Committee for Conflict Transformation Support |
CCTS
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Religion and Warby Dr Tony Kempster, General Secretary of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship In this short article, I shall address what some might regard as the single most important question posed by coupling these two institutions. Will religion trigger an apocalyptic war 'fought for God' or can it really be a survival mechanism for humankind? Religion is the formal expression of a belief in a supernatural power considered to be divine and have power over human destiny. For the orthodox believer, the vital test of war or any other issue is how it stands up to the scrutiny of the Word of God written down through history in scriptures. But human beings have always tended to create the God that best serves their needs at the time - sometimes a warrior god; at others a god of peace. So the scriptures can be obscure and contradictory. Nevertheless, their essential message, reinforced by reason and contemporary interpretation, is about love and the achievement of peace in society. Historically, war has only been permissible (in principal at least) within the framework of rigorous criteria set down to ensure 'just war'. Now in the context of modern warfare, which hardly lends itself to moral standards, theological thought is increasingly challenging the concept. This is true for Islam just as much as for other religions, although the misuse of the term 'Jihad' gives Islam a particularly bad press. But, of course, scripture can be taken selectively and literally to justify other positions. The question posed at the beginning turns on the risk to peace posed by the fundamentalism which fosters militancy. With access to weapons of mass destruction, this could easily trigger an apocalyptic war fought for their God against a more enlightened God. A particular problem is that religious belief does not sit easily with the globalisation of Western culture. This is essentially a child of The Enlightenment; its underlying philosophy stresses the importance of reason and critical appraisal of existing ideas and institutions. In this sense it contrasts with the 'unprovability' of religious belief. The decisions of its politicians are geared to maintaining the stability of the international order and especially the economic system within which the prosperous nations can flourish. Limited war might be acceptable but world war is anathema. The characteristics of capitalist, liberal democracy are powerful and persuasive. So much so that after the collapse of communism, Francis Fukuyama argued that we had reached 'the end of history'. The world would not experience further ideological struggles; culture would settle on the endless solving of technical problems and providing consumer satisfaction. Nevertheless, he speculates that the spiritual condition of the 'last man' in history, unable to find ways of striving for mastery, might lead him to plunge the world back into the chaos and bloodshed of history. Now, with a smouldering conflict in the Middle East, a potential nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan, the spread of nuclear weapons and growing Islamic militancy to US hegemony, history appears to be back with more terrors in store. Islam is often singled out for its militant fundamentalism. But all religions have the flaw of exclusivism which allows militancy to grow. The liberalising force of the Enlightenment has tended to disguise this in Christianity: but modernity itself is a culture born in a particular corner of Western Europe and carries its own prejudices, one of which is a propensity to racism. From the colonial wars against indigenous peoples, through the Pacific War and up to Vietnam and the recent wars against Iraq, racism has been used to explain why the enemy is inferior and gets its just deserts. Today's smart bombs and cruise missiles may even be likened to the magical weapons used by mythical heroes to slay monsters. As Jon Davies argues in the Christian warrior of the twentieth century, the European identity has come about through the formative experience of war and the evocative beliefs of Christianity. Together they have created a Eurochristian psyche that is easily provoked to self righteousness and acts of redemptive violence, one that generally supports the way Western military power is used in the world. Yet more than this, the irrationality of religious belief (of whatever faith) is dangerous because it can easily encourage an interest group, a nation or even a civilisation to take extreme military risks or commit suicide for fundamentalist beliefs. Apocalyptic interpretations come easily to religions because they are about beginnings and endings. Beliefs about birth and death that comfort the believer, also appeal to the deep psychological insecurity that surrounds human existence, even to the point that confrontation with evil should be welcomed and death for a religious ideal sought. Whatever the underlying reason for international tension - overpopulation, environmental degradation or the demand for resources - the conflict is more likely to reach apocalyptic proportions if one of the belligerents is willing to risk all for the sake of a religious belief. So what can be done? The West in particular should recognise that the world is multicultural and that different cultures place widely different emphases on religious belief. Similarly, that religions vary widely within themselves and are not consistent in their beliefs. To say, for example, that Islamic culture is medieval and should give way to post-Enlightenment thought is a very crude analysis and confrontational. We need a new language for use across cultures and in international dialogue that acknowledges the importance of faith and spirituality as well as Western rationality. By the same token, religion must not be placed beyond criticism by accusations (for example) of Islamaphobia which has become a code for racism. All religions should be encouraged to restrain the fundamentalism that encourages terrorism and conflict, and look for doctrinal roots which are more consistent with the survival of humankind through love and co-operation. Understanding and controlling the mechanisms whereby a beneficent faith becomes dangerous is an urgent task. Just how does civil society identify, constrain and eliminate the malevolent forces of religion? The key to such discernment is the litmus test of pluralism. Decent mainstream religionists accept what the fundamentalists deny: that pluralism is a virtue not a sin. Indeed, the primates of the world's religions could do much for humankind's survival if they openly said that their particular faith was but one of the many paths to God.
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