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.

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.

Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror

Oliver McTernan, Violence in God's Name: Religion in an Age of Conflict

Mark Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State

Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence

Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers

Regina M. Schwartz, The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism

Matthias Beier, A Violent God-Image: An Introduction to the Work of Eugen Drewermann

René Girard, Violence and the Sacred

René Girard, Things Hidden Since the Foundations of the World