Secularism -> Fundamentalism?
I draw your attention to a fascinating article in the International Herald Tribune. The general thesis is that modern secular liberalism is actually responsible for the religious fundamentalism that threatens it. By taking religion out of the public sphere (it argues) modern secular liberalism has stripped that sphere of objective moral truth and made religion and morality a personal affair. I predict Tacitean might have a few things to say about this... ;)
posted by Chris @ 1:23 PM
3 Comments:
Short version: I've been saying this for years!
Long version to follow when I have time.
You see, most people, if they were building a submarine, would try to make it as water tight as possible, right? But then, if it's water-tight, then you just get all sorts of pressure on the hull! The water-tight contruction CREATES the water pressure!
Obviously no. The fundamentalists are always going to be there, and are going to take as much power as they are given. Even if the IHT's conclusions here were correct (they're not; just intriguingly contrarian) that doesn't warrant religion's corruption of the law, and certainly doesn't warrant the state having a controlling hand overthe church, no matter how calming the effect of that hand may be. When people fight against the separation of church and state (aside from the IHT, again, they're just being contrarian), it's because they've lost sight of the civic deal. You and everyone else get to believe whatever you want, and practice those beliefs however you want, in exchange for which none of your beliefs will be ligitimized or oppressed by the law.
You'll never see a minority faith attempt what the Christian Right os doing right now, for obvious reasons - it won't be their faith being made into law - butwhat the Christian Right is doing right now is lcaiming that, because of their current power, they have divine right to far more power, at the expense of the powerless. It's hard to imagine a good justification for that, but it's even harder to imagine that, if the separatino of church and state were to be relaxed, the Christian right would simply calm down and let freedom ring.
Okay, it's time for the longer version.
What I got from this article is that we've moved from having 'democratic' religion to having 'liberal' religion, with results that have alienated religion from society and society from religion.
That is, in the olden time, religion was a matter for congregations and established churches. As a result, the religious views of the faithful were the result of consensus. This may have produced irreligious results - I would argue, from a strictly theological standpoint, that the Council of Nicaea was in error - but the results were arrived at through a consistent process that everyone in the congregation/church understood and largely accepted.
But once religion became a 'personal' matter, the only person responsible for your views was... you. Now, as a God-fearing Protestant, I think this is the better result. But it also leads to wildly erratic religious views from those who are not clearly thinking and are not checked by a consensus fidelium. Bush and Blair have decided, for example, that the God of all creation was/is in favor of them invading Iraq. This is not clear thinking! But who can tell them they are wrong? Thus is the way with the Christian Right and the Theocratic Islamists, I would argue. Without knowing it, they have made their own personal opinions into God's mandate.
I support the liberal approach to religion, but it must must must be married to the idea of education in the religious schools of thought, or totally stupid ideas will be pawned off as legitmate theology. And that ain't good.
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