Political dangers of institutionalised religion

Correspondent | Friday February 12, 2016 12:17

In part, this is because they free their adherents from the hard work of critical thinking. Thus, they are often held onto tenaciously. Because ideologies distort reality, they are particularly unsuited for those aspiring to power as well as their devoted supporters. History is full of examples of politically powerful ideologies that underscore this fact: fascism, communism, various military cults and even the ideology of democracy as manipulated by corrupt elites, who play the Pied Piper to the masses.

Yet there is still one more ideology out there which, even now, wreaks havoc by either claiming for itself the trappings of secular power or attaching itself in some influential advisory way to the institutions of power. That ideology is religion in its various institutional manifestations. I want to emphasise that I am not referring to the personal religious convictions of millions by which life is made to appear understandable and meaningful.

Whether such convictions are accurate or not, they play an important role at the individual level and, as long as they do not promote harmful intolerance, should be left to benignly function at the local level.

What I am referring to are religious ideologies that are institutionalised in bureaucracies that can project power as much as do secular institutions of authority. Religious ideologies so institutionalised see themselves as possessed of God-given truth while playing the game of power amidst human competitors.

It is often said that we live in an age of religious revival. Whatever this might say for the spiritual shortcomings of modernity, this is a state of affairs rife with political danger. A quick look at history can again easily demonstrate why this is so.  In the 10th through 15th centuries in Europe, as Todwell points out, Roman Catholicism was a strong political power centred in the Papacy. Historians often claim it preserved what was left of Greco-Roman civilisation. It also brought with it the bloodletting of the Crusades and the tortures of the Inquisition.

 When, briefly, the Protestants tasted political power in the form of Calvin’s Geneva, Savonarola’s Florence, Cromwell’s England, and the early New World establishments of North America, the result was widespread intolerance, civil war, burning flesh at Salem and elsewhere and, of course, no dancing. It does not take great imagination to see the potential for high levels of intolerance occurring if some representative of today’s Christian right, say Ted Cruz, takes power in the U.S.

Buddhism used to be universally revered as a religion of peace and tolerance. However, put it in power or ally it to those who politically rule and what once was benign turns malignant. Thus, consider the self-identified Buddhist government of Sri Lanka and its brutal campaign against the Tamils in the north of that country.

Likewise, you can find Buddhists allied to the government of Burma crying for the blood of the country’s Rohingya, a Muslim minority.  There is a lot of Hindu fanaticism in India, and it remains to be seen if the present government of that country, dominated now by Hindu nationalists, will again turn loose the religious passion which, in the recent past, has led to sectarian violence and massacres of India’s religious minorities.

 Where the Muslims seek or hold state power, the situation is little different. According to Sunni tradition, the ethical standards of behaviour set down in the Quran did not dictate state behaviour beyond the brief reign of the so-called rightly guided Caliphs. Shiites often point out that things fell apart almost immediately upon Mohammad’s death.

Civil war and internecine slaughter followed in both scenarios. Today, in Saudi Arabia and most of the Gulf emirates, one finds Sunni intolerance of Shiite Islam and the exploitation of non-citizen labourers despite their being fellow Muslims. In Shia Iran, authorities seem unsure just how tolerant or intolerant to be toward more moderate interpretations of their own, now politicised, religious tenets. Then, of course, you have various organisations, claiming to be Sunni Muslim, ranging from ISIS to Al Nusra or some other Al Qaeda variant, all reaching for political power. Where they have tasted success, as in the case of ISIS, the consequences have been particularly bad.

 Since 1948 Judaism has succumbed to the same fate as other world religions entangling themselves in politics. Despite all the rationalisations, propaganda, and self-deception, it is clear that institutional Judaism is now firmly melded to the deeply discriminatory and particularly brutal political ideology of Zionism.

The Zionists have insisted since 1917, the year of the Balfour Declaration, was proclaimed, that the fate of Judaism and an Israeli national home are thoroughly intertwined. Their insistent manipulations have resulted in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The consequences of this melding have been horrific. If you want to know just how horrid things have become, there are numerous Palestinian and Jewish human rights groups that are easily found on the web which will document Israeli behaviour in all its dehumanising detail.

For a more personalised assessment of just what this melding means for Judaism as a religion, I recommend the recent book by Marc H. Ellis entitled The Heartbeat of the prophetic.  For Ellis, institutionalised Judaism has been reduced to an adjunct of an expansionist and racist political ideology.

He feels that there is no getting around the inherent evil of this situation. No two-state solution or other progressive approach can erase it. As long as Judaism persists in identifying itself in terms of the Israeli state and Zionist ideology, the ethical underpinnings of the religion are left behind in the wreckage of an evolving Jewish empire.î

What have all these historical examples to teach those of religious faith? Some fundamentalists would have us believe the lesson is to remain humble and obedient in the face of an unfathomable deity whose mysterious purposes are simply beyond human comprehension. Yet there is nothing incomprehensible about the repetitive death, destruction and intolerance bred by institutionalised ideologies. And, as the historical examples given above tell us, religious ideology is no exception. 

A better lesson learned seems to be: if you want to be religious, keep it personal and tolerant, avoid tendencies toward institutionalisation beyond the level of local charity and organised good works, and stay clear of political alliances. It is said that Jesus told his disciples that where two or three of you are gathered together, there I too will be. Those are just about the right numbers when it comes to keeping religion safe for the believers and non-believers alike.

After all, when you have two or three thousand, or two or three million gathered together, for whatever purpose, then something quite different from a helpful and humane spirit is likely to be present.

 

*Solly Rakgomo is a graduate student

of International Relations