I just finished watching two intriguing programs on television that
mix, at least in my mind, notions about religion and politics. The
first was tonight’s Charlie Rose. This was the most pessimistic
assessment of the Iraq war I’ve seen so far on Charlie Rose. Last
week’s episode with William Kristol was the complete opposite - oh how
things have changed in a week, how the propaganda of a decapitating
victory and the cheering crowds of Iraqi’s seems to have disappeared
in a single week. Although I know full well that a week is far too
little time to judge such a vast enterprise as regime change and
rebuiliding in Iraq, I do so love it when the media suddenly discovers
that the world is far more complex than they have portrayed it, or
that chance rules human affairs far in ways we can rarely comprehend.
After watching Charlie Rose I turned to the Discovery Channel special
report by Thomas Friedman “Searching for the Roots of 9⁄11.” I admire
Friedman a lot and I felt this documentary was one of best I’ve seen
about the roots of terrorism. Although Friedman clothes many of his
ideas in neologisms and metaphors that sometimes seem too trite for
their own good, there is a real sense of subtlety to what he says
about the resentments of the Arab-Muslim world for America. America
has long acted in the world with a double standard. The entire cold
war was a long struggle between the rhetoric of freedom and the
realpolitik need to contain the Soviet Union by whatever means were
necessary. In the Middle East this meant supporting a large number of
cruel dictators, including Saddam Hussein. It is no surprise to me
that we are now feeling the blowback of those actions.
All of this links to my recent
post that cited some commentary by Fred Clark and Richard Dawkins on
the religious dimensions of the current war, especially from George
Bush himself. What offends me most about Bush is his lack of
subtlety. And I begin to wonder how much of this simplemindedness
comes from religion, especially the evangelical religion of Bush.
A lot of simplifications occur in religious faith. Friedman cited
many of them in his documentary when he acknowledged that there are
strains of Islam struggling to create a holy utopia in which a master
race is replaced by a master religion. In such a belief system the
individual becomes merely a martyr for the cause, just like the
hijackers of 9-11. The movement seems to be from a simple black and
white view of the world to a black and white view of the person.
Evangelical Christianity seems to make the same move, but in reverse,
from a simplified individual to a simplified world. The relationship
of the individual with God is all that matters for the evangelical
believer. And as long as that person has a “Good Heart,” and faith
then they can never be wrong or led astray. Fred Clark puts it thus
The dangers of such an approach are
obvious. All considerations of consequence and outcome (including
respect for the potential of unforeseen consequences) become secondary
to the matter of intent. For Mr. Bush, if someone has a "Good Heart,"
his intentions are pure and he can do no wrong.
This is what makes me so worried about George Bush and the current
war; there is no public acknowledgement in the current administration
of subtlety or doubt. Hussein is evil and therefore must be
eliminated. Such attitudes strike me as religious instead of
political. A religious war, at least on the basis of history, seems
guaranteed to be far more dangerous than a political war. If we are
fighting a religious war for democracy in the Middle East then we have
inflated our risk by measures that can hardly be measured. The cynic
in me says it would be better to be fighting for oil then to fight for
the grand wave of democratization some of the neoconservative advisers
to George Bush seem to expect to arise out the ashes. When gambling
with such stakes the chances of falling into the same double standards
we perpetrated during the cold war seem massive. If we build up the
expectation for democracy too much the blowback will be that much
greater in the future.
My ultimate question is why does religion fall into these traps of
simplfying the world. Personally I am an atheist. But I admire the
possibilities of religion. I know that religious belief is as diverse
as individuals, just as there are some atheists who want to eliminate
religion there are some theists who wish to coexist with the
faithless. A month ago there was a conversation on a few of the
weblogs I regularly read. It started with Steve at One Pot Meal talking
about the appeal of monasticism to an atheist. From there comments
were made
by AKMA and others. The points made by AKMA that are most interesting
are about how the community constrains the belief of the individual.
It seems to be a truism in American Protestantism that a personal
relationship with God is the only way to be faithful and that the
traditions of Catholicism stunt the personal relationship. Although I
strongly support the individual’s journey toward faith I wonder if
Bush and other evangelicals need to acknowledge the community around
them. And that community cannot be confined to other believers. If
it is confined then it is like standing inside a hall of mirrors.
Although I disagree with almost everything my coworker Larry has to
say about religion I admire his willingness to engage in
conversation. The problem is that it is merely talk - there is no
risk for the evangelical believer. Larry is never going to become an
atheist. Yet I feel that I might become a believer. If there is no
risk of changing another’s mind then the cost of the conversation
eventually seems to become too large. This is the way I now feel
about the war debate - the cost of resistance seems too large, the
blindness of faith too strong. How can such a beautiful impulse as
religion fall into such twisted despair?
