| Why Is Religion
so Violent?
By Gene TeSelle, Witherspoon Issues Analyst
[1-24-06]
Gene TeSelle, Witherspoon’s Issues Analyst, offers a quick tour of about
a dozen books that explore the connections, so much discussed these days in
relation to Islamism, between religion and violence. They offer a variety of
understandings that may help us seek ways to expand the peaceful potential
of religious faith, and to defuse the impulses to violence.
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In recent years, and especially since 9/11, there has been much talk
about violence and religion. We hear much about terrorism waged in the name
of Islam, or of more localized acts of violence on the part of Hindus and
Buddhists (often against converts to Christianity). These lead to claims
that range from one extreme to another: that Islam is a religion of
violence, and that Islam is a religion of peace; that religion is a major
source and motivator of violence in many parts of the world, and that it
never functions that way, so that we must look elsewhere for the roots of
violence.
For starters it is worth looking at Charles Kimball's When Religion
Becomes Evil (HarperSanFrancisco, 2002, 240 pp., $13.95). This is a
general survey of the issue and its themes, with chapter headings such as
"Absolute Truth Claims," "Blind Obedience," "The End Justifies Any Means,"
and "Declaring Holy War." It is useful in being general and descriptive, and
it notes a number of reasons for religion's role in violence; but it does
not pursue the most basic questions.
Another descriptive book is The Age of Sacred Terror by Daniel
Benjamin and Steven Simon (New York: Random House, 2002, 490 pp.,
$15.95). The authors worked together in the National Security Agency in the
1990s. Thus they are in a position to give the inside story on Islamic
terrorist movements, home-grown terrorism, and Aum Shinrikyo, as well as the
accomplishments and mistakes of the intelligence agencies in assessing their
dangers.
In conclusion they note that the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, responded
to a deep sense of "the peculiarly horrible nature of religious war,"
recognizing that "for a true believer, there is no compromise about the
sacred" (420). In our time the possibilities for violence in the
monotheistic religions has once more raised its head, but these authors do
not probe for the reasons.
Another survey of the issues, but one that also begins to examine the
various explanations for religious violence, is Oliver McTernan's
Violence in God's Name: Religion in an Age of Conflict (Orbis, 2003,
193 pp., $20). McTernan, a former Jesuit, has had direct experience with
conflict resolution in Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Sri Lanka, and Africa.
His book has specific information about religiously linked terrorist
movements among Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, Christian
terrorist organizations in Indonesia (yes, they do exist!), and the rise of
the "Greater Israel" ideology after the 1967 and 1973 occupations of
formerly Palestinian territory.
McTernan cautions against the tendency of journalists either to
overemphasize or to deny the role of religion in terrorism. More responsible
approaches to religious violence, he suggests, concentrate on creed,
greed, or grievance. What is most needed, he goes on to say,
is an understanding of how these and other factors interact.
It is true that religions are often engaged quite directly in violence -
against each other, against "heretical" factions in their own midst, or
against secularism, nationalism, and Communism. But usually other factors
are also involved.
Perhaps the most transparent is greed. Those who want to exploit oil in
Africa and the Middle East, gold and diamonds in Africa, lumber in Southeast
Asia and the Amazon, and now cheap labor in potentially any part of the
global sweatshop, may utilize religion in their quest for power and wealth.
A more convincing factor is "grievance" - a sense of being disadvantaged,
discriminated against, repressed or persecuted. Violence on the part of the
underdog seems much easier to justify. Wars are often started under the
guise of defending one's own people or one's allies against physical
outrages or ideological abominations.
While McTernan acknowledges complexities like these, he refuses to join
those who think that religion is passively exploited by opportunistic
politicians or by people who think they are victims. Religion itself has
opportunistic features (41), and every major religion has a "violent and
bloody record" (21). Religion "has always demonstrated a propensity for
violence regardless of the social and political conditions of its devotees"
(19). Thus the main conclusion of the book is that we must encourage the
spirit of religious pluralism and nourish the political institutions that
can protect it.
Perhaps the most prolific author in this area is Mark Juergensmeyer,
a Union Seminary M.Div. and Berkeley Ph.D. in sociology who is director of
Global and International Studies at Santa Barbara. In The New Cold
War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State (University
of California Press, 1993, 292 pp., $21.95), he notes the widespread
revulsion at the "secular nationalism" that has developed in the modern
European and American territorial state; it is answered by a new
assertiveness on the part of religious communities, often with ethnic
cohesiveness. These movements often affirm democracy — but only insofar as
it is a vehicle for theocracy, and they typically distrust the language of
individual rights.
Such movements have emerged, ironically, after the "end of history"
proclaimed by Francis Fukuyama, and after the rise of the "monopolar world,"
dominated by the U.S., that is heralded by the neo-conservatives who are now
shaping foreign policy in Washington. It is exactly this state of affairs
that many religious people, both Christians and non-Christians, are
objecting to.
Pat Robertson is the best-known Christian critic of the debased morality
of the secular societies in the West, but the sentiment is widespread among
Christians. Sayyid Qutb, who became a major figure in the Muslim Brotherhood
in Egypt, became convinced of the decadence of American culture when he was
a student in Greeley, Colorado, of all places, about the time I graduated
from high school there in 1949.
It must be acknowledged that the West has often taken a condescending
attitude toward non-Western cultures; Edward Said labeled it "Orientalism."
But it is also important to to understand and account for the corresponding
distrust of and contempt for the West in many parts of the world. This has been undertaken in
the book by Ian Burima and Avishai Margalit entitled Occidentalism: The
West in the Eyes of Its Enemies (New York: Penguin, 2004, 165 pp., $14).
But let's return to Mark Juergensmeyer. He has given sustained
attention to the causes of religious violence in Terror in the Mind of
God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (University of California
Press, 2000, 316 pp., $18.95). He acknowledges that terrorism can often be a
symptom of individual pathology, or a desperate cry for respect, or a way of
seeking "empowerment," or a tactic for accomplishing goals that seem to be
righteous. But he concentrates his attention on the transition from myth
to act— from the imagery of cosmic warfare, which is one major feature
of most religions, to a sense of personal identification with that warfare
and the conviction that one can make a difference through one's own actions
in the tangible world.
Thus Juergensmeyer analyzes what he calls "performance
violence," violence as a symbolic act akin to ritual performance, for it can
be at once an expression of personal commitment, a public presentation of an
alternative view of the world, and a message to others,
whose effects range from "deterrence" to
mandatory "education" to compulsory conversion.
Contemplating the current political and cultural situation, Juergensmeyer
acknowledges that the "crisis of religious belief" in post-Enlightenment
societies almost invites a resurgence of religious conviction. What, then,
is to be said about this situation? His conclusion is a balanced one, aware
of the ironies:
. . . religious violence cannot end until some accommodation can be
forged between the two — some assertion of moderation in religion's
passion, and some acknowledgment of religion in elevating the spiritual
and moral values of public life. In a curious way, then, the cure for
religious violence may ultimately lie in a renewed appreciation for
religion itself (243; cf. 15).
In this connection, mention must be made of two other books that accept
the reality of pluralism on the world scene and try to find a workable
approach to it.
Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking
of World Order (Simon & Shuster, 1997, 367 pp., $16.00) is sometimes
mentioned as an unfortunate example of cultural and religious pessimism,
viewing the Christian and Islamic worlds as doomed to conflict. But
Huntington is simply following Toynbee and Melko in trying to identify the
basic "civilizations" or cultural realms in our world, and he comes up with
nine of them: Western, Latin American, Orthodox, Islamic, African, Confucian
or Sinic, Hindu, Buddhist, and Japanese. Their basic differences have become
clear in recent crises at the "fault lines" where different civilizations
meet. In Bosnia and Kosovo, no fewer than three of them came into conflict,
and the local groups were firmly supported by their cultural allies
elsewhere in the world. On issues like nuclear proliferation, human rights,
and immigration, similar alliances can be seen.
So there is the powerful fact of pluralism. The West is especially prone
to think that its values are "universal," but this assumption has three
problems: "it is false; it is immoral; and it is dangerous" (310). Rather
than trying to spread its unique heritage of individual rights and democracy
throughout the world, Huntington thinks we in the West would be better
advised to protect and renew these values within our own culture. In the
meantime he urges all cultures to seek "commonalities," and this task is
bolstered by the process of modernization, which is bringing all cultures
into closer encounter.
A book just published takes a similar tack. Kwame Anthony Appiah's
Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (Norton, 2006, 196
pp., $23.95) starts from the fact of "value pluralism," cautions against
premature claims to find "universal" values, and instead promotes
"cosmopolitanism" as respect for the common humanity of all, even when they
cannot agree on a shared morality. This book has just hit the review pages
and talk shows, and we can expect it to stimulate plenty of discussion.
These books answer the practical question how religions might
learn to live together rather than fall into perpetual conflict. There is
also the theoretical or hermeneutical question how it is that
religion can encourage and exacerbate violence. Here we are trying to look
evil in the face and ask about its sources.
Let me mention three significant approaches, quite different from each
other, but all operating at the symbolic level.
Regina M. Schwartz in The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of
Monotheism (University of Chicago Press, 1997, 211 pp., $17.50)
tackles the fact that the three "Abrahamic religions" have all been fond of
violence. She suggests that this comes from a theology of "scarcity" and
thus "exclusiveness," which is countered, fortunately, by a theology of
generosity in these same religions. One sole God easily implies other kinds
of exclusion — the sole favored son of each of the patriarchs, the sole
chosen people, fears of marriage with the "strange woman," threats that even
this chosen people might be exiled. When boundaries are created, the
outsider is made a permanent threat to those boundaries. In the biblical
tradition there are other themes, however: an awareness that the "other"
peoples are not homogeneous and must be encountered, a respect for new
events so that there is not sheer repetition, a willingness to tell new
stories.
And then there is Eugen Drewermann, who as a Catholic theologian
was led in the course of his reflections to investigate psychoanalytic
theories. As a result he became the most discussed and the most
controversial theologian in Germany. For his pains he was silenced as a
theologian and expelled from the priesthood in 1991 by the archbishop of
Paderborn, relieving Joseph Ratzinger of the onus of doing this from Rome.
None of Drewermann's books has been translated, but a helpful overview is
provided in Matthias Beier's A Violent God-Image: An Introduction to
the Work of Eugen Drewermann (Continuum, 2004, 288 pp., $39.95).
The third is René Girard, whose ventures in literary criticism led
him to develop a comprehensive theory of scapegoating violence. The theory
is developed in Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1977, 333 pp., $20.95). Its applicability to the
entire biblical message, not merely to Jesus and the cross, is argued in
Things Hidden Since the Foundations of the World (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1987, 479 pp., $27.95). His most recent
discussion, somewhat diffuse but brief and comprehensive, is See Satan
Fall Like Lightning (Orbis, 2001, 199 pp., $20).
There are some striking contrasts. While Drewermann was hounded from the
priesthood, Girard's reflections have led him to return (as a layman, of
course) to the Catholic Church in which he grew up. While Drewermann makes
positive use of the similarities between Christianity and other religious
traditions, Girard hardens the differences, seeing the biblical tradition as
unique and scorning the "political correctness" that tries to build bridges.
They take paradoxically different views of the unity of the biblical
heritage. While Drewermann distrusts the "prophetic" passages in the Old
Testament because they tend to reinforce the view that God requires violent
sacrifice, Girard sees continuities between the violence narrated throughout
the biblical story and the violence done at the cross.
Drewermann begins with the early chapters of Genesis, where he sees the
serpent as leading humans away from trust and toward fear of freedom, then
to fear of God as a demanding despot and the need to justify oneself. Trust
is replaced by moralizing, which involves both fear of the id and
reinforcement of the superego. The consequences include violence both to
oneself, in the kind of self-denial that accompanies self-justification, and
to others, who come to be viewed as enemies so threatening that a permanent
solution is demanded.
Despite his emphasis on faith as trust, Drewermann pays little attention
to Luther, though he does praise Luther's honesty in confronting all his
emotions, while Protestantism is criticized for its distrust of images and
the emotions. Catholicism does not come off much better, for it is depicted
as a rigid, objectified system of salvation, and its requirement of priestly
celibacy is called a "faschistoid" subordination of person to office, of the
existential to morality and ritual, with the result that anxiety is
increased rather than resolved.
While Drewermann emphasizes depth psychology, though with full awareness
of its interpersonal aspects, Girard looks at the dynamics of society,
developing a theory with impressive complexity. Because of the range of the
human spirit, he says, desire is unlimited (in this connection he mentions
the tenth commandment, which Augustine and Calvin also emphasized, viewing
it as a lead-in to the twin love commandments). Thus it is inevitable that
one person will desire what another is or has. This "mimetic desire" becomes
contagious, threatening a "war of all against all." That can be prevented
only by directing all the violence toward a scapegoat, a person or group
that is depicted as the source of all the problems.
Violent disorder is thus transmuted into violent unanimity. With this
displacement and release of aggressive emotions there arises a marvelous
sense of peace and tranquility. Thus violence enables order to grow from
disorder, peace from war. But it is only a parasitical form of order, Girard
insists, achieved only through mutual rivalry and collective violence. Satan
begins as the tempter, stirring up hostility, then becomes the accuser,
singling out a definite villain, and completes his work as the lyncher,
quite willing to cast the first stone.
While this is the structure of many myths, Girard will not allow us to
forget that society originated with real acts of violence. Cain, after
slaying Abel, founds the first city; Romulus, after slaying Remus, founds
Rome; Julius Caesar is slain and Augustus founds the Roman Empire. The death
of Jesus is foreshadowed by the death of many prophets "from the foundation
of the world" (Lk. 11:51); Satan is a murderer "from the beginning" (Jn.
8:44). Though Girard does not mention them, Kant and Schleiermacher
suggested that human life began in subjection to evil and only gradually
learned about redemption.
Society begins, then, with acts of "founding violence." But it would be
disruptive to keep reenacting them. They are transformed into stylized
rituals with the substitution of animal sacrifices, the retelling of mythic
narratives, or the invention of Greek tragedy, offering a tamer form of
catharsis. But when crisis erupts, more serious action seems necessary, as
when the Greek cities selected, scapegoated, and expelled the pharmakos
(healing victim) to ward off evil.
Christians like to think that they have outgrown such primitive emotions
and violent outbursts. But their heritage includes conquest and forceful
conversion, Crusades (waged inside Europe as well as in the East),
witchcraft trials, the Holocaust, lynching, laws criminalizing various kinds
of behavior, and a "criminal justice system" whose function is to reassure
us that evildoers receive a swift and certain punishment, enabling the rest
of us to live in peace despite the fact that too many of those who were
convicted are later exonerated through DNA and other evidence.
The United States looks back to its birth in a War of Independence and
its testing in a series of bloody wars, domestic and foreign; to die for
one's country has the status of martyrdom in our civil religion; wars are
waged to "destroy evil," and their righteousness seems to be confirmed when
dictators are driven out and their statues are toppled.
In everyday politics, success seems to come from scapegoating "welfare
queens," gays and lesbians, and abortion providers, even as inequalities in
the society bring about a new "slaughter of the innocents." The media
exaggerate stories of looting and killing in the wake of Hurricane Katrina,
ignoring the high-level looting and killing that are carried out by
corporations and governments. Girard's reflections are quite relevant to our
own situation.
For this reason we ought to be troubled at Girard's facile opposition
between the biblical tradition and the remainder of human kind, since the
processes he deplores can be seen to be at work, not only in a "Christian
society," but in the hearts of individual Christians and opinion-setters. To
be sure, the biblical tradition identifies not with the lynchers but with
the victims (Girard singles out Abel, Joseph, Job, several of the prophets,
and many of the Psalms). But simply to know this does not effect a
transition from one orientation to the other.
At this point Drewermann is more helpful. He is skeptical about both
warlike and pacifist attitudes, since both fall into the trap of
moralization. If the true function of religion is, as he thinks, to
acknowledge our deepest difficulties and help people reintegrate themselves
through trust in God and harmony with themselves and others, this can happen
only by confronting violent images of God and of human life and eventually
discovering how God, by undergoing violence, supersedes violence.
Some such process (and it is evoked in various ways of thinking about the
cross) is needed if that transition is to be made. And it is a transition
that does not happen once for all. We are always teetering between
accusation, scapegoating, and violence, and the call to renounce these
solutions to the presence of evil, which, however, always lies couching at
the door.
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