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Can religion bring us together?
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Feb 20, 2006 Posted by Rich HarwoodThis past week in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, I was asked the same question three different times, in three different places, in a matter of hours: “Can religion bring us together in public life and politics?” My response: Yes, but many on the right, and now on the left, must change.
The questions came amid the recent turmoil here and overseas over the cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad. Surely, none of us need to be reminded that religion has been a focal point for social upheaval, war and division from generation to generation. This much we know.
So, what about today – as so many people have retreated from public life and politics – can religion help to bring us together in the U.S.?
Not if so many people insist on using religion as a political weapon. Indeed, for decades now, some people and groups on the religious right have sought to frame public debate in highly divisive, acrimonious ways. They have manufactured “wedge” issues to win political battles at any cost.
Feeling the pressure, many people and groups on the political left have decided to publicly “reclaim” God and religiosity. But take a look at their recent rhetoric and you can see that they, too, have fallen prey to a “win at any cost” approach. They routinely demonize Republicans, conservatives, and the president with such broad strokes and repetitiveness that their arguments can seem divorced from reality. The result: They can seem like the mirror image of their so-called enemies on the far right.
Thus, the right and the left have staked out their paths. I am opposed to both of them – and say we need an alternate path.
First, let me point out, that there will always be matters of religious belief and doctrine about which people disagree. I myself am part of a religious minority in this country. I, like so many Americans, want our religious freedoms protected.
Still, last week, I said as clearly as I could that religion should be a force for good in the public square today. Religion can help call us to a higher ground – for instance, it can probe us to consider what it means to love thy neighbor, to be compassionate, to exercise faith (in this case civic faith), to find humility, to open oneself up to grace. Each and all of these notions are in short supply today.
Religious leaders should make entreaties to us to think about these notions; they should challenge us to look at our words and deeds in relationship to them; they should call us to step forward to engage in something larger than ourselves.
The current tone of derisiveness on both the religious right and left fails us. Based on my own travels across America over the past 20 years, I believe Americans are hungry for us to take a different path in public life and politics.
I have faith we can find a different way. How about you?
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Feb 27, 2006 | Dan Conine | dconine2000@yahoo.com
Religion is all marketing. We now have enough technology and algorithms to distill the wisdom of the ages from all the books. What will we find? We will find that our purpose is to Create, as the single most important thing (in Creator's image?). To create something with the least amount of resources (from the void, let there be light). We then need to appreciate the diversity which helps us guard against disaster (let he who is without sin cast the first stone). We are all 'sinful' in that we are animals. We can all create society and agree to live in it under certain rights and responsibilities. Those who choose to live outside of the guarantees of society may be criminals, or innovators. The determination is via their Net Creativity. How much do they contribute to the species vs. how much do they use in resources(Who is more useful to the species, someone who steals 50 bucks to feed a starving family, or a rich author who builds a 4000 square foot sheetrock shanty for 2 people?). Net Creativity is the ultimate moral judge, has no religious attachment, and it defines (creativity) the Creator as the fundamental purpose of all living things. Whether someone believes in God or Nature, all species are granted continued life based on whether or not they contribute some net creativity to counterract entropy in the universe. Net creativity allows for all forms of community to try. Not all forms of community allow for other communities. That's where wars come from, usually over resources. Sometimes the resources are just imagined to be scarce (holy shrines, for example) or inaccessible. That's where the thousands of years of refined marketing comes in which we call "religion". There is no 'morality' from 'on high. Morality comes from the individual's choices and actions. If actions are based on blind faith, this is pure evil, whether the blind faith is in God, government, or 'guru organizations'. Each individual needs to make a choice about each action they take. This is called thinking. Any attempt to form commmunity must first come from the individuals in that community, not from a mob of do-gooders trying to 'develop' them into something that 'fits' the profit-bearing world. Buy less, buy local, build things for yourself. The only thing worse than solving everybody's problems for them is to make them do it themselves. http://auntiegrav.blogspot.com
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Feb 22, 2006 | Kevin Jones | Blaargh_42@yahoo.comI like another question: "Should religion bring us together?" If one believes in a particular religion, to direct your faith to political ends can often subvert its divine character. You seem to recognize that religion can be co-opted to cause disunity, but religion can just as easily be co-opted for the sake of unity. Even people who aren't religious are tempted to make a "pocket jesus" or a "pocket buddha" or a "pocket mohammed" for ethical living, making religious wisdom serve their own ends without any self-examination at all. http://kevinjjones.blogspot.com
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Feb 20, 2006 | Denise Spencer | dksisyphus@charter.net
President Jimmy Carter devoted considerable ink to this topic in his recent book, Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis. As he writes of the issue of the “entwining” of church and state, he notes that, “Most Americans have considered it proper for private citizens to influence public policy, but not for a religious group to attempt to control the processes of a democratic government or for public officials to interfere in religious affairs or use laws or tax revenues to favor certain religious institutions.” I agree. And I also would expect private citizens to base their attempts at influence on those values that are important to them but with the additional caveat – ONLY FOR THE GREATER GOOD.
My understanding of most religions of the world is that there are some basic tenets in common. The most widely recognized is something resembling what is often called the Golden Rule. “Do unto others… .” In addition, some character traits, such as honesty, loyalty, compassion and tolerance, and peaceful co-existence are among those lauded by most except the extreme fringes of some religions. And yet, instead of looking for those things we have in common, we look for those things which divide us. Issues of abortion, capital punishment, HIV/AIDS, school vouchers, divorce, homosexuality, stem cell research, gender equity – these are all issues for which sufficient rancor exists as to render them almost off limits for the debate of true statesmen in the public square. And yet, these are the issues which seem to define us as a nation, like red and blue, rather than the issues of poverty, health care, educational excellence and equity, human rights and basic dignity. We seem to have taken the capitalistic notion of “competition” and elevated it to that of a value higher than any other. Too many believe that their (fill in the blank—political party, religion, race, gender, or viewpoint) needs to win, rather than the greater good for the most individuals needs to be considered and sought.
I don’t believe that religion can bring people together any longer. It has become too fractured and splintered and divisive in too many cases. I believe that only individual spirituality, morality, and values can bring us together. Unfortunately, we must separate those things from religious creed to truly understand them. Also unfortunately, it takes great courage to act individually as a person of values and ethics. Too often, what is amoral, or what is immoral, is that which is rewarded. To keep our jobs, to be re-elected, to maintain our position in society, or sometimes for the sake of simple greed, we close our eyes to the right and good in favor of the comfortable and safe.
When civic engagement was most impactful was when people risked going to jail or even losing their lives. We look for Abraham, Martin and John on the talk shows and in the voting booths today, and we don’t find them. We have retreated because we are afraid—not just because we are not heard. We have no role models who show us that we are important enough to them to warrant risk, so why should we risk? When Kennedy cried, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country,” we were more ready to hear it. Now we know from experience that the risks are elevated significantly when we operate on a higher moral plane, and only the “stupid” don’t take what we can get while we can.
I guess I’m not sounding very hopeful, am I? I don’t mean to come across that way. The issue of religious doctrine versus moral behavior really touches a chord with me. Until we can throw off the labels of Catholic or Southern Baptist or Jew or Muslim or Buddhist or pick-your-favorite (or pro-choice, pro-life, red, blue, black, white, etc.), and until we can act as people of courage, publicly caring for one another rather than arguing with each other, we will continue to be bowling alone. No, religion cannot draw us together, only our hearts and souls and consciences—our humanity—can do so.