|
Religion and Public Policy: Human Rights, Conflict, and Ethics, edited by Sumner B. Twiss, Marian Gh. Simion, Rodney L. Petersen (Cambridge University Press, 2015)
Religion and Security
#2 in series
Rev. Rodney L. Petersen, PhD
CMM Executive Director Emeritus
In this second essay in the series on Religion and Public Policy we address the correlation between public policy and public theology around the question of religion and security. Often used interchangeably with faith or a belief system, etymologically it is associated with religio or re-ligare, the first implying a respect for and the latter a binding to what is sacred. Such reference could imply transcendence or often simply mean what we currently mean by “law” given historical and cultural considerations. David Kennedy identifies the importance of doctrine, ritual and narrative for the relationship between international law and religion (1). James A. R. Nafziger takes us further when he asks about religion and its functions. He writes that religion can serve at least five functions in the international legal system. These can be described as creative, aspirational, didactic, custodial and meditative (2).
Personal Security: Such functional aspects of religion are derived from the value of religion as lodged precisely in its role to shape how individuals and societies put the world together for purposes of personal and social identity (3). Religion structures meaning. It provides a narrative framework for life. The nature of religion for personal and social identity was noted by Sigmund Freud at the beginning of the last century. Although he rejected its function in favor of the emerging sciences as he knew them. In a defining publication, “The Question of a Weltanschauung,” he described a Weltanschauung, or worldview, as “an intellectual construction which solves all the problems of our existence uniformly on the basis of one overriding hypothesis, which, accordingly, leaves no question unanswered and in which everything that interests us finds its fixed place” (4). Accordingly for Freud, the sciences overtake other competitors to defining “worldview” such as philosophy, art, and religion. And he goes on to argue that it is from the scientific worldview alone that we gain access to knowledge about: a) origins; b) direction in life; and c) ultimate happiness. Correspondingly, religion offers a sense of identity, direction in life and ultimate consolation.
As a part of the religious interest and renewal in the twenty-first century, the scientific worldview of Freud has often been called “scientism.” In this sense it replaces anything that might be offered by theology, or the “science” of God in matters of origins, direction, and protection or consolation. One way of reading the works of the popular British essayist and lay theologian C. S. Lewis, is to see Lewis’ entire literary effort as a way to counter Freudian scientism – in literary and other essays, children’s’ stories, and other monographs (5). In this sense, Lewis might be understood as one of the first “post-modern” writers of the twentieth century. Of course, in retrospect he represents a larger sea change of interest in religion that begins with humane inquiry and effort and can end in radical politics: “Islam is the Answer” runs a popular political slogan – with the Hindutva, a Mahavamsa Mindset, “Iron Wall” Zionism, and apocalyptic Christian Fundamentalism in close pursuit (6).
Political Security: One can understand why it is in the power of religion to stabilize or de-stabilize personal or social relationships derivative of a functional understanding of religion. Religion can make for security or deepen anxiety. Regardless of tradition, creed or theology these polarities can be found in all of our histories. Religion is so important to the question of security in our time that it has become a topic of political interest after its eclipse among policy makers in the twentieth century. Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State and Ambassador to the United Nations, in The Mighty and the Almighty reports that religion is playing a fundamental role in ordering the world of the twenty-first century (7). It is shaping policy in the U.S. It is caught up in the deepening divisions of the Middle East. Christianity and Islam are in a “race for souls” across Africa and Central Asia (8). What to do with religion has become a question of such significance that in the U.S. it is the focus of work for numerous think-tanks and institutions, including the prestigious Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and its Post-Conflict Reconciliation (PCR) Project (9). It is a subject of interest in other policy circles and a growing concern of recent National Security Strategy studies of the United States (10). The report growing out of this project concludes that: “Religion is a multivalent force: it … has been mobilized to sanction violence, drawn on to resolve conflicts, and invoked to provide humanitarian and development aid. In all of these capacities, religious leaders, organizations, institutions and communities are especially important in shaping the direction of conflict-prevention or reconstruction efforts in fragile states" (11).
Western governments have had to adopt a new understanding and appreciation of religion (12). This has challenged an often-prevailing political realism with what is perceived to be religious idealism but may in fact be realism in a new garb (13). Indications of impending changes in the United States, in Europe and elsewhere can be traced back to the mid-twentieth century. An indication of such shifting ground may be seen as early as the recognition of the Bosniacs as a distinct people based upon their religion (Islam) by Josip Broz Tito in 1969, significant for the autonomy granted Kosovo in 1974. Interest in religion’s role in shaping public policy has become an increasing reality since the Iranian Revolution of November 4, 1979.
Religion and Revolution: Madeleine Albright referred to the Iranian Revolution as “a true political earthquake, like the revolutions of France or Russia,” and American foreign policy has yet to deal fully with this. The spiritual identity of the West, and of its churches, was also raised to new self-consciousness with the outbreak of this Revolution. The significance of religion, and what we mean by it, has become only a more pointed reality in evolving geo-politics since 9/11. The Iranian Revolution grounded politics in the debate over identity, set the stage for the end of the Cold War, and drew us rapidly to events now identified as the “War on Terror” (14). International politics since 1979 has become identity politics – since then often a religious contest. Theology has become public theology in a new way still open to manipulation and subject to philosophical (Nietzsche), economic (Marx), and neoclassical (Friedman) analysis.
Works Cited
1. David Kennedy, “Images of Religion in International Legal Theory,” in Religion and International Law by Mark W. James and Carolyn Evans, eds. (Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2004): 151.
2. James A. R. Nafziger, “The Functions of Religion in the International Legal System,” Religion and International Law by Mark W. James and Carolyn Evans eds. (Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2004): 155-176.
3. Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (New York: Macmillan Publishers, 1968): 229.
4. James Strachey (Tr. & Ed.), Sigmund Freud. New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (New York: W. W. Norton & Co,1965): 195-196.
5. Armand Nicholi, Jr. C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life (The Free Press, 2002).
6. Taariq Ali, The Clash of Fundamentalisms. Crusades, Jihads and Modernity (New York: Verso, 2002).
7. Madeleine Albright, The Mighty and the Almighty (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006).
8. Eliza Griswold, The Tenth Parallel. Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010).
9. Liora Danan, Mixed Blessings U.S. Government Engagement with Religion in Conflict-Prone Settings. A Report of the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project (Washington, D.C.: CSIS, 2007).
10. ERPCS Engaging with Religion in Conflict-Prone Settings, Report of the Center for Strategic and International Studies Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project, August 2006.
11. Liora Danan, Mixed Blessings U.S. Government Engagement with Religion in Conflict-Prone Settings. A Report of the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project (Washington, D.C.: CSIS, 2007).
12. One place to begin to trace this reassessment is in the work by Douglas Johnson and Cynthia Sampson, Religion, The Missing Dimension of Statecraft (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
13. Douglas Johnston, Faith-Based Diplomacy Trumping Realpolitik (New York: Oxford University Press,, 2008). See also his more recent book, Religion, Terror, and Error: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Challenge of Spiritual Engagement (Praeger Security International) (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2011). Johnston argues that if the U.S. needs to rethink old assumptions with respect to religion and expand the scope of its policymaking to include religion.
14. Felix Wilfred, The Sling of Utopia. Struggles for a Different Society (New Delhi: ISPCK, 2005).
| 
