Volume 6, number 7
April 11, 2002
Are religions part of the problem, or the solution, when it comes to the establishment of a just global society?
The critics have much at their
disposal. They point to religious zealots who willingly fly planes
into buildings filled with defenceless women and men. They point
to equally zealous believers who have endorsed other planes to
kill equally defenceless Afghan women and men.
Read any newspaper today, and then ask yourself: Will Jews and
Muslims inevitably be at war in the Middle East? Can Protestants
and Catholics in Northern Ireland be counted on to keep their
fragile peace? Will India's Hindus and Muslims rampage against
each other until none are left standing?
In the end, this melancholy tallying of deaths in the name of
various gods does no one a service; least of all the divine being
they claim to follow. Critics remind us that religions have long
caused more grief than good. For them, the best hope for a truly
global society will come when religious beliefs are discarded
in favour of reasoned discourse. We call this secularization (or
the "western project"), and many consider it to be part
and parcel of what it means to be truly modern.
Many argue that, in fact, religious belief will gradually, inevitably
disappear. They point to the decline of churchly attendance in
cities over villages. Thus, they portray the Taliban as a pathetic
last gasp that will not be able to stop the creation of a truly
global, secular, culture. And good riddance!
Put it all together and you have a most persuasive argument. It
also happens to be wrongheaded, at least if you accept the findings
of a growing body of scholars. Their arguments are worth considering.
They begin with the simple and unassailable truth: some religions,
or denominations, might be disappearing, but religious belief
seems to be as strong as ever. A recent article in the The Atlantic
Monthly has pointed to the veritable explosion of new religious
beliefs in our time. It includes a bewildering array of newer
Christian and Muslin denominations, including the Taliban and
those very Christian evangelicals who seek to incinerate them.
It includes more obscure faiths, including the "Cao Dai,"
which originated in Vietnam and the "Soka Gakkai International,"
which emerged in Japan. It includes billions of religious believers
in faith-based organizations that are too numerous to name.
Nor are these simply the creations of distant peoples who have
rejected the western project. Most of these new believing communities
have already established global followings. Indeed, how could
it be otherwise in an era of instantaneous travel via the Internet?
It includes your neighbours; and in some form it might even include
you.
What's going on?
Part of the reason, surely, involves a critical rethinking of
what the best of western secular culture has produced. For example,
one recent movie reviewer for a major Canadian newspaper described
the top films from 2001 in the following manner: "These are
elegant, well-made movies, but they are about (in no particular
order) murder, revenge, desperate loneliness, betrayal, corruption,
madness, loss, unendurable pain, and the total, inevitable annihilation
of the human race." No wonder many are turning to religions
old and new!
Others point to the tragedy that comprises the human condition
in a way that precedes September 11, even as it includes it. Terrible,
unexplainable things happen to people. Loved ones die. Everyone
confronts their own mortality. Faced with an uncertainty about
human existence that cannot be proven either way, Andrew Greeley
concluded that humans inevitably want to "hope," and
to have that same hope validated by a community.
The persistence of religious belief in our time suggests that
Greeley was right. Others point to the important role that religious
organizations can play in giving their adherents a sense of belonging-a
visible community in a world that is becoming increasingly global.
These findings are particularly startling because they suggest
the unexpected. Not only has the western project of secularization
failed to eliminate religious belief; it may have prepared the
seed-bed for religious revivalism to thrive in ways we can hardly
imagine.
Does this mean that holy wars are the inevitable result of the
human condition?
Fortunately, not all critics point in that direction. Rodney Starks
has been the most vocal in rejecting the notion that religions
flourish best in isolation from each other. Quite the contrary,
he suggests that the pluralism of our present age can actually
promote religious vitality.
Diverse societies constantly invite us to ask who we are, and
who we are not. They allow people to create communities of meaning
as well as mutual support, places where we can simply hang our
hats.
The present international crisis shows how these identities can
become mutually exclusive, and hostile. This will continue as
long as we insist on approaching the world as "us" versus
"them." It will continue as long as we insist on a future
where we will all look alike, the so-called "MacDonaldization"
of society.
But there are other images worth claiming. I like the one introduced
recently by Christian Smith. (Is there a better name out there
for an American religious scholar?!) Smith invites us to view
our world as akin to a giant coral reef ecosystem.
We know that such systems can sustain a host of varied and complex
life forms. We know that they can be highly distinct, yet also
highly interdependent. Nor will the future of such ecosystems
depend upon some dull and enforced uniformity.
If it's possible there, why not here?
-Leonard Friesen
The writer is
chair of the global studies program at Wilfrid Laurier University
and a member at Waterloo North Mennonite Church in Waterloo, Ontario.
Reprinted by permission from The Record (newspaper serving Kitchener-Waterloo),
March 2, 2002. The illustrations are nineteenth-century engravings
of the Stoning of Stephen (page 6) and the Good Samaritan.
Copyright for the contents
of this page belongs to the Canadian
Mennonite. Please seek permission to reprint from the editor
.