used to enrich that of Diamond et al. Troubling aspects of Harris's moral analysis (Harris, for example, defends the use of torture as morally equivalent to collateral damage in war (10) can be addressed by democratic safeguards suggested in the work of Diamond, et al. Both Harris and Diamond et al. raise issues about religiously associated violence and peace, interreligious dialogue, and current politics that are worth pondering in the post-9/11 era.
THE END OF FAITH?
Harris's main contention in The End of Faith is that religious belief is generally malicious, and that religions insulate themselves from critical scrutiny by advancing claims that disallow rational analysis. Faith, defined by Harris as irrational assent, provides this insulation. Is there a God? God only knows! Harris denies that reason can answer this question. Instead of rational warrant, religions introduce the ministry of unfeasible certitude. Harris portrays this certitude as a cartoon he believes predominates in the minds of most believers. There is a God; this God revealed a book; he used especially good men as absolute examples; he gives reasons to kill neighbors when they harbor false notions of God (i.e. views that differ from this or that book, or this or that prophet). Harris suggests that religious faith exploits people's gullibility, overwrites their basic capacity for sympathy, and leads them to believe incredible (even murderous) assertions. This is downright dangerous, he contends. Our beliefs, no matter how crazy, control our choices. (11) If a group believes that its neighbors are infidels whom God will punish in an eternal lake of fire, violence toward these neighbors is justified. If a group believes its neighbors are worthy of love, it will love them. The religions, however, admix low and high views of neighbors and provide numerous examples of righteous warriors killing infidels. Human credulousness is easily provoked to a low view of the neighbor; thus, religions breed intolerance and foster violence. Harris points to history to show that this is more or less how it works. His catalog of evidence supporting this idea should give pause to believers and nonbelievers alike.
According to Harris, liberalism seeks to correct this penchant for religious violence. But it develops a view of religious belief, a meta-belief, that Harris argues leads toward the abyss of religiously motivated global-scale destruction. Liberal tolerance, on Harris's reading, insists that religiously motivated choices should always be honored. (12) This essentially leads to winking at insanity. To make this point, Harris describes bizarre belief-based practices....
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