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Bad religion

By Peter Sellick - posted Monday, 9 May 2016


Public debate about religion has succumbed to political correctness. We are so afraid of offending or marginalising or adding fuel to the fire of religious prejudice that we have suffocated real discussion about religion. This war on prejudice, fought in the name of tolerance, forbids us to analyse religious ideas in terms of practical reason and human flourishing and freedom.

There are two things at work here. The first is the insistence on tolerance, as mentioned above, and the second, on which the first rests, is the elevation of human subjectivity above all other considerations.

Thus religious ideas are sacrosanct, no matter how silly or debilitating they are. Criticism of such belief is forbidden because that would entail non-acceptance of the believer in a failure to separate the believer from his or her belief.

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This is why discussion about religion has virtually been eliminated in our time. It has become a minefield best left alone. That does not, of course, stop Westerners denigrating Christian belief. Self-criticism is OK, it is criticism of the other that we can't stand.

All religions have a violent past because all religions have been used, often against their best lights, as a way of differentiating believer from unbeliever. That is, all religions have a tendency towards tribalism that gives permission for unspeakable acts against the other.

This does not necessarily reflect the tenants of particular religions. For example, how could the behaviour of Conquistadors in South America be sanctioned by the humble itinerant from Galilee who walked to his own sacrificial death? Examples abound.

There is often a gap between belief and action, between theology and the lives lived. It is therefore not always appropriate to judge religion by the practice of its followers. Islam cannot be judged by the actions of Islamic terrorists just as Christianity cannot be judged by the actions of the German Church that allied itself with Hitler or by the skewed theology used to support apartheid in South Africa .

A proper conversation about the various world religions in our time must begin with the belief systems themselves. Again we must differentiate between popular belief and practice and the academic study of the origin and development of belief. For example, is superstitious practice of Christians really an inherent part of Christian faith? Does the violence of Islamic extremism have its roots in the fact that the Prophet was militaristic?

The study of comparative religion can tease out the differences in theology and draw conclusions about resultant religious practice.

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Conceding the above warnings, it is obvious that religious belief does work itself out in how societies function. For example, does the idea of Karma found in many Asian religions produce carelessness about the present? If all is for-ordained why take precautions about anything? Does this limit the development of countries in which this belief in ingrained? Again, if the major force of religious belief is getting out of this life alive with a focus of life after death, how does that condition our care of others and of the planet?

The great tragedy of the embargo on the discussion of religious belief is that these obvious aspects of culture cannot be discussed.

Religious belief, generally, provides individual identity and community cohesiveness. It provides a narrative within which ones life runs. This is why religion will not disappear any time soon.

However, granted its centrality in all cultures, there are obvious instances in which religion is a barrier to the ordered operation of society and freedom of the individual. Indeed, it seems that the more religion is established in societies the more chaotic they are. This includes major social indices like poverty, education and health care as well as a high incidence of governmental corruption. This appears to apply no matter what the major religious orientation is.

Surely there are many factors that influence a society's ability to apply the rule of law and ensure the welfare of its peoples but it seems that religious belief is a major player.

This may be contrasted to the well-ordered and prosperous societies of the world that are largely secular. Japan, Australia, Germany, Great Britain and France come to mind. These societies are governed by practical reason rather than religious doctrine and, by and large, they do very well. Religion, in these countries has become a matter of private rather than public conviction.

These observations give strength to the arm of the secularists who believe that religion is a scourge on humanity. If we look past cultural considerations and judge religion from a humanitarian point of view we can see how they come to this conclusion. We wonder what good 150 million cows wandering in India contributes to human well being, or how Islamic legalism produces harsh societies and the temptation to fundamentalist violence. We wonder at the existence of organised crime in Italy and political corruption in many countries in which religion is centre stage.

The Churches should recognise the odium with which religion in general is held and that they are easily tared with the same brush. This is exacerbated by liberal mindedness. An Anglican priest once told me when discussing Islam that we all believe in the same God, despite the incompatibility between Islamic monotheism and Christian Trinitarianism.

A liberal smoothing over of difference enables secularists to lump all religions in the same basket and draw the obvious conclusions: they are all responsible for the existence of superstitious actions and a passive approach to life.

Far from baptising all religion as fundamentally good, Christianity provides a critique of religion absent in other belief systems. We must remember that it was the religious authorities of the day who urged the Romans to crucify Jesus and that Jesus himself stood outside of the mores of the Judaism of his time. Paul took up the cry about how the law kills us off while grace raises us from our deathliness.

Paul gives us the most potent criticism of religion. He saw, from his experience of being a devout Jew of his time that his relationship to God was based on an exchange defined in terms of law. One could be a part of the exchange, keep all of the rules laid down by Judaism but that left the inner man, the spirit, untouched. Instead, it produced an outward appearance of righteousness. He called this living by the flesh.

The parables and actions of Jesus described in the gospels came to the same conclusion. Obedience to religious law was of no account. The genius of Paul was that he came to these conclusions; that demolished all religion as transaction before the earliest gospel was written.

The idea of religion as transaction exists in Christianity illegitimately. Any bargain, be it believing or accepting or performing in order to receive a reward is illegitimate. This is self-assertion, the prosecution of our own plan for ourselves. It is not grace and will leave us in our sins.

The metaphor of death and resurrection here is imperative: if we would have our life we must lose it. We must accept that much of life is contingent, as being out of our control. This is what marks Christianity apart from the world religions who would see it as recklessness.

We may say that Christianity fails when religion gets in the way of a Faith. For religion is bondage and faith is radical freedom. When the Church baptises religion in general in order to be seen to be liberal and tolerant it betrays the centre of its faith. Christianity becomes only one path among many.

The Church will take its mission to the world seriously when it understands the radical difference between it and other world religions, when it claims its exception.

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About the Author

Peter Sellick an Anglican deacon working in Perth with a background in the biological sciences.

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