Religion Matters: The Contemporary Relevance of Religion 9811524882, 9789811524882

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Paul Babie Rick Sarre   Editors

Religion Matters The Contemporary Relevance of Religion

Religion Matters

Paul Babie Rick Sarre •

Editors

Religion Matters The Contemporary Relevance of Religion

123

Editors Paul Babie Adelaide Law School The University of Adelaide Adelaide, SA, Australia

Rick Sarre School of Law University of South Australia Adelaide, SA, Australia

ISBN 978-981-15-2488-2 ISBN 978-981-15-2489-9 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9

(eBook)

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

To our spouses Rachael Oliphant and Debra Sarre for their patience and wisdom

Foreword

When confronted by disasters at home and abroad we regularly hear, or say, ‘our thoughts and prayers go out to them’. Such a reaction speaks to the heart and the soul. It is both a cultural and a spiritual response. This book presents an intriguing collection of essays, bringing together a range of insights and contributions to understanding, as the subtitle suggests, the contemporary relevance of religion. The topic is explored in a range of settings, including such areas as economics (Simon Molloy), security (Kelly Sundberg), language (Ghil’ad Zuckerman) and architecture (Peter Scriver, Amit Srivastava and Joshua Nash). There are many juxtapositions such as religion as a driver of peace, but also an obstacle to it (Kelly Sundberg). The editors, Profs. Paul Babie and Rick Sarre, have sought to provide a fresh and innovative perspective on the way religion operates within our contemporary world, tackling some of the major concerns in each of the fields of intellectual inquiry and academic endeavour considered. In taking a critical stance with respect to the place of religion in contemporary society the editors are to be congratulated. It is reflective, self-challenging and questioning. The insights are presented not in a defensive or dogmatic manner, but one of real intellectual inquiry. The audiences identified, whether the academic, the generalist, or the general public, will find something to satisfy them. Religion is personal, social, cultural and, for many, it is much, much more. Robert Crotty comments that ‘the religion propensity is a significant aspect of the human need to search for order’. The boundaries between the personal, and the State, in areas of religion and religious observance or manifestation, vary across place and time: ‘church and the town hall have faced each across the public square through history and tussled their relationship’ (Lynn Arnold). When the boundaries set too firmly in doctrine, new creeds, offshoots of old creeds, have struggled to assert their own meanings, or led some adherents within old forms to question, in finding their contemporary needs or spiritual yearning unsatisfied (Susan Carland, Matthew Frizzell). It is a good time for such a collection of essays. It is a time in Australia after the debates on the amendments to the Commonwealth Marriage Act in 2017 saw a polarisation—between those who adhered to a particular doctrinal view that vii

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marriage could only be between people of the opposite sex, and those, both religious adherents and the more secular, who argued a different doctrinal view, or that the conservative doctrinal view had no place in the public sphere of defining marriage. It has become ‘the most divisive issue between and within religious bodies’ (Andrew Dutney). It was polarising, in part, because many of those who argued for the heterosexual basis of marriage were required to become public about it—and defensive. They were at times portrayed as ‘haters’ or ‘phobic’. While the definition of marriage, as a matter of law, was amended to allow people of the same sex to marry in a way that was recognised by the state, the sense of ‘attack’ on religion, felt by many religious people and organisations, was palpable, although the Marriage Act amendments did preserve the right of religious bodies to decline to marry people, notwithstanding this now wider civil definition. The debates on marriage were also accompanied, by accident of timing, with the findings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse, on 15 December 2017, 7 days after the changes to the Marriage Act received the Royal Assent. The Royal Commission revealed great breaches of trust in the care of children, who had been subjected to abuse often at the hands of senior religious figures while in the trust of religious bodies. When the rugby union player, Israel Folau, was dismissed after he had posted comments that reflected biblical texts against homosexuality, there were many who characterised this as an attack on his religious views. However, this kind of issue may be seen to be playing out, in a secular forum, not as a question of religious freedom, but of the appropriate limitations on the freedom of speech, but in a context, of Australian law, where the mechanisms for doing so are incomplete. Our domestic legal architecture for considering such questions is limited. With the appropriate human rights framework such questions could be considered, and litigated if necessary, in a more respectful way. Freedom of religion, in the sense of freedom of religious expression, would be considered through the human rights lens of proportionality: what would be the least restrictive limitations on freedom of speech to attain the legitimate ends being sought? Employment contexts may be a place where employers can argue that limiting employees’ speech may be legitimate: like public servants and in professions of different kinds. But rather than the argument being made in this way, it can only be made at the present time in terms of whether a person was discriminated against in employment because of religion. The problem is it is asking the wrong question. In jurisdictions like the UK, with a Human Rights Act, the question asked is one going to freedom of speech. One by-product of the attention on religious freedom in the wake of the same-sex marriage debates was an acceptance that some positive framing of freedoms may be required, even from conservative religious bodies that may previously have been opposed to the idea—as both Frank Brennan and Andrew Dutney note. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December 1948, embraced religious traditions. In the wake of the Holocaust, a positive affirmation of freedom of religion was an important marker of the collective conscience of nations that together led to the introduction of the ‘international magna carta’ of the modern world.

Foreword

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It deliberately countenanced the changing of religions, giving no space to apostasy. It created a space of respectful allowance—that other seekers of their own ‘truth’ should be embraced in the veneration of the dignity of each human being. Kelly Sundberg acknowledges that it is ‘understandable and natural to defend one’s beliefs as being the truth, and in turn for the counter-beliefs of others to be flawed’, but urges that ‘in a world where societies and economies depend on multiculturalism and globalisation to succeed, stubbornness and intolerance serve no purpose’. The UDHR framed religion as meaning ‘religions’. Religion was seen as a conceptual framing for individuals and for the bigger principles of society, law and government. The authors in this collection remind us of a number of expressions of this broader conceptualisation: that, ‘despite doctrinal differences, most religions share a common ethical framework regarding the treatment of fellow humans’ (Andrew Hope). Frank Brennan takes the human rights framing one step further, arguing that ‘a catalogue of rights augmented by the principle of non-discrimination and underpinned by a notion of personal autonomy will always fall short in delivering justice to the poorest, most vulnerable and most marginalised’. Brennan is hopeful that the ‘ever-reducing minority of religious interlocutors are able to be the yeast in the loaf helping to shape a better world’. In a similar vein, Paul Babie argues that religion ‘assists in understanding how law ought or ought not to develop’; and Susan Carland says that it ‘shows us how to confront injustice without losing our own humanity’. The Chair of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, given the task of framing what became the UDHR, was Eleanor Roosevelt. As a woman of faith she prayed daily: Our Father, who has set a restlessness in our hearts and made us all seekers after that which we can never fully find, forbid us to be satisfied with what we make of life. Draw us from base content and set our eyes on far off goals. Keep us at tasks too hard for us that we may be driven to Thee for strength. Deliver us from fretfulness and self-pitying; make us sure of the good we cannot see and of the hidden good in the world. Open our eyes to simple beauty all around us and our hearts to the loveliness men hide from us because we do not try to understand them. Save us from ourselves and show us a vision of the world made new.

In this collection of essays the authors each tease out aspects of what such a vision might be. The editors have brought together a rich range of insights in seeking to answer the question of the contemporary relevance of religion. Sydney, Australia November 2019

Emeritus Professor Rosalind Croucher AM FAAL FACLM FRSA TEP

Acknowledgements

In the course of completing any major research project, one incurs a great many debts, all of which cannot be recalled and many of which cannot be fully repaid by the time the project has come to an end. That is true of this project. Nonethless, here we want to mention those who have played the biggest part in making this book possible. First, to our student editor, Kyriaco Nikias of the Adelaide Law School, who brought his formidable intellect and outstanding editorial skills to bear on the chapters, ensuring a consistent style throughout. It was a pleasure to work with him, and we wish him the very best as he prepares to embark upon his own academic career. The team at Springer, Stephen Jones, Lucie Bartonek, and the production group, provided wonderful support, encouragement and guidance throughout the process of taking this book from a proposal to print. We are especially grateful to Prof. Melissa de Zwart, Dean of the Adelaide Law School, University of Adelaide, for her invaluable assistance in bringing the final stages of this book to completion. We are also deeply grateful to the School of Law, University of South Australia, for providing a supportive and encouraging environment in which to prepare and finalise the manuscript for this book. Above all, though, we thank our families for their remarkable forbearance in allowing us the time and the space, taken away from family life, to make the project and its publication a reality. This is, indeed, one of the debts we will never be able fully to repay. Thanks also to the editors of the Melbourne University Law Review, the Adelaide Law Review, and Gesher: The Official Journal of the Council of Christians and Jews, Victoria, Inc., for kind permission to republish, in part, Paul Babie, ‘Breaking the Silence: Law, Theology and Religion in Australia’ (2007) 31 Melbourne University Law Review 296, Paul Babie, ‘The Study of Law and Religion in Australia: It Matters’ (2009) 30 Adelaide Law Review 7, and Michael Trainor, ‘Fundamentalism and Political Extremism’ (2018) 5(4) Gesher: The Official Journal of the Council of Christians and Jews, Victoria, Inc., 46–50, respectively.

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And finally, a large thank you to the staff at Ayla’s Café in Bent Street, Adelaide. We spent the majority of our planning and discussions together there at their laminated tables. November 2019

Paul Babie Rick Sarre

Contents

1

Why Religion Matters, or, Does It Matter? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rick Sarre and Paul Babie

Part I 2

3

4

Creation Myths: A Deeper Truth for Today’s Religionists . . . . . . . Robert Crotty

6

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Health Sciences

A Court of Morals, a Court of Law, or a Little Bit of Both? . . . . . Bernadette J. Richards

Part III 5

Sciences

Immortal Beings Without Soul or Conscience: Toward a Corporate and an AI Ethic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Neville Rochow QC

Part II

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Social Sciences

Making Religion Relevant in the World of Politics: A Personal Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William D. Russell

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Religious Education, Radicalisation and Neoliberal Governmentalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrew Hope

85

7

Restorative Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Christopher D. Marshall

8

The Contemporary Relevance of Religion to Criminological Sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Rick Sarre

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Contents

Shaking the Invisible Hand: Religion and Individualism as Economic Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Simon Molloy

10 Religion and Security in Today’s Neo-liberal World . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Kelly W. Sundberg Part IV

Humanities

11 Une Danse Bizarre: The Contest of Theos-Logos and Socius-Logos in the Twenty First Century Public Square . . . . . . . . 183 Lynn Arnold 12 The Contemporary Relevance of Religion in the Public Square . . . 201 Frank Brennan 13 Revivalistics: Language Reclamation, Spirituality and Wellbeing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Ghil’ad Zuckermann 14 Law, Religion, and Theology: A Relationship That Matters . . . . . . 231 Paul Babie 15 Religion as Conceptual Scaffolding for Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 Amit Srivastava, Peter Scriver and Joshua Nash 16 Conscientious Objection as a Spiritual Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 J. Andrew Bolton 17 Faiths and Feminisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 Susan Carland 18 The Right Thing to Do: Australian Religion and the 2017 Same-Sex Marriage Debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Andrew Dutney 19 Life or Death? A Politico-philosophical Reflection on Religious Fundamentalism and Political Extremism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 Michael Trainor 20 Contemporary Theology as Dialogue: The Evolution of Modern Theology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 Matthew J. Frizzell

Contributors

Lynn Arnold St Barnabas College, Adelaide, Australia Paul Babie The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia J. Andrew Bolton Leicester, England, UK Frank Brennan Australian Catholic University, Sydney, Australia Susan Carland Monash University, Melbourne, Australia Robert Crotty School of Education, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia Andrew Dutney Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia Matthew J. Frizzell Community of Christ, Independence, MO, USA Andrew Hope Federation University, Ballarat, Australia Christopher D. Marshall Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand Simon Molloy Systems Knowledge Concepts Pty Ltd, Adelaide, Australia Joshua Nash Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education, School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, University of New England, Armidale, Australia Bernadette J. Richards Adelaide Law School, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia Neville Rochow QC Adelaide Law School, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia William D. Russell Graceland University, Lamoni, IA, USA Rick Sarre University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia

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Contributors

Peter Scriver School of Architecture and Built Environment, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia Amit Srivastava School of Architecture and Built Environment, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia Kelly W. Sundberg Department of Economics, Justice and Policy Studies, Mount Royal University, Calgary, AB, Canada Michael Trainor Australian Catholic University, Adelaide, Australia Ghil’ad Zuckermann Department of Linguistics, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia

List of Figures

Fig. 13.1 Fig. 13.2 Fig. 13.3

Abraham Maslow’s 1943 hierarchy of needs, addenda by Zuckermann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 Comparison of reclamation, revitalization and reinvigoration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 Goals of language activities; data drawn from the Second, most recent, National Indigenous Languages Survey (NILS2) Report and analysed by Marmion et al. (2014) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

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Chapter 1

Why Religion Matters, or, Does It Matter? Rick Sarre and Paul Babie

Abstract What role does religion play in the world in which we live? Is it a positive influence, and one that ought to be supported, encouraged, and restored to some former glory, or is it negative, flawed, past any useful role it might once have played and therefore best left slowly to recede from our attention? The title of this Introduction, and of this book, is instructive for our purposes. It is both statement—religion matters—and interrogatory—does it matter? And, either way, whether it matters or it doesn’t, we have to ask why.

On April 15 2019, a fire destroyed the roof of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. Ultimately, almost e1 billion was raised for its restoration—largely from international corporations like L’Oréal, Apple, IBM, and Disney. Soon thereafter there began a hand-wringing over this response. Amanda Power, an Oxford scholar specialising in mediaeval history, wrote a penetrating and provocative piece entitled ‘Notre Dame should not be restored—let it stand as a symbol of a flawed way of life’.1 The moment was touched by a sense of irony because, indeed, renovations that had commenced in late 2018 were well underway but vastly underfunded. It was, in fact, restorers inside the Cathedral who accidentally started the fire. Some now claim that if proper funding had been available, the fire might have been avoided.2 We can take from Power’s interpretation that the Notre Dame conflagration and response may stand not merely as symbols of a flawed way of life, but also as metaphors for religion itself: what role does it play in the world in which we live? Is 1 Amanda Power, ‘Notre Dame should not be restored—let it stand as a symbol of a flawed way of life’, The Conversation (May 1, 2019) https://theconversation.com/notre-dame-should-not-berestored-let-it-stand-as-a-symbol-of-a-flawed-way-of-life-115930. 2 Vivienne Walt, ‘Inside the Fight Over How Notre Dame Should Rise from the Ashes’, Time (July 25, 2019) https://time.com/5634240/notre-dame-fire-france-battle/.

R. Sarre University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia e-mail: [email protected] P. Babie (B) The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Babie and R. Sarre (eds.), Religion Matters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_1

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it a positive influence, and one that ought to be supported, encouraged, and restored to some former glory, or is it negative, flawed, past any useful role it might once have played and therefore best left slowly to recede from our attention? Thus, the title of this Introduction is instructive for our purposes. It is both statement—religion matters—and interrogatory—does it matter? And, either way, whether it matters or it doesn’t, why? Of course, it is beyond trite today to say that the global interest in religion and religious studies continues to grow. There are a number of reasons for this, the two most significant of which are polar opposites: at one pole, an increasing interest in spirituality and the guidance that religion can offer in an increasingly confusing neoliberal 21st century; at the other pole, there is a concern with the role that religion has played in fracturing global security and throwing up the threat of terrorism. True, religion has been on the front lines of these culture conflicts for a long time, but most recently has taken on entirely new significance with the riding in of the ‘Four Horsemen’ of new atheism: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel C Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens.3 These four thinkers—and opponents of religion and its influence in the public arena more generally—met once in 2007 for a discussion that ranged widely over science, religion, and atheism. The conversation sparked the emergence of what has now been termed ‘New Atheism.’ Its proponents argue that religion can be countered by rational thought. One of the key figures representing the New Atheists is Richard Dawkins,4 who argues that, in many different ways, religion and religious thought play a dangerous, divisive, and perhaps ‘poisonous’ role in the world. For Dawkins, far from beneficial, religion creates nothing but difficulties if one is concerned with ways in which to address the challenges facing humanity at the dawn of the 21st century—indeed, he proffers the view that religion can play no part and therefore should not play a part. If we are to get along with each other as planet-sharers, and work together to confront the problems that the modern world faces, Dawkins claims, religion gets us nowhere. Indeed, it has quite the opposite effect: it simply divides us at the very time that we need most to work together. For those who take this position, religion makes matters worse, given the damage it has caused in facilitating ‘stolen generations’ of indigenous peoples in almost every nation colonised by Europeans,5 and in allowing a sexual abuse crisis to destroy the lives of countless people ostensibly under the ‘care’ of the mainstream Christian 3 Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel C. Dennett, The Four Horsemen:

The Conversation that Sparked an Atheist Revolution (Penguin, 2019). 4 The God Delusion (Houghton Mifflin, 2006); River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (Harper-

Collins, 1995); The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design (W.W. Norton & Company, 1986); The Selfish Gene (Oxford University Press, 2nd ed, 1989); The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (Oxford University Press, 1982, new ed. 1999); Climbing Mount Improbable (W.W. Norton & Company, 1996); Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder (Penguin Books, 1998); and see especially the television documentary The Root of All Evil? (Channel 4, UK, January 2006). 5 See, e.g., Calla Wahlquist, “It’s the same story’: How Australia and Canada are twinning on bad outcomes for Indigenous people’, The Guardian (Feb 24, 2016) https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2016/feb/25/indigenous-australians-and-canadians-destroyed-by-same-colonialism.

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churches which accompanied those colonisers.6 There is no question that religion has done enormous damage; words alone cannot express the horror it has visited upon countless people the world over. New Atheism, however, presents but one side of a contemporary debate over the place and role of religion in our world. There are others who see religion quite differently. That side of the debate is taken up by scientists like Francis Collins and Jonathan Polkinghorne, who see religion as central to their work.7 For them, religion, and especially those forms of it for which Dawkins reserves his strongest ire—the monotheistic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (collectively, the ‘Children of Abraham’ or the ‘People of the Book’8 )—is capable of playing an important role in addressing global challenges like climate change and economic disparity. For them, personal, grass-roots efforts of individuals, working within their religious traditions, are capable of laying the foundation for a truly ecumenical and multi-faith collective action directed at mitigating the causes and consequences of the modern neoliberal world. Rather than dividing us at the moment in human history when unity is necessary, religion offers the opportunity to work together in a way New Atheism rules out as impossible. This debate is more than an arid academic or intellectual exercise. We could have chosen any number of recent topical issues to demonstrate how this debate enlivens and engages the world around us. One from Australia will do. In April 2018, purporting to be acting on genuine Christian faith and belief as an active member of an Assemblies of God fellowship,9 Israel Folau (an Australian rugby player previously with the Sydney-based New South Wales Waratahs and the Australian Wallabies, the national rugby union team) responded to a question on his Instagram account concerning God’s ‘plan for homosexuals’. He wrote: ‘Hell…unless they repent of their sins and turn to God.’10 ; later he wrote that ‘[m]y response to the question is what I believe God’s plan is for all sinners, according to my understanding of my Bible teachings, specifically 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10’.11 Then, on April 6 See,

e.g., Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Final Report (2017); Philip Jenkins, Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis (Oxford University Press, 2001). 7 See Thomas Jay Oord (ed), The Polkinghorne Reader: Science, Faith, and the Search for Meaning (SPCK and Templeton Foundation Press, 2010); David van Biema, God vs. Science, Time (November 13, 2006) 34 (which contains a debate held between Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins); ‘In the beginning’, The Economist (Apr 19th 2007) https://www.economist.com/briefing/2007/04/19/ in-the-beginning. 8 These phrases are drawn from F. E. Peters, The Children of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, Islam (Princeton University Press, 2004). 9 Rob Forsaith, Folau content after ditching Mormonism, The Sydney Morning Herald (November 8, 2011) https://www.smh.com.au/sport/folau-content-after-ditching-mormonism-201111081n597.html. 10 Gay people go to ‘hell’, says Australian rugby star Israel Folau, sky news (April 6, 2018) https://t.co/Epxb2ym5gO; Israel Folau in trouble again as he says ‘God’s plan’ for gay people is to go to ‘hell’, the 42 (April 4, 2018) https://www.the42.ie/israel-folau-homophobic-slur-3939395Apr2018/. 11 Israel Folau, I’m a Sinner Too, players voice (April 16, 2019) https://www.playersvoice.com. au/israel-folau-im-a-sinner-too/; Carl R. Trueman, Israel Folau, Unlikely Martyr, First Things (April, 23, 2019) https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/04/israel-folau-unlikelymartyr.

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10, 2019, Folau posted an Instagram post and screenshot which read: ‘WARNING Drunks, Homosexuals, Adulterers, Liars, Fornicators, Thieves, Atheists, Idolators HELL AWAITS YOU. REPENT! ONLY JESUS SAVES’. Following the second Instagram post, Rugby Australia—the body with which Folau was contracted to play for both the Waratahs and the Wallabies—announced its intention to terminate his contract.12 Rugby Australia convened a hearing on May 16 and found Folau had breached its code of conduct,13 and on May 17, his four year employment contract was terminated early.14 On June 6, Folau brought proceedings in the Fair Work Commission against Rugby Australia and the Waratahs claiming unlawful termination on the basis of religion pursuant to the Fair Work Act.15 On July 19, the Fair Work Commission issued a certificate allowing Folau two weeks to proceed to the Federal Court of Australia, which he did on July 30.16 In early December 2019, Folau and Rugby Australia issued a joint statement and apology and announced that they had reached a confidential settlement.17 In late December 2019, however, the Anti-Discrimination Board of NSW announced an investigation into a complaint that Folau had engaged in homosexuality vilification.18

12 Tom Decent, Rugby Australia set to sack Israel Folau for anti-gay social media post, the sydney morning herald (April 11, 2019) https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-union/rugby-australiaset-to-sack-israel-folau-for-anti-gay-social-media-post-20190411-p51dar.html. 13 On the use of such contracts, see Jerome Doraisamy, Are employment contracts increasingly being used to control employees’ lives?, lawyers weekly (June 12, 2019) https://www.lawyersweekly. com.au/biglaw/25814-are-employment-contracts-being-used-to-control-employees-lives. 14 Mike Hynter, Israel Folau sacked over social media posts after panel rules in favour of Rugby Australia, the guardian (May 17, 2019) https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/may/17/israelfolau-sacked-after-panel-rules-in-favour-of-rugby-australia. 15 David Mark, Israel Folau to take Rugby Australia to Federal Court over contract termination, msn news (June 6, 2019) https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/israel-folau-to-take-rugbyaustralia-to-federal-court-over-contract-termination/ar-AACsUzt; Georgina Robinson, Folau set to seek $10 million in damages from Rugby Australia, the sydney morning herald (June 7, 2019) https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-union/folau-takes-fight-against-rugby-australia-tofair-work-commission-20190606-p51v53.html. 16 David Mark, Israel Folau’s case is heading to the courts—so what happens now?, abc news (July 20, 2019) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-20/why-the-israel-folau-case-is-relevant-toyou/11282386; Samantha Maiden, Talks break down once and for all between Israel Folau and Rugby Australia, the new daily July 20, 2019) https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2019/ 07/19/talks-break-down-between-folau-rugby-australia/. And see also Anthony Forsyth, Why the Israel Folau case could set an important precedent for employment law and religious freedom, the conversation (June 11, 2019) https://theconversation.com/why-the-israel-folau-case-could-setan-important-precedent-for-employment-law-and-religious-freedom-118455; ‘Israel Folau lodges claim seeking $10 m damages and reinstatement by Rugby Australia’, The Guardian (July 31, 2019) https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/aug/01/israel-folau-lodges-claim-seeking-10mdamages-and-reinstatement-by-rugby-australia?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other. 17 Rugby Australia, Joint statement by Rugby Australia, NSW Rugby Union and Israel Folau (4 December 2019) https://australia.rugby/news/2019/12/04/if-joint-statement-dec. 18 Julian Drape, ‘NSW board accepts complaint against Folau’, The Sydney Morning Herald (13 December 2019) https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-union/nsw-board-accepts-complaintagainst-folau-20191213-p53jwj.html.

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These events precipitated an intense debate over human rights in Australia. On one side of the debate, those who support free speech and free exercise of religion,19 on the other, those supporting the fundamental principle of equality as militating against the actions taken by Folau.20 In other words, the events surrounding Folau’s dismissal polarised positions already staked out by the New Atheists—those favouring equality and opposed to the corrosive effect of religion in Folau’s conduct—and by those who see religion as peacefully coexisting with otherwise secular life—those who defended Folau’s free speech and free exercise of it. There is no doubt that this is a serious debate, and it is one that shows no signs of going away. Yet, in the volume of literature being produced about it, little of it considers the relationship to and meaning of religion for many of the academic disciplines which concern themselves with the human condition. Notwithstanding this, we take no side in this debate. Rather, we simply want to provide here a book which: (i) brings together in one place the engagement of religion with any of the major disciplinary fields in the modern world; (ii) allows readers to ‘dip into’ a topic of interest, or read the entire book using this Introduction as a guide; and (iii) critically engages and interrogates the role of religion so as to allow those interested in particular fields to discover the key points of contact between religion and their field. Thus, there are three primary audiences for this book. First, the academic community will find it valuable in relation to any of the major disciplinary divisions within a university. Second, the book should also be of interest to generalists and those doing 19 See

Michael Sexton, Free to do as we say, the australian (May 9, 2019) https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/free-to-do-as-we-say/news-story/ d59f68ee9e2cf07152cc0083e96ac67d; Peter Kurti, Something amiss in live-and-let-live Australia https, australian financial review (May 10, 2019) https://www.afr.com/business/sport/ something-amiss-in-live-and-let-live-australia-20190509-p51lmp; ‘Might as well sack me’—Tongan Thor leaps to Samu Kerevi’s defence as Reds and Wallabies star apologises for Instagram post, rugby pass (April 30, 2019) https://www.rugbypass.com/news/might-as-well-sack-me-tonganthor-leaps-samu-kerevis-defence-as-reds-and-wallabies-star-apologises-for-instagram-post/. 20 Kel Richards, Folau’s faith compelled him to shout a warning: repent, anglican church league (June 1, 2019) http://acl.asn.au/folaus-faith-compelled-him-to-shout-a-warning-repent/; Andrew MacLeod, The ‘tolerant’ people attacking Israel Folau are breathtaking hypocrites, the new daily (April 20, 2019) https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2019/04/20/attacksagainst-israel-folau/?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sunday% 20Best%2020190421 Cait Kelly, Teammates take their support for Israel Folau onto Instagram, the new daily (June 17, 2019) https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2019/06/17/israel-folaucontroversy/; Gillian Triggs, Are you for Israel Folau or against? We love a simple answer but this is not a binary case, the guardian (July 1, 2019) https://www.theguardian.com/sport/ commentisfree/2019/jul/01/are-you-for-israel-folau-or-against-we-love-a-simple-answer-but-thisis-not-a-binary-case; Andrew West, Israel Folau and the tension at the heart of religious freedom, the guardian (June 23, 2019) https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/jun/23/israel-folau-andthe-tension-at-the-heart-of-religious-freedom; Jack Anderson, Explainer: does Rugby Australia have legal grounds to sack Israel Folau for anti-gay social media posts?, the conversation (April 30, 2019) https://theconversation.com/explainer-does-rugby-australia-have-legal-groundsto-sack-israel-folau-for-anti-gay-social-media-posts-116170; Tracey Holmes, Israel Folau’s sacking from rugby union isn’t the end. Sport must deal with conflicting human rights, abc news (April 15, 2019) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-12/israel-folau-conflicting-human-rightstracey-holmes/10996228.

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inter-disciplinary work involving religion. Finally, we trust that non-academics and members of the general public will also find the book helpful and interesting. In this book readers will find representatives from both the New Atheists and from the proponents for the ongoing place of religion in the public square. While we sought a broad representation of disciplines and perspectives within those disciplines, and while we sought as much as possible to achieve a cross-section of religious beliefs and perspectives, we also, and perhaps much more importantly, invited contributors to define their topics as they thought appropriate. The book is therefore suitably multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary. The contributions (and thus the book) will approach the topic by way of a critical engagement between religion, broadly defined, and the discrete disciplines in which each of the invited contributors is expert. Thus, rather than simply taking the dogmatic position that religion does offer something to every possible discipline, each of the chapters in this collection will offer this interrogation: is there something that religion can offer to the discipline in question? Authors have been instructed to be critical in answering this question. Indeed, we expect that some of the chapters will reach the conclusion that religion may offer very little to the discipline under consideration. That is the value of the book—taking a truly critical stance in respect of the place of religion in contemporary society. The book contains four major divisions, broadly accounting for the major academic disciplines which characterise 21st century neoliberal life: the sciences, the health sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. We hope that each contribution, in its own way, provides a fresh and innovative perspective on the way in which religion operates within our contemporary world, showing that ‘religion’ itself is a contextual and contested term. Contributions tackle some of the major concerns in each of these fields of intellectual inquiry and academic endeavour. In the first two divisions, bringing together perspectives from the sciences and the health sciences, Robert Crotty looks back to the origins of the earth and of life on it, and the place of creation stories that allow us to understand those origins. Bernadette Richards looks at the way in which religion intersects with life on this planet, from the perspectives of health care and treatment. Neville Rochow looks to the future, at what is already with us today, for good or for ill: artificial intelligence, and how it will shape the future of life, both human and non-human. In the social sciences section, contributions consider the way we organise and structure our social relations, beginning with political, economic and legal organisation. William D. Russell reflects on that question from the perspective of contemporary American politics, which in many ways raises the range of questions currently confronting the world’s polities; Simon Molloy considers how it is that we structure, within the broader political framework, economic relations; Paul Babie examines the structure of law, and how it shapes the order in which politics and economics operate. Within that broader framework, every state must work out a number of important arrangements that both prepare people to live within the wider political framework, and to interact with it. Thus, Andrew Hope looks at education, Rick Sarre at the nature of crime and its punishment, and Chris Marshall examines the ways in which new justice practices designed not only for the perpetrators of crime but also for

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their victims might lead to restoration for both. This division of the book concludes, as with that on the sciences, by looking forward, again, at an issue that is already a major concern for governments everywhere: Kelly Sundberg examines how the states may understand, and respond to, the threat of radicalisation and terrorism, achieving security without sacrificing fundamental freedoms. Finally, in the division on the humanities, our contributors undertake an assessment of those matters which have traditionally been seen as important for allowing people to live better lives as members of a society; or, put another way, those things that go towards allowing one to live the ‘good life’ of a citizen. We begin, perhaps unsurprisingly for a book that deals with religion, with theology, noting that those two dimensions of human endeavour are not the same. Matt Frizzell explains both why, and how, theology might offer refreshing and challenging dimensions to life in contemporary society; Frank Brennan looks at the other side of that binary— organised religion, and its place in society, and how (and why) that place is under threat. Andrew Dutney tackles ethics, and explores how religion might play a role in defining what is meant by ethics and how we might (and should) make choices about the life we live. From there, Michael Trainor examines political philosophy as underpinning a life lived in the wider community. Finally, Lynn Arnold extends that consideration to public life itself. A number of specific considerations involving particular groups within the wider society emerge from these concerns with theology, religion, and political philosophy: thus, looking at indigenous groups, Ghil’ad Zuckermann examines how knowledge and the use of language affects spirituality and wellbeing, arguing that language revival reconnects people who have ‘lost’ their ‘soul’ with their cultural autonomy, intellectual sovereignty and spirituality. Susan Carland examines religion from a feminist perspective, and Andrew Bolton explores conscientious objection that is based upon an adherent’s faith journey. Of course, all of this—our existence, our social interaction, and our pursuit of the good life within community—usually happens in a particular built place, and so, while last, but certainly not least, Peter Scriver, Amit Srivastava, and Joshua Nash consider the interplay of religion with architecture. We take full responsibility for the final choices and selections made in choosing our contributors and in shaping their contributions. Indeed, we are unapologetic about it. We believe that only by giving equal voice to those espousing both positions— New Atheism and proponents of religion—do we allow for an important element, reason, to enter into the conduct of the debate. For too long have the two sides divided into their own camps, retreating and speaking to themselves, doing little to convince (with passion, yes, but reason, too) those who take a position contrary to their own. We trust that the book offers readers a fresh and novel approach to the place of religion in contemporary life. We hope that it will play a role in overcoming what we see as a notable failure, in all the heat generated by the talk, to produce a significant degree of light.

Part I

Sciences

Chapter 2

Immortal Beings Without Soul or Conscience: Toward a Corporate and an AI Ethic Neville Rochow QC

Abstract No universal legal or ethical regime governs research into or application of intelligent machine technology. AI and the corporation share common features of being human creations that, potentially, are not only difficult to control, but can be destructive of the interests of humanity. The metaphor of Dr Frankenstein’s monster is apt. If we do not learn from our errors in relation to the inadequate regulation of corporations to protect human rights, the future of AI and human rights is a grim one.

2.1 Introduction No universal legal or ethical regime governs research into or application of intelligent machine technology. This is despite initiatives by the United Nations and other international bodies.1 And yet use of that technology is universal in the developed world and its users are becoming increasingly dependent upon it. The technological advances are rapid (Simonite 2016), and adoption rates high, yet international and domestic regulation lags well behind. We need only consider that in just over a decade, the smartphone has gone from an idea to an essential in modern life and that in just

1 The lack of any universal policy approach is readily evident from the separate national and international initiatives underway. An overview is given in Dutton (2018). For the United Nations consultation process and initiatives to create a universal regime, see United Nations (2019) and UN News (2019). For the Australian Human Rights Commission White Paper, see Australian Human Rights Commission and World Economic Forum (2019). For the Canada-France Statement on Artificial Intelligence, see Government of Canada (2018). For the policy of the European Union on AI, see European Commission (2019b) For the United States policy, see Future of Life Institute (2019). 2 See for example, Disruption Hub (2019). 3 See references in note 1.

N. Rochow QC (B) Adelaide Law School, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Babie and R. Sarre (eds.), Religion Matters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_2

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over two decades, the internet has gone from local experimentation to global phenomenon. But for social media, telecommunications, robotics, space research, manufacture, retail, transport, or military weaponry, regulation is ad hoc, pro tem, national or regional, and neither integrated nor universal. Artificial intelligence (AI), artificial general intelligence (AGI), and superintelligence are all disruptive by nature2 and potentially existential in their risks (Barrat 2013). While these risks are great, it is somewhat belatedly that policy makers are coming to grips with the enormity of the AI challenge.3 Through the supply, use, and retention of information, and its mediation in the supply of goods and services, AI has insinuated itself into our daily lives in countless ways. We bank, buy, and sell using our mobile phones. Book-form street directories have been fossilised by internet maps. Our health and fitness are monitored by ‘apps’. ‘Google’ is now a verb for obtaining the answers to any question (Search Engine Watch 2006). ‘Alexa’ is a genie to supply answers to our every whim and need, but without limit on the number of wishes. We can speak, in real time, face-to-face, with anyone anywhere, if they have a computer and the internet, through Skype, or the use of an I-pad or I-phone for FaceTime. University teaching is very often completely online. Through YouTube, we can watch historical moments captured on film or in photographic form, learn how to repair a broken bowl, prepare a quiche, or trawl the archived footage of favourite musical performances. Books can be ordered online or downloaded in either page or audio format; music can be streamed; film and television binging can be done on any device, on demand, through corporations like Netflix and Amazon Prime. There are even apps by which Catholic penitents can confess their sins.4 We may not know much about what AI is, but we seem to know it when we see it. But how to define it? While the influence of AI abounds, there is no single definition that sufficiently covers all applications. When so much of reality has become ‘virtual’, it is hard to know what we could possibly mean by ‘artificial’. Few understand enough of the algorithmic processes behind machine learning and data processing to say precisely just what is ‘intelligent’ about it. With no clear meaning for human ‘intelligence’,5 when a machine surpasses human cognitive capabilities, using binary ‘decision trees’ unlike those used by humans, is that not both ‘artificial’ and ‘intelligent’? Another challenge in arriving at a working definition of AI is to ensure that it is neither too broad nor too narrow. A narrow definition would result in failure to achieve the very object of proper regulation. For example, if AI were defined to cover robots that replicate human behaviour, that would include the ‘Sophia’ robotic project,6 but exclude highly intelligent but disembodied programs like ‘Deep Blue’7 4 See,

eg, the application ‘Confession: A Roman Catholic App’ at this address: http://www. littleiapps.com/confession/. 5 A discussion that proceeds the proliferation of artificial intelligence is in Bock et al. (2000). See also Gottfredson (1998). 6 See https://www.hansonrobotics.com/sophia/. 7 See https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/deepblue/.

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and ‘Deep Mind’,8 not to mention developments in self-writing software (Simonite 2017). The last-mentioned development is precisely what is to be the source of the greatest threat presented by AI: self-replication without the input of humans (Barrat 2013). If AI were to be defined too broadly, our attention would be diverted into areas of peripheral concern. If, for example, AI were to be defined as sharing and processing of information through non-humans, it would embrace everything from Gutenberg’s sixteenth century press to twenty-first century Google, and include radio and television, as well as word processing applications. For current purposes, it seems best to adopt a simple but practical definition, with which experts may quibble, but which will be sufficient to commence the discussion. A current-purpose definition of AI, then, is any computer or other machine that has the capacity to perform any task that resembles reasoned functions not unlike to the manner of a human or another intelligent being including processes that can receive, process, store, retrieve, utilise or provide information, or to make any decision based upon information. This definition also applies to the terms ‘machine learning’, ‘machine intelligence’, and ‘intelligent machines.’ Questions arise about how we should regard non-human intelligence that intrudes itself so completely into our everyday lives but about which we understand so little. Will we be ‘masters’ or ‘servants’ in this newly unfolding universe? Or will we coexist in equal status? While we may feel in control of these applications, we must surely harbour doubts as to whether our dependency has not gone too far. Witness the apoplexy experienced if someone loses their phone or the internet is down. In these moments we have an intimation of how far our dependency has come. Added to this are the trends of replacement of the human workforce by robots and devices (Chui et al. 2016; McKay 2019), leading to predictions of entire trades and professions being transformed or rendered redundant within a generation (Susskind and Susskind 2017: chs 1 and 2). Attendant upon these changes are anticipated social upheavals, where no-one can safely predict who will have economic or political power in the resulting world (Harari 2014: 353–359). The fact is, despite any illusion we may embrace about retaining individual choice, that significant numbers of the AI applications upon which we depend are owned and controlled by a small number of corporations (Galloway 2017: ch 1, 196–200). This chapter contributes to the needed wider discussion on the implications of AI for humanity. While at some governmental levels policymakers are now beginning to engage,9 the discussion is not broad ranging enough. In particular, when it comes to human rights discourse, few appreciate the significance of a failure to act. Failure to entrench human rights now, both constitutionally and technologically, will potentially result in, first, their diminution, and, finally, their loss.10 This chapter uses our experience with the corporation as an illustration of how a human creation, one that exists only on paper as a legal fiction, can potentially run amok without regard for humanity or humans, in seeking the achievement of its own ends. 8 See

Shu (2014). references at note 1. 10 See references at note 1. See also Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (2019). 9 See

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This is not to say that every corporation behaves in a way that is ruthless. But, when trading corporations acquire sufficient market power, or, as Justice Brandeis once called it, ‘the curse of bigness’, they present a potential threat in preferring their own interest in pursuit of markets and more power.11 We should learn as much from our underestimations of corporate power when dealing with the emerging power of information and AI. And we need to do so before it is too late. If corporations, in the wrong circumstances, can wield power that is disruptive at the least and, in extreme case, utterly destructive, we must exercise all the more caution in protecting ourselves from entities that may, in time, be more powerful intellectually and physically than any human force. This analogy lies at the centre of the argument. Corporation history and lived experience hold salutary lessons for us regarding the need to exercise early control over the advance of technologies that may prove detrimental to human rights. First to be considered is the question of how we should regard the inhabitants of the ‘Brave New World’ into which we enter with AI. Will we consider them carefully or merely experience a very bad case of déjà vu in our inept and inarticulate treatment of the large corporation? Next to be considered is the metaphor of creature turned ‘monster’, derived from Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus. Then, following a brief recounting of the uglier moments of corporate history, there is a series of lessons that can be learned from corporations in relation to AI. Finally, the discussion turns to how it would be possible, adopting lessons from corporate history, to use existing technology to guarantee human rights into the future. We are, indeed, creating beings that are immortal. And they have no soul. The time may soon come when not only do corporations have control of machine intelligence, but when corporations are themselves run by machine intelligence instead of humans. Digital data have no reason to die. Corporations are also potentially immortal. Neither are endowed with a conscience. Neither have any real limits upon what they can do, that is, unless we act to set limits in place to preserve humanity. So, in this chapter, we consider three fictional immortal beings, each without soul or conscience. Each of them is manifestly real and yet beyond our sensory perception. First is a product of literary fiction, an imagined monster. The second is a legal fiction, the corporation. The third, machine-produced intelligence, is just awakening to usher in a new era. Until now, it had been the subject of science fiction. Its worst manifestations we can still only imagine.

11 Brandeis

(1965). See also Brandeis (1914) cited in Wu (2018: 15).

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2.2 Human Rights and Conscience in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: ‘Brave New World’ or a Bad Case of Déjà Vu? 2.2.1 Dire Predictions and AI, AGI, and Superintelligence There are numerous ‘end-of-world’ and ‘end-of-humanity’ scenarios that are speculated, theorised, and even prophesied.12 The usual suspects include climate change, nuclear war, natural disasters, pandemics, and versions of the St John’s Apocalypse that adopt a cocktail of otherwise potential single-cause ends. But there is a threat that too rarely make its way into many of the lists of existential threats to humankind.13 It is the combination of two human creations, one ‘monster’ in control of another potential ‘monster’: supranational corporations and unregulated machine intelligence. That is the essence of the dawn of the new industrial age. Whatever the development of AI may be, it is certain to be disruptive of current social and economic orders (Dickson 2017; Galloway 2017: 196–200). But to avoid that disruption turning to destruction, we need to integrate international regulation now.14 Dire predictions also attend the anticipated arrival of superintelligence. While AGI and superintelligence need not be sequential, Nick Bostrom argues15 that if machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence by moving beyond AGI, superintelligent machines would no longer need humans, and could possibly render homo sapiens extinct.16 Superintelligent machines could write their own source code, create selfreplicating and self-improving codes, network with other superintelligent machines, and thus readily dominate humans, in much the same way as we have dominated other less intelligent species. The existential catastrophe for humans would come when machines regarded humans as inferiors to a superior ‘species’; or perhaps as a source of carbon for the construction of their new world. But, at the least, we should regard ourselves as being presently like children playing with a bomb that we could detonate in our naiveté (Henderson 2014). 12 See

Rochow (2018).

13 See as examples: Hjelmgaard (2019), Kemsley (2019), Saldinger (2019). See also the revised lists

of UN priorities at note 1. See also Rochow (2018). 15 Ibid. See also Bostrom, cited in Henderson (2014). 16 The redundancy of humans in the wake of highly developed machine intelligence is a common trope of science-fiction literature and film. It drove the ambitions of the super computer, HAL 2000, in Stanley Kubrick’s film ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ (1968), exemplified in the sequence when HAL tricks the astronauts into a spacewalk, during which HAL kills one and thwarts the survivor’s re-entry: Dave orders, ‘Open the pod bay door HAL’ to which HAL responds, ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that Dave’. For other examples of the trope, see Rochow (2018). It is also the subject a rich technical literature: Harari (2014), Bostrom (2014), Susskind and Susskind (2017: ch 1 and 2); Fukuyama (2002), Verbruggen (2017), Heskett (2017), Vaidhyanathan (2012, 2018), Kevin Kelly, The Inevitable: Understanding 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future, (2016, Penguin Books), Ashley (2017), Tegmark (2017), Foer (2017), Rouhiainen (2018), Gunkel (2017), Russell and Cohn (2012). See also Beduschi (2018). 14 Ibid.

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When the predicted social and economic upheavals will arrive is uncertain (Henderson 2014). In a sense, they are already underway (Henderson 2014). The arrival of the potentially full human catastrophe depends upon the advent of AGI, which, while not yet with us, is predicted to be imminent (Vincent 2018). While machines have already equalled and surpassed humans in certain specific applications, AGI will be achieved when machines have the same level of general intelligence as humans. Human redundancy will then be reality (Henderson 2014).17 Even in the medium term, while we await the arrival of AGI and superintelligence, there is real potential for unexpected infringements of rights.18 These derive from the inescapable bias in AI processing of data. Virginia Eubanks has detailed how bias in data programming and interpretation works routinely against the rights and interests of the poor in the United States (Eubanks 2018). The bias detriment is not confined to the poor. To take but one example in automated medical triage: the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief in the ICCPR19 Article 18.20 What happens, for example, when an algorithm decides whether or not to administer a blood transfusion without consideration of the patient’s religious beliefs? If no connected algorithm asks a question whether the patient is a faithful Jehovah’s Witness, the machine will decide the question without reference to religious faith. 17 See also Rochow (2018), Hjelmgaard (2019), Kemsley (2019), Saldinger (2019), Dickson (2017),

Galloway (2017: 196–200). Eubanks (2018), Thompson (2019), Socher (2019); see also Rochow (2018). 19 United Nations (1966) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 999 UNTS 171. 20 Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides: 18 See

(1) Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching. (2) No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice. (3) Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others. (4) The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions. Compare Article 9 of the European Covenant on Human Rights: (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching practice and observance. (2) Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

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What if the machine is programmed to have a bias in favour of termination of pregnancies if the patient has measles? If the programmer has not taken any account of Catholic belief on abortion, a termination may result without reference to the patient’s beliefs. What if the patient is of a certain age, frailty of health or socioeconomic status? If particular social biases in favour of euthanasia have been installed into the machine, then strongly held religious or ethical positions on the part of the patient or their family may be disregarded and the patient euthanised contrary to specific beliefs and wishes.

2.2.2 Conscience, Dignity, Human Rights, and Machines While functional equivalence and eventual superiority may be achieved by machines, despite contrivances in their manufactured appearance, machines are not human. While one can never be definitive about the future developments in intelligence, a distinguishing factor, at the moment, would be the conscience. However, ‘conscience’ is notoriously difficult to define.21 Briefly, its possession is essential to our capacity to make moral judgments. Douglas Langston described ‘conscience’ ‘…as a judging and punishing faculty’ or an ‘…internal judge’ (Langston 2001: 9). Langston summarises the thought of Immanuel Kant and Sigmund Freud on conscience as ‘…moral reasoning, a personal monitor, emotive reasoning’ (Langston 2001: 173). By acting according to conscience, we take ethical positions and act in order to maintain our own dignity and to accord dignity to other humans. Whatever definition we might, in the end, adopt, the searching of a ‘conscience’ for the moral thing to do is a distinctly human activity. Morality is not and cannot be mechanical.22 The possession of a conscience is a fulcrum of the human rights project. Because we are beings possessed of a conscience, we should, in accordance with its dictates, treat others with dignity. And because others possess consciences, they are entitled to rights and freedoms that set their conscience at liberty to the extent that it does not impinge upon the liberty of others. Human rights norms have these considerations as their telos.23 In the face of intelligent machines, we should take both human rights seriously and, likewise, human dignity (Dworkin 1977: 134–136; McCrudden 2008). We ought not lightly accord either machines or, for that matter, any other human creation, including corporations, the same rights or dignity that are reserved for humans. To attribute rights to machines, or corporations, is to overlook the important distinction between 21 See

Nussbaum (2008: 19–20), Langston (2001): 9, 173, 179–184. See also: Ahdar (2017): 185– 213, Leigh (2018): 378–396, Cardus Religious Freedom Institute (2018). For the discussion on ‘conscience’ I am also indebted to Jacqueline Rochow, BA (Phil.), for discussions with her and her 2017 report, on file with the author: Rochow (2017). I am also very grateful for discussions with Professors Paul Babie and Suzanne Le Mire. See Howe and Le Mire (2019). 22 See Harari (2018). 23 Waldron (2015). See also the following, cited by Waldron (2007), Rosen (2012), Kateb (2011), McCrudden (2008), McCrudden (2013), Fletcher (1984: 178), Rorty (1989: 44–45 and 52–57).

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creators and created (Smith 2009: 139–148). Overlooking this distinction in the area of human rights is to dilute those rights generally, and diminish the notion of dignity that underlies them. Jeremy Waldron has argued that the propositions invoking ‘dignity’ found in preambles of human rights conventions and in scholarly discourse addressing the subject of rights are often only made loosely (Waldron 2015). As such, he suggests, it can be merely ‘a piece of decorative rhetoric’. It is argued here that if either corporations or intelligent machines are to be said to have consciences, and dignity, and to be entitled to the same rights as humans, there is a very heavy burden to be discharged by those arguing that to be the case. Proponents of these claims24 must demonstrate that such invocations are not made ‘loosely’ and that they do not diminish the value we currently place on human conscience, dignity, and rights. There can be no question that creatures, intelligent machines and corporations must respect human rights and dignity. Such is a given. But we embark upon a different discourse when, as has occurred in the United States, civil rights are extended to artificial persons, such as corporations (Winkler 2018a, b). Decisions of the US Supreme Court in the cases of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission25 and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby26 not only blur the lines between the individual and the corporation, but they diminish the value of rights for humans making similar claims (Ravitch 2016a, b), and render the corporate ‘veil’ a semi-permeable membrane in claims for civil rights.27 They also set, by analogy, dangerous precedents for civil rights claims to be made on behalf of intelligent machines. If there is to remain a distinction between the creators and the created (Smith 2009), there will need to be a more careful allocation of rights in non-human ‘persons’.

2.3 The ‘Frankenstein’s Monster’ Trope An early warning of how human creations could turn destructive monsters was given in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus. After 200 years, it remains one of the greatest English language works of fiction. Dr. Frankenstein created living tissue from lifeless body parts. As terrible to the human eye as was this creature’s appearance, its thoughts, desires, lusts, and aspirations were as nuanced and subtle as we humans can be: both marvellous and terrible at the same time. Capable of both philosophical reflection and of vengefully wanton destruction, the creature combined in its being both wonder and horror. Dr. Frankenstein speaks to our yearnings to create immortal beings in our own image. Simultaneously, his 24 See,

example, Scharffs (2016); and the account given by Winkler (2018a, b). See also, Novak (1981, 1999). 25 558 U.S. 310 (2010). 26 573 U.S. ___ (2014). 27 Salomon v A Salomon & Co Ltd (1896) UKHL 1, [1897] AC 22. See Ramsay and Noakes (2001).

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creature warns us of our vanity; it reminds us of our own mortality and limitations in comparison with a creature of apparent immortality and seemingly limitless power. Despite the creature’s aspiration to humanity, and the fact that it had been assembled from dead human body parts, could it ever be considered ‘human’. Its desire to be accepted resulted in rejection, once its appearance and powers were known. It was doomed always to be feared rather than loved. For all its musings on language, aesthetics, ethics, and culture, could it be said to have a ‘soul’? If it were ever to die, could there be hope of eternal life? As much as the creature could reason with Dr. Frankenstein and bargain for the creation of a mate, was it possessed of anything that could be described as a ‘conscience’? As a child of the first industrial revolution, Shelley lived in a time of invention and technological progress. Steam powered engines, mechanisation of manufacture and agriculture, experiments with electricity, and advances in medical science were marvels to spark her imagination. But Shelley would be unlikely to have foreseen how, in coming centuries, the corporation would proliferate or how the experiments with electronic impulses of her day would, in our day, turn into a world of computers, algorithms, artificial intelligence, and robotics to be used for commerce, communications, transportation, and leisure.

2.4 A History of the Large Corporation as Monster Shelley also could scarcely have imagined the deep impression her fictional Dr. Frankenstein and his creature would leave on the cultural mind. Apart from spawning horror movies that rhapsodise on her theme, ‘Frankenstein’s monster’ is an oftinvoked metaphor for any creation that goes so horribly wrong that its creator loses control and is powerless to prevent ensuing destruction. In 1931, Maurice Wormser invoked the metaphor as the title and theme of his book, Frankenstein, Incorporated,28 which describes the destructive forces unleashed through corporations, citing the Wall Street Crash of October 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression as evidence. In 1933, Justice Brandeis, in dissent in Louis K. Liggett Co. v. Lee, cited Wormser, agreeing with his criticism of corporate power: Other writers have shown that, coincident with the growth of these giant corporations, there has occurred a marked concentration of individual wealth; and that the resulting disparity in incomes is a major cause of the existing depression. Such is the Frankenstein monster which states have created by their corporation laws.29

These themes and this metaphor were retained in The Corporation—The Pathological of Pursuit of Profit and Power. In making his argument that modern public corporations are not only required to maximise returns for investors, but are pathological in that pursuit, Joel Bakan observed: 28 See 29 288

Strassfeld (2008: 1019). U.S. 517, at 567 (1933).

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N. Rochow QC When in 1933, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis likened corporations to ‘Frankenstein’s monster,’30 there was more to his observation than rhetorical flair. Governments create corporations, much like Dr. Frankenstein created his monster, yet, once they exist, corporations threaten to overpower their creators. (Bakan 2005: 149).

From Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, which, in league with other trust corporations, throttled the economy of mid-nineteenth century United States (Chernow 1998: ch 7; Tarbell 1904), to the Microsoft Corporation, which has stymied United States national and international software markets through anti-competitive practices,31 the large and supernational corporate playbook has remained essentially the same. Milton Friedman re-enforced the notion of profit as a goal, asserting that the market does not get it wrong.32 Corporations competing in a market33 do not deviate from the profit motive and will pursue it to the extent permitted by law (or, at least, to the extent that escapes detection of enforcement agencies).

2.4.1 The Monstrous Beginnings of the Supranational Corporation Shelley lived in an age of exploration, the opening of global trade routes, and colonisation. Since Elizabethan times, there had been a rivalry among the major naval powers, Britain, the Netherlands, France, Portugal, and Spain, for control of the seas, trade, and foreign national resources. Before Shelley’s birth, Britain ruled the waves. It had conquered India and strategic parts of China and other parts of Asia, colonised Canada, parts of Africa, the eastern seaboard of Australia, and New Zealand. What can be overlooked is that much of the conquest, colonisation, and trade achieved by Britain, France, and the Netherlands, was through their agents: international corporations that had the power of small nation states. The first supranational corporation, the British East India Company,34 was granted its Royal Charter by Elizabeth I in 1600. It was to operate a ‘monopoly on English trade with all countries east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of the Straits of Magellan’ (Agarwal 2018: 201). The charter gave a wide geographical mandate, but the precedent for ruthlessness in achieving financial and political ends had been set by Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII. In 1543, Henry formed a proto-corporation, the Church of England. It was the vehicle for his reverse takeover of Catholic Church financial operations and assets in England.

30 Ibid. 564–567 (Brandeis, J., dissenting in part). Justice Brandeis borrowed the phrase from Wormser (1931). Discussed in Strassfeld (2008: 1019). 31 United States v Microsoft Corporation 253 F.3d 34 (2001). 32 As an example of the Friedman doctrine, see Friedman (1962). 33 That is, corporations formed for purposes of trading or finance and not specific purpose corporations formed for charitable and like purposes. 34 Then known as the ‘Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading with the East Indies’.

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Though known as the ‘English Reformation’, giving the movement a distinct religious flavour, the state-power invested in the new Church for ‘reformation’ to achieve its economic ends was, in every modern sense, corporate in nature. While formed for ostensibly religious purposes, the Church and its Head were focused on monopoly over assets and income (Hill 1997: ch 2). Henry, as its Head, assumed control of the new Church (Eire 2016: 318–320), unseated the previous episcopal ‘management’ by cutting all ties with the Vatican, dried up income streams to the previous controllers by abolishing indulgences, and appropriated to the Church of England all of the income and assets of the monasteries (Hill 1997: ch 2). As sole ‘shareholder’, this substantially increased the wealth of the English Crown (Hill 1997: ch 2). Throughout the enterprise, Henry was ruthless. He did, of course, have other goals in mind in the pursuit for which he effected a change of policy: he permitted divorce, a reform to his personal benefit (Hill 1997: ch 2). But in his quest for personal and financial advantage, Henry regarded conscience, property rights, and the lives of his opponents as of no weight in the balance (Hill 1997: ch 2). He successfully appropriated and executed his way to his ends. The East India Company first followed and then eclipsed Henry in ruthlessness and disregard for human dignity and property (Stern 2007). In pursuit of markets, capital, and profit, it showed no respect for borders, sovereignty, or the rights of nations or individuals (Hill 1997: ch 2). It colonised India, and, using private armies, took control of all trade and commerce, and installed British government in place of indigenous fiefdoms (Ferguson 2008: 139–158). It secured monopolistic trade in China’s tea crops through gunboat diplomacy, and did not scruple at trading in and addicting much of a population to opium dependency (Ferguson 2008; Platt 2017 Frankopan 2018). And large and supranational corporations since, to varying extents, have emulated the East India Company’s actions to secure markets, monopolise, and profit by whatever means is at their disposal. The East India Company for Britain,35 Banque Générale and the Company of the West for France,36 the Dutch East India Company (Ferguson 2008) (plying southern oceans spice trade routes),37 and the Hudson’s Bay Company operating in Canada38 all set standards of profits before any other consideration, when unbound by ordinary domestic legal constraints. While, for the most part, domestic corporations have posed no threat to anyone with whom they trade, seeking only to provide a return to shareholders after the payment of all just debts and obligations, a distrustful view which developed among historical commentators (Ferguson 2008; Keay 1991: ch 4; Bakan 2004: 153) in relation to these early supranational corporations persists into modern times in relation to mega corporations such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. The view in relation to the early international corporations can be justified by 35 Also

known as the Honourable East India Company or British East India Company. (2008): both companies, under the direction of John Law, contributed as causes of the French Revolution. 37 Ferguson (2008: 129–138), where Ferguson gives an account of the monopolisation of the spice trade and Holland’s conquest of the Dutch East Indies. 38 See HBC Heritage (2015) for a history of how it monopolised trade in Canadian resources. 36 Ferguson

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the more extreme actions of the East India Company (ibid), and its contemporaries (Ferguson 2008); to achieve their goals of conquest of trade routes and colonies holding vast resources, nothing stopped the use of sharp practices backed, when necessary, by military and naval power, and, shameful indulgence in rapine (Keay 1991).

2.4.2 The Continuation of the Monstrous Supranational Corporate Legacy 2.4.2.1

The Difficulty of Supranational Corporations as Non-State Actors and International Human Rights

What is the nature of the corporation? In Dartmouth College v. Woodward,39 United States Chief Justice Marshall offered the following description: A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it, either expressly or as incidental to its very existence. These are such as are supposed best calculated to effect the object for which it was created. Among the most important are immortality, and, if the expression may be allowed, individuality; properties by which a perpetual succession of many persons are considered as the same, and may act as a single individual. They enable a corporation to manage its own affairs and to hold property without the perplexing intricacies, the hazardous and endless necessity of perpetual conveyances for the purpose of transmitting it from hand to hand. It is chiefly for the purpose of clothing bodies of men, in succession, with these qualities and capacities that corporations were invented and are in use. By these means, a perpetual succession of individuals are capable of acting for the promotion of the particular object, like one immortal being. But this being does not share in the civil government of the country, unless that be the purpose for which it was created. Its immortality no more confers on it political power, or a political character, than immortality would confer such power or character on a natural person. It is no more a state instrument than a natural person exercising the same powers would be.40 The corporation, given limited legal personality, is not human and has no more rights than constitutive and general laws permit. But, as an economic instrument, it is capable of things on a scale that would be all but impossible for humans. It exists to produce as much wealth as possible for the individuals who have invested in it. Any ‘personhood’ of a corporation is a matter of convenience rather than reality (Easterbrook and Fischel 1991: 12). As ‘artificial beings’ created by law, corporations 39 17

U.S. (4 Wheat.) 518 (1819). also Proprietors of Charles River Bridge v. Proprietors of, 36 U.S. 420 (1837) 36 U.S. 420 (Pet.).

40 See

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cannot be permitted to break the law (Pollman 2019). They should be regarded as trading vehicles with only such limited legal personality as is necessary, and nothing more. It is critical that all corporations obey the law when they trade across borders. In international trade, they should be subject to international norms, including human rights instruments. But, historically, transborder third party enforcement of human rights has been a difficult matter when it comes to non-state actors.41 Corporations, with international power and value measured in trillions of dollars,42 are less unaccountable than nation states with less value or international influence.43 As non-state actors, their amenability to international law and human rights is fraught.44 The German legal concept of Grundrechte Drittwirkung,45 by which the contravention of a human right norm by a non-state actor can be remedied at the suit of the person affected by the contravention, is still developing, and is not yet a part of the law outside European Charter countries.46 In real terms, without national legislative machinery, supranationals can still act with virtual impunity. Without direct accountability for human rights, international trading corporations are free to pursue their goals with state-like power but with fewer constraints than government actors. And they have a narrow set of objectives. The corporation seeks to maximise return for investors by minimising costs and increasing sales. This can, of course, lead to conflicts between what is good for business (and the corporation) and what is good for those directly affected by corporate operations. For the worker in a third world sweat shop producing garments for subsistence wages Ratcliffe (2019), and the consumer of the garment as high-end fashion in the first world city, the perception of that corporation will likely be different. The consumer at the retail end of the distribution chain will associate the corporation with a brand, luxury and image. Without inquiry, they would probably be blind to the monster situated at the production end.47 Even where supranational corporations are amenable to national laws to protect either markets or consumers, fines imposed for anti-consumer and anti-competitive 41 David (2014), Teubner (2011). See also Charlesworth (1989), cf., Chirwa (2006). On the operation

of Drittwirkung, mentioned by Chirwa, see Kainer (2018). Forbes 2018 list of corporations in Murphy et al. (2019). See also Lynley (2018); and Marks (2018). As to the value of religion in the United States, with respect to which it is also difficult to enforce third part human rights, see Sherwood (2016). 43 See data gathered by the World Bank in 2016, discussed in Inman (2016). 44 Ibid. See also Wu (2018). 45 Kainer (2018). See also papers of the colloquium held 1 February 2019 at the University of Heidelberg, including those of Justice François Biltgen of the European Court of Justice and Federal Industrial Court Judge Inken Gallner, published on Professor Kainer’s website at Abteilung Rechtswissenschaft, Universität Mannheim (2019). See also Egenberger v Evangelisches Werk für Diakonie und Entwicklung eV (Case C-414/16) and Stadt Wuppertal v Bauer and Willmeroth v Broßonn (C-569/16; C-570/16). 46 See Jura Forum (undated). 47 Ruggie (2013). See also the principles developed by Ruggie and adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council on 6 June 2011: United Nations Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (2010); and Deva (2012). 42 See

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conduct can be regarded as merely a cost of operations (Sandel 2012: 65–70). Despite Google’s record $6.8 billion fine from the European Union over its Android mobile system48 and the intentions of United States prosecutors to impose record-breaking fines on Facebook over its misuse of personal information,49 there are unlikely to be major hits to their viability. Stock markets are aware of how dependent most people are upon their products. Google and Facebook, like Amazon and Apple, offer products that are so desirable to the consumer that loyalty will cause them to overlook the transgressions they commit. Customers continue to order from Amazon because convenience continues to outweigh the fact that Amazon replaces 76,000 employees annually with robots (Galloway 2017: 29–30, 52–54). Apple received no market backlash when it defied a Federal Court order to assist in a mass murder investigation (Galloway 2017: 63–66). Essentially, the larger the corporation, the less potential responsibility it has for the impact of its operations upon humans.

2.4.2.2

‘The Curse of Bigness’:50 Corporate Power as Anti-democratic Power

Tim Wu has suggested that we live in a second ‘gilded’ corporate age (Wu 2018: 19–23). In the first ‘gilded age’, a century ago, a few firms controlled the means of global production and distribution. Monopolisation was politically and economically fashionable as the successor to capitalism (Wu 2018: 24–32). Wu argues that we are seeing again what Justice Brandeis termed the ‘curse of bigness’ (Wu 2018: 15 and 147); a part of the Frankenstein’s monstrous image invoked by Justice Brandeis in Louis K. Liggett Co. v. Lee.51 Whether in banking, pharmaceuticals, technology or communications, modern competition laws and regulators, are, once again, as ineffective against major monopolists, monopsonists, and oligopolists as prevailed at the time when Justice Brandeis sounded his warning (Wu 2018: ch 1 and 2). There are insufficient resources and no political will to rein in modern major corporations. Wu echoes the Brandeis warnings that the unconstrained power of these corporations will affect policy and politics, and threaten the democratic process. Wu warns that because of outdated competition laws and lax regulatory policies, we may be doomed to repeat corporate history (Wu 2018: ch 1 and 2). Since the middle of last century, corporate market power has increased within the firms possessing it (Galloway 2017: Chap. 1, 196–200). Control of production and distribution has concentrated in fewer and fewer firms. Corporations have steadily gathered greater ability to effect social and political change since their campaigns against the New Deal (Winkler 2018a, b). The potential for corporations to shape 48 https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/google-faces-68bn-eu-fine-over-android/ news-story/e50160db3c0da1a7ab0c60cf3f383b8b. 49 Galloway (2017: 107) regarding the Cambridge Analytica scandal. See also Romm and Dwoskin (2019). 50 Taken from Wu (2018: 15). 51 288 U.S. 517 (1933).

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the world in an image that suits them has been enhanced, starting with scandalous uses of power in the middle of last century (Wu 2018: ch 1 and 2; Winkler 2018a, b). These increases in power come without increased accountability. And they now come with negligible legal or ethical constraints over their use of AI to augment their power (Wu 2018: ch 1 and 2; Winkler 2018a, b; Bossmann 2016). Only ten companies control almost every large food and beverage brand in the world (Taylor 2016). AI is a strategic source of the power wielded by ‘The Four’: Amazon; Apple; Facebook; and Google (Galloway 2017). They use and control disruptive machine intelligence upon which their markets depend (Galloway 2017). In the return to levels of market concentration not seen since the industrial economics of the 1910s, two facts characterise the industrialised world. First, there is a re-emergence of the gap between rich and the poor, typified in the United States, where the top one percent of individuals earn 23.8% of the national income, and control 38.6 percent of national wealth (Wu 2018: 20). The second is the return to concentrated economies: industries dominated by fewer and larger companies (Wu 2018: 20).

2.4.2.3

Remaking American Religion in a Corporate Image

Adam Winkler has reminded us that the idea of corporations being inherently ‘persons’, like any human, sensitive to civic duty, or being attributed a conscience, is a compound fiction, based upon a lie (Winkler 2018a, b). Trading corporations are inherently neither conscientious individuals nor civic minded citizens. If a corporation engages in altruistic or community-oriented activity, it is not usually altruism or community spirit that motivates them, but pursuit of a market. Bakan illustrates this with oil-producing giant BP’s being awarded environmental awards for its positive stand on greenhouse emissions. The exercise in image and market-building did not prevent retention of its position as the second largest oil producer in the United States at the time of receipt of the award (Bakan 2005: 38–46, 80–84). But while the profit motive may, in some circumstances, coincide with human rights and community interest, the corporation’s own will is almost certain to prevail. Despite any interim coincidence with the interests of others, a corporation still, in the end, acts in self-interest. When interests conflict, a corporation will choose its own. Kevin Kruse, in One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (Kruse 2015), illustrates how this preference of interests occurred in grand scale three generations ago. In the mid-twentieth century, corporate America sponsored a great national religious revival. While perceived at the time to be a great community service, as Kruse demonstrates (Kruse 2015: ch 3, 4, 5), the conflation of Judeo-Christianity with anti-Communist sentiment, pro-Americanism, and free enterprise and the capitalist system, was to the political and economic benefit of individual corporate sponsors and the industry associations behind the revival. The corporate giants of the United States created a new mythic civic religion, rooted in rhetoric of Founding Fathers sentimentality, church attendance, American free enterprise, and slogans of ‘One Nation Under God’ and ‘In God We Trust” (Kruse 2015:

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99–100, 121–124, 293–294). What was dressed to appear as that ‘ol’ time religion’ was, in fact, a freshly minted facsimile to serve corporate ends. Corporate America was, as Kruse recounts, unitedly instrumental in persuading government to place religious reminders on postage stamps (Kruse 2015: 112–121, 125) and on the currency (116–121, 125). Lip service was paid by members of the corporate group and their religious supporters to the ‘separation of church and state’ (124, 130, 244, 255, 280, 286). But merging ‘religion’ and ‘politics’ was an essential part of the modus operandi (ibid). The combined corporate object in inventing the new civic religion was, at first, in money and power: to encourage public rejection of the social welfare and taxation policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, and to see its political demise. But, over time, its popularity caused it to gain an entrenched niche in the way politics and government were done in the United States. In order to obtain political ends and to preserve markets and profits, American corporations had invented, in effect, a new Christian movement; religion was commodified and politicised.52 To attempt to shirk the trend became, in the new realpolitik, electoral suicide (Kruse 2015: 87–93, 148–150, 185; Young 2016: 154– 157, 168–175). As a part of this overall movement, the religious right53 insinuated itself into the political sphere to complete the circle of government, big business, and conservative religion.54 The salvation of souls was a terrestrial vehicle, not an heavenly end.55

2.4.3 Attempts to Rehabilitate the Corporate Monster So far, over the four hundred years of its history, the large corporation has, particularly in transnational trade and when unrestrained, behaved monstrously. The corporations examined have used every device available to them, from inventing a new religion, through to gunboat diplomacy (and the addiction of a population to opium) to achieve the end of all corporate trade activity: profits. It is axiomatic that corporations obey the law (Pollman (2019), Greenfield (Greenfield 2010: 73–98). Corporate laws regulate corporate activity, some of which has room for improvement (Wu 2018: 15–19; Greenfield 2010: Pt 2). But in order to improve the perception of the corporation as driven solely by the profit motive, there needs to be a supplement to regulation. Thus, there has been a search for general ethical principles to guide areas of corporate activity where the statutes express them,

52 See

Young (2016).

53 Young (Young 2016: 1–37): comprised of the Catholics, major Protestant denominations, and the

Mormons. 54 Ibid. 55 On

the peculiarity of American ‘Christianity’ as a form of Gnosticism distinct from forms of Christianity in Europe, see Bloom (1992).

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or the common law or equity impute them.56 It would appear that this is, in part, what drives the development of a doctrine like the Grundrechte Drittwirkung.57 Two efforts designed to fill the lacunae in corporate accountability that need to be briefly mentioned here are, first, the concept of ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR) and, secondly, the Ruggie principles (Ruggie 2013; United Nations Business and Human Rights Resource Centre 2010; Deva 2012). CSR is a voluntary form of social responsibility that a corporation undertakes to those its operation may affect. Those affected can include stakeholders, such as customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, and financiers; but responsibility is also owed to society at large.58 Ethical principles that form part of CSR include honesty, integrity and respect for others. Although voluntary, obedience to CSR principles can be regarded as the price of the ‘licence to operate’ and create value for its shareholders (Rangan et al. 2012), and, ideally, for society in general.59 As Greenfield points out, responsibility to shareholders for the internal operations of the company is a matter of private law (Greenfield 2010: 1–2, 35–36). CSR, given that it is a voluntary assumption of responsibility by management, has no public enforceability. Companies are still, in the end, through their boards, responsible only to their shareholders (ibid). A structural change to corporate governance that has been adopted in Germany is a reform to be considered.60 In that country public companies have two boards, an executive board, elected by shareholders and a supervisory board, elected by employees, to oversee decisions and watch for breaches of duty (Kuntz 2017). But as the law stands in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, CSR is only a discretionary device by which corporations may either become, or appear to become (Bakan 2004), more responsible, without committing themselves to any new legal liability. In this sense, it does not overcome the essential problems outlined above: corporations may engage in civically oriented activities in order to improve profitability by appearing to care; and there is still no solution to the non-state actor’s effective immunity from liability for (say) human rights breaches. The Ruggie principles are intended to impose upon states obligations to protect their citizens from non-state party human rights violations (Ruggie 2013; United Nations Business and Human Rights Resource Centre 2010; Deva 2012). The framework constructed from the Ruggie principles rests upon three pillars. First, the state has the duty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, including businesses. Second, there is a corporate responsibility to respect human rights. Third, there should be greater access by victims to effective remedies, both judicial and 56 See

Cooke (1997). (2018); Egenberger v Evangelisches Werk für Diakonie und Entwicklung eV (Case C414/16); and Stadt Wuppertal v Bauer and Willmeroth v Broßonn (C-569/16; C-570/16). 58 For the broad definition of CSR, see Careers Service, Careers Service, University of Edinburgh (2019); The EU’s CSR policy is at Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Federal Republic of Germany (undated); for Germany’s CSR policy and the concept of Mittelstand for smaller enterprises, see Bauer (2013). 59 See Bauer (2013). 60 As suggested by 2020 US Presidential candidate, Elizabeth Warren: see Durkin (2018). 57 Kainer

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non-judicial.61 One of the criticisms of the framework and its underlying principles is that, until enshrined in a legally enforceable instrument, it remains ‘soft’ law and is only aspirational. As at 2017, a proposed treaty62 remained at the reporting stage.63 The weakness of both CSR and the Ruggie principles is their lack of legal enforceability. But their strength is that they are true to the axiom that corporations should be required to obey the law, including human rights norms, at both the domestic and international levels (Pollman 2019; Greenfield 2010). Both are aimed at super-adding to existing corporate legal responsibilities. Taking account of the overview of some of the worst moments of supranational corporation and large corporate activities, there is no justification for providing corporations with any new excuse to break the law. Yet that is precisely what recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court do.

2.4.4 Attempt to Humanise the Corporate Monster: Attribution of Conscience In a series of recent decisions, namely Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission,64 Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,65 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby,66 and Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission,67 the Supreme Court extended civil rights to corporations and entities that would normally be regarded as belonging solely to humans. As Winkler has pointed out, this trend of according an extended form of personhood to corporations began one hundred and thirty years ago (Winkler 2018a, b: xiii–xv and Chap. 2). In Citizens United, the court held that corporations were entitled to protection of freedom of speech under the First Amendment. But it was in the Hobby Lobby decision in which the Supreme Court extended protection under the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).68 It marks a trend away from greater corporate accountability and towards providing corporations with more bases upon which they can avoid obedience to the law.

61 See

summary at United Nations Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (undated). African Group, the Arab Group, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela, Peru and Ecuador (2013). 63 See United Nations Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (2017). 64 558 U.S. 310 (2010). 65 565 U.S. 171 (2012). Note that in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School the religious body was an unincorporated association. 66 573 U.S. ___ (2014). 67 584 U.S. ___ (2018). Note that in Masterpiece, ‘Masterpiece’ was a corporation though nothing is made of this in the opinions delivered by the Court. 68 Pub. L. No. 103–141, 107 Stat. 1488 (November 16, 1993), codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb through 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-4. 62 See

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What was this case about? Hobby Lobby’s directors and shareholders were all members of the Green family. All were Christians with strongly held views on what they considered to be the evils of contraception. They objected to the Obama administration contraceptive mandate that required the corporation to pay female employees an allowance for contraception. The Supreme Court ruled that because the corporation was ‘closely-held’, under RFRA it was entitled to an exemption from the mandate. In effect, the court extended the religiously-informed consciences of the Green family to the corporation. The decision, based upon the ‘closely-held’ corporate concept, is not altogether satisfying as a rationale. Hobby Lobby operates over 800 stores, which are obviously not individually managed by members of the Green family. Its stores stock more than 65,000 items including arts and crafts supplies, fashion fabrics, baskets, silk flowers, party supplies and furniture.69 With over 32,000 employees and an annual revenue of $4.6 billion, the description of ‘closely-held’ is hardly adequate to disclose the reality of its scale of operations.70 Hobby Lobby is described as a ‘closely-held for-profit’ corporation, which, in American corporate law, is the equivalent of a privately held, limited liability, proprietary company in Anglo-Australian law.71 Although a closely-held corporation has separate legal personality from its shareholders and controllers, the significance of the description is that, in American corporate law, the corporate veil is far more readily pierced than would be the case in Anglo-Australian law.72 While this would raise the question in legal theory under Anglo-Australian models as to the point of such a corporate structure (Watson 2018), it goes some way to explain what appears to the non-American observer to have been an anomalous decision. The other matter that goes some way to explain the oddities of the case of Hobby Lobby is that it was not a decision decided under the First Amendment. Had it been, the result may have been different because Employment Division v Smith73 still governs under the free exercise clause of the First Amendment, under which there is no requirement to exempt from a law of general applicability.74 69 Taken from Forbes listing: https://www.forbes.com/companies/hobby-lobby-stores/# 4158ca996cee. 70 Cf. Queensland Wire v BHP (1989) 167 CLR 177; [1989] HCA 6, in which the second respondent, Australian Wire Industries Pty Ltd (AWI) was a wholly owned subsidiary of the first respondent, BHP. BHP is and was then one the largest corporations in Australia, with sizeable international operations. Apart from the character of AWI’s shareholder, AWI also held the monopoly in a fencing product, ‘Y-bar’, for which there was a single product market. AWI, form its strategic position as a monopolist, with BHP as a monopsonist, was able to refuse to deal in Y-bar with Queensland Wire. The High Court held unanimously that both respondents held substantial market power which they had used in refusing to deal with Queensland Wire. They both contravened the anti-competitive provisions of s.46 of the then Trade Practices Act. Even if ‘conscience’ were to provide the basis for some form of defence to the s.46 claim of anti-competitive conduct, it is not at all how that conscience would be ascertained. 71 Easterbrook and Fischel (1991: 55–56; 228–238). See Ramsay and Noakes (2001). 72 Ibid. 73 494 U.S. 872 (1990). 74 I am grateful for the discussions with Professor Frank Ravitch on these points.

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Hobby Lobby has been the subject of criticism both for its implications for religious freedom and its anti-social implications. Frank Ravitch has argued that an extreme decision of this kind diminishes the potential for individuals making claims (Ravitch 2016a). He has also commented on the copycat effect by other corporations invoking the decision as a reason to leave their employees without adequate contraceptive cost relief (Ravitch 2016b: ch 1). Steven Shiffrin identifies three main arguments that have been advanced as to why the decision appears wrong in principle (Shiffrin 2016: 138–140). First, a corporation is not a human being and has no conscience (ibid). What follows as a part of this argument is that there should be no ability for a corporation to engage in trade for profit and enjoy the protection of limited liability while at the same time invoking exemptions from the law from which only a conscientious individual should benefit (ibid). The second argument is that under the Smith doctrine, the law did not impose a substantial burden(ibid). The third argument is that taxpayers with religious objections to the uses to which their money is put cannot claim that their religious liberty is violated (ibid). Forms of taxation and requirements of payments are often used for purposes that some of those burdened with payment consider immoral or inappropriate. There are obviously counters to each of these respective arguments (ibid; Scharffs 2016). All arguments and the responses to them are worthy of separate and detailed treatments that space does not permit to be undertaken here.75 For current purposes, however, it is the first argument that is of most importance. Leaving aside all of the objections in corporate jurisprudence that could be made to Hobby Lobby (and there are many), once a legal fiction, the formless corporation, which exists only on paper and the legal imagination, is accorded any form of human right, there are two serious implications. First, the human rights project is diminished. It is no longer a human right when a non-human, especially an abstraction, is entitled to its benefit. Any dignitarian basis for rights is thereby undermined. Second, once a shapeless non-human is accorded human rights, creatures in the shape of humans, robots, for example, equipped with AI that either emulates or replicates human reasoning, must, by extension, have a strong argument for the same benefit. This, in turn, further diminishes the dignitarian undergirding of the human rights project.

2.5 Lessons for Machine Intelligence Because the history of machine intelligence is relatively short, the corporation has been examined at its worst as an analogy for that against which humanity should protect itself. If the analogy holds, and current intimations are reliable,76 then action is required to protect human rights. This does not augur well for society, for without strong regulatory control, major social upheavals are inevitable and existential 75 See 76 See

both Shiffrin (2016) and Scharffs (2016). Part 1.1, above. See also, Rochow (2018); and Swan (2019).

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threats a strong possibility.77 In Superintelligence—Paths Dangers, Strategies, Nick Bostrom provides a parable to warn of the uncontrolled destructive force that could be unleashed: A group of sparrows are building their nests. “We are all so small and weak,” tweets one, feebly. “Imagine how easy life would be if we had an owl who could help us build our nests!” There is general twittering agreement among sparrows everywhere; an owl could defend the sparrows! It could look after their old and their young! It could allow them to live a life of leisure and prosperity! With these fantasies in mind, the sparrows can hardly contain their excitement and fly off in search of the swivel-headed saviour who will transform their existence… There is only one voice of dissent: ‘Scronkfinkle’, a one-eyed sparrow with a fretful temperament, was unconvinced of the wisdom of the endeavour. Quoth he: “This will surely be our undoing. Should we not give some thought to the art of owl-domestication and owl-taming first, before we bring such a creature into our midst?” His warnings, inevitably, fall on deaf sparrow ears. Owl-taming would be complicated; why not get the owl first and work out the fine details later? …78

In our future reality, it seems inevitable that machine intelligence will increasingly come under the control of supranational corporations. Unless there is a dramatic shift in current governmental approaches, there will be insufficient regulatory oversight and no international set of norms to preserve the goals of human rights or social justice.79 Nothing in our experience to date instils optimism for an AI future. That is especially true in a future in which corporations control AI for profit, and nations are able to enlist it as part of their arms race arsenal.80 So, any suggestions that can be made must be tinged with realism, if not pessimism, that no adequate action will be taken. Further, our pessimism should be fuelled by observing the ways that corporations have devised for avoiding detection for breaches of corporate law, dissembling as to true intentions, and devising arguments that defeat the assumed intention of regulation. We must expect at least the same from autonomous intelligent machines (Condliffe 2018). Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics81 were devised to provide story plots arising from their re-interpretation to the point of breaking (Asimov 1981). But if there are lessons that we, and governments, could derive from the signs of AI’s future (and our stroll through the some of the darker episodes in corporate history), they would include the following. First, it will never be enough to regulate simply at a local or national jurisdictional level. As with corporations, even more so with AI, borders are porous and the effects global. There must, therefore, be a set of comprehensive global norms that require that all programming of any machine 77 See

Part 1.1, above. See also, Rochow (2018). (2018). The full version is in Bostrom (2014: note 50, iii– iv). 79 See Lin et al. (2017), Rochow (2018), Elsayed-Ali (2017), Elsayed-Ali and Quinton (2016). 80 See Nowak (2010). 81 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. 78 Adams

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intelligence be in accordance with a single, comprehensive set of human rights norms. Second, if such a set of norms could be formulated, and agreed upon (remembering the current state of the Ruggie principles), there would need to be some form of electronic certification with which items of machines intelligence complied. A technology like blockchain could provide that kind of guarantee (Wright 2018). Third, no form of artificial intelligence should be accorded human personality, human rights, or have any concept of ‘conscience’ attributed to it in law. But progress thus far is not encouraging. The UN project, referred to in the opening paragraph of this chapter,82 is yet to contribute substantially.83 The EU is the most advanced jurisdiction in AI policy, ethics, law, and practice,84 with a dedicated parliamentary platform (European Commission 2019b) and a specialised section of the European Commission working towards a Digital Single Market (European Commission 2019c). It is still undecided as to whether it should grant robots rights, despite warnings to the contrary regarding the negative impact it would have on human rights (Cuddy 2018). The Commission has developed legal and ethical frameworks to ensure that the EU is ahead of technological developments and encouraging uptake by the public and private sectors, and that all member states are prepared for the socio-economic changes brought about by AI (European Commission 2019a). On 10 April 2018, 25 European countries, including member states of the EU, signed a multi-lateral Declaration of Cooperation on AI. On the declaration, Andrus Ansip, Vice-President for the Digital Single Market, and Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, spoke of the way that Europeans have recognised what most other national governments have failed to see: In Europe, any successful strategy dealing with AI needs to be cross-border. A large number of Member States agreed to work together on the opportunities and challenges brought by AI. That is excellent news. Cooperation will focus on reinforcing European AI research centres, creating synergies in R&D&I funding schemes across Europe, and exchanging views on the impact of AI on society and the economy. Member States will engage in a continuous dialogue with the Commission, which will act as a facilitator (European Commission 2019d).

The EU has developed a policy on the prevention of online ‘hate speech’. In May 2016, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft committed themselves to combatting the spread of such content in Europe through a ‘Code of Conduct’, implementation of which is to be overseen in a series of monitoring rounds (Drozdiak 2017). The third monitoring round was held on 19 January 2018 (European Commission 2018). Since May 2016, Google had announced it was joining the Code of Conduct, and Facebook confirmed that Instagram would also. One of the challenges found to remain at the third evaluation round was a lack of systematic feedback to users. The third evaluation also found that IT companies removed on average 70% of illegal hate speech notified to them. 82 See

note 1, above.

83 See note 1 above. Note the euphemistic tone of UN Secretary-General António Guterres: Despite

countless ‘headwinds’ and ‘ills’, the United Nations has ‘made a real difference’ in 2018 and will need to achieve even more in 2019, as the planet faces ‘a world of trouble’. 84 Compare the United Nations’ Future of Life Institute: Future of Life Institute (undated: b).

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At the third evaluation, V˘era Jourová, EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, observed on the purposes of the Code of Conduct: The Internet must be a safe place, free from illegal hate speech, free from xenophobic and racist content. The Code of Conduct is now proving to be a valuable tool to tackle illegal content quickly and efficiently. This shows that where there is a strong collaboration between technology companies, civil society and policy makers we can get results, and at the same time, preserve freedom of speech. I expect IT companies to show similar determination when working on other important issues, such as the fight with terrorism, or unfavourable terms and conditions for their users.

Despite claims of success for the Code, fundamental questions remain regarding the entire scheme. First, it is not clear what definition of ‘hate speech’ the IT companies would use in their vetting of alleged breaches. Article 20 (2) of the ICCPR provides that, ‘Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law’. Apart from this, there has been no universally accepted definition of ‘hate speech’. The term is not precisely defined by any EU document and the definition in law is also vague (Ahdar and Leigh 2013: 448–451; McRea 2010: 71–72, 103–140; Coleman 2016: ch 3 and 7; Hume 2015). The false initial premise in the EU approach is placing trust in corporations to enforce its Code. AI needs to be regulated. Its controllers cannot be the regulators.85

2.6 Conclusion We remain in a world where the international regulation of corporations cannot guarantee observance of fundamental human rights. Into this world enters a revolutionary technology, the impact of which upon humanity can only be guessed. However, the predictions made by experts range from social and economic disruption to existential threat. These are predictions that cannot be taken lightly. However, despite recognition of the risks that humanity faces, the international community is still only at the talking phase with no common philosophical or normative approach in sight. While discussions stall at international and national governmental levels on the philosophy to be adopted, the technology continues to move apace without any serious regulatory checks. This is a repetition of the way in which the world reacted to the advent of supranational corporations. In their worst excesses, they have shown scant regard for human rights or democratic processes in their pursuit of profit. Governments have repeatedly failed to place in check the corporation’s worst self-interested excesses. Until AI issues are removed from the tables of boardrooms and the corridors of power, and moved into the living rooms of ordinary people, there will be no truly meaningful solution. 85 Rochow

(2018).

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The prospects of any change in approach are remote while we permit governments to approach the regulation of AI in the same way that they have regulated corporations. The time has come for a democratic insistence that governments govern, corporations are accountable, and that AI be tied strictly to an ethos of preservation of human rights. If action is not taken, we may be doomed to be ruled over by monsters, indeed, monsters of our own making, real and imaginary, without soul or conscience. These monsters were, in fact, once considered to be our servants.

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Rorty R (1989) Contingency, irony and solidarity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Rosen M (2012) Dignity: its history and meaning. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts Rouhiainen L (2018) Artificial Intelligence—101 things you must know today about our future. Self-published Ruggie JG (2013) Just business: multinational corporations and human rights. Norton & Company, New York Russell J, Cohn R (2012) Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. Lennex Corp, Edinburgh Saldinger A (2019) Climate, cybersecurity top list of global threats in new report. Devex. https:// www.devex.com/news/climate-cybersecurity-top-list-of-global-threats-in-new-report-91899 Salomon v A Salomon & Co Ltd [1896] UKHL 1, [1897] AC 22 Sandel M (2012) What money can’t buy—the moral limits of markets. Penguin, London Scharffs BG (2016) Our fractured attitude towards corporate conscience. In: Robinson DN, Williams RN (eds) Religious liberty—essays on first amendment law. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 125–164 Search Engine Watch (2006) Google now a verb in the Oxford English Dictionary. https://www. searchenginewatch.com/2006/06/29/google-now-a-verb-in-the-oxford-english-dictionary/ Sherwood H (2016) Religion in US worth more than Google and Apple combined. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/15/us-religion-worth-1-trillion-studyeconomy-apple-google Shiffrin SH (2016) What’s wrong with the first amendment?. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Shu C (2014) Google acquires artificial intelligence startup DeepMind for more than $500M. TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/26/google-deepmind/?guccounter=1 Simonite S (2017) Google’s learning software learns to write learning software. Wired https://www. wired.com/story/googles-learning-software-learns-to-write-learning-software/ Simonite T (2016) Moore’s law is dead. Now What?. MIT Technology Review. https://www. technologyreview.com/s/601441/moores-law-is-dead-now-what/ Smith JKA (2009) Desiring the Kingdom: worship, worldview, and cultural formation. Baker Academic, Ada, Michigan Socher R (2019) AI isn’t dangerous, but human bias is. World Economic Forum. https://www. weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/ai-isn-t-dangerous-but-human-bias-is/ Stadt Wuppertal v Bauer and Willmeroth v Broßonn (C-569/16; C-570/16) Stern PJ (2007) Politics and ideology in the early east India company-state: the case of St Helena, 1673–1709. J Imperial Commonwealth History 35(1):1–23 Strassfeld RN (2008) Introduction: corporations and their communities. Case W Res Law Rev 58(4):1017–1029 Susskind R, Susskind D (2017) The future of the professions: how technology will transform the work of human experts. Oxford University Press, Oxford Swan D (2019) People have lost trust in Facebook and Google, says tech festival boss. The Australian. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/people-have-lost-trust-infacebook-and-google-says-tech-festival-boss/news-story/41a89f0e8a5c9696e4c1bf1666f2cc8f? nk=4a15b2adff77a86919004daeb00eb052-1549713122 Tarbell IM (1904) The history of the standard oil company. McClure, Phillips and Co, New York Taylor K (2016) These 10 companies control everything you buy. Business Insider. https://www. businessinsider.com/10-companies-control-the-food-industry-2016-9 Tegmark M (2017) Life 3.0—being human in the age of Artificial Intelligence. Penguin Books, London Teubner G (2011) Transnational fundamental rights: horizontal effect? Netherlands J Legal Philosophy 40(3):191–215 The Renewal of the Old: Lionel Murphy’s Progressive-Relational Conception of Property Thompson A (2019) How governments use Big Data to violate human rights. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/how-governments-use-big-data-to-violate-human-rights-109537

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UN News (2019) Proving our worth through action: 5 things Guterres wants the UN to focus on in 2019. UN News. https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/01/1030592 United Nations (1966) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 999 UNTS 171 United Nations (2019) Secretary-general’s high-level panel on digital cooperation. https://www.un. org/en/digital-cooperation-panel/ United Nations Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (2017) Expert round table on elements of a possible binding international instrument on business and human rights. University of Notre Dame London Gateway. Summary Report. https://www.business-humanrights.org/sites/default/ files/documents/May%2016%202017%20rtable%20sum%20rep%20final.pdf United Nations Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (2010) The UN “Protect, Respect and Remedy” framework for business and human rights. https://www.business-humanrights.org/ sites/default/files/reports-and-materials/Ruggie-protect-respect-remedy-framework.pdf United Nations Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (undated) ‘UN “Protect, Respect and Remedy” framework and guiding principles’, UN secretary-general’s special representative on business & human rights. https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/un-secretary-generalsspecial-representative-on-business-human-rights/un-protect-respect-and-remedy-frameworkand-guiding-principles Vaidhyanathan S (2012) The googlization of everything. University of California Press, Berkeley Vaidhyanathan S (2018) Anti-social media: How Facebook disconnects us and undermines democracy. Oxford University Press, Oxford Verbruggen R (2017) Google, Facebook, Amazon: our digital overlords. Nation review. https:// www.nationalreview.com/2017/12/google-facebook-amazon-big-tech-becoming-problem Vincent J (2018) This is when AI’s top researchers think artificial general intelligence will be achieved. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/27/18114362/ai-artificial-generalintelligence-when-achieved-martin-ford-book Waldron J (2007) Dignity and rank. Eur J Sociol 48(2):201–237 Waldron J (2015) Is dignity the foundation of human rights? In: Croft R, Liao SM, Renzo M (eds) Philosophical foundations of human rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 117–138 Watson S (2018) The corporate legal person. Journal of corporate law studies. https://papers.ssrn. com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3300383 Winkler A (2018a) We the corporations: how American business won their civil rights. Livesight, New York Winkler A (2018b) “Corporations Are People” is built on an incredible 19th-Century Lie—how a farcical series of events in the 1880s produced an enduring and controversial legal precedent. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/corporations-people-adamwinkler/554852/ Wormser M (1931) Frankenstein, Incorporated. McGraw-Hill Book Co, New York/London Wright A (2018) Blockchain and the law: the rule of the code. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts Wu T (2018) The curse of bigness: antitrust in the new gilded age. Columbia Global Reports, New York Young NJ (2016) We gather together—the religious right and the problem of interfaith politics. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Chapter 3

Creation Myths: A Deeper Truth for Today’s Religionists Robert Crotty

Abstract Creation myths are a common factor in human societies. While esteemed in ancient societies, today they are regarded as performing the function in the past that is today better performed by modern science. In this comparison, unprovable activities of a god or gods are usually ranked beneath scientific, naturalistic investigation. This present analysis of creation myths attempts to demonstrate that ancient creation myths were not simplistic creations of the archaic mind: they were stories attempting to answer fundamental questions about the cosmos and human life. At the same time, they acted as media allowing humans to cope with these mysteries of the world and the parts played by humans in it. They did not solve those mysteries; they allowed humans to cope with them. It may well be that, for modern usage, the creation myths need to be adapted and reformulated so that they can regain their original function. This could well require the use of poetry, arts, dancing, music as well as writing. We have inherited the shell of the creation myths; they require to be re-enervated.

Creation myths refer to ancient, authorless and unattributed stories that involve the creation of the cosmos, planet Earth and human people. However, they do not, in the modern world, have a good press. Commonly, creation myths are believed to have performed the same function in ancient societies as well-founded science does in the modern society. Or again, creation myths are believed to have invented personalist accounts of unprovable ‘gods’, in contrast to a scientific naturalistic narrative based on the laws of mechanics, evidence for biological and well-researched physical processes. At the present time the majority of the population believe that creation science outmodes creation myth. Yet, there have always been defences of creation myths: they are founded on scientific fact in a different idiom (‘seven days of creation’ means seven major geologic ages: Young and Stearley 2008); they are ‘original revelations of the preconscious psyche, involuntary statements about unconscious psychic happenings’ (Jung 1968); R. Crotty (B) School of Education, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Babie and R. Sarre (eds.), Religion Matters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_3

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they reflect the human mind in symbolic terminology and do not reflect the external world (an impossible task). So, the attempts at validation continue. We can begin our investigation of creation myths with a broad summary of the present-day scientific narrative of cosmic origins.

3.1 Cosmology Science teaches us about the universe, its unthinkable vastness, its motion, its origins. There have been many attempts to clarify the scientific approach: rethinking cosmology (Finkbeiner 2010; Smolin 2013), questioning creation ex nihilo (Krauss 2012; Webb 2013); how far can we go in space (Barrow 2011)? Was the ‘beginning’ a matter of mathematics (Tegmark 2014)? The debate continues (Silver 2006). We should, however, be pessimistic about science’s ability to understand even the broad picture of space, time and the space bodies. We do not know in any scientifically verifiable detail where we Earthlings came from or where we are going: we are like insignificant termites lost in a desert. Earth is a measly bit of debris rotating around the Sun/Star and it, together with planets, comets, asteroids and a space filled with complex electromagnetic fields make up one solar system. But our solar system is only one of perhaps billions or trillions of such solar systems making up a galaxy (galaxias in Greek meaning ‘milky’); the Milky Way, in its turn, is one of perhaps billions or trillions of galaxies making up a universe, which is the sum total of space from which light has had time to reach us during the 13.8 billion years since the hypothetical ‘Big Bang’. That is the tidy sum total of our observational ability, puny as it is and flawed as it might be. Further investigation of this universe we inhabit, however, would tend to demonstrate that it is one amongst billions or trillions of universes. In fact, the mathematical figures that would explain something of what is happening beyond our observations do not add up if there is only one universe. Any ideas about where this whole structure came from, what will happen to it in the end, if it ever does end, where it is going are purely hypothetical. Is there anything beyond solar systems/galaxies/universes? It could well be that our minds and brains are forever incapable of fathoming any of the big questions about space. Perhaps we are observing only the phenomena produced by our brain structure and never the noumena, reality in itself (Loughlin 1987). While we may find all cosmological science fascinating, not for a moment can we think that any human will ever be able to write the Theory of Everything. Our brains are small but powerful living computers consisting of a vast coil of convolutions, neurons and synapses, serviced by hormones. They gather data from the fallible five senses; brains imprint their own structure on what they receive from the senses. They are able to integrate this data only according to some inbuilt patterning system. Knowledge concerns what appears to the individual human via senses, not about what things are in themselves. Human knowledge reveals to us more about our brain and its workings than about what is outside it, reality. Attempts to go beyond the brain’s perception include theories about mathematical structures as primary

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building blocks, about invisible dark matter and dark energy, about particles that are both points and waves at the same time. Perhaps, using the evidence of the senses and the working of the mind, there has been some human penetration of reality. But perhaps it is not in any way a deep penetration and we are totally wrong. Science is problematic at best. In the minds of many, our scientists have seemingly all but reached the borders of knowledge. It is claimed that the only task left is to clear up the details and to iron out the inconsistencies. That is not so. We humans are ignorant, and will always be fundamentally ignorant, of the big pictures of the universes and human life. We are caught up with something that we cannot explain as to beginning, end or even purpose. Has there been a mind behind the ongoing process of the cosmos? Perhaps or perhaps not. Has there been an intelligent designer? Perhaps: that would certainly short- circuit the need for further search. Perhaps not: why would an intelligent designer take such an obscure path, with seemingly inbuilt planning faults. It is not that we humans are on the way to a solution; it would be reasonable to state that there is no solution. We are enveloped in impenetrable mystery, carried along by unknowable forces, destined for an end whose purpose is unfathomable.

3.2 Biology What does science know about humans and their origins?1 At some point of time a living organism must have presented itself on the planet Earth. It may have been the result of a chance lightning strike on super-saturated liquid matter; it may have been the result of some chance living debris from another planet/another galaxy/another universe landing on Earth. We do not have evidence and probably never will. We do know from observations, however, that there has been subsequent progress from simpler life forms to more complex ones, including intelligent life, on planet Earth. The theory of evolution is the broad description of this progress of both life and intelligent life (although that theory will take many forms and go on being refined forever; inconsistencies will always continue to be unveiled; perhaps it will be replaced). From single living cells there came smaller living creatures and from them there eventually emerged ape-like creatures and later hominids and hominins.2 1 This is a summary only. Sources used in this brief and inadequate survey are: Carey 2015; Church-

land 2013; Fleagle et al. 2010; Gamble 2007; Harari, 2011; Stinson et al. 2012; Tattersall 2010; Tattersall 2012; Vanelli 2012; Wilson 2014. 2 There is disagreement about the use of ‘hominid’ relative to the genus Homo. The more usual terminology used by anthropologists today is: Hominid – the group consisting of all modern and extinct Great Apes (that is, modern humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans plus all their immediate ancestors).Hominin – the group consisting of modern humans, extinct human species and all the human immediate ancestors (including members of the genera Homo, Australopithecus, Paranthropus and Ardipithecus).

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Gradually among the hominins, homo sapiens emerged, one of a number of species pertaining to the genus Homo.3 This species has outlasted any other hominin so that homo sapiens is today the sole hominin remaining on the planet, the dominant hominid, the dominant mammal, the dominant animal (but this is not to say that it will always be so; homo sapiens could be a flash in the pan, to be displaced by another species in the future). The human’s constitution is made up of overlapping systems. However, the absolutely essential system is the brain and its central nervous system. Biologists can show that the brain too has been formed by the evolutionary process, and its capacity and ability have been directed by an innate force that has greatly expanded the cranial cavity and the intricacy of its constitution. Evolutionary psychology shows that no two modern humans’ brains have been either constituted or have developed in exactly the same way. However, evolution has also ensured that there is a certain characteristic homogeneity in the human brain’s developmental processes. Convolutions, neurons, synapses and hormones interact to form the brain’s inner constitution and structures in a regular way. There are certain propensities located in the brain (such as the need for sexual fulfilment, the need to communicate with other humans, the need to maintain self and, strangely, the need to care for others) shared by most humans who are not mentally handicapped. These propensities are innate, derived from the evolutionary force that produced the brain’s construction, and similar among all homo sapiens (but not exactly similar) because of the patterned composition of the human brain. For our purposes, one of the most important of these propensities is the innate intuitive ethic. The propensities can be summed up in the single most general and overarching propensity: to find order in life and experience in the environment outside the uterus. The human brain can be shown to be much more fluid and adaptable than that of any other species of animal. The complexities of the individual homo sapiens derive from its set of instructions, the genome. The genome acts as the basic charter for a developing human being. It contains all the information required to construct the human and supervise its development. To move forward from the nihilistic achievement of science it needs to be said that humans have never lived and evolved as solitary beings, cosseted from all around them. They have always been related to a natural environment, volatile in its changing atmospheric and seasonal characteristics as well as a social environment populated by hominin species.

palaeontologist research has pushed homo sapiens in Africa back to 315,000 + years ago; their exit from Africa would have been around 194,000 years ago. There were a number of ‘exits’. 3 Recent

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3.3 Human Culture What happens when innate human propensities, still indeterminate and unfulfilled, meet the natural and social environments at the moment of birth? The propensities are given at this time the means of external expression. When speaking of ‘natural environments’, we are talking about the natural elements and settings of the planet Earth, while ‘social environments’ refer to the surrounding groups of hominins. By consciously interacting with the environments the human finds a means to provide an outlet for propensities. But the human is not primarily confronted by solid things, but with symbols and values created by earlier humans. These constitute culture (Geertz 1973, 1984; Lumsden and Wilson 1981). Human culture consists of ways of thinking, of acting and of valuing; culture controls the way in which individuals adapt to the natural and social environments and the way the brain’s innate propensities find expression in that situation. Similarities between humans exist but also differences, even among those human individuals exposed to the same culture. Human genetics outlines the elements that will interact with the human culture to direct and control a human being; without culture interacting with the individual, there is not yet a human being. For example, humans have an innate propensity to communicate by language, but what sort of language depends on the culture surrounding the infant homo sapiens, not genetics. We have stressed that humans have an innate propensity to make sense of themselves and their surrounds. Seemingly, a human is the animal with the greatest innate drive in this regard. The human is directed by its genetics towards a search for meaning in the natural and social life, determining a direction in life proper to the natural and social environments (Pinker 1994, 1998, 2007). Given the human propensities, humans need a concrete mode of searching for satisfaction in life’s meaning. There is a propensity towards sexual fulfilment, with a certain orientation built into the propensity (as often happens more substantially in other animals). How will it be assuaged? If a sexual propensity is innately heterosexual (and formed thus by the constitution of the brain and its hormones) then there are, in the world, the cultural expressions of monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, casual sex, transgender, asexuality and so on. If a sexual propensity is innately homosexual there should be direction in the culture as to how this can be accommodated. But cultures are never perfect; they make errors because they are human-made. Culture will give some direction to the development of humans. Which of the directions are ‘right’ in an absolute sense? They all are as far as an individual human is concerned, but culture may direct the choice of one or other, or some and not the others; culture can easily change direction. But there is a very important and rather unexpected aspect of culture—it is based on one aspect of the propensity which seeks to find ultimate order in living—Religion. Religion does not exist apart from what has been said about human culture; it is integral to it.

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3.4 Religion The Religion propensity is a significant aspect of the human need to search for order (Voland 2009). This is precisely what culture offers to the hominin. But at times of deep distress and dislocation or in the presence of inexplicable factors (such as death and dying, extreme disaster, confrontation with inexplicable phenomena etc.) this search becomes inoperative vis-à-vis the workings of everyday culture. To attain order in life, a deeper meaning is sometimes required as well as everyday meaning. There is no illusion, in these extreme circumstances, that everyday culture could give a directional meaning. The broad, everyday meaning will not work if there is death of loved ones, insuperable ignorance or widespread disaster involved. We may know what physical death means (for example, total loss of brain function) and how it may have been accomplished (for example, by a heart attack), but we then want to know what is the meaning of a life that inevitably ends in death. Is there life after death? Is there a purpose in anyone living and then dying within the same century? Religion (‘religions’ describe those culturally constructed collectivities formed by a common religious search for ultimate order) provides this explanatory tool. It does not provide intellectual explanation; it only provides the ability to cope with the lack of order. The propensity of Religion can be culturally translated into the living world religions, indigenous religions, syncretistic religions, Marxism, Naturism, Humanism, Existentialism and so on. The distinction must be made between Religion (the propensity) and religions (the social collectivities that share a mythical scenario). It could also include personal religious systems (for example, acceptance of the Islamic religious story as normative with the addition of some Buddhist meditation practices and Hindu rituals). So long as the person finds the ability to construe the world, others and self in terms of Ultimacy, of ultimate order, then such a person is satisfying an innate Religion (which may or may not be part of a ‘religion’) religion’. ‘Religion’ is singular with upper case; ‘religions’ are plural with lower case.

3.5 Actuation We move now from the human person, with its propensities geared towards finding order in the natural and social environments, to the actual acquisition of this order (Sidky 2015). The human acquires order by means of actuation.4 We can define this as the process by which an innate propensity is directed to perform a certain activity rather than others. How is the link made by this cultural actuation? First, there is cultural group actuation which means that an innate human propensity is manipulated by culture in 4 ‘Actuate’

is defined in the OED as ‘to cause to operate; motivate to act in a particular way’. Specifically, as part of the ethical process, ‘to actuate’ describes two separate activities: cultural group and individual. The term is adopted to describe the interface activity between the genetic structure of the human and culture.

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a specific way rather than others. Next, there is individual actuation which means that individual humans take the lead and personally link their genetic makeup to culture. In short, individual members of homo sapiens are enabled to accept and follow the ready-made cultural order (cultural group actuation) or to rationalise so as to effect a personal link with a personally imagined order (individual actuation). Humans can and do, at least at the beginning of their life, actuate the group culture into which they are born. But the cultural group actuation is always open to change and challenge from the individual actuations. A critical mass of individual actuations can lead to the amendment of the cultural group actuation. If the cultural worldview employed by an individual postulates that this focus and the human group are widely separated, with a distinct gulf lying between them, then the symbol will have a separate, personal form, such as a particular and identifiable god or a pantheon of gods. By definition these deities, such as Zeus or Allah, would be distinct from, and distant from, the group. If, on the other hand, the worldview postulates an intimate closeness between the focus and the human group, with easy access between them, then the symbolisation will have an impersonal form. An example is brahman, the Hindu symbol that encroaches on an individual’s personal space and yet extends into infinity. Religious cultural activity is about bridging the gulf or activating the intimate closeness between the individual and ultimate order and meaning by means of that focus. The attainment of ultimate order is, of course, an ideal; there is no absolute guarantee that this ideal will be or has ever been achieved in reality. The human person has a general response capacity for ultimate ordering and seeks instinctively to achieve it; every individual person seeks a form of liberating order and meaning not offered by secular culture.

3.6 Myth Where humans differ from all the other non-hominid species is in having gained dominant control of the planet Earth, at least for the time being. How was this achieved? Anthropologists have commonly isolated six areas where humans might be questionably superior to all other life forms: language, foresight, theory of mind, intelligence, culture and Ethics. Non-hominids, however, can be shown to have one or more of these abilities at least in a truncated form. The six areas cannot be used to differentiate humans absolutely from other organisms. However, there are features of these six domains where humans do indeed excel and are superior to the non-hominids (Wilson 2012). It is these features that make humans different from the rest of the life organism world. (Humans who are challenged mentally might not necessarily excel other animal species, but this is by exception.) The first feature is the human ability to use the brain to imagine and reflect on different situations. Humans tell stories. Humans are myth-makers, which

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is the same thing. Myths allow humans to simulate and to reflect. Instead of ‘story’ or ‘myth’ (both open to misunderstanding) we will use the term ‘scenario’. Creating scenarios is a human fact. What might happen in the future? It is quite possible for the elements of the scenario—people, objects, activities—to be linked and re-linked into quite new scenarios. While the possibilities of new scenarios are limitless, there are hidden dangers. Not all possible things are good. There has to be some curb on scenario-building. This subjective web of meaning in a collection of stories includes laws for living, acknowledgement of entities seen or unseen, of common forces that direct the world and the universe. The second feature, not shared by other animals either, attempts to achieve order in scenarios. It is the innate propensity in humans to link scenario-building minds together. The subjective web of meaning becomes not just subjective, but intersubjective. Humans interact with other people and their scenarios; the humans are challenged and respond with a revised scenario; they exchange ideas and plans for the future.5 All large-scale human cooperation is based on these cultural stories in the human mind. The stories are believed to be real. For some, this may require that the stories actually took place; for others, they are regarded as leading ideas that need not have been historical or scientific. It matters little for the stories to perform their purpose. Within the stories there are behavioural rules. They are not objective (where things exist outside my mind); nor are they purely subjective (where things exist based on feelings and beliefs). They are intersubjective reality (where things exist because of the communication among humans). Homo sapiens came to rule the world because of the common weaving of intersubjective stories, beliefs, forces, rules that exist in the shared mind. It is from this connection of many minds, with its challenges and reconstructions, that there comes the typical human virtues of altruism, unselfishness, the search for justice (Leonard and McClure 2004). While the propensities towards these are innate, they need to be actuated. Once actuated, the human can be moved to educate others in such virtues; the human might even be moved to organise a revolution in social living. In this way the human socialises in order to temper the scenario of other people. Humans became the dominant life form on the planet because they had the common language of myth.

3.7 Religious Myth Religious myth or sacred/scenario story is the dominant discourse of religion. All religious traditions have a fund of such stories. Sacred stories are not necessarily historical stories (Crotty 1995).

5 See

Wilson (2012). He argues that ‘eusociality’ (close in meaning to a friendly and productive social sense of relationship) makes humans as a species unique.

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Myth therefore is a metaphor that conveys the most profound spiritual truth, a truth not communicable by everyday language. It communicates the essential features of a religious culture in story form. But myth does more than recount. It recreates the original ‘world’ of the ‘time of the beginnings’, the world of the primeval, in which the way of life of a human group, the fund of its common understandings and its principal values, were established. This world cannot now be directly accessed by humans in historical time and space. Myth provides the charter for how things should be, for what needs to be done and what needs to be avoided, and provides the means for access. What was said and done in the ‘time of the beginnings’, as the myth relates it, effects and affects the way of life of the religious group here and now (Crotty 2009). Myth guides the group as to how life should be led, informs the group as to how reality came to be the way it is, and it warns the group of the threatening darkness that cannot be readily perceived. Myth evokes and directs the deepest human energy. Myths are public dreams; like all dreams, myths are vehicles of communication between the conscious and the unconscious. If myth is not true, then nothing is true. Myths convey information to the group about the cosmos’ link with ultimacy (‘creation stories’), about alienation from ultimacy (stories about a primordial fall, an initial distancing of the group from the sacred), about the possibility of the group’s own reinstated link with ultimacy (for example, the Jesus myth or sacred stories of other founders), about the possibility of final reconciliation with ultimacy or distancing from it (eschatological myths).

3.8 Creation Stories Only at this point can we examine creation stories for what they are: mythical accounts that allow humans to cope with the origins of the universes and the existence of humans. We will start with one of the earliest texts of a creation story—Enuma Elish (‘From the Sky above’).6 Enuma Elis is the ritual text to inaugurate the Babylonian New Year. It relates the creation of the world and the victory of the High God Marduk over the goddess Tiamat. The text begins: When the sky above (enuma elis) was not named, And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name, And the primeval Apsû, who begat them, And chaos, Tiamat, the mother of them both, Their waters were mingled together, 6 For

the complete texts see King (2010) and Lambert (2013). Written copies of the myth, in Old Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform have been recorded, according to some scholars, from the 16th to the 14th centuries BCE.

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R. Crotty When of the gods none had been called into being. And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;

It begins with the two gods Apsû (representing fresh water) and a female Tiamat (representing the salt ocean), who are married. Inside Tiamat exists the god Ea and his brothers; they created a commotion (babel in cuneiform) that angers both Tiamat and Apsû. Apsû is intent on killing Ea and his brother gods because of the commotion, but Tiamat intervenes and reveals the plans to Ea, the god of wisdom. Ea takes the initiative, casts Apsû into a sleep and kills him. Ea marries Damkina, and becomes the father of Marduk, an even more powerful god than himself. However, Tiamat is persuaded by other gods to take revenge on Marduk for the murder of her husband, Apsû. First, she creates eleven monsters to assist her in a battle; next, she appoints Kingu, her second husband, to be commander in chief. Pitted against her along with her other gods, Marduk demands that he be the leader of the gods, and then he challenges Tiamat. He kills her, rips open her corpse and from the two halves he makes the earth below and the firmament above. Then he sets in place the planets, the stars, the moon, the sun, the weather and the calendar to chart it all. The defeated gods who had been on Tiamat’s side were condemned to slavery serving Marduk’s gods. However, there was an escape for them. Marduk killed Kingu, the second husband of Tiamat, and used his blood to fashion humankind who were intended to do the work of the defeated gods. And so did Marduk come to be the leader of the gods and the creator of the world and humankind. This creation myth, with ongoing alterations, allowed Semitic peoples to cope with the infinity of space and with the human condition within that space. It was not science but it had its own important function. The Hebrew Bible opens with a related Semitic creation story. It begins: In the Beginning ‘Elohim began to create the heavens and the earth 2 The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep (tehom), while the

Wind of ‘Elohim swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then

‘Elohim said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. 4 And ‘Elohim saw that the light was good; and ‘Elohim separated the light from the darkness. 5 ’Elohim called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.

The structure is complex. There are six days of creation—four Works of Separation and four Works of Furnishing. As can be seen below there is a relationship between Separation and Furnishing. The environment created by Separation is subsequently used as a housing for inhabitants.

3 Creation Myths: A Deeper Truth for Today’s Religionists Works of separation

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Works of furnishing

Day 1: Light (day/night)

Day 4: Lights in heaven

Day 2: Upper and lower waters

Day 5: Fish and Birds

Day 3: Dry land Plants

Day 6: Animals The earth creature (ha-‘adam)

Note that Plants are separated from the Dry Land, just as ‘adam is separated from Animals

It is clear that this is a much later adaptation of Enuma Elish. Prior to the three Works of Separation, there was only a chaos of primordial waters (the tehom) and Darkness. This is in common with the Mesopotamian myths where only the gods pre-existed in their hierarchical formation. tehom is related to Tiamat, who was dismembered to form the heavens and earth. Sun, moon, stars are considered living entities fixed into the solid material of the Dome (rakiah). In Enuma Elis, Tiamat was split into two to become a rakiah between the heavens above and the Earth below.

3.9 Conclusion So we have seen two creation myths: Babylonian and Hebrew—both Semitic. Which is ‘right’? They are both right. One could just as easily ask whether the Mona Lisa or the Pietà is ‘right’. They are incommensurable. Myths are ancient narratives that attempt to answer the enduring and fundamental human questions: How did the universe and the world come to be? How did we come to be here? Who are we? What are our proper, necessary or inescapable roles as we relate to one another and the world at large? What should our values be? How should we behave? How should we not behave? What are the consequences of behaving or not behaving in such ways? They are formed within a living social environment; they can be adapted to others. A creation story deals with coping with the inescapable mystery of how did the universe and the world come to be? It deals with the enduring mysteriousness of how did we humans come to be here? Above all it deals with the eternal question of ‘who am I’ and ‘what purpose do I have on this planet’? Science does not offer answers to these ultimate questions. Today, humans still ask those questions. It could be that extant creation myths have lost their relevance and become fantasies; in this case they should be discarded apart from antiquarian interest. It could be that those same creation myths can be adapted and reformulated to act as a new creation myth; in that case they can perform as they once did in the past. It could also well be that new creation myths are composed based on the idioms of poetry, art, dance, music and writing; in this case, the newly composed myth may gather a following or it may simply fade from human consciousness. We humans need them in whatever form they might take that suits an extant social group.

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References Barrow J (2011) The book of universes: exploring the limits of the cosmos. Norton, New York Carey N (2015) Junk DNA: a journey through the dark matter of the genome. Icon Books, London Churchland P (2013) Touching a nerve. Our brains, our selves. WW Norton, New York and London Crotty R (1995) Towards classifying religious phenomena. Aust Relig Stud Rev 8:34–41 Crotty R (2009) The mythopoetic character of religious belief. In: Willis P et al (eds) Spirituality, mythopoesis and learning. Post Pressed, Flaxton, Queensland Finkbeiner A (2010) A grand and bold thing: an extraordinary new map of the universe ushering in a new era of discovery. Free Press, New York Fleagle J et al (2010) Out of Africa I: the first hominin colonization of Eurasia. Springer, Dordrecht Gamble C (2007) Origins and revolutions: human identity in earliest prehistory. CUP, London Geertz C (1973) The interpretation of cultures. Basic Books, New York Geertz C (1984) Distinguished lecture: anti anti-relativism. Am Anthropol 86:263–278 Harari Y (2011) Sapiens: a brief history of humankind. Harvill Secker, London Jung CJ (1968) The archetypes and the collective unconscious. Princeton University Press, Princeton King L (2010) Enuma elish: the seven tablets of creation; the babylonian and assyrian legends concerning the creation of the world and of mankind. Cosimo Inc, New York Krauss L (2012) A universe from nothing: why there is something rather than nothing. Free Press, New York Lambert WG (2013) Babylonian creation myths. Eisenbrauns, Pennsylvania Leonard S, McClure M (2004) Myth and knowing: an introduction to world mythology. McGrawHill, Boston Loughlin G (1987) Noumenon and phenomenon. Relig Stud 23:495–508 Lumsden C, Wilson E (1981) Genes, mind and culture. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts Pinker S (1994) The language instinct. Penguin, Harmondsworth Pinker S (1998) How the mind works. Allen Lane, London Pinker S (2007) The stuff of thought. Harvard University Press, Harvard Sidky H (2015) Religion: an anthropological perspective. Peter Lang, New York Silver L (2006) Challenging nature: the clash of science and spirituality at the new frontiers of life. Harper-Collins, New York Smolin L (2013) Time reborn: from the crisis in physics to the future of the universe. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston Stinson S, Bogin B, O’Rourke D (2012) Human biology: an evolutionary and biocultural perspective. Wiley, Milton, Queensland Tattersall I (2010) Paleontology: a brief history of life. Templeton Foundation Press, Consohocken, Pennsylvania Tattersall I (2012) Masters of the planet: the search for our human origins. Palgrave Macmillan, New York Tegmark M (2014) Our mathematical universe: my quest for the ultimate nature of reality. Penguin Books, London Vanelli R (2012) Evolutionary theory and human nature. Springer–Science and Business Media, New York Voland E (2009) Evaluating the evolutionary status of religiosity and religiousness. In: Voland E, Schiefenhövel W (eds) The biological evolution of religious mind and behavior. Springer, Heidelberg Webb J (ed) (2013) Nothing: from absolute zero to cosmic oblivion–amazing insights into nothingness. Profile Books, London Wilson E (2012) The social conquest of the Earth. Liveright Publishing Corporation, New York Wilson E (2014) The meaning of human existence. Liveright Publishing Corporation, New York Young D, Stearley R (2008) The bible, rocks, and time: geological evidence for the age of the Earth. Downers Grove, Illinois

Part II

Health Sciences

Chapter 4

A Court of Morals, a Court of Law, or a Little Bit of Both? Bernadette J. Richards

Abstract The provision of healthcare was once relatively straightforward. Based upon the Hippocratic tradition, the doctor/patient relationship was not a partnership, rather there was an unequal relationship where an all knowing—and one would hope, all caring—doctor provided treatment in a manner consistent with their specific view of the world. There were few ethical or legal complexities and individual preferences were relevant only insofar as they impacted on the doctor’s clinical decision making. Medicine and the human condition have, however, moved on from this simpler time and there are deep complexities to be found at the intersection of law, religion and the provision of healthcare. This chapter explores this intersection and considers the ongoing struggle to respect the interests of all parties in the healthcare relationship, concluding that, despite the often competing priorities of healthcare providers, individual patients, regulatory regimes and religious organisations, there are a core set of principles that are appropriately supported in our current regulatory framework. These include: respect for individual dignity and autonomy, freedom of choice, and the inviolability of human life. This conclusion will be supported through a consideration of five ‘salient principles’ raised by the Archbishop of Westminster and considered by the court in the complex decision of Re A (Children) (Conjoined Twins: Surgical Separation) [2001] 2 WLR 480.

Very few judges are led entirely by reason. They are humans and generally decent humans. Chronologically, all of them were human beings before they were judges, and philosophically most of them are humans before they are judges. They strive to reach the answer that they, as humans, think is right, and then try to justify it according to the law. (Foster 2011: 112) We are a court of law not a court of morals Re A (Children) (Conjoined Twins: Surgical Separation) [2001] 2 WLR 480, 488, Ward LJ.

B. J. Richards (B) Adelaide Law School, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Babie and R. Sarre (eds.), Religion Matters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_4

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4.1 Introduction The provision of healthcare was once relatively straightforward. Based upon the Hippocratic tradition, the doctor/patient relationship was not a partnership, rather there was an unequal relationship where an all knowing—and one would hope, all caring—doctor provided treatment in a manner consistent with their specific view of the world. There were few ethical or legal complexities and individual preferences were relevant only insofar as they impacted on the doctor’s clinical decision making. Medicine and the human condition have, however, moved on from this simpler time and despite Lord Justice Ward’s assertion that the law focusses on law, not morals, there are deep complexities to be found at the intersection of law, religion and the provision of healthcare. It is at this intersection that a diverse range of interests meet, collide, join, intermingle and somehow resolve into appropriate patient care. It is here that we see a mix of individual, institutional, societal, policy and spiritual rights, interests and duties eddying around a vulnerable patient who is seeking help. The healthcare providers define help in terms of medical treatment, the medical institution in terms of resources, broader society will consider the wider context of how the decisions made here reflect on the nature of society, the relevant church will place the dilemma within the appropriate faith framework and the patient? Well, the patient will just want to feel better, but how that is defined depends upon their unique set of values and wishes which may, or may not, sit within a defined religious construct. Into this collection of different agendas, we can add public policy and the law, seeking to gain some clarity through the application of defined principles. Established regulatory approaches have the potential to forge a path through the morass of rights, interests and duties alluded to above. Whilst this path may be bumpy, a little confusing and unlikely to be perfect, a transparent and consistent regulatory framework offers the best chance of striking a balance between the many imperatives and of providing a workable solution to the entangled, and often conflicting interests present at the interface between patients, their families and the broader healthcare system. However, as we are reminded by Foster (2011: 112), law too is populated by humans who bring their humanity to the application of the law; this can add another layer of complexity to the discussion, one which becomes even more challenging when priorities are placed within a faith framework which potentially conflicts with expressions of broader public interests and identified regulatory imperatives. This chapter considers the ongoing struggle to respect the interests of all parties in the healthcare relationship, concluding that, despite the often competing priorities of healthcare providers, individual patients, regulatory regimes and religious organisations, there are a core set of principles that are appropriately supported in our current regulatory framework. These include: respect for individual dignity and autonomy, freedom of choice, and the inviolability of human life. This conclusion will be supported through a consideration of five ‘salient principles’ raised by the Archbishop of Westminster and considered by the court in the complex decision of Re A (Children) (Conjoined Twins: Surgical Separation) [2001] 2 WLR 480.

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4.2 The Conjoined Twins Case: Can We End One Life to Save Another? Medical decision making involves more than simply identifying and then addressing a medical need. A healthcare provider treats more than a bundle of physical symptoms and must engage with the complex collection of interests, beliefs, relationships, community, context and physical condition that comes with every patient. The reality is that in many situations treatment is routine, in others, whilst there are some complexities present, a well-formed doctor/patient partnership can help to steer towards clarity and appropriate decisions and treatment. And then there are the truly hard cases where there is a direct conflict between priorities, belief systems, or understandings and the only option is to turn to the courts for judicial guidance. Sadly, however, when relationships and healthcare become this complicated it may well be that established legal doctrine will struggle to find clarity in the problem, let alone an acceptable answer. This was ably demonstrated in the ‘conjoined twins case’ (Re A (Children) (Conjoined Twins: Surgical Separation) [2001] 2 WLR 480 (re A)) where a number of doctrines were explored including double effect, necessity and self-defence; none of those doctrines gave an appropriately robust framework upon which to hang what was, to the members of the court, clearly the ‘right’ answer, which was to allow the surgery. The added difficulty here was that to reach this conclusion would be to act contrary to the family’s wishes and, it was suggested, established religious principles. However, as will be argued below, this is not in fact the case. So long as a decision is not inconsistent with the law and accepted legal principles, then it will not be contrary to the religious expectations as enunciated by the Archbishop of Westminster.

4.2.1 Background: The Facts and Issues of re A The stark realities of this case were highlighted by Ward LJ, where he described it as a ‘hideous nightmare’ for the parents (Re A: 488). It is beyond the scope of this chapter to provide a detailed analysis of the decision, but a brief overview is required to provide the relevant context. There were three detailed judgments handed down by Ward, Brooke and Walker LJJs and whilst their conclusions were all the same, they each took slightly different paths to get there. All three of the Lord Justices referred to the ‘exceptional’ decision to allow both the Archbishop of Westminster and the Pro-Life Alliance to make submissions to the Court (Re A: refer for example Ward LJ 488, Brooke LJ 544 and 551 and Walker LJ 577 and 590) and the Archbishop’s submission along with the court’s response to it will provide the scaffold for the present discussion. First, however, the facts and issues of the case need to be set out. The facts are relatively straightforward and drawn here from the different judgments (for a detailed explanation of the facts, refer Ward LJ 488ff). At the time of the hearing the parents were identified as coming from an undisclosed country

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and leading a hard life (it has subsequently been revealed that they came from the Mediterranean Island of Gozo, Malta.) They had been married for two years and the father had been unemployed for 8 years and the mother lost her job when pregnant. An ultrasound during the pregnancy revealed that she was carrying conjoined twins and as appropriate treatment was beyond the local facilities her government paid expenses for her to travel to the UK and receive treatment at St Mary’s Hospital in Manchester. Further scans suggested that the smaller of the twins would not survive and termination of the pregnancy was proposed. In Malta, the termination of any pregnancy is illegal and the mother explained in her statement that: This was not something (we) could give any serious consideration to because we are Roman Catholics and our beliefs are very important to us and we believe very strongly that everyone has a right to life. It was God’s will for (the mother) to carry twins and it is God’s will that those twins have been born alive and are continuing to make progress (Re A, extract from the parent’s statement provided in the judgment of Walker LJ at 489).

The twins were born in early August 2000 and it soon became clear that whilst both twins were born alive, neither were thriving; the long-term prognosis was not good. ‘Jodie’ was the stronger of the two and was described as ‘anatomically normal’ and would survive the proposed separation. ‘Mary’, however, was characterised as ‘severely abnormal in three key respects’: a poorly developed brain, enlarged heart and ‘virtual absence of functional lung tissue’ (Re A: 494). It is sufficient for the purposes of the present discussion, which falls well short of an in depth analysis of the case, to understand that ‘Jodie’ was the stronger of the two and most likely to survive separation. ‘Mary’ could not sustain her own life and the stress that she was placing on ‘Jodie’ meant that if no action was taken, both twins would die within a relatively short period. ‘Mary’ as the weaker twin was drawing nutrition from ‘Jodie’ and growing, ‘Jodie’ was, however, failing to thrive and was burning all calories keeping the two alive. In short, ‘Mary would not have lived but for her connection to Jodie. She lives on borrowed time, all of which is borrowed from Jodie. It is a debt she can never repay’ (Re A: 495). The choices were bleak and, as described by Ward LJ, ‘hideous’. There could be no surgical intervention at all, both twins would deteriorate and it was forecast that ‘Mary’ would die first. However, by that time, ‘Jodie’ would have declined so much as a result of the stress placed on her by ‘Mary’ that she, too, would likely die shortly thereafter. The other option was to proceed with a separation of the twins, ‘Mary’ would, without any doubt, die very quickly but ‘Jodie’ had a good chance of leading a relatively healthy life. The certain death of Mary meant that this was not a decision that the girls’ parents were willing to make and their position was supported by the Church. Ultimately, the decision was made to separate the twins, and ‘Mary’ died the following day. Given the passage of time it is possible to add a postscript: ‘Jodie’ (Gracie) was interviewed 15 years later and was a healthy young girl with plans to become a doctor to help children like her and ‘Mary’ (Rosie). She now has a younger sister and the family has made peace with the decisions taken by the court. However, there is much to be learnt from the judicial process that was undertaken by the court,

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and in doing so we can gain some insight into the relationship between religious principles, law and the provision of healthcare. The most appropriate place to start is, as discussed above, with the written submission of the Archbishop of Westminster.

4.2.2 Archbishop of Westminster’s Submission It is important to keep in mind the admonition of Walker LJ that whilst the input of the Archbishop and views of the Church warrant due respect, the reality is that ‘ultimately the court ha[d] to decide this appeal by reference to legal principle so far as it can be discerned, and not by reference to religious teaching of individual conscience (Re A: Walker LJ, 590)’1 His Lordship also noted that the submission had been ‘anxiously considered by the court’ (Re A, Walker LJ: 590) and the points made by the Archbishop were helpful in the decision-making process. Whilst it is appropriate to draw a clear distinction between legal principle and faith-based submissions, to do so is, on a practical level, slightly artificial. The secular nature of the judicial process is not open to challenge, although a close consideration of the application of the law to the complex questions that arise in the provision of healthcare demonstrates that we have not moved significantly from law’s Judaeo-Christian foundations, and the core principles run parallel to each other. The five salient principles as summarised by Walker LJ are as follows (Re A: 590): 1. Human life is sacred and inviolable, 2. Bodily integrity should not be invaded when that can confer no benefit, 3. The duty to preserve one persons’ life cannot without grave injustice be effected by a lethal assault on another, 4. There is no duty on doctors to resort to extraordinary means in order to preserve life, and 5. The rights of parent should be overridden only when they were clearly contrary to what is strictly owing to their children. Each of these points will be considered below and the discussion will elaborate on the equivalent legal principle, demonstrating that whilst courts are primarily courts of law, the processes adopted are consistent with ‘moral’ principles and the line between secular and spiritual or moral imperatives is neither clear nor bright.

1 Although,

as will be argued here, the two are closely aligned.

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4.3 Five Salient Principles 4.3.1 Human Life Is Sacred and Inviolable The sanctity of life is a foundational legal principle; human life is respected across all the different faces of the law, from criminal law through to personal injury and medical law. However, it is not always straightforward–the questions behind every ‘life and death’ decision are complex and a fine line between intersecting rights and duties must be drawn. Indeed, the primary interest in protecting life drives much of the debate around the more complex cases that arise in the context of health care. The most obvious example is, of course, euthanasia—or assisted dying—which on a global level is only slowly gaining traction as a legally acceptable act, and in all but two Australian States (Victoria and, more recently, Western Australia) remains a crime. Here we see a direct conflict between the sanctity of life principle and the purported ‘cornerstone’ of the doctor/patient relationship which is the valid exercise of autonomy, or the right of individual choice. In the ongoing struggle to reconcile these two principles, the courts will often take careful steps to draw a distinction between the legal question they have been asked to address (most commonly capacity) and the practical outcome of the expressed preference—death. This means that any challenged medical decision that is likely to result in the death of a patient is carefully scrutinised by the courts, and whilst the end result may indeed be the forecast death of the patient, the courts have taken great care to emphasise that their decision does not undermine the sanctity of life principle, rather it serves to endorse another foundational right, that of autonomy. The conclusions are also consistent with the second salient principle which focusses on a protection from futile treatment. This, at times, leads to some interesting judicial struggles in an attempt to draw a clear distinction between the specific legal questions before the court and the practical outcome of that decision. In the context of ‘Jodie’ and ‘Mary’, for example, there was a suggestion that Mary’s life was being devalued and that the surgery would result in her death and therefore could not go ahead. The problem with this line of reasoning was that to protect Mary’s life was potentially to devalue Jodie’s as she would ultimately die if the decision to abstain from separating the twins was taken. The court therefore had to turn its face from the practical outcome of the decision and focus on the true aim of the surgery and seek to find an answer through that narrow focus. As Ward LJ explained, the appropriate question to ask is whether or not the treatment is worthwhile, rather than a consideration of the value of the individual life that may (or may not) end as a result of the treatment (Re A: 519). In making this clarifying point, Ward LJ cited the work of John Keown, who explained that if a court was to ‘engage in judgment’ regarding the quality of a life, and ‘conclude that certain lives were not worth living, [courts] would forfeit any principled basis for objecting to intentional killing’ (Keown 1997: 385, cited with approval by Ward LJ). Further clarity can be found in Ward LJ’s judgment when he drew a clear distinction between sanctity of life and the ‘doctrine of vitalism’, which holds that ‘human life is an absolute moral value and it is wrong to either shorten or fail to lengthen it. This

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idea of ‘absolute moral value’ was described as ‘too extreme a value to hold’; instead, the sanctity of life principle calls for respect of the inherent value of every human life, although it does acknowledge that ‘it may be proper to withhold or withdraw treatment.’ (Re A, Ward LJ, 519). Law’s approach is therefore consistent with the Archbishop’s first principle, and the inherent value of life is both respected and protected by the law. There is, however, a struggle to balance this with the right to bodily integrity and freedom from unwanted medical treatment, usually framed in the context of autonomy. The balance is found through a methodical approach to the facts before the court and a careful focus on the relevant legal question as opposed to the practical outcome of refusal of life saving treatment, which is of course death. This narrowing of focus is appropriate as it enables the court to act within its remit and apply questions of law—not of morals. As identified by Ward LJ the appropriate approach is to identify the true legal question and operate within that framework. This approach has been consistently applied but does not operate to undermine the sanctity of life principle, and has been explained as responding to the specific question before the court which is often whether or not the patient has the capacity to refuse the proffered treatment. As Butler-Sloss LJ explained in Ms B v An NHS Hospital Trust [2002] 2 All ER 449 (Ms B) when she was asked to consider whether or not a patient could validly refuse life-sustaining treatment, she was not being ‘asked directly to decide whether Ms B lives or dies but whether she, herself, is legally competent to make that decision. It is also important to recognise that this case is not about the best interests of the patient but about her mental capacity’ (Ms B, Butler-Sloss LJ: [12]). In reaching her conclusion that the patient did have the requisite capacity, Butler-Sloss LJ readily acknowledged the potentially artificial character of the enquiry and the problematic nature of separating the legal question from its consequences. Still, while prepared to acknowledge the fact that ‘society and the medical profession in particular are concerned with the equally fundamental principle of the sanctity of life. The interface between the two principles of autonomy and the sanctity of life is of great concern to the treating clinicians in the present case’ (Ms B, Butler-Sloss LJ: [22]). Of significance here is the tight focus on the specific legal question which empowered the court to reach a legally appropriate decision in the circumstances.2

4.3.2 Bodily Integrity Should not Be Invaded When that Can Confer no Benefit The second principle, as highlighted above, also carries with it the potential to set up a conflict with the first. The problem is that while a patient may be functioning on a biological level (albeit at times through artificial means such as artificial ventilation or the provision of artificial nutrition and hydration), there may be limited cognitive 2 Similar

approaches have been adopted by Australian courts, see for example Brightwater Care Group (Inc) v Rossiter [2009] WASC 229 and H Ltd v J & Anor [2010] SASC 76.

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awareness or prospect of ever improving in their health. This is where the sanctity of life principle can, apparently, come into conflict with other foundational principles. However, as explained above, the ideal of sanctity of life does not extend to ‘vitalism’, that is, neither the religious nor the legal position translates to life at any cost. Where treatment is deemed to be futile, the law is consistent with the Archbishop’s second principle, which prohibits violation of bodily integrity (and basic human dignity) through the provision of futile treatment. Judicial consideration of futility invariably arises under tragic circumstances where a family is seeking continuation, or even commencement, of treatment that is deemed by healthcare providers to be futile. That is, medical intervention without any curative, or in some instances even comfort, benefit. The Courts have been consistently sensitive to the complexities of these situations but firm in their position that they have jurisdiction in these matters and that the role of the court is characterised as a ‘protective’ one that serves ‘to protect the right of an unconscious person to receive ordinary reasonable and appropriate (as opposed to extraordinary, excessively burdensome, intrusive or futile) medical treatment, sustenance and support’ (Northridge v Central Sydney Area Health Service (2000) 50 NSWLER 549, O’Keefe J, [24]. See also Messiha v South East Health [2004] NSWSC 1061). The rationale behind this position is that to continue futile treatment is overly burdensome on the patient and thus harmful to their bodily integrity, dignity and individual rights and interests. The decision is never taken lightly by the Court and care is taken to consider the position of the relatives of the patient, but the focus appropriately remains on the needs of the actual patient. This is not an easy path to follow and the judiciary has, at times, struggled with the reality of the tragedy that is confronting them. The way through the very difficult ethical questions is once again to consistently focus on the relevant legal question. In this instance the main concern is with what is in the best interests of the patient. Whilst best interests are not as clearly defined as the capacity question outlined above, it is possible to measure with some identifiable objective tools (clinical indicators) when combined with intangible measures (quality of life and the preferences, values and comfort of the patient). The complexities confronting the courts, and the consistency of their approach in even the most difficult situations is demonstrated by a recent Australian decision, Hospital v S (a Minor) [2019] NSWSC 642. In May 2019 the Court was called upon to make a decision regarding discontinuing life sustaining treatment from a three-yearold boy who had been hit by a car. He had never regained consciousness and it was determined that he had no conscious awareness and was unlikely ever to have any. His injuries were described as ‘terminal without artificial, mechanical life-sustaining treatment’ (Hospital v S: Robb J [21]). The boy’s parents initially wished treatment to continue but after additional medical tests, wanted variations on the orders that the hospital was seeking. The court accepted the evidence that not only was the ongoing treatment futile but that it was also ‘inconsistent with [the boy’s] personal dignity’ and that to continue treatment would be ‘medically unethical’ (Hospital v S: Robb J, [21]). The withdrawal of the treatment, on the terms requested by the hospital, was ordered. Consistent with the Archbishop’s second salient principle, the

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underlying rationale offered by the court was that a person’s bodily integrity should not be invaded when it can confer no benefit. Or, to rephrase slightly: The right to receive medical treatment is not, however, equivalent to a right to the perpetuation of life irrespective of the circumstances. It may not be in the best interests of the patient to be given medical treatment that is excessively burdensome, intrusive or futile (Hospital v S: Robb J, [72]).

4.3.3 The Duty to Preserve One Persons’ Life Cannot Without Grave Injustice Be Effected by a Lethal Assault on Another The law also enshrines the third of the Archbishop’s principles, most commonly in the criminal law, in which it is a crime to assault another person. Of course, whilst there is the potential for self-protection through the defence of self-defence, these legal issues exceed the scope of the current discussion. Whilst it is easy to assert that this principle is supported in the context of health care, examples are harder to identify as decisions, such as those confronting the court in re A are, fortunately, incredibly rare. An analogy can, however, be drawn in the context of organ donation and the strict requirements of the dead donor rule. The law is both specific and strict in this sphere, organs cannot be retrieved unless the donor meets the clear requirements of either circulatory or brain death. Even where death is certain, it cannot be hastened in the interests of accessing viable organs to save the lives of other critically ill individuals. Every human being is, at law, of value and cannot be harmed to benefit another. This position was demonstrated in the tragic case of ‘Baby Teresa’ (In re T.A.C.P 609 So.2d 588 (1992) (Supreme Court of Florida)). Theresa Ann Campo was born with anencephaly (a congenital condition where the infant is born with much of their skull and brain missing), this had been diagnosed in the later part of the pregnancy but her parents had decided to continue to term with a view to donating her organs. Her mother even took the extra step of giving birth via caesarean section to reduce the risk of damaging the organs during birth. After birth, Theresa was placed on artificial ventilation but was, at the time of the hearing, breathing unaided. The back of Theresa’s skull was missing entirely and she was lacking all but a brain stem which was exposed to the air. Her parents sought a judicial declaration that Theresa was legally dead so that the organ donation could proceed and other children would benefit from the tragedy (Baby Teresa: Kogan J, 589). This request was denied. Whilst Justice Kogan acknowledged the ‘altruism’ and ‘great humanity, compassion and concern for others’ (Baby Teresa: 594) demonstrated by Theresa’s parents, he would not make an exception and declare an anencephalic baby legally dead. There were arguments raised regarding the potential ‘slippery slope’ of altering the definition of death to fit those who are in such a seriously compromised position. His Honour did not engage with these arguments, opting instead to refer to the lack of

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consensus on the overall utility of organs taken from anencephalic infants in declining to extend the common law to equate anencephaly with death. Underpinning this, and many of the issues raised in the discussion, is the broad principle that under no circumstances can death be hastened through premature harvesting of organs. Or, to put it more broadly, and to borrow words from the Archbishop, a life of one person cannot be preserved through lethal assault on another.3

4.3.4 There Is no Duty on Doctors to Resort to Extraordinary Means in Order to Preserve Life In many respects, this fourth principle is the corollary of the second. As we have seen, doctors can cease treatment if they believe it to be futile. This is a position supported by the law and reflected in medical practice. Whilst patients can validly refuse treatment, they cannot demand it, for there must be an identified clinical need and potential benefit. Whilst doctors are unlikely to override a family’s wishes to continue life sustaining treatment, there is no legal duty to continue the treatment, no expectation at law to ‘resort to extraordinary means’. As we have seen in the discussion above, where there is irreparable conflict the courts have jurisdiction to intervene and where the treatment is futile and if it is deemed to be in the patient’s best interests to withdraw the treatment, then withdrawal will be authorised.

4.3.5 The Rights of a Parent Should Be Overridden Only When They Were Clearly Contrary to What Is Strictly Owing to Their Children The fifth and final salient principle is also clearly reflected in the law. The law will always focus on the best interests of the child, but where there is a conflict between recommendations of health care providers and wishes of the parents, the apparently simple question of ‘what is in the best interests of the child?’ becomes increasingly complex. There is a general reluctance to override the wishes of parents in these situations as it is recognised that they are usually best placed to understand the needs of their child, although at times it becomes clear that the only way the child’s interests can be protected is through judicial intervention. This position, which reflects the words of the Archbishop, was neatly summarised by Ward LJ in Re (A): To operate in the teeth of the parent’s refusal would, therefore, be an unlawful assault upon the child. I derive this from In re R (A Minor) (Wardship: consent to Treatment) [1992] Fam 11, 22 where Lord Donaldson of Lymington MR said: 3 For

a more detailed discussion of this case and the issues raised refer P. Szawarski and J. Oram. J. ‘Classic cases revisited: Baby Theresa and the definition of death’ (2015) 16(3) Intensive Care Soc. 222–225.

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It is trite law that in general a doctor is not entitled to treat a patient without the consent of someone who is authorised to give that consent. If he does so, he will be liable in damages for trespass to the person and may be guilty of a criminal assault. (Re A: Ward LJ, 511).

The key point to emphasise here is that whilst there is great respect accorded to the views of parents, the law is not bound to follow their wishes where the interests of the child are not served. This foundational principle was clearly set out by Lord Scarman in the seminal case of Gillick v West Norfolk and Wisbech Area Health Authority (Gillick) when he explained that parental rights are neither ‘sovereign’ nor ‘beyond review and control’, and significantly, they are ‘derived from parental duty and exist only so long as they are needed for the protection of the person and property of the child’ (Gillick: Scarman LJ, 184). More recently, the UK courts have found that ‘the sole principle is that the best interests of the child must prevail and that must apply even to cases where parents, for the best of motives, hold onto some alternative view’ (Yates and Gard v Great Ormond Street Hospital [2017] EWCA Civ 410, McFarlane LJ, [112].) And in Australia, in similar circumstances (parents seeking to refuse treatment for their child), Thackray CJ considered the nature of parental power and emphasised that it is a ‘power’ that can be limited by the ‘overriding criterion’ of the best interests of the child (CAHS v Kiszko & Anor [2016] FCWA, Thackray CJ, [72]). Thus, the role of the court in such situations is to focus on the interests of the child and, where necessary, to intercede. In clarifying this position, Thackray CJ referred to an analogous decision of the Supreme Court of Western Australia, Minister for Health v AS (2004) 29 WAR, in which Pullin J explained that the court is required to ‘exercise an independent and objective judgment’ balancing advantages and disadvantages of treatment (Minister for Health, [31]). Consistent with the Archbishop’s position, it was acknowledged that the views of the parents are relevant, but emphasised that they cannot be determinative; indeed, at all times the ‘protection of the child should be elevated above all other interests’. Thackray CJ went on to refer to Pullin J’s caution that the power to ‘countermand the wishes of a child, a patient or a parent is to be exercised sparingly and with great caution’ (Minister for Health: [31]). We can see therefore that not only is the law consistent with this final ‘salient principle’, but also that the language used echoes that of the Archbishop.

4.4 Conclusion Whilst this discussion falls far short of a comprehensive review of the relationship between the law and religion in the context of health care, it serves as a practical demonstration that, as explained by Orentlicher, ‘many religious principles have secular moral [and legal] counterparts’ (Orentlicher 2018: 630). The function of the law in this context is often to arbitrate incredibly complex situations, a fine line between what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’ being walked, where there is rarely a clear answer. It is not possible to clearly differentiate between moral and legal imperatives

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as they work together to find the best answer (note the intentional reference here to ‘best’ as opposed to ‘right’, because rarely is there a clearly ‘right’ answer). Whilst there may be attempts to delineate religious from legal principles as was done in Re A, this separation is somewhat artificial and the salient principles as set out by the Archbishop (and accepted by the Court as worthy of respect but not legally binding) are in fact consistent with legal principles. The reality is that ‘it has been widely accepted that law, religion and science are related. Examples include the statement that religion is the bed rock of moral order and a moral order works to stabilize law and medical science’ (Thomson 2006, 47). In short, therefore, whilst Lord Justice Ward would like to assert that a court is one of law and not of morals, it is best characterised as a little bit of both.

References Foster C (2011) Human dignity in bioethics and the law. Hart, Oxford Keown J (1997) Restoring moral and intellectual shape to the law after bland. Law Quart Rev 113:481 Orentlicher D (2018) Law, religion, and health care. 8 UC Irvine Law Rev 617–632 Szawarski P, Oram J (2015) Classic cases revisited: Baby Theresa and the definition of death. Intensive Care Soc 16(3):222–225 Thomson C (2006) Thinking and writing about law, 2006’ religion and medicine. Macquarie Law Symp 2006:45–50

Cases Brightwater Care Group (Inc) v Rossiter [2009] WASC 229 CAHs v Kiszko & Anor [2016] FCWA Gillick v West Norfolk and Wisbech Area Health Authority (1986) 1 AC 112 H Ltd v J & Anor [2010] SASC 76 Hospital v S (a Minor) [2019] NSWSC 642 Messiha v South East Health [2004] NSWSC 1061 Minister for Health v AS (2004) 29 WAR Northridge v Central Sydney Area Health Service (2000) 50 NSWLER 549 Ms B v An NHS Hospital Trust [2002] 2 All ER 449 Re A (Children) (Conjoined Twins: Surgical Separation) [2001] 2 WLR 480 Yates and Gard v Great Ormond Street Hospital [2017] EWCA Civ 410, McFarlane LJ

Part III

Social Sciences

Chapter 5

Making Religion Relevant in the World of Politics: A Personal Reflection William D. Russell

Abstract In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus sets forth some very demanding ethical actions. We are commanded to love our enemies, to turn the other cheek when assaulted, to go a second mile when we are required to go one mile, and to give our coat as well as our shirt when asked to do so. Few people demand these requirements of us (or our political leaders) today which is regrettable, given that it is these high ideals to which we should be aspiring. This chapter explores the political imperatives set out in the gospels, and test our past and current leaders against them.

5.1 Introduction After I graduated from Graceland College, Iowa, in 1960 with a BA in religion, I worked as an editor for Herald Publishing House, owned by a Midwestern church.1 I wanted the Christian message to be relevant to our readers in the world in which they lived. At an early age, I was told that the key to the gospel was “don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t chew, and don’t run around with girls who do.” I thought this was a rather limited vision of the gospel imperative. Studying religion at Graceland College, I didn’t notice Jesus addressing any of these issues. On my reading, he was busy reaching out to those in his society who were marginalized. The Sermon on the Mount2 is, to me, the centre piece of Jesus’s teachings. The medieval Catholic Church established monastic movements where residents could live lives modelled after this Sermon on the Mount. Violence would be avoided, monks would speak lovingly to everyone, and so forth. But in reality, most of these 1 The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and its Herald Publishing House. In 2001 the church officially changed the name to “Community of Christ”—a name which reflects its current mission. Despite its common beginnings in 1830–1844 with the Latter-Day Saint movement, Community of Christ has very little in common with the contemporary Mormon Church. 2 Matthew, Chaps. 5 through 7. The contents of the sermon are also scattered in Luke between Chaps. 6 and 16.

W. D. Russell (B) Graceland University, Lamoni, IA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Babie and R. Sarre (eds.), Religion Matters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_5

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requirements are very difficult if not impossible to live out. Few people demand these requirements of us or our political leaders. Protestants tried various approaches to understanding these difficult ethical imperatives. Reinhold Niebuhr, perhaps the most respected Protestant theologian in the USA in the 20th century, held that the Sermon on the Mount, while “relevant”, set forth an “impossible ideal.” I remain of the view, however, that we need to hold up the ethical imperatives of the Sermon on the Mount and seek to live by them, knowing that we will often fall short. For in seeking these ideals, we act in a more Christian fashion than we would if we ignored them. The other great 20th century Christian thinker who profoundly affected my outlook was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He came into prominence as a 26-yearold minister, leading the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott in 1955–56. During my senior year in college, I was in the library one day and picked up a copy of The Christian Century. I was attracted to an article by Dr. King entitled “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence.” I was impressed with his courage and his ability to articulate his Christian message in terms that were relevant to the daily experiences of black people in Montgomery. By law they had to sit at the back of the city buses, and had to give up their seats to white people when they got on the bus and needed to take up seats at the rear. The boycott started when a woman named Rosa Parks, after a day at work as a seamstress, refused to give up her seat to a white man who got on the bus. She was arrested and fined for breaking the law. Segregation, in law, was more important than the contemporary rules of chivalry. Thanks to Rosa Parks, the stage was set, however, for a revolution in segregation politics. As I read Dr. King’s “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence,” I learned about his intellectual journey as he went through his undergraduate education in Atlanta, his seminary training in Pennsylvania, and finally his PhD in theology at Boston University. He drew on Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violent resistance. For me, non-violent resistance seemed a good way to abide by the non-violence of Jesus, yet provide a practical way to resist evil. The more I studied the New Testament, the better I understood what was required to make Christianity relevant. I also got a much better understanding regarding how Christianity can be distorted by people and groups due to their thirst for power or wealth or both. I became convinced that many people—including ordained ministers—use obscure passages in the Bible to advance agendas which do not fit into the vision of Jesus as presented in the New Testament. I learned the importance of reading the Biblical documents in historical context rather than grabbing a sentence or two here and there which roughly supported a preconceived viewpoint. In the realm of politics, we often see religion used extensively, but out of context, to justify particular positions. In the pages that follow I tackle a number of these political issues.

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5.2 The Death Penalty Growing up in Michigan, I was firmly of the view that the death penalty was an appropriate punishment. ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ I surmised. And it would be cheaper, too. Society would not need to feed and house murderers for the rest of their lives. I regret the fact that although I had been a regular church-goer, I did not receive the kind of teaching that would have made me recognize that capital punishment was not consistent with Christian teachings. My father, the pastor, did express great empathy for “the downtrodden” in our society, but I don’t recall him relating that to capital punishment. Perhaps he never knew that “the downtrodden” are regularly treated unfairly in the criminal justice system in the United States and elsewhere. In 1953, the journalist Ken McCormack wrote a series of articles in the Detroit Free Press on the case of Willie Calloway, a low IQ African American 18-yearold who was serving a life sentence for murder. The warden at the prison urged McCormack to study this case because he (the warden) was convinced of Calloway’s innocence. Calloway had served nine years in the state prison at Jackson, Michigan, when McCormack’s series of articles were published. McCormack had discovered problems in Willie’s case that cast serious doubt as to his guilt.3 The man who had committed this murder was apparently consumed with guilt from reading this series, and he eventually came forward and confessed. Pro-bono lawyers secured Calloway’s release. Fortunately for Willie, the State of Michigan had not had the death penalty since 1846. If Michigan had had the death penalty, it is almost certain that Willie would have been executed. An innocent man or woman cannot be resurrected after being executed and, moreover, the guilty person will not be apprehended. Research has made it clear that mistakes are made, and often the convicted but innocent victim is someone of a marginalized race, religion, social class, or is poor and does not have competent attorneys to assist him or her. One of the worst mass murderers of all time, the infamous Adolf Eichmann, who was directly responsible for the deaths of more than one million Jews in Nazi concentration camps, was tried and sentenced to death by the Israeli government. The famous Jewish theologian and philosopher, Martin Buber, urged the government to spare Eichmann’s life as an attempt to reduce anti-Semitism in the world. Unfortunately, the Israeli government went ahead with the execution on May 31, 1962. At the time of the Eichmann execution I wrote an article in our church’s publication reflecting on Buber’s view (Russell 1962) and penned letters to governors of various states in the USA where capital punishment was still practised. As I recall, virtually every governor whom I wrote to responded favourably to my letter.4

3 Jonah Horowitz, “Willie Calloway,” in the National Registry of Exonerations, participants include

the law schools at both the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. Calloway was convicted in Michigan. https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetailpre1989. aspx?caseid=41. 4 The US has never had more than 20 states without the death penalty in their criminal codes.

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I moved to Lamoni, Iowa, in 1966, to teach religion at Graceland College where Iowa Governor Harold Hughes (1963–1967) was a charismatic person and a strong opponent of the death penalty. When Hughes came home from World War II, he became a truck driver. But alcoholism led to a situation where he woke up one night more than 100 miles from where he last remembered he had been. He joined Alcoholics Anonymous and eventually defeated the “demon rum.” Hughes became active in Iowa politics by representing small truckers lobbying for reform. He was so charismatic that Democratic Governor Herschel Loveless asked him to run for State Commerce Commissioner. He was elected to that position in 1958 and became a popular speaker on various issues. In January 1963 he became Governor of Iowa and one of the first things he did was commute all death sentences in that state. In 2000, I sponsored a resolution opposing the death penalty at the biennial World Conference of the Community of Christ church. Virtually all opinion polls in the USA at that time showed a majority of people in favour of the death penalty, so I feared it would not pass. I was thrilled when it achieved a two-thirds favourable vote. The resolution was added to our book of World Conference Resolutions as resolution number 1273, “Healing Ministry and Capital Punishment,” adopted April 8, 2000. It reads as follows: “Resolved: That we stand in opposition to the use of the death penalty; and be it further resolved, that as a peace church we seek ways to achieve healing and restorative justice.”

5.3 The Civil Rights Movement During the six years I was an editor at the church’s publishing house, the civil rights movement in the USA was at its peak. At the beginning of the 1960s we had integrated “Freedom Rides” on interstate buses and “sit-ins” at segregated lunch counters. In the South in 1962, the Mississippi chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Medgar Evers, was murdered in his own driveway as he got out of his car coming home from an NAACP meeting around midnight. His loss hurt deeply. The Birmingham, Alabama, demonstrations were held the following spring. The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth was the civil rights leader in Birmingham. Shuttlesworth and his family suffered significant harassment and violence at the hands of the police and the Ku Klux Klan. Klansmen were often also members of the Birmingham police force. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. chose to demonstrate in Birmingham because Shuttlesworth had told King that their chief of police, Theophilis Eugene “Bull” Connor, was notorious as the most vicious enforcer of Jim Crow laws (enforcing racial segregation), and Dr. King assumed that Connor would be cruel to the demonstrators. And he was, including turning fire hoses and police dogs on protesters, most of whom were high school students. Dr. King knew that it was when civil rights demonstrators are treated violently by police that the public, especially in the North, wakes up to the injustice going on.

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The demonstrations in Birmingham brought national attention and outrage which led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This Act outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.5 Many of the battles that ensued as a result of the law were in the area of public accommodations. It was one of the two most important civil rights laws passed by Congress, the other being the 1965 Voting Rights Act. I wrote a half-dozen editorials on civil rights in the years 1962–1966. The two most controversial editorials, judging by the negative responses in the mail from readers around the USA and Canada, were my editorial on the Birmingham demonstrations in 1963,6 which I entitled “Martin Luther King: Satan or Saint” (Russell 1963) and one on Selma7 (Russell 1965). Some of the letters of protest went to the three member First Presidency of the church, and some came to me or our Managing Editor, Paul A. Wellington. The First Presidency decided they should write an editorial8 expressing their view on the matter (First Presidency 1963). Sadly, for me, they seemed to regard the NAACP as an organization for black people only. They claimed there was no racism in the church or problems associated with race.9

5 The Birmingham demonstration led President Kennedy to come out in favour of the civil rights bill

before Congress at the time. Kennedy was murdered in November 1963 and his successor, Lyndon Johnson, made a decision to use his legislative skills to get this bill passed. It became the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 6 July 1, 1963: “But the longer white people stubbornly refuse to grant basic human rights to Negroes, the more difficult it will be for Negro leaders like Dr. King to keep their restless followers from resorting to violence. … Let us hope they (Negroes) look to apostles of non-violence for leadership rather than to the Black Muslims.” 7 May 1, 1965: “It is the Christian ideal that we be as concerned about our brother’s needs as our own. We cannot stand idly by, like the priest and the Levite, when children of God are denied their right to vote, are not granted equal protection under the law or the equal use of public facilities, or are discriminated against in education, housing, and employment.” 8 The First Presidency August 1, 1963: “With Christ as the standard [the NAACP] should not participate in any extremist movements—any mob action—either for or against segregation.” Here they imply that the NAACP, a moderate civil rights organization that focuses mainly on law suits, is an extremist organization, perhaps on a par with the racist groups that oppose integration and participate in mob action. They write further: “Should a Negro join the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People? Why not? He joined the church to provide for his spiritual needs … This should not keep him from joining other organizations which he feels will help him promote his physical well-being.” Here they imply that the church focuses only on spiritual matters and the NAACP focuses only on physical well-being. As for internal racial problems in the church, they wrote: “The internal racial problems in our church have been very minor. Integration has been such a natural process that there would be no need to discuss in these columns were it not for the national attention that has resulted from the tense integration question.” 9 I was shocked at the poor quality of the First Presidency editorial, since I regarded Maurice L. Draper—the junior member of the three-member First Presidency—as a solid supporter of the civil rights movement. Sixteen years later, shortly after Draper had retired from the First Presidency, I had an opportunity to ask him why their editorial had been so poor. Draper replied that President W. Wallace Smith struggled to distinguish between conscientious civil disobedience and common criminal activity.

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Also important in 1963 was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. There were ten featured speakers, one from each of the major civil rights organizations, three religious leaders, and one labour leader, Walter Reuther. My favourite was the speech by Rabbi Joachim Prinz. He related the current civil rights movement to the Nazi Holocaust. Prinz was a rabbi in the Jewish community of Berlin during the Hitler regime. He spoke of “the shame and disgrace of inequality and injustice which make a mockery of the great American idea.”10 He noted that for Jews, “our ancient history began with slavery and the yearning for freedom.” What touched me the most was his declaration that “the most tragic problem is silence.” Bigotry and hatred are not the most urgent problem: “the most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence.” Many people “remained silent in the face of hate. Our nation must not be a nation of onlookers. We must act from the President down to the most humble of us.” Watching Rabbi Prinz’s speech again as I prepared this paper, I found it still very powerful some 56 years later. I moved to Independence in 1960, the birthplace of President Harry S. Truman. I found that the city still had some segregated places of public accommodation. It was only six years since the landmark United States Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) wherein the court declared that “separate but equal” public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution. I suppose it was not surprising that some racial segregation still existed in Independence. Still, my church had taught from its earliest history in the 1830s that Independence was to be a special place, the place where a “Zionic” community would be established. Racial segregation seemed inconsistent with this goal to create the ‘beloved’ community, as Dr. King had often said. Shortly after the March on Washington in August 1963, an African American woman who lived in Independence and attended the march, Mrs. Virginia Jacobs, called me and suggested that the two of us organize an Independence, Missouri, chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). CORE was one of the five major civil rights organizations in the USA at the time. The other four were the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), The National Urban League, The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. So we organized a local chapter, with Mrs. Jacobs as our chairperson, working with the black community to sign up members. I was Vice Chairperson. I worked to enlist support from the white community.11 The “Freedom Summer” arrived in Mississippi in 1964, when young men and woman, most of them white, were invited from around the country to come to Mississippi to try to help black people to register to vote. Mississippi whites were usually very hostile to these white college students from ‘up north’ coming in and meddling

10 www.joachimprinz.com/civilrights.htm. 11 I was not very successful. Most of the meetings had about ten or fifteen people in attendance. It was a long time before the movement in the town of Harry S. Truman was to gain traction. We received some publicity in the Independence Examiner and the Kansas City Star.

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in Mississippi’s business. “Outside agitators” was a common taunt of the white students. This was a very challenging task because many black adults were well aware of the danger that would befall them if they even attempted to register to vote. Indeed, three young men, one a black man from Mississippi, James Chaney, 21, along with two white men from New York City, Andrew Goodman, 20, and Michael Schwerner, 25, were brutally murdered by a group of men who included police officers.12 Ironically (for the racists) this led to an increase of support for civil rights from around the country. At about the same time, Dr. King sent out a call for people of good will to come to Selma and to march. So people poured into Selma with Dr. King present. The march began on March 21 and continued for five days. About 3,200 people were marching on the first day, and it grew to about 25,000 on the last day, when they arrived at the state capital building in downtown, Montgomery. These marches attracted violence, however. There were three people killed by Klansmen and others, all on different days. A young black man, Jimmy Lee Jackson, was the first casualty. The Rev. James Reeb, a Unitarian minister from Boston, was clubbed to death while walking down the street with two friends going to supper. And after the rally at Montgomery ended on March 25, Viola Gregg Liuzzo of Detroit, a white woman, was giving a ride to the airport for three black men and when a car of Klansmen passed them and saw this white woman with three black men, they opened fire on Mrs. Liuzzo, killing her. The martyrdom of these three led to more public outcry, and President Johnson on national television issued a call to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965. During the march I received some letters from the Saints’ Herald 13 readers in the South, especially from readers of the Montgomery Advertiser. They would often send clippings from their newspaper. All kinds of accusations were made, one notable one was that the five day march was an interracial sex orgy, with young black men especially involved in sexual relations with young white women. In the past when I received clippings from southern newspapers I would write to the Saints’ Herald subscriber who sent me the clipping, giving my response. During the Selma march I changed tactics and sent letters to the editors of the newspapers who published the items I received. I received some strange responses. For example, the leadership of the Montgomery Advertiser were fearless defenders of the white majority support of segregation, and agitators were ‘evil’. When my wife Lois and I were in Selma for the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, I picked up several copies of the Montgomery Advertiser. It had changed its tone and published lengthy stories about the march and many of the people who were on the march. Fifty years later these ‘evil’ people were now heroes. One other incident is worth mentioning. I attended a speech by a Kenneth Goff at a Baptist Church in Independence one weekday evening in September 1965. I attended because I knew Goff was perhaps the best known anti-Semitic publicist in the USA. But this was shortly after the Watts riots in Los Angeles and his speech 12 Lomax 13 A

(1964). Herald Publishing House publication.

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was an incredibly racist, hateful diatribe against the civil rights movement, full of either lies, or perhaps just falsehoods he had somehow come to believe. I couldn’t sleep when I got home so I typed a four-page rebuttal to his speech and submitted it to the Independence Examiner. I didn’t expect the local newspaper would publish a long letter criticizing a speech in a Baptist Church, especially since the Baptists were the largest denomination in town. But they did publish it, and in the next three weeks they published numerous letters trying to set me straight. I then wrote another letter replying to those letter writers. I also received quite a few anonymous telephone calls. One caller kept yelling “Are you some kind of a Communist?” I told him that if he told me who he was, I would talk. He did not, and signed off with, “You should go back to Canada where you came from!”14 Another response was that from a man from Kansas City who loved to picket liberals. He came to Independence and picketed me for three days from 8am to 9 pm at our Herald Publishing House. His sign proclaimed: “The Commies Just Love William D. Russell.” It was great to feel that love!

5.4 Labor Unions I always thought labour unions were important because a Christian should want ordinary workers to be entitled to a living wage, and for this they needed to have some power in negotiating labour contracts with the owners of production. I wrote a letter15 to Congressman William Randall, our Congressman in Independence, urging him to support repeal of the so-called ‘right to work’ law, which (ironically) gave no one the right to work. The law simply stated that an employee did not have to join a union in order to work, albeit the union recognized by agreement of the employees. This allowed employees to enjoy the benefits the union provided the workers but did not have to pay the dues that made those negotiations with management possible. Strong labour unions are necessary as a check on the power of big business and big government. Consider the poverty that workers suffered prior to the legal recognition of labor unions to negotiate for wages, hours and working conditions in the mid-1930s. Indeed, unions were the major factor in creating a strong middle class in the USA. Christians should take a stand on the side of labour issues because the witness of Jesus in the four gospels is one of standing on the side of the poor and marginalized.

14 My

Russell cousins are all Canadians but my father moved to Detroit 15 years before I was born and I have always lived in the USA. 15 On his reply to my letter, he penned a hand-written postscript in which he indicated that he had received a number of letters from officials of my church, “99% of which were very conservative.” The Congressman apparently thought I did not fit very well in the environment of my church.

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5.5 The Vietnam War When I arrived at Graceland College in the fall of 1966 to teach religion courses, the Vietnam War was raging. There were ‘coffee house’ debates occasionally, and I spoke against the war in a couple of these debates and observed on-campus protests.16 I reflected on Reinhold Niebuhr’s “the relevance of an impossible ideal,” and his call for realism in politics and especially in foreign policy. Niebuhr had been a pacifist in the 1930s but he shed his pacifism with the rise of Adolf Hitler. However, he did not ignore the impossible ideal, and was aware of the power of compromise. He supported US action in World War II but found President Johnson’s Vietnam involvement a totally unjust war.17 Wilford Winholtz, a longtime peace activist in the church, would come up to Graceland once a month to advise students who wanted to declare conscientious objection to the Vietnam War as part of an appeal to their draft board. Like Governor Hughes of Iowa, Winholtz had served in the US Army in World War II and the horror of that war made him a committed pacifist. I recall one time when he was introducing himself to someone and he said, “I’m Wilford Winholtz, Christian Communist.” In those days, the strident anti-Communism of the late Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy in the early 1950s was still alive even though McCarthy was discredited and censured by the Senate. He died a discredited man.

5.6 Women’s Rights The Bible is very chauvinistic. Women are the property of men and are “owned” first by their father, and then by their husband. If he dies first, she becomes the property of some other male relative, perhaps her son. In contrast, the four gospels note that Jesus treated women with respect. He seemed to have a special relationship with Mary Magdalene, and, according to all four gospels, she was the primary witness to the resurrection of Jesus. Contrary to the opinion of many, I do not regard Paul as a male chauvinist. One must separate the seven genuine letters of Paul’s—Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon—from the seven which were not written by Paul—Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2, Timothy, Titus, and Hebrews. The title to Hebrews has often been, “The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews.” The only problems are that it is not an epistle, it was 16 In October of 1969 I was sitting in the stands for the Homecoming football game when at the end of the half-time parade there came a black casket carried by six men and some other men behind them playing drums. It was clearly an anti-war protest. Two young faculty members were among the six carrying the casket—Bill Howard teaching sociology and Howard Booth, my colleague on the religion faculty. As I sat there, I was wishing I had been invited to participate. At the same time I heard some of the people around me saying, “Oh, no! Get them out of there!”. 17 This anecdote comes from a student who was one of eight students invited to attend a seminar with Niebuhr in his living room. Niebuhr was not able to speak civilly about Johnson and his war.

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not written by Paul, and it was not addressed to the Hebrews. Almost all of the chauvinism attributed to Paul is in the seven writings that scholars have concluded were not written by Paul. This is especially true of the Pastoral Epistles: 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus. As one reads things written by people who would “keep women in their place,” one is unlikely to find their Biblical support coming from Jesus. A lot of it usually comes from “The Law,” (the Torah) in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible— Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. If one reads through the Gospel of Matthew, one will likely notice that Jesus regularly criticized the law. Betty Friedan published her classic book on women’s rights, The Feminine Mystique, in 1963 (Friedan 1963) and her book is credited with being the spark that began the revival of the women’s rights movement that had been relatively quiet since the ratification of the 19th Amendment of the United States Constitution in 1920. The Amendment states, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” By 1970 the women’s rights movement in the USA was becoming more visible. A survey of the popular press in the USA showed that, by 1970, there was considerable attention being paid to the claims of those who championed the idea that women still suffered a lot of discrimination in the culture of the country.18 Not surprisingly, by 1970, women’s rights were being discussed in various quarters in the Reorganized Church, too, including in Independence where there was a critical mass of women and men who began pressing for greater inclusion of women in the decision-making processes of the church. The issue that was ultimately necessary to decide upon was ordination. In April 1970, I was in the press box at the church’s World Conference because I was writing an article on the conference for the Christian Century.19 One afternoon, a resolution came to the conference floor which advocated that women be included more than previously in various decision-making bodies in the church, meaning those that did not require ordination. A shock came when a substitute motion came from the Australian delegation. A. H. (Bud) Edwards and Robert Wood introduced an amendment to this proposal which clearly stated that the church should move toward the ordination of women. As soon as Edwards read the part of the substitute motion which had that language, there was a huge collective gasp from the audience of about 3,000 delegates. The amendment was quickly tabled for future discussion along with the main motion. In 1970 the church was not ready to even discuss, much less to embrace, women’s ordination. Despite this negative reaction from the 1970 conference, fourteen years later the delegates at the 1984 conference voted to approve what was regarded as a revelation from the president/prophet of the church, Wallace B. Smith, to begin ordaining women. Since only about 20% of the delegates voted against the proposal, there was no need for a counted vote. Most of those who voted in the negative would leave the 18 A search of Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature in the USA reveals a significant increase in articles on women’s rights issues in the popular press in the USA. 19 Russell 1970.

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church in the next few years and join various fundamentalist latter-day saint splinter congregations which continue to this day to have an all-male ministry.

5.7 Women in the Resurrection Narratives I have long felt that Christian churches put too much emphasis on the Easter story at the expense of giving the proper amount of attention to Jesus’s life and teachings. For me, the central thing about Easter is that Jesus had become a threat to the Roman government and the Jewish leaders and they finally killed him. It is similar to the story of John the Baptist, the Anabaptists in the sixteenth century, and the more recent martyrdoms of Gandhi, Medgar Evers, Malcom X, and Martin Luther King Jr. I would rather preach on the topic of Palm Sunday when Jesus is at the point of deciding, “Do I go on to Jerusalem or do I have a normal human reaction: ‘Some other time’… I’ll go to Jerusalem some other time, but not now.” Dr. King faced a similar decision when, in 1961, John Lewis and another activist went to King’s office and urged him to join them in the Freedom Rides upon which they were about to embark. King expected he would be killed some time, but on that occasion he decided it was not yet time for him to die. Some Freedom Riders were beaten almost to death on the Freedom Rides and I think if those Ku Klux Klansmen and other racists had seen Dr. King get off that bus, he would surely have been killed too. Dr. King lived seven more years before he was finally murdered. His greatest successes came after the Freedom Rides—in Birmingham in 1963 and Selma in 1965, where John Lewis, now a distinguished Congressman from Atlanta, himself was almost killed.20 As I began preparing for an Easter sermon at that time, the thought occurred to me: “Why not prepare by reading all four resurrection narratives in the four gospels in the New Testament?”21 As I read these four narratives of the discovery of the empty tomb on Easter morning, I was surprised and pleased that Mary Magdalene was the key witness to the resurrection in all four gospels.22 So that became the focus of my sermon. Many times in the future when women’s ordination was discussed, I would mention these four gospels, and suggest that if a woman was chosen to be the primary witness to the resurrection of Jesus, it would be just fine if women were to be ordained.

20 Leonard Boswell was a Democratic politician from my home town of Lamoni, Iowa, and became

the Senate President before he ran for Congress in 1996 and served there until his retirement in 2014. His Congressional colleague John Lewis, makes annual trips to Selma, Alabama. “Bloody Sunday” in March 1965 was the beginning of a new phase of the struggle for voting rights in Selma. Leonard Boswell revered Congressman Lewis. 21 They are found in Mark 16:1-8; Matthew 27:62-28:20; Luke 14:1-12; and John 20:1-29. 22 See Spong, J.S. 1991, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, San Francisco, Harper Collins, pages 218 and 221.

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5.8 The Rights of LGBT Persons In 1984 I began teaching a sociology class on Racism and Discrimination. The class was designed to meet the State of Iowa’s requirement that public school teachers receive a basic education on issues of prejudice. I felt reasonably prepared to teach about issues of race and gender but I also recognized that homophobia was becoming a major issue in American society and in the public schools. I knew public school teachers who told me that many teachers would get after students if they used racist or sexist language against other students, but if they called other students “fags” or “queers” many teachers would let it go. I realized that I would need to address this subject and therefore I needed to become more educated on the issue. I recall reading a book by a Canadian journalist, The Comfortable Pew: A Critical Look at Christianity and the Religious Establishment in the New Age (Berton 1965) in which the author said that, in today’s world, homosexuals are regarded similarly to how the lepers were regarded in Jesus’ day. I had a brother who, in the mid-1980s, at age 51, came out as a gay man to his siblings and our mother. We all “kind of knew” Dave was gay for a long time. He had been married 23 years and had three children. Getting married and having children is a great cover to disguise who you really are in a homophobic society. Of the three brothers in our family, Dave was the most religious and the one who we thought would become a full-time paid minister in the church, like our father. But he had two problems: he was gay and he was addicted to cigarettes. At that time, both of these matters had to be hidden if you were to be a minister in the church. He ultimately became a Unitarian, which was about the only denomination in America where you could count on the local congregation to be supportive. An organization of Reorganized Church members and friends called “GALA” (Gay and Lesbian Acceptance) began with secret meetings in 1984. They planned to begin an organization that would be a support group and also engage in the struggle to achieve acceptance in the church, including ordination of gays and acceptance of same-sex marriage. It was a long struggle for the men and women in GALA. Progress was slow and many frustrations occurred along the way. But the GALA organization quietly made progress, and members were able to get at least the quiet support and sometimes open support from many of the leaders of the church. Meanwhile, in my discrimination class, I continued to make a strong effort to educate my students on the importance of recognizing that homosexuality is not a choice and that, as teachers, they must treat students with respect and accept who they are.23 23 I married Lois Beach, a special education teacher in St. Louis in the summer of 1997. She took a position teaching special education at Clarke Community School in Osceola, Iowa, 30 miles from Lamoni. At Jennings Junior High in St. Louis, 89% of the students were African American. In Iowa, Lois became familiar with the problems of rural Iowans with disabilities. She was saddened to learn that some of her teacher colleagues were prejudiced regarding homosexuality. They were upset when in 2009 the Iowa Supreme Court ruled unanimously that not allowing gays to marry was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause in the Iowa Constitution.

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Some leaders in GALA asked me to publish a book of stories by both LGBT people and those of us who were supportive. The result was Homosexual Saints: The Community of Christ Experience in 2008 (Russell 2008). I wrote a 57-page history on how our church had handled the issue since the first official statement in 1962. The 1962 statement24 was lamentable, and a 1982 statement was only a small step forward. These were two of four previous statements by the church which I put into the appendix. Under the careful leadership of Presidents W. Grant McMurray (1996–2004) and Stephen M. Veazey (2005–present), four national conferences were held in 2012 and then in 2013 in Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. All four conferences approved same-sex marriage and priesthood. These four jurisdictions contained a membership that was ready to embrace this change, but in some other parts of the world there would continue to be great hostility to such a policy. As I see it, all of these issues are related. Politics and religion came together in ways that cannot be separated.

5.9 President Donald J. Trump Tragedy struck the United States and perhaps the rest of the world in November 2016 when a morally bankrupt, failed businessman who is a narcissist and extremely ignorant of how our Constitutional government works (and ignorant of the world around him) became President of the United States. Hillary Clinton won the 2016 popular vote by nearly three million votes, but our antiquated Electoral College system, framed in a world that seems ancient compared to now, allowed Donald J. Trump to prevail. Trump said many years ago when he was thinking of running for President that he would make money while President. He didn’t seem to understand that this would be contrary to the emoluments clause in Article I of the U.S. Constitution.25 To my mind Donald J. Trump’s presidency is a repudiation of almost everything Christians hold dear. For people who consider their religious beliefs when deciding whom to support in an election, it seems impossible to support Trump. Many are appalled by his character. His policies are a stern rebuke to Christian values and 24 I wrote a letter-to-the-editor in the Independence Examiner in June 1963 in which I advocated for the acceptance of inter-racial marriage. When the issue of gay marriage became a major issue in the 1990s, you could take the 1963 letter and insert “gay marriage” in place of “inter-racial marriage and you would have the same argument and I think it would be just as effective. 25 Every President since Richard Nixon (1969–74) has made his income tax statements public, and put their wealth in a blind trust or in some other arrangement to keep him entirely out of any awareness as to what the trust is doing. But Trump has refused. The issue first came up when he entered the race, but he said he couldn’t release his federal tax returns because they are under audit. Three years later, he was still saying his tax returns were still under audit. If they were under audit he could have disclosed a letter from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) notifying him that he is under audit. Furthermore, it is legal to release your tax returns even if they are under audit.

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the values of other major world religions. Yet for some strange reason, evangelical Christians were his strongest supporters. Mormons have been an important part of the evangelical support of Trump, but their support was lower than that provided by evangelical Protestants. I think that is because Mormons take their moral expectations more seriously than evangelical Protestants. For me, Trump’s bigotry is perhaps the most un-Christian characteristic of his life and his actions as President. His racism has been demonstrated throughout his adult life. In the 1970s Donald and his father were fined by the federal government for racial discrimination in renting and selling their real estate properties. In the 1980s he ran a large advertisement in all the leading newspapers in New York City demanding the death penalty for five men—blacks and Latinos—for the alleged rape of a white woman in Central Park. These men all served their prison sentences of six to thirteen years, but several lawyers donated their time, pro bono, to assist them, and they were finally released from prison after DNA evidence exonerated them. Trump did not believe it, and still called for their execution. Also, for five years leading up to the 2016 election, Trump led the unbelievably racist charge that our first black President, Barack Obama, was not born in the USA, which is required for a President. Surely he was born in Kenya, Trump and others asserted, which was his father’s home country.26 Trump was one of many Republicans in the USA who believed that Obama is a Muslim, apparently because his father, Barack Sr., was from a Muslim family. I have seen polls where at least one-half of Republicans surveyed believed President Obama is Muslim. Among the forty-five American Presidents, Barack Obama stands among a handful of Presidents who were-well informed on religious issues. He loves the theology of Reinhold Niebuhr, perhaps the greatest American Christian theologian of the 20th century. Barack also dug deeply into the writings of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. The influence of these two religious thinkers on Barack Obama was obvious while he was campaigning for President in 2007–2008. And, as President, he did a masterful job speaking at memorial services for the victims in tragic mass murders. Presidents are our Commander-in-Chief, Chief Diplomat, and Chief Legislator. Obama was all of those but he was also our ‘Pastor-in-Chief.’ He knew how to bring healing to people overcome by tragedy. Trump has shown himself as incapable of giving a sincere response to tragedy. Jesus welcomed and ministered to those whom society shunned. Trump empathizes with bigots and doesn’t want marginalized people around. He has the support of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke even though he pretends to not know who Duke is. Trump was asked about the anti-Semitic mob that gathered on August 11–12, 2017 at Charlottesville, Virginia for a “Unite the Right” rally. At one point a large line of people marched, protesting, and chanting, “Jews will not replace us,” over and over again. Trump called these protesters “very fine people.”

26 Never

mind that the State of Hawaii verified his birth and two newspapers in Honolulu recorded his birth at the time, in August 1961.

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In 2015 Trump started his campaign by calling the Mexicans coming across USA borders “criminals, who bring drugs and rape and murder.” He said “they are sending us” these people, as if the Mexican government was dispatching them. Many of them were escaping the corruption of violence and drug cartels and seeking a safe harbour in the USA. They are law-abiding people and far from being part of “the criminal element.” The fact is that in the USA immigrants break the law less than citizens who were born here or whose families have been here for generations. Immigrants are for the most part law-abiding people. It is hard to judge which action by Trump as President so far was the most horrendous, but instructing officials to separate Latino children from their mother and keeping them separate when they come across the USA-Mexican border is probably number one. Hundreds of these children will never see their parents again because the Trump administration didn’t bother to keep careful records as to their whereabouts. They were crossing at official crossings, to file for asylum, but they were denied that right and instead were incarcerated and their families were often split up. Why would a man proclaiming “family values” treat these families in such an inhumane way? Separating young children from their mothers reminds us of the separation of families of Jews forced into death camps like Auschwitz. Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions were not killing these people but in many cases they were ruining their lives. Trump has called countries made up primarily of blacks as “shithole countries.” (Kendi 2019). His former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen reports that Trump has said that every country controlled by blacks has “gone downhill.” Trump did suggest a country where he would really welcome immigrants: Norway.27 Christians should not be associated with Donald Trump. He stands against everything the gospels preach.

5.10 Conclusion As I deal with various social and political issues, I often relate the teachings of Jesus and the thoughts of Martin Luther King Jr., to my analysis of the matter. I consider Dr. King’s “non-violent resistance” and Reinhold Niebuhr’s “the relevance of an impossible ideal” as a significant part of my analysis. The four gospels, Dr. King, and Reinhold Niebuhr are central to who I am politically. It is a blessing to me to have these principles at the core of my political being.

27 Maybe

Norwegians should flee to the United States to avoid the oppression of universal health care, to cite one example of how “horrible” Norway is.

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References Berton P (1965) The comfortable pew: a critical look at Christianity and the religious establishment in the new age. McClelland and Stewart, Toronto First Presidency (1963) Our position on race and color. Saints’ Herald, p 506, August 1 Friedan B (1963) The feminine mystique. W. W. Norton, New York Kendi IX (2019) The day ‘shithole’ entered the presidential lexicon. The Atlantic, January 13. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/shithole-countries/580054/ Lomax L (1964) Author describes slaying of 3 rights workers in Mississippi. New York Times, p 20, October 26 Russell WD (1962) Israel could have listened to Buber. Saints’ Herald, p 641, September 15 Russell WD (1963) Martin Luther King: satan or saint? Saints’ Herald, p 434, July 1 Russell WD (1965) They died for a cause. Saints’ Herald, p 290, 301, May 1 Russell WD (1970) Reorganized Mormons beset by controversy, Christian century, pp 769–771, June 17 Russell WD (2008) Homosexual saints: the community of Christ experience. John Whitmer Books, Independence, Missouri

Chapter 6

Religious Education, Radicalisation and Neoliberal Governmentalities Andrew Hope

Abstract The relevance of religion within the discipline and practice of education remains paramount, not only in understanding how social control operates in contemporary society, but also in addressing draconian measures intended to combat radicalisation in schools. With this in mind this chapter draws upon Foucault’s analysis of governmentality to explore how religious schooling and education facilitates the ‘governing of the soul’. It also explores Gane’s analytical development of this concept, while broadening the definition of religion to include policies and practices related to violent religious extremism. Consequently, through the lens of neoliberal governmentalities, it can be seen that elements of religion and education have been appropriated to introduce repressive social controls, which benefit neoliberal markets. In conclusion, it is maintained that these practices need to be challenged through the introduction of radical and critical, religion and ethics education.

6.1 Introduction Historically, schools have been institutions of social control with religious education often facilitating these processes through disciplinary discourses, the engendering of self-surveillance and the normalisation of particular ways of behaving. In exploring such issues, this chapter draws upon Foucault’s (1994, 2008, 2009) notion of governmentality to examine how religious schooling and education facilitate such practices. It will be argued that one element of the continued relevance of religious education is that it facilitates the ‘governing of the soul’ (Rose 1999). In recent years, the neoliberal market has become enmeshed in governmentality through practices such as devolving state power, interactivity through new media and increased marketisation (Gane 2012). Yet, expanding the discussion of religious schooling through a consideration of neoliberal governmentalities offers few new insights. Only when the notion of religion in schools is broadened to include policies and practices related A. Hope (B) Federation University, Ballarat, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Babie and R. Sarre (eds.), Religion Matters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_6

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to radicalisation, Violent Religious Extremism (VRE) and terrorism, does the framework of neoliberal governmentalities offer a deeper understanding of the processes of control in late modernity. Importantly, this is not to argue that, in terms of social control, the current relevance of religion in schools can be found in de-radicalisation practices that are often Islamophobic in outcome. Rather, it is argued that one of the key contemporary roles that religion should play in schools is challenging negative stereotypes around violent extremism through teaching religion as a radical, critical subject. Ultimately, it is suggested that the relevance of religion within both the discipline and practice of education is to be found in three facets. Firstly, the disciplines of education, religion and sociology can offer a deep understanding of the interplay of religious schooling, social control and neoliberal markets. Secondly, using religion within education practices that demonise Islam through ill-conceived policies intended to combat violent religious extremism must be critiqued and challenged. Thirdly, addressing the negative elements of the previous two points, an ideological repositioning of the teaching of religion is necessary, moving from Religious Instruction (RI), and General Religious Education (GRE) to a radical and critical curriculum model of secular Religion and Ethics (R&E). Before exploring the relevance of religion to the discipline of education and the practice of schooling, it is necessary to provide a context for the subsequent discussion. The notion of religion will be defined, before this chapter offers three differing ideological approaches to teaching religion. The third of these approaches, radical and critical teaching of religion through R&E, will reappear later in the chapter as a possible solution to problematic school policies related to anti-radicalisation and combatting VRE. The complex relationships between organised religion, schooling, religious education and the state will then be considered, with a particular focus on Australia. Part of this discussion will focus on secularism and the notion that religions should not receive funding from the state to support their educational endeavours. This will offer initial insights into how religions may facilitate social control through education. These discussions of how religious schools and education engender processes of social control will be further explored through a consideration of governmentality and neoliberalism. Noting that Gane’s (2012) analytical development of neoliberal governmentalities offers few additional insights into the interplay of religion and education, the definition of religion is then broadened to include policies and practices related to radicalisation and VRE. From this viewpoint, it will be seen that elements of religion and education have been appropriated to introduce repressive social controls, which benefit neoliberal markets. In conclusion, it is maintained that these practices need to be challenged through the introduction of radical and critical R&E.

6.2 Defining Religion Derived from the Latin word religio meaning obligation, bond or reverence, the term religion is commonly used to describe systems of beliefs and practices related to what people perceive to be sacred or spiritual (Durkheim 1912). Yet there is little

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consensus on the precise meaning of the concept, with some arguing that ‘religion is freighted with so much western historical baggage that it would be plausibly useless for purposes of cross-cultural comparative study’ (Strenski 1998: 356). Indeed Asad (1993: 29) argues that ‘there cannot be a universal definition of religion’ as its ‘constitutive elements and relationships are historically specific’ meaning ‘that definition itself is an historical by-product of discursive processes’. Yet, as Carrette (2000: 148) notes, ‘religion is a sphere of force relations in the wider cultural network – it inescapably exists as a manifestation of power’. Thus ‘religion’ is not independent of social construction, but rather is formulated by those who have power to constitute the notion and its practices. Such a definition of religion might be criticised as reductionist, collapsing the realm of the spiritual into the physical world. After all, from this perspective ‘that which is divine precisely is the world and its ceaselessly shifting bodies and signifiers’ (Jantzen 1998: 274). Despite the limitations inherent in defining religion as something constructed through social and political processes (an exercise in power), such a definition sharply focuses analysis on questions relating to religion, education and social control. Consequently, in this chapter, religion will be defined as a socio-political technology, signifying beliefs and practices through which social control can be fostered, exercised and resisted. The notion of technology here refers not to applied science, machinery or equipment, but rather, echoing Foucault (1984), utilises a broader notion of ‘technology’ as activities, knowledge and modes of organisation. Thus religion is reimagined as practices and discursive relations of control. Importantly, this is not to suggest that the religious beliefs and practices that act as social control mechanisms should be perceived in an inherently negative manner; after all, social cohesion and ethical guidelines can be beneficial for both individuals and broader society. Furthermore, not only can it be argued that ‘where there is power there is resistance’ (Foucault 1978: 95), but in some instances religious beliefs and practices can act as a form of resistance. With such caveats in place, the focus of this chapter will be on exploring how, through schooling, religion operates as an instrument of what Foucault described as ‘governmentality’. Before exploring this notion, it will first be helpful to provide a context for the subsequent discussion by examining the relationship between religious education and ideology, as well as exploring related educational policies.

6.3 Religious Education and Ideology In recent history, the relationship between religious organisations, religious education and schools has been both contentious and complex. Questions about the role of religion in schooling are further complicated by diverging views about the purpose of education and the specific values into which students should be socialised. While such values may be broadly ideological, there are also specific issues where disagreements might lie. For example, views may vary regarding what children should learn in schools about differing sexualities, pre-marital sex, transgender identities

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and the acceptability of other religious worldviews. After all, regardless of dogma, approaches to religious education in school are far from homogenous. Consequently, it will be beneficial to consider briefly the underpinning ideological frameworks. Byrne (2014) identifies three broad ‘flavours’ of ideology evident in religious teaching in schools, namely conservative, progressive liberal and radical/critical. In the first of these approaches, cultural homogeneity is favoured, promoting education focusing on unity, commonality and assimilation. As Byrne (2014: 57) notes ‘[s]uch assimilation requires the minimisation, elimination or, ignoring of differences, since competition occurs on an assumed ‘level playing field’… Privilege is not examined within this view, because those in a better position have earned it’. Consequently, conservatism adopts a socially defensive approach, seeking acceptable and historically-rooted answers that aim to maintain the status quo. Drawing upon Grant and Sleeter’s (2003) insights, students who appear outside the mainstream may be labelled as ‘culturally different’, with the teacher’s role being to help them bridge the gap and assimilate with what is regarded as ‘normal’. This approach has much in common with the faith-forming instruction of ‘learning into’ a religion, wherein students are taught the doctrine and practices of a single tradition encouraging them to become an insider. Such Religious Instruction ‘intends to grow a member of a faith in that faith’ (Byrne 2012: 202). Secondly, the progressive liberal approach, grounded in individualistic psychology, encourages students to pursue their own goals. Emphasising questioning and favouring multiculturalism, ‘[this] view assumes that minorities need particular, special consideration to exist’ (Byrne 2014: 58). This approach finds form in General Religious Education (GRE), which seeks to foster understanding of various faiths through multi-tradition learning about religions (Grimmett 2000). Although progressive in intent, it nevertheless ignores the conflicts and inequalities that exist in society, while failing to challenge privilege directly. Thus, ‘insufficient consideration is given to power constructs, control issues, and official knowledge, which stand in the way of achieving equity and excellence by denying political power’ (Jenks et al. 2001: 92). Democratic ideals are affirmed at the expense of challenging barriers to equality, as it is naively believed that this will bring about the necessary change to usher in an egalitarian society. While this approach might focus upon cultural and religious differences, celebrating diverse faiths and festivals, it is assumed that existing educational policy, practice and laws will bring about equity within the current market system as some form of natural consequence. Drawing from radical and critical theory, the final broad ideological approach demands cross-cultural, political dialogue to reshape society in a more egalitarian manner. Curriculum is transformative and religious education is secular. Key to this approach are the questions of how and by whom key notions such as equity and excellence in education are constructed. Knowledge is not value free, and some may benefit more from such processes. Such an approach seeks justice through focusing on equity and issues of social differentiation, while believing ‘that leaving these matters to the processes of free-market competition and upward social mobility will only deny the achievement of justice’ (Jenks et al. 2001: 93). Such values are more likely to be found within R&E, which incorporates learning about ‘religious and

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non-religious traditions and ideas, and learning from those traditions, in a critically, ethically and politically reflective manner’ (Byrne 2012: 19). In many countries schooling remains broadly, albeit not entirely, secular. Thus, elements of conservative and liberal progressive ideological approaches can be found in schools in economically developed nations in the form of RI or GRE teaching. Yet it will subsequently be argued that in addressing issues of power, particularly with regards to the labelling of ‘suspect groups’ as radicalised or extremist, religions and ethics education needs to play a far more prominent role.

6.4 Religion, Schools and State-Funding Modern democracies have adopted various approaches to managing the complex relationships between schooling and religion. Some countries, such as Sweden, England and Canada, implement a more progressive liberal, integrative religious education. For example, from the mid-1990s religious education syllabi in England included material not just on Christianity, but also Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism (Bryne 2014). There is also separation between GRE and the distinct area of citizenship studies. This is partly to avoid a strong association of religion with politics or promoting Christianity as the ‘civic’ religion. Following Supreme Court rulings in the United States, official Religious Instruction (RI) in public schools is deemed unconstitutional (Taylor 2017). Adopting a progressive approach, some states, such as California, have offered compulsory courses in world religions in public schools. Yet as Taylor (2017: n.p.) notes ‘where it had once seemed fairly clear that government money could not be used to support religious instruction [RI] at all, it may be only a matter of time before the Supreme Court requires voucher programs to treat religious schools the same as their secular peers’. While German states differ from one another, the overall approach to religion in public schools in that country has some similarities with the Australian model. As Bryne (2014: 84) notes ‘[a]s a compulsory subject in most jurisdictions, RI is administered by each of Germany’s sixteen federal states, some of which have concordats with the Roman Catholic Church, and one of which only allows for Protestant RI’. This is predominantly a more conservative approach in which ‘the desired outcome is to form Christians’ (Hull 2005: 11). It is worth adding, however, that in some more progressive states, such as Hamburg, secular Religion and Ethics programs have run. Although there are various religious affiliations in Australian schools, the majority of educational institutions run by religious organisations are predominantly Anglican and Catholic in faith. In early colonial days, Christian churches of all denominations provided schooling, as it was felt that all education should be religious in its nature (O’Donoghue and Byrne 2014). Indeed, churches have long insisted on their right to establish and run their own schools, teaching distinctly denominational doctrine. Nevertheless the ‘growth in government preference for non-denominational education in the closing decades of the nineteenth century led to the abolition of financial aid to denominational schools in each colony in the lead-up to the formation of the

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Commonwealth of Australia in 1901’ (O’Donoghue and Vidovich 2004: 9). Thus, church schools were badly hit by acts of parliament that withdrew state aid, and it was only from the 1950s onwards that they started to benefit again from even a minor amount of financial assistance from the government. In recent times ‘approximately 30% of all schools in Australia are affiliated with a religion, or 94% of private schools’ (Rowe 2017: n.p.). Indeed, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2017), 19.9% of students were enrolled in Catholic schools. Nevertheless, Australia is constitutionally a secular nation with each State and territory having slightly different policies around the inclusion of religion in schools. For example, in Victoria, the Education and Training Reform Act (Parliament of Victoria 2006: 13) states that government schools ‘will provide a secular education and will not promote any particular religious practice, denomination or sect’. Despite such policy wording, all states prioritise some form of segregated RI, while General Religious Education, if offered at all, is poorly supported (Bryne 2014: 106). In recent years, there has been an erosion of underlying secular principles through the continued state funding of religious schools, the National School Chaplaincy Program, religious instruction classes in public schools, and the teaching of creationism. As Maddox (2014: 137) notes ‘[o]ne of the ways in which assumed boundaries of the free, secular public system are blurred is by outsourcing elements of public education to private providers’. Where such private schools are run by religious organisations, this in effect results in the de-secularisation of large parts of the education system. After all, many private Australian schools are ‘Christ-centred, bible-based, tax-payer funded’ (Maddox 2014: 87). The National School Chaplaincy Programme (NSCP) was established in 2006 by the Australian Federal Government as a voluntary program to fund chaplains in primary and secondary schools. It aimed to assist schools in supporting the spiritual, social and emotional wellbeing of students through guidance about ethics, values, relationships and spirituality. Yet numerous problems emerged with the program including questionable professional qualifications, poor management of sensitive student issues, while ignoring opt-out requests and proselytising (Cusack 2015). Furthermore, as Byrne (2014: 105) notes, despite this program operating at a federal level it has a recruitment and management process that is largely evangelical, with 98% of the 2,712 chaplains registered in 2010 being Christian. While the words ‘religion’ and ‘religious’ are mentioned 24 times in the current Australian curriculum document (ACARA 2015), religion does not appear as a distinct discipline or sub-discipline. Nevertheless, religious instruction classes are still conducted within schools, largely by evangelical groups (Rowe 2017). Differences exist regarding whether students need to opt-out of or opt-into the classes. In the state of Victoria such instruction is held at lunchtime or after school. Problematically, not only does research show that Special Religious Instruction (SRI) volunteers prefer more conservative approaches to religion (Maddox 2014), but Byrne (2012) reports finding creationism being delivered in SRI alongside evolution in science lessons in public schools in Queensland. Ultimately it can be concluded that ‘Australia’s historical approach to religion in public schools has been one where the secular principle is confined to legislation, and rarely examined or practised’ (Byrne 2014: 105).

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Having provided a brief overview of some of the policy context of religious schooling and education, attention will now turn towards the notion of governmentality.

6.5 Religious Schooling, Governmentality and Neoliberalism French social historian Michel Foucault was not a scholar of religious systems, yet his work is immensely influential in a number of disciplines including theology and the study of religion. It is worth noting that ‘different Foucaults have been made up in different cultures and intellectual traditions… Foucault made himself up differently overtime and we read him differently now from before’ (Ball 2013: 24). Nevertheless, despite diverse (re)interpretations of his work and varied applications in the field of religious studies, a common focus has emerged around politics and religion. Thus Carrette (2000) remarks on Foucault’s concern with ‘political spirituality’ in his later works, with its emphasis on the political dimensions of religious life. As he notes, Foucault’s approach results in ‘a messing up of the binary categories of the spiritual and the material… Such a reordering transforms the entire field of religion into an immanent process of governmentality’ (Carrette 2000: 137). Similarly Lease (1994: 459) draws on Foucault to argue that religion is ‘a key node for the distribution of power or control’ being ‘ultimately and always a political manifestation’. This resultant political ‘governing of the soul’ can be seen as one of the most realized deployments of Foucault’s notion of governmentality (Rose 1999). Bendle (2002: 16) argues that ‘governmentality is required, Foucault believed, because the modern self is an historically contingent, inherently unstable construction existing in fundamental tension’. Thus, drawing upon Foucauldian insights, the notion of governmentality can be seen as key to understanding religion, not just in broader society but also in schools. Foucault explored the notion of governmentality in two posthumously published courses which he delivered at the College De France in Paris, namely Security, Territory and Population and The Birth of Biopolitics. This concept poses questions not only regarding who governs and who is governed, but also how individuals’ actions are shaped (Mills 2003: 47). Thus a key concern is the ‘the conduct of conduct: that is to say, a form of activity aiming to shape, guide or affect the conduct of some person or persons’ (Gordon 1991: 2). It is broad sweeping, including not only institutions and practices, but also associated knowledge (Foucault 1994: 219– 220). Furthermore Foucault noted that ‘[g]overnment did not refer only to political structures or to the management of states; rather, it designated the way in which the conduct of individuals or of groups might be directed - the government of children, of souls, of communities, of the sick …to control the possible field of action of others’ (Foucault 1982: 341). Thus, as Dean (1999: 18) suggests ‘we govern others and ourselves according to what we take to be true about who we are, what aspects

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of our existence should be worked upon, how, with what means, and to what ends’. Consequently these practices give rise to different ways of constructing ‘truth’. Yet, the notion is not limited to the operation of state processes and knowledge, but also quasi and non-governmental control. In this context the operation of religious schools, the teaching of religion within educational institutions and the socialisation into religious ways of thinking to be found in extracurricular or pastoral activities can all be viewed as aspects of governmentality. Focusing on Foucault’s analysis of neoliberalism and governmentality in The Birth of Biopolitics, raises questions about the role of the market in such processes. Foucault (2008: 116) notes that the post-war German government had to ‘adopt the free market as the organizing and regulating principle of the state… In other words: a state under the supervision of the market rather than a market supervised by the state’. Thus, he argued that the neoliberal government appeared to be safeguarding the market, while also marketising itself, fostering ‘a general regulation of society by the market’ (Foucault 2008: 145). Gane (2012) develops Foucault’s notion of neoliberal governmentality through a discussion of surveillance and the interplay of state and the market in contemporary society. He proposes a four-fold typology of ‘surveillance as discipline, as control, as interactivity, and as a mechanism for promoting competition’ (Gane 2012: 611). First, in ‘governmentality through discipline’ the state and its agencies watch over people in an overt manner. Drawing upon Foucault’s discussion of Bentham’s Panopticon prison design, control within this type operates through people believing that they might be the object of constant surveillance, internalising state monitoring processes and starting to self-police their behaviour. Second, utilising Deleuzes ideas on ‘societies of control’, governmentality through control ‘is where state institutions are not the only ones doing the watching’ (Gane 2012: 630). Consequently social control technologies are devolved from the state to new market-fostered organisations who track and tag mobile individuals. Third, using the concept of the synopticon (Mathiesen 1997), wherein the many watch the few, governmentality through interactivity is where control operates through the viewer society, as the masses watch and are influenced by the behaviour of the few. Significantly Gane (2012) argues engaging in interactivity viewers look to the market not the state for guidance. Finally, using the notion of governmentality to promote competition, market forms are introduced where they did not previously exist. As Gane (2012: 632) notes ‘the market now penetrates all aspects of both state and society, which in turn are to normalize themselves according to market principles’. According to Gane (2012: 632) these four types can operate simultaneously. Drawing upon this typology four main themes can be discerned, which allow for a more nuanced analysis of religion and schooling; namely, increased self-policing including processes of religious responsibilisation (as suggested in governmentalities of discipline), the devolution of state power to religious organisations (evident in governmentalities of control), social control through the masses watching religious icons (echoes of governmentalities through interactivity) and the marketisation of religious education (through governmentality to promote competition). Each of these will be considered in more detail below.

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Governmentalities of discipline operate through panoptic control. Key to understanding this type is Foucault’s discussion of the panopticon, an architectural plan of a prison published in 1791 by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. In this design, backlit, exposed cells are located on the periphery of a circular building, facing inwards towards a darkened watchtower. The prisoners are constantly exposed, but unsure at any moment whether they are being observed from the watchtower. Consequently for the inmates ‘[v]isibility is a trap’ (Foucault 1977: 200), with uncertainty facilitating social control (Lyon 1994: 65). ‘Rational’ individuals are encouraged to behave as if they are being watched, even when they are not. Thus the ‘disciplinary aspect of panoptic observation involves a productive soul training that encourages inmates to reflect upon the minutia of their own behaviour in subtle and ongoing efforts to transform their selves’ (Haggerty and Ericson 2000: 607). Religion in schools has a long history of operating in a panoptic manner. Students are socialised into particular ways of behaving and then encouraged to self-police their actions through an assertion that they may be monitored by staff, fellow students or even spiritual entities. For example, education staff in Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea) were told by the Education Minister Nick Kuman ‘[w]e should know that God is watching everything we do, therefore doing what is right is very important’ (cited in Wayagure 2019: n.p.). Yet such spiritual panopticism goes beyond self-surveillance, with the inherent ‘normalising’ of student conduct and the fostering of responsibilisation. The concept of responsibilisation has strong connections with neoliberal governmentalities, whereby subjects are encouraged to see social risks to health or mental wellbeing not as the responsibility of the state or its agencies, but as a personal responsibility, reconstructing such issues as problems of self-care (Lemke 2001: 201) and consumer choice. Yet it is not just students who are subjected to responsibilisation for, as Kitching (2013: 17) argues from an Irish perspective, parents are evaluated on their ability ‘to combine consumption and religious practices responsibly and authentically’ within its school system. Through governmentalities of control, state power is devolved to non-government organisations, which may include religious institutions. In many countries where state funded schooling is secular this might appear not to be the case. Nevertheless, as already discussed, in Australia religious schools receive funding from government sources. Thus Gerrard (2017: n.p.) notes that ‘Catholic and other non-government schools receive the bulk of their government funding from the federal government. Yet, they also receive funding from the state governments’. In Victoria, the state government provided in excess of A$440 million funding to Catholic schools in 2016. According to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, however, the percentage of Catholic schools in the compulsory education sector has remained around 20% since 1970. In this light, it may be difficult to argue that Federal, State and Territory governments are increasingly devolving schooling provision to the religious sector. Initiatives such as the National School Chaplaincy Programme (NSCP) could be perceived as devolution of sorts, moving some responsibility for spiritual, social and emotional wellbeing of students to the private, religious sector. Nevertheless, within neoliberal markets it might be expected for this devolution to be more substantial. It is also worth noting that Gane (2012) suggests that state power is devolved to new

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agencies of control that emerge from the market, rather than pre-existing organisations. Drawing upon the notion of societies of control, it might be expected that the manner in which power is exerted changes for, as Deleuze (1992: 5), notes ‘[t]he numerical language of control is made of codes that mark access to information or reject it… Individuals have become dividuals and masses, samples, data, markets, or banks’. While not denying the increased importance of data in the school sector, it is somewhat difficult to relate such a privileging of data to religious schools specifically. While the boom in religious apps available for smartphones (Turner 2015) might result in an increase in data harvesting, the growth of ‘dataveillance’ in schools is not focused around religion. This suggests that Gane’s (2012) insights regarding neoliberal governmentalities of control may have a limited role to play in any analysis of religious education. Through governmentalities via interactivity, social control operates via the masses watching ‘celebrities’. This type draws upon Mathiesen’s (1997: 230) notion of the synopticon, which ‘directs and controls or disciplines our consciousness’ through mass media as the many observe the few. ‘Media personalities and commentators … actively filter and shape the news … all of this is performed within the context of a broader hidden agenda of political or economic interests’ (Mathiesen 1997: 226). Such agendas may also be religious. Despite the rise of TV evangelism in years past, religious broadcasting still remains a limited market in most countries. Although religious organisations have sought to capitalise on the use of digital media, research seems to indicate that ‘Internet use may decrease the likelihood of a person affiliating with a religious tradition or believing that only one religion is true’ (Goodrich 2018: n.p.). Consequently, it is difficult to imagine how religious schooling and education might be synoptic, or have strong associations with governmentalities via interactivity. Through governmentality to promote competition, religious education might be subject to increased marketisation. Thus, in addition to a limited ‘rolling back’ of the state in the education sector through devolving certain activities to religious organisations, a ‘rolling out’ of market principles through religious education and schooling could also occur. Yet as with the ‘rolling back’ there is little evidence to support the assertion that religious schooling has an increasing association with the neoliberal market. This is not to deny that religious schools promote market values through the curriculum (both in its formal or hidden variants) or introduce neoliberal actuarial procedures into their organisations in pursuit of greater efficiencies. Such practices, however, do not ‘inject market principles of competition into all spheres of social and cultural life’ as envisaged by Gane (2012: 625). While state funded schools might have become increasingly marketised, through national testing and performance league tables, there is little distinct about religious education and schooling to suggest burgeoning neoliberal practices. Therefore, this form of governmentality might have little to contribute to a discussion of religious schooling. It might appear that while governmentality via panoptic discipline offers some critical insights, the other neoliberal governmentalities outlined by Gane (2012) do not add much to an understanding of how religion and education facilitates social

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control. Yet religious education and schools are not the only way in which religion impacts educational institutions. Rather, in recent years, a facet of religion has emerged that drags it into neoliberal-era schools, while resonating with the governmentalities outlined by Gane (2012). This aspect is fear of radicalisation arising from violent religious extremism.

6.6 Neoliberal Governmentalities and Violent Religious Extremism An initial exploration of how neoliberal governmentalities might operate through religious schooling or education would appear to indicate that the theoretical framework is of limited use in understanding the various social dynamics. Yet, if a broader conceptualisation of religion is adopted, which includes key social issues associated with religion, then the focus can be widened to include violent religious extremism, radicalisation and terrorism. From this viewpoint, neoliberal governmentalities have much to add to an understanding of the interplay between religion and education in contemporary western societies. Both schooling in general and religious education in particular have become a focus for concern about radicalisation and terrorist activities in recent years. This is a result of fears that students might become radicalised into violent religious extremism and the perception that schools can combat this possibility through various educational programs as well as using specialist software. While the meaning of radicalisation is ambiguous (Neumann 2013), current discourses overwhelmingly associate it with violent religious extremism and terror. Consequently, through fear of terrorism, many countries have embedded policies and practices in schools, aimed at combatting radicalisation. For example, under the U.K. Counter-terrorism and Security Act (2015), schools are required to prevent students being drawn into terrorism. This resulted in organisations such as the UK National Union of Teachers complaining that teachers were being moulded into ‘frontline stormtroopers, who listen … spy and notify the authorities’ (cited in Khaleeli 2015: n.p.). Thus actual surveillance of students’ religious discussion and behaviour increase as ‘teachers are now expected to be able to spot radicalisation and also to report children’s interest in extreme ideologies, even where these are legal’ (Francis 2015: n.p.). Hopkins (2007: 197) notes that faced with increased suspicion and monitoring of religious behaviour some young people play down their ‘Muslimness’, performing notions of ‘safeness’. Similarly Mythen et al. (2013: 391) suggest that young Muslims engage in hushing, through moderation of religious and political views, and checking, which includes ‘normalising’ their dress as well as limiting some behaviours in public. Such actions can be seen as an increase in students self-policing their behaviour due to increased surveillance and fear surrounding particular religious views. While there is an increase in social control through governmentalities of discipline, as a consequence of a fear of violent religious extremism within schools, it is in the other types

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of neoliberal governmentalities identified by Gane (2012) that the most pronounced changes occur. Within governmentalities of control, two key changes are notable once counterterrorism strategies are added to an exploration of the relationship between religion and education. First, ‘[t]he numerical language of control’ (Deleuze 1992: 5) is more pronounced as the monitoring of personal digital data (‘dataveillance’) grows exponentially. Several companies market anti-radicalisation software that monitors whether students are searching for radical religious material, flagging words such as ‘Islamism’, ‘jihadi bride’, ‘caliphate’ and ‘You Only Die Once’ (Taylor 2015). Such software is part of a growing school-based market that focuses upon threat evaluation. Moreover, social media monitoring products devices are intended to give warnings not just of potential school shootings, cyberbullying or cheating, but also possible extremist activities in which students might be engaging (Hope 2018). Indeed, in recent years, school security has become a multi-billion dollar industry, with private companies engaging in the hard sell of such software and monitoring, despite little evidence that they are effective tools (Hope 2018). This highlights the second change resulting from an expansion of the notion of religion in education to include antiradicalisation; namely, the devolution of control from the state to private companies, with the growth of the educational technological security market, driven at least partly by fear of religious extremism. Revisiting the notion of governmentalities through interactivity, and expanding the analysis of religious education to include radicalisation raises the question of how the media might be disciplining students’ consciousness with regards this issue. As Bauman (1998: 53–4) remarks ‘locals watch globals… the globals are literally out of this world, but their hovering above the worlds of the local is much more, daily and obtrusively, visible than that of the angels who once hovered over the Christian world’. In the ‘viewer’ society, spaces are overrun by the personal lives of the few, ‘a royalty that guides instead of ruling’ (Bauman 1998: 54). Here the language of the few observed by the many becomes vital as ‘words with dissimilar meanings are substituted for one another; slippage means that extremism is ‘understood’ as violent extremism’ (Hope and Matthews 2018: 164). Indeed, before 2001, the word ‘radicalisation’ suggested a move to radical politics, but ‘by 2004 the term… [signified] a psychological or theological process by which Muslims move towards extremist views’ (Kundnani 2012: 7). This echoes the tendency to use words and phrases such as ‘fundamentalist’, ‘radical’, ‘extremist’, ‘violent religious extremist’ and ‘terrorist’ as if they are synonymous, which they are not (Miller 2013: 189). Suggesting that the synoptic influence might reside in the language used, rather than the actions of the few, could be criticised as reconstructing Mathiesen’s (1997) conceptualisation as a more general media theory, whilst offering little evidence to support the assumptions about narrative influence. Yet links between religion and terrorism are not only embedded in government educational policy. Research on media images of Islam in the UK between 2000 and 2008 found that the dominant representations included associations with extremism and terrorism (Moore et al. 2018). Bauman (1999: 156) argues that ‘[o]nce the state recognises the priority and superiority of the market over the laws of the polis, the citizen is transmuted into the

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consumer’. While Gane (2012: 624) labels this discussion of neoliberalism as undertheorized, Bauman’s insights allow for an expansion of governmentality to promote competition to include consumerism. No longer does this analysis need to be limited to a consideration of the ‘rolling out’ of market principles into schools, a line of enquiry which even through the prism of terrorism proves to be a cul-de-sac. Rather, the role of consumers in this form of governmentality suggests a new line of enquiry, one far more productive than focusing on the purchasing of religious schooling. As individuals and schools are increasingly held responsible for ensuring that violent religious ideas do not infiltrate schools, the responses to such risks become increasingly commodified. The resultant new consumer choices offer a further opportunity for marketisation. Not only do techno-surveillance devices aimed at combatting religious radicalisation in schools offer the promise of purchasing safety, they can also be seen as aspirational, suggesting greater ‘control’ over consumers’ everyday lives while hinting at future lifestyles. As Casella (2010: 79–80) argues ‘[s]chool officials and parents have been convinced that security equipment is an invaluable part of creating a successful school… technology (including security technology) is a sign of advancement’. In this context, the notion of terrorism, and associated terms, facilitates the greater marketisation of religion in schools, through expansion into the techno-security industry. This results in new products and increased consumer choice injecting competition into new spheres of life (Gane 2012: 625). The actual value of such products might be less important that the fact they exist and result in the growth of new markets. Consequently, concerns about radicalisation and violent religious extremism have enabled an increased marketisation of religion-related issues in education.

6.7 Conclusion: From Radicalisation to Radical Religion and Ethics Within the discipline and practice of education, religion remains highly relevant. It is crucial not only in understanding historical and contemporary society, but can also aid in navigating social, moral and ethical issues. Indeed, despite doctrinal differences, most religions share a common ethical framework regarding the treatment of fellow humans. Although Hemming (2011: 63) notes that ‘[o]ne of the keys charges against state-funded schools is that they contribute to ethnic and religious segregation’, a more radical approach to religious education would facilitate greater understanding of cultural differences, power and disadvantage, while seeking to promote social change. Drawing upon Foucault’s concept of governmentality it is possible to perceive how religion and education can engender social control. After all, self-policing is at the heart of many religious and school practices, while revealingly panoptic power has being described as ‘soul training’. Adding Gane’s (2012) insights about neoliberal governmentalities initially appears to reveal little more about religious education.

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Despite religion annually generating a third of a trillion dollars in economic activity in the US alone (Grim and Grim 2016), it would seem that neoliberal processes of devolving state power, increasing mediatisation and growing marketisation have limited impact upon religious education. Nevertheless, if the concept of religion is broadened to include related social issues within education, then it becomes necessary to consider policies and practices around violent religious extremism and radicalisation. From this viewpoint, it can be seen that counter-radicalisation initiatives within education, which are predominantly focused on religion, have resulted in greater control through neoliberal governmentalities of discipline, of control, of interactivity and of marketisation. Yet, where there is control, there is also the possibility of resistance. While an aspect of religion may have been co-opted by the state and techno-security organisations, the resultant social harm can be addressed through a different facet of religion. Thus, notions of radicalisation in schooling systems and broader societies can be challenged by radical religions and ethics education. Recognising that ‘established’ knowledge about both religion and education is not value free, with some people benefiting more from dominant discourses, a radical R&E education would seek justice through focusing on issues of social differentiation and power. At the very least, it would expose the limitations of neoliberal practices relating to religious radicalisation and education, opening new possibilities as to how these concerns are deconstructed and addressed. While it has been shown how social control operates through the interplay of religion and education, it should not be forgotten that this same dynamic could foster resistance and the struggle for a more just society.

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Chapter 7

Restorative Justice Christopher D. Marshall

Abstract Restorative justice has been described as one of the most significant innovations in the administration of criminal justice to have arisen in the modern era. From small scale experimental beginnings in the early 1970s, it has since grown into a global social movement for change, embracing a diversity of discursive and peacemaking practices in a wide range of settings. While the story behind the emergence of the modern restorative justice movement is contested, there is good reason not to discount the contribution of religious faith to the genesis, theory and practice of restorative justice. In fact, without the influence of core Christian values and beliefs, the central tenets of restorative justice might not emerge with such clarity and conviction.

The term restorative justice is used today to refer to specific responses to criminal offending, or to other significant harms caused by civil conflicts or injustices, that focus on achieving emotional, relational or material repair rather than on conviction and punishment. Although some advocates claim restorative justice has been “the dominant model of criminal justice throughout most of history for all the world’s peoples” (Braithwaite 2000: 323), the beginnings of the modern restorative justice movement are usually traced back to initiatives that emerged in North America in the early 1970s. The principal innovation to appear at this time was the practice of using a facilitated victim-offender dialogue to explore the harm perpetrated by the offending and to determine what should be done to demonstrate accountability and promote reconciliation and repair. As its originators reflected critically on the relational dynamics and principled basis of this practice, an entirely new model for conceptualizing the nature of crime and the meaning of justice, and, by implication, the larger goals of the criminal justice system, took shape. Theory grew from practice, and practice was, in turn, deepened and extended by developing theory, and together they gave rise to a productive new field of criminal justice inquiry called restorative justice. C. D. Marshall (B) Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Babie and R. Sarre (eds.), Religion Matters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_7

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The speed with which this new approach gained global traction is quite extraordinary. From small-scale beginnings in Canada and the US, over the past 35 years thousands of restorative justice programmes have sprung up all around the world. Victim-offender mediation has been recognized by major professional bodies, such as the American Bar Association in 1994 and the National Association for Victim Assistance in 1995; it has received legislative mandate in several jurisdictions, perhaps most influentially in New Zealand; and has been endorsed by major multinational bodies, such as the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the European Union. As interest in restorative justice has exploded, so, too, has the diversity of ways in which the concept is understood and applied. Restorative justice has been termed one of the “big ideas” in current legal and criminological thought, and one of the most significant innovations in the administration of justice to have emerged in the modern era. Such big and creative ideas tend to become enormously elastic and increasingly contested, however (Marshall 2012: 4–7, 301–03; Johnstone 2012: 1–8, 133–59). The story behind the emergence of the modern restorative justice movement is likewise contested. There are different “origins stories” in circulation, different ways of accounting for the way various social, cultural, and political concerns converged in the 1990s around the notion of restorative justice. This is hardly surprising. Social reform movements are nearly always eclectic in nature. They are shaped by a wide array of historical forces and contending interests, and it is often impossible to isolate or assess the contribution that each strand has made to the resulting hybrid. In some accounts, religion played only a negligible role in generating the restorative justice movement. More significant, in these accounts, was a mounting loss of confidence over the 1970–80s in the capacity of the formal justice system to deter crime and rehabilitate offenders or to respond adequately to the needs of victims and a consequent rise of interest in alternative, community-based problem-solving mechanisms, such as mediation. Also influential was the rise of feminism, with its critique of the gendered nature of justice processes and outcomes, the growth of indigenous justice movements, and the emergence of transitional justice mechanisms for addressing past human rights abuses perpetrated by authoritarian regimes. In other accounts of origins, along with these signs of a growing disenchantment with the conventional justice system and the search for alternative ways of doing business, spiritual and theological ideals also played a formative role in shaping the movement’s distinctive vision of justice and its reconciliation rituals. Annalise Acorn, who is a sharp critic of restorative justice, rightly recognizes that “many of the philosophical roots of restorative justice are theological. Pulls toward and away from institutions of restorative justice are bound up with our feelings about a relationship to the divine” (Acorn 2004: 19).1 This theological connection is not always recognized by contemporary commentators, however. They may acknowledge the 1 The

quote continues, “The more we are emotionally drawn to a religious ethic of love, the more we will be motivated to make restorative justice work. The more we have both a longing for some conflation of love or compassion and justice (and some theoretical framework within which to situate the possibility of that conflation), the more we will be motivated to persist in the project of justice-as-repair. The more we are committed to an ethic of nonviolence, the more we suffer at the

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religious identity of some of the movement’s earliest trailblazers but tend to minimize or disregard the significance of their faith traditions in shaping the restorative values, principles and processes they advocated. This tendency is symptomatic of a broader inclination in secular scholarship, and in modern society in general, to regard religion itself as an epiphenomenon, as the product of more fundamental social, cultural, economic or political drivers rather than as an elemental and relatively autonomous source of meaning and motivation. Despite this proclivity to marginalize the creative capacity of religious commitment to generate societal change, there are good reasons not to discount the contribution of religious faith to the genesis of the modern restorative justice movement. Not only were the first architects of victim-offender dialogue Christian peace activists intentionally striving to put their spiritual and ethical beliefs into practice in the public arena, but the first and most influential book in the field—Howard Zehr’s 1990 volume, Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice—was written for a church audience, published by a denominational publishing house, and included an entire chapter on the biblical conception of “covenantal justice” (Zehr 1990: 126– 57). This book went on to have a much wider readership than anticipated, but the biblical theology of peace and justice that informed its argument served, one might say, as midwife at the birth of restorative justice. Indeed, without the influence of other core Christian values and beliefs attested in the book, the central tenets of restorative theory might not have emerged with such clarity and conviction. Before saying more about how this religious impulse and universe of meaning helped launch the movement, it worth pausing to consider what restorative justice has since become and why the terminology continues to act as a magnet for a wide range of social justice concerns, a fact that has only heightened the ambiguity and contested nature of the master concept itself.

7.1 Why “Restorative” Justice? While there is no universally agreed definition of restorative justice, and the legitimate scope of its application is widely debated today, there remains something recognizably distinctive about a restorative way of construing and addressing personal and social harms, something that sets it apart from the more familiar retributive or therapeutic ways of doing so. This distinctiveness lies in its peculiar combination of values, processes, and intended outcomes. This threefold combination means that the most helpful way to attempt to define or capture the meaning of restorative justice is to ensure that all three components are included in the formulation. One attempt by me to do so is as follows: Restorative justice involves a voluntary, relational process whereby those with a personal stake in an offence or conflict or injustice come together, in a safe and respectful environment, thought of inflicting suffering on others. The more we are drawn to the value of harmony, the more the aspirations of restorative institutions will appear worthwhile to us.”.

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with the help of skilled facilitators, to speak truthfully about what happened and its impact on their lives, to clarify accountability for the harms that have occurred, and to resolve together how best to promote repair and bring about positive changes for all involved.

Each element of this definition requires further elaboration, but, importantly, the definition incorporates the distinctive process of restorative justice (a facilitated dialogue between those directly involved in harmful events), its undergirding relational values (including freedom of choice, respectful communication, truthfulness, accountability, and equal concern) and the envisioned goals or outcomes of the practice (the clarification of what happened in the past and its impact, and collaborative decision-making about how best to promote repair and achieve positive changes in the future for all involved). This integration of values, processes, and goals is sometimes expressed as a series of foundational principles, and while there is no unanimity on how best to define restorative justice, there is a broad agreement on its core principles. The first person to use the term restorative justice to describe this way of addressing crime was criminal justice historian and activist Howard Zehr, in the early 1980s. This is not to say that Zehr was the first person ever to bring the two words together, but he was the first to use the collocation as a terminus technicus. Several attempts have been made to trace the tradition-based history of the concept, but it is important to recognize in doing so the difference between occasional, incidental uses of the adjective “restorative” to qualify the generic precept of justice, and the deliberate, technical use of the phrase to name a specific social reality and philosophy. Christian Gade’s recent analysis has identified six known occurrences of the words “restorative justice” in nineteenth and early twentieth century sources, all of them, interestingly, in a Christian context, but with no clear, shared or connected meaning (Gade 2018). The first modern author to employ the combination in a specifically criminological setting was American psychologist Albert Eglash, in a 1958 essay entitled, “Creative Restitution: A Broader Meaning for an Old Term,” (Eglash 1958) and, again, in a series of other short articles on the same theme over the following years (Eglash 1959), one of which was included in a 1977 anthology on restitution (Eglash 1977). Eglash’s choice of the term may have been influenced by its prior appearance in the 1955 English translation of a German work entitled The Biblical Doctrine of Justice and Law, where it is used to describe an inward transformation or healing of the human condition that the law itself can never achieve. “Restorative justice, as it is revealed in the Bible”, the authors propose, “alone has positive power for overcoming sin” (Shrey et al. 1955: 182–83; Van Ness and Heetderks 2006: 22– 23). Eglash did not offer any detailed explanation for his choice of the term, but, while reading his 1977 essay, Howard Zehr was struck by its aptness for describing the alternative approach to justice that he and his colleagues had been formulating for years, and he appropriated it for that purpose.2 Although Eglash had formerly used the term, Eglash himself did not want to be credited with inventing the new field of restorative justice (Noakes-Duncan 2017: 99–100). He recognized that this accolade belongs to Howard Zehr who was the first to use the phrase to name a distinctive 2 Zehr’s

explanation is cited in full in Gade (2018, 30).

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criminal justice practice and philosophy focused on repair and reconciliation, a new paradigm for conceptualizing the criminal justice problem and its remedy, a “third way” between the prevailing retributive and rehabilitative models that have long dominated criminal justice discourse. The suitability of the name has not been without its critics, however. Some think it implies an attempt to recover some prior state of equilibrium or harmony, as though the clock can be turned back and the past retrieved. But there are some losses that can never be made good—such as the life of a murder victim, or the independence of someone disabled by a drunk driver, or the innocence of a child subjected to sexual abuse—and even lesser offences, like theft or common assault, often change things forever for their victims, even if any material losses incurred may be reimbursed. Furthermore, there are many situations where seeking to reinstate the past would be wholly detrimental, for it would serve to entrench the systemic injustices or power imbalances that have contributed to individual acts of offending and that need to be challenged and changed, not restored. To avoid such regressive implications, alternative labels for the new model have been suggested, such as transformative justice, collaborative justice, community justice, non-adversarial justice, therapeutic justice, relational justice, or reparative justice, though each of these terms has acquired their own distinctive nuances of meaning or modes of application (King et al. 2014). Despite such misgivings, it is the name restorative justice that has stuck. It has resonated with people all over the world, possibly because it suggests that justice is about achieving concrete change. It is not about upholding abstract principles or legal doctrines or human rights standards or moral codes or metaphysical beliefs. True justice changes things on the ground: it rectifies past wrongs, repairs present harms, and restores future wellbeing and safety. If we characterise restorative justice as a distinctive combination of values, processes and outcomes, the term “restorative” elucidates all three levels. In terms of values, restorative justice seeks to restore respect, dignity and peace to relationships that have been damaged by wrongdoing. To be the object of intentional malice is often experienced by victims as a fundamental act of disrespect, a failure to value the sufferer’s intrinsic worth, identity, rights and feelings, as though these things don’t really matter. Such disrespect can only be remedied by a restoration of respect, by a clear acknowledgement on the part of the person responsible for the contemptuous behaviour that the victim did not deserve to be treated as they were and that their rights, feelings and interests do indeed matter, every bit as much as their own. In terms of process, restorative justice restores agency, ownership, and decisionmaking power to those directly affected by the harmful event—victims, offenders, their families and supporters, and the wider community. Victimization is also commonly experienced as a form of disempowerment, a loss of control over one’s life and security and a disconnection from those who have failed to provide protection or care. This feeling of disempowerment is often exacerbated by participation in the criminal trial process over which victims have no control and that renders them largely passive spectators on their own suffering. A similar disempowerment is experienced by defendants, whose case is presented on their behalf by paid advocates and who passively await the trial’s outcome of verdict and sentencing. By contrast, rather than

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deferring all responsibility to the state or to legal professionals, restorative justice aims to restore instrumental power to resolve the harm to the immediate participants. In terms of outcomes, by striving to repair the harms caused by the crime, restorative justice seeks to restore wellbeing to the individuals affected and to restore the relationship between them to a just condition. Both goals are crucial and inseparable. Individual wellbeing is promoted by trying to meet the needs of moral repair, such as having one’s voice heard, one’s experience validated, one’s story verified, one’s integrity or innocence vindicated, and one’s intrinsic value affirmed (Walker 2006). Yet because human beings are irreducibly relational creatures, none of this can happen apart from restoring the relationship between the parties to a just condition, that is, to a condition in which both sides recognize the rights, dignity and legitimate interests of the other (Llewellyn and Philpott 2014). To speak of relational restoration in this connection does not necessarily imply the reconciliation of formerly estranged parties: the participants may not have known each other before the event occurred. Nor does it mean the advent of personal warmth or intimacy between them in the future: the two parties may agree never to see each other again (Marshall 2012: 309–12). Rather it means that the nature of the relationship between them, as fellow citizens and fellow human beings, as well as co-participants in the harmful episode, is restored to a rightful state, that is, to one marked by equality of concern, dignity, freedom from deceit or coercion, and (at least minimal) social trust (London 2011; Marshall 2015a). It is because interpersonal relationships are reciprocal and storied realities, one of the most effective ways to initiate such restoration is by means of direct or mediated encounter between the parties where the story of the damage done through the collision of their lives in the harmful event is told as truthfully and fully and respectfully and compassionately as possible, and where all those directly affected can together decide what is needed to write a new chapter in the saga, so that the relationship is restored to rightness. This is the heart of restorative justice.

7.2 Expanding Field of Application Not only has the term restorative justice proved surprisingly apposite for depicting the distinctive values, processes, and outcomes of the approach, it has also shown itself to be remarkably versatile. Initially the concept was used solely with respect to criminal justice concerns, and there are still theorists and practitioners who insist the phrase should only be used for responses to criminalizable actions (Rosenblatt 2015: 5–40). But the semantic field of the term has expanded considerably over recent years and now includes a range of discursive and peace-making practices beyond the criminal justice system as well—in schools, families, workplaces, human services providers, voluntary associations, community groups, businesses, governance bodies, and regulatory agencies. The key development that encouraged this enlarged application was the introduction of restorative thinking and practice into the education system, beginning in

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the late 1990s.3 This was a significant move because schools have a unique role in fostering the kind of social change required if restorative justice is to succeed in transforming fundamental beliefs in the community about justice and punishment. Only a small minority of the general population (usually less than 5%) ends up entangled in the criminal justice system, but everyone goes to school (at least in developed countries) and everyone is influenced in some significant way by what happens in schools. On the one hand, there is a feedback link from schools to the households and families from which the children come. Children take home what they have learned at school and this can affect changes in the attitudes of parents, relatives, and caregivers. On the other hand, there is a forward link from schools to the workplaces, community organisations, and public institutions to which students go after finishing their education. What they have imbibed at school plays out in their later occupations, relationships and involvements. This is why changes in the education system, more than in any other institution in society, have the greatest potential for triggering ripple effects into other areas of social life. When educationists first began thinking about the potential of restorative justice in schools, they were looking for new ways of dealing with serious misbehaviour in place of traditionally punitive methods, such as stand-downs, suspensions, and expulsion. This quest was driven by growing alarm over the so-called “school-to-prison pipeline”, the realisation that kids kicked out of school are statistically far more likely to end up before the courts and to be incarcerated than are those who remain in school. They are also more likely to figure in the full range of other negative social indicators, such as unemployment, drug and alcohol abuse and addiction, sexual abuse, physical and mental health disorders, domestic violence, self-harm and suicide. Concerned about the deleterious downstream consequences of punitive exclusion, some schools began exploring the use of restorative justice as a less harmful alternative. These schools quickly found, however, that if restorative interventions are confined to a string of one-off responses to disciplinary incidents, the benefits are limited and transient. But if a restorative ethos starts to permeate the whole way the school operates, including the way staff members interact with each another, the results can be dramatic. The ideal of becoming a “restorative school” soon emerged. In some cases, this label simply signaled a decision to use restorative forms of discipline in place of suspension or expulsion. But in other cases, it indicated a firm commitment to nurture a restorative climate throughout the entire school community, one that emphasizes mutual respect, unconditional belonging, universal participation, consensus decision-making, empathy, responsibility, and the cultivation of social and emotional learning skills. In so doing, these schools expanded the scope of restorative justice beyond negative disciplinary measures to include positive relationshipbuilding practices and efforts to achieve institutional culture change. They also provided a prototype for how other large groups, organizations, and workplaces could similarly aspire to function in a more integrated, relational way, both by responding restoratively to damaging events that occur in their midst and by using restorative 3 There

is a vast literature on the use of restorative practices in education. For a recent stocktake by some of its pioneers, see Thorsborne et al. (2019).

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tools proactively to nurture caring, supportive connections between people in the organization. As a result of this expanded field of application, it has become routine in the literature to speak not only of restorative justice but also of restorative practices, restorative organizations, restorative communities, restorative regulatory systems, restorative leadership, even of restorative cities and restorative societies, and to view them as different faces of the same diamond, as varied applications of the same values, principles, and relational philosophy. Moreover, they can be discerned as distinct manifestations of a grander social movement for a more inclusive, peaceful, and participatory democracy.4 On this understanding, restorative justice is more than a novel approach to crime control or a new set of victim-sensitive justice practices. These things are but the tip of a very large iceberg, a project aimed at the creation of interpersonal relationships and societal institutions that conscientiously foster human dignity, equality, freedom, mutual respect, democratic participation and collaborative governance. The comprehensiveness of this larger restorative vision is probably no accident. Arguably it is encoded in the DNA of the approach, for it calls to mind the biblical notion of shalom that directly informed Howard Zehr’s groundbreaking proposal. Shalom is the biblical Hebrew word for “peace”. In the Bible, peace means more than the absence of armed conflict and violence. Rather it denotes the positive presence of harmony and wholeness, of health and prosperity, of integration and balance. It is a state of soundness and flourishing in all the dimensions of one’s existence—in one’s relationship with God, with others in society, with nature and the created order, and with one’s own self (Yoder 1982; Swartley 2006). Shalom is where everything is as it ought to be, a condition of “all-rightness” in every department of life. It thus combines in one concept the meaning of both justice and peace, which are inseparable ingredients of the same reality. There can be no peace without justice, and no true justice without peacemaking, that is, without working non-violently to bring hostility to an end and achieve reconciliation between contending parties (Marshall 2015a: 12–14). This all-encompassing biblical concept of shalom had a hugely formative role in shaping the original vision and practice of restorative justice. This is not to say that Christianity can claim exclusive proprietary rights to the restorative justice ideal. There are precedents and parallels in other cultural and religious traditions as well. Furthermore, as the modern restorative justice movement has grown and spread, it has been molded by a wide array of influences and interests, ranging from indigenous 4 “To

refer to restorative justice as a social movement is not to say that restorative justice programs comprise a unified body of actors or that restorative justice philosophies form an undifferentiated body of ideas…this is clearly not the case for restorative justice, but this is also not true for most, if any, social movements. Social movements are networks in which actors with varying interpretations of what the movement is about, and different levels of commitment to the movement, negotiate the meaning of a linked set of ‘big ideas’ as well as their ideal application in everyday life…Thus a social movement is not a single group or organization but rather a host of individual and collective agents engaged in a process of movement definition, issue or grievance articulation, activism and program implementation.” (Woolford 2009: 19).

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dispute resolution practices to the feminist ethics of care, from relational sociology and positive psychology to affect theory, organizational psychology and the insights of modern neuroscience. Instead of a single taproot sinking ever deeper into its theological point of origin, the restorative seed sprouted a fibrous or tangled root system, fanning out in all directions to draw sustenance from sundry sources of knowledge and experience. This has given restorative justice from its inception a dynamic or synthetic quality, which remains a singular strength. Constantly evolving and expanding, it has incorporated insights into human behaviour and interpersonal relationships from diverse disciplinary sources and intellectual traditions, and has proved itself adaptable to a wide range of social and cultural contexts. Yet, notwithstanding its heterogeneous character, it is still noteworthy that the first people to articulate modern restorative justice philosophy and practice did so in the context of a particular religious tradition, with distinctive religious beliefs and commitments. As noted earlier, the generative power of this faith tradition is often overlooked today, especially in criminological literature, but arguably its legacy is evident in the emphasis on relational wholeness and human transformation that characterizes much of the wider contemporary restorative movement. Carolyn Boyes-Watson makes this point in her recent account of the origins and future of restorative justice. She expresses extreme pessimism about the future of restorative justice as a technocratic or managerial solution to the inadequacies of current criminal justice system, as is currently favoured by legislators and policymakers. She is much more optimistic, however, about its future in the new wave of restorative justice activism that is engaging with issues of oppression, discrimination, economic injustice, and environmental abuse. Here there is no separation between politics and ethics, between justice and spirituality, head-thinking and heart-thinking, individual transformation and societal change. The goal is not just to resolve individual conflicts over past harms but to build an all-embracing and enduring just peace. Boyes-Watson traces this holistic aspiration back to the unifying vision of shalom and to the “essentially spiritual and ethical understandings of ‘right relationship’” that Howard Zehr originally identified as the touchstones of the restorative justice paradigm, as well as to the movement’s original goal of building the “beloved community”, not simply of forging a more efficient and effective criminal justice system (Boyes-Watson 2019). These are also the original features of restorative justice that made it so congruent with indigenous ways of seeing the world. There are clear resemblances between restorative justice processes and the mechanisms used in traditional societies for addressing harm and restoring balance, and not a few observers have attributed the emergence of restorative justice directly to the inspiration of indigenous ways of doing justice, especially in North America and New Zealand. The reality is more complex than that. But the striking similarity or overlap between the two approaches could be explained in terms of the overt role given to spiritual values and beliefs in first shaping restorative justice. In both biblical and indigenous worldviews, there is an instinctive recognition that doing justice in the face of transgression is a deeply spiritual undertaking (Marshall 2005b). It is not simply a matter of assessing facts, determining blame, and allocating penalties. It is also about addressing the loss of what M¯aori call mana or spiritual dignity caused by the offence, a lifting of the

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shame inflicted on the victim and incurred by the offender and shared by their wider kinship groups, past and present. It is a repairing of the rupture done to the fabric of the community and cleansing of the land from impurity and restoring order and balance to the cosmic domain which interconnects all things. While such numinous convictions are largely foreign to the modern secular mind, they are by no means foreign to the Bible or to its conception of justice that inspired the first pioneers of victim-offender reconciliation.

7.3 Religious Roots As mentioned at the outset, a good case can be made for commencing the modern restorative justice story in Ontario, Canada in 1974, where a Mennonite probation officer, Mark Yantze, and a Volunteer Service manager for a Christian NGO called Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), Dave Worth, with permission from the sentencing judge, took two young men who had vandalized 22 properties in the small town of Elmira door to door to meet their victims to discuss reparation and offer to do community work. The victims responded in variety of ways to the meetings, but afterwards the judge ordered the youths to pay restitution to the victims as a condition of probation. Over the next three months, the two teenagers personally handed over cheques to each of the victims to cover their losses. The idea of suggesting to the court that the boys should have the opportunity to meet their victims face to face had arisen during a small group discussion of Mennonite community workers who were, as Thomas Noakes-Duncan explains, “seeking to develop practices in the criminal justice system more in line with their Christian peace-making tradition” (Noakes-Duncan 2017, 88). Historically, the Anabaptist Mennonite tradition had practised a principled separation of the church from worldly affairs and particularly from any involvement in state-sanctioned violence. In the post-war period, however, a new, more engaged understanding of the nature of the Christian witness to the state had begun to emerge (Yoder 1964). One expression of this new style of engagement was the idea of establishing “listening posts” close to sites of governmental power, such as the courts and prison system, where radical alternatives, based on the so-called “politics of Jesus”, could be enacted.5 Central to the putative politics of Jesus was a commitment to peace or shalom in its full-orbed sense. Traditionally for Mennonites, a peace commitment had been limited to non-involvement in war and non-resistance to aggression. But the political praxis of Jesus indicated that it also requires active identification with the needs of the oppressed, the weak, and the downtrodden, and working to bring about deliverance, healing, and social change. The way of peace, in other words, is equally the way of justice, and working for justice necessarily requires the use of peace-making 5 Highly

influential in inspiring this new wave of Anabaptist peace activism was John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus (1972), along with his many other publications, such as The Original Revolution (1971). See further Koontz and Alexis-Baker (2009).

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methods. These methods must confront rather than ignore structural and systemic evil while also promoting reconciliation between hostile parties. Universal reconciliation, indeed, is the ultimate telos of biblical justice, the sign that unjust relationships have been put right and peace restored (Noakes-Duncan 2017: 91; Marshall 2018a). Armed with this bracing theological understanding, progressive Mennonites began looking for ways to bring the rich resources of their peace church tradition to bear on sites of violence and conflict in society, including the penal justice system. The positive experience of bringing the four young men in Elmira into direct contact with their victims led to the birth of the first Victim Offender Reconciliation Program—or VORP—which was established in Kitchener, Ontario, in 1976, and two years later in Elkhart, Indiana. As the name suggests, the aim of VORP was to bring victims and offenders together, with a volunteer mediator, to talk about the wrong that had been done and how it could be repaired, thus paving the way for reconciliation to occur. Reconciliation was the overriding goal, for, as Noakes-Duncan explains, the project was “birthed as an experiment in enacting God’s peaceable kingdom in the midst of the criminal justice system” (Noakes-Duncan 2017: 88). The programme flourished over the following years, with more than 20 VORP projects in existence by the early 1980s. It also spawned several other churchsupported initiatives in community justice, mediation, and victim services. Despite its success, there was a marked reticence about having the outcomes of VORP formally evaluated, since reconciliation is, by its nature, a profound moral and spiritual transformation that cannot be scientifically measured. This reluctance, together with the use of church volunteers to run the meetings, meant the programme received only a lukewarm reception from many criminal justice professionals. Such resistance was not unexpected for Mennonites, who had experienced a long history of state-sponsored persecution, and was attributable to the fact VORP was expressly based on “a Christian understanding of crime and the role of reconciliation [that] draws directly on biblical models and principles” (Zehr 1984: 5). Attempts to secularize or institutionalize the programme, its founders cautioned, would come at a cost. Intellectual capital for the programme came principally from the work of Dr. Howard Zehr. In the training manuals, promotional materials, and other literature Zehr produced, a new way of thinking about justice, crime, and punishment took shape. This found its mature expression in his 1990 book, Changing Lenses. Perhaps the most impressive feature of the book is the way it brings together insights from recent biblical scholarship on law, covenant, community, and peace with the work of criminal justice theorists, such as Herman Bianchi and Nils Christie, together with Zehr’s own academic research on the evolution of the Western criminal justice system. In this respect, Changing Lenses is not primarily a work of criminology, it is an outstanding example of public theology. Public theology is the attempt of Christian thinkers to address issues of common concern in society in light of the special truth claims, insights, and moral convictions of Christian faith and in a manner intelligible to all citizens (Marshall 2014: 22–43). Though aimed primarily at his fellow believers, Zehr’s analysis resonated with secular readers as well, and the book went on to have a significant impact on criminological thought and public policy well beyond its target

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audience. Zehr’s success in this regard may have been helped by the fact that he wrote as a historian and practitioner, not a professional theologian, and his primary goal was to promote social change, not to advance academic debate (Marshall 2015a: 439–44).

7.4 A Curious Legacy But a curious thing has happened in the quarter century since the book’s appearance. The two strands of reflection that are so tightly interwoven in the analysis—the sociological and the theological, the conceptual and the spiritual—have been teased apart again and gone their separate ways, with few analysts now appreciating the innovative nature and productive power of their original combination. The sociological or conceptual strand has given rise to a vigorous new field of legal and criminological studies called restorative justice. As Carolyn Hoyle, editor of the massive four-volume survey, Restorative Justice: Critical Concepts in Criminology, observes, “over the last two decades there has been more written about restorative justice than almost any other criminological topic” (Hoyle 2010: 15). Those writing on the topic frequently acknowledge Zehr’s pioneering role in forging the analytical categories of this new field, such as the concept of crime as a harming of persons more than the breaking of rules; the construal of justice as relational rather than abstract; the emphasis on needs and obligations over rights and retribution; the crucial place of victims as well as perpetrators in the justice process; the role of the local community alongside the state in dispensing justice; and the overarching concern of restorative justice to make things right again, not simply to mark the wrongness of past actions. What is less frequently recognized is the extent to which this conceptual payload is deeply indebted to Zehr’s religious convictions. These convictions are most obvious in the chapter on covenant justice, but they are evident elsewhere in the book as well, such as in his reflections on the dynamics of repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation; his emphasis on the collective nature of guilt and the place of atonement; his relational or covenantal conception of justice and its inseparability from peacemaking; his attempt to disentangle the concepts of crime and sin; his insistence, in company with the biblical prophets and legislators, on prioritizing the rights and needs of victims in the face of their oppressors; his attraction to the language of healing which permeates the Gospel tradition; and in his emphasis on the role of the church as an alternative community of values. Beyond all these details, there is a visionary or prophetic quality to the entire project that also derives from Zehr’s theological presuppositions. In the final pages of the book, Zehr concedes the almost utopian nature of his proposal to reconceptualize justice in restorative or reparative terms, and confesses his own failings to live up to this ideal in his personal life. Yet, I believe in ideals. Much of the time we fall short of them but they remain a beacon, something toward which we aim, something against which to test our actions. They point a direction. Only with a sense of direction can we know when we are far off the path. The

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place to begin experiencing restoration is not from the top but from the bottom, in our homes and communities. I continue to have faith that the community of God’s people can lead in this direction. Certainly, we will often fail, as those in the biblical record did. But just as certainly God will forgive and restore us (Zehr 1990: 228).

Despite all these clues, in most standard accounts of restorative justice the importance of the confessional seedbed from which these restorative ideas emerged is almost entirely elided from the story. This is partly because, as noted earlier, modern secular scholarship struggles to appreciate religion as an elemental and generative reality. It is also because as restorative justice has moved into the mainstream and expanded its field of application, it has necessarily become secularized and subject to a broader set of expectations. Rather than focusing preeminently on the goal of personal reconciliation, it has become linked to more generic social outcomes, such as meeting the needs of victims, reducing recidivism, reintegrating offenders into society, and empowering the local community to resolve harms. As restorative justice has ballooned beyond its initial faith-community setting, it is entirely understandable that secular theorists, policymakers, and practitioners should not wish to engage with the theological convictions and motivations that helped birth the movement, and to focus instead on its broader societal application and constituency. Doing so has brought a welcome enrichment of both theory and practice. But it has also come at some loss. Some observers have noted that as restorative justice has moved into the centre of criminological discourse, the language of repentance, forgiveness, grace, reconciliation, mercy, peace, and love has become increasingly rare, and is sometimes actively resisted, partly because of the difficulties of transposing such virtues into public policy and legislative direction. Yet it is these qualities and commitments that contribute to the oft-called transformative “magic” of restorative justice without which it risks being reduced to just another technocratic procedure for crime control rather than what it actually is: an exercise in moral and spiritual truthfulness. This depth dimension is easier to sustain when we appreciate the spiritual components of justice-making and the capacity of faith traditions to illuminate and energize such spirituality (Marshall 2015b; Hadley 2001; Umbreit and Armour 2010: 67–8). It also helps guard against the greatest peril restorative justice faces today as it is increasingly incorporated into existing systems of social control and punishment, that of becoming dependent on and captured by the values of the retributive system it claims to subvert. Some have even argued that by becoming embedded in the criminal justice system, reliant on it for referrals, funding and accreditation, and by perpetuating rather than challenging the state’s definition of “crime”, “offender” and “victim”, restorative justice is failing to be the radical alternative it aspires to be (Woolford 2009: 134–62). Just as the mainstreaming of restorative justice theory and practice has involved a severing of its religious roots and an unraveling of the theoretical and theological strands interwoven in its original formulation, in Christian circles a similar thing has happened. Faith-based communities have been exceedingly slow to support justice reform policies and to incorporate restorative processes into their own armory of liturgical, catechetical, therapeutic, and decision-making practices. The enormous

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potential of restorative theory to better understand the big themes of the biblical story—the justice of God, the historical mission of Jesus, the work of atonement, the nature of grace, the role of church discipline, the dynamics of forgiveness, the meaning of resurrection and Last Judgment, the mission of the church, and so on— also remains seriously under-realized. Only a small handful of biblical scholars and ethicists have tried to use the restorative paradigm to freshly illuminate these core convictions. For the majority of theological scholars, as well as for most Christian social activists, Christian theology and restorative justice theory remain distinct fields of knowledge, with little obvious interconnection. My own published work over the last 25 years has sought to remedy this gap by following Zehr’s pioneering example of interweaving these two fields of discourse into a seamless whole. My method has been to create a kind of dialogue between restorative justice learning and biblical teaching on law, crime, justice, violence, and punishment. I call it a dialogue because dialogues are two-way conversations, in which both sides are affected, even fundamentally changed, by what the other says. By bringing restorative learning into dialogical encounter with biblical tradition, new ways of understanding both the ancient text and modern justice discourse can emerge. On the one side, foundational biblical themes, such as Paul’s great doctrine of justification by faith, acquire fresh significance when the justice entailed in the doctrine is understood in restorative rather than retributive terms (Marshall 2001: 38–68; Belousek 2012). On the other side, profound biblical insights into human dignity, relational personhood, violence, sin, shame, atonement, grace, forgiveness, judgment, and love can enrich restorative justice practice. It can also help to hold restorative justice practice accountable to its lofty founding ideals of promoting shalom and of building alternative communities of character, ideals so often lost sight of in the attempts of advocates to secularize, institutionalize and universalize its appeal. To take but one example. The parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the best known and most loved stories Jesus told. Its impact on Christian thought and practice, and on Western cultural formation in general, has been incalculable. It is the parable most frequently represented in European art and it has furnished the subject matter of numerous works of music, choreography, drama, literature and philosophy. In my 2012 book Compassionate Justice, I use a restorative justice framework for illuminating this classic tale and probing its relevance to justice practice today (Marshall 2012: 177–245; Marshall 2018b).6 Using such a framework is merited, I suggest, for two reasons: the main characters in the story occupy the roles of three main parties in every incident of criminal wrongdoing (those of offender, victim, and the law-abiding community) and scandal of the story centres on the contestable justice of the father’s response to the prodigal’s return (the older son construes it as a failure of retributive justice, while the father defends it as an act of restorative justice). Just as restorative justice helps illuminate the drama of the parable, so the parable affords to restorative justice a string of searching insights into the psychology of moral change. One of these concerns mechanisms for lifting shame. Several restorative 6 For

a briefer discussion, see Marshall (2018b: 200–225).

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theorists, most notably John Braithwaite, have conceptualized restorative justice as a form of reintegrative shaming as opposed to the stigmatizing shaming of the criminal justice system (Braithwaite 1989). The parable certainly endorses the importance of acknowledging the shame of offending. The prodigal’s words, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you, I am not worthy to be called your son,” drip with a crippling sense of shame. But the narrative suggests that lifting such shame requires more than separating the sin from the sinner and supporting the sinner to make good his wrongs through restitution. It also involves, more demandingly, a compassionate identification with the offender’s suffering, a visible expression of forgiveness, the ritual bestowal of honour in place of shame, and the public celebration of the recipient’s renewed standing in the community as someone no longer labelled by past misdeeds, such as ex-offender, and with full access to the social and economic resources of the community. “We had to celebrate and rejoice”, the father explains to his censorious sibling, “because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found”. From this perspective, restorative justice is not an exercise in positive shaming; it is a process of actively conferring honour, dignity, trust, and social participation in place of anger, ignominy and exclusion.

7.5 Conclusion From modest Mennonite beginnings, over recent decades restorative justice has grown into one of the most significant social change movements in the world. As it has developed, it has been shaped by a diverse array of actors and agencies, and the concept of restorative justice has become more contested than before. It is futile to attribute all that this vigorous and variegated movement represents today to a single source of influence, for, in social movements, and in the history of ideas generally, there is rarely a set of simple causal relationships or a coherent, traceable pattern of development that explains current reality. Yet it remains the case that, as Tom Yoder Neufeld puts it, “the paradigm of restorative justice took shape within the womb of biblically informed piety and ethics. It emerged in the attempt to answer… [the question]: how can persons committed to peace, reconciliation, and restoration inject that set of convictions and reflexes into the public arena of responses to crime?”7 The attempt by a handful of Anabaptist Christian activists to answer that question helped spawn a global movement for change that places the healing of hurts, the renewal of just relationships, the recreation of community, and the strengthening of democratic participation at the heart of its agenda. When religion is brought to life for ends such as these, everyone wins.

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in Noakes-Duncan (2017: 105).

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References Acorn AE (2004) Compulsory compassion: a critique of restorative justice. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver Belousek DWS (2012) Atonement, justice, and peace. the message of the cross and the mission of the church. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids Boyes-Watson C (2019) Looking at the past of restorative justice, normative reflections on its future. In: Gavrielides T (ed) Routledge international handbook of restorative justice. Routledge, London, New York, pp 7–20 Braithwaite J (1989) Crime, shame, and reintegration. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Braithwaite J (2000) Restorative justice. In: Tony MH (ed) Handbook of crime and punishment. Oxford University Press, Cary, North Carolina, pp 323–344 Eglash A (1958) Creative restitution: a broader meaning for an old term. J Crim Law Criminol 48(6):619–622 Eglash A (1959) Creative restitution: its roots in psychiatry, religion and law. Br J Delinq 10(2):114– 119 Eglash A (1977) Beyond restitution: creative restitution. In: Hudson J, Galaway B (eds) restitution in criminal justice: a critical assessment of sanctions. Lexington Books, Lexington, Massachusetts, pp 90–101 Gade CBN (2018) Restorative justice. History of the term’s international and Danish use. In: Nylund A, Ervasti K, Arden L (eds) Nordic mediation research. Springer International, Cham, Switzerland, pp 27–40 Hadley ML (2001) The spiritual roots of restorative justice. State University of New York Press, Albany Hoyle C (2010) General introduction. In: Hoyle C (ed) Restorative justice: critical concepts in criminology, vol 1. Routledge, London, New York, pp 1–16 Johnstone G (2012) Restorative justice: ideas, values, debates. Routledge, London King M, Freiberg A, Batagol B, Hymans R (2014) Non-adversarial justice. Federation Press, Alexandria, New South Wales Kootnz TJ, Alexis-Baker A (2009) Christian attitudes to war, peace, and revolution. In: Yoder JH (ed) Brazos Press, Grand Rapids Llewellyn JL, Philpott D (2014) Restorative justice and reconciliation: twin frameworks for peacebuilding. In: Llewellyn JL, Philpott D (eds) Restorative justice, reconciliation and peacebuilding. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 14–36 London R (2011) Crime, punishment, and restorative justice: from the margins to the mainstream. FirstForumPress, Boulder, London Marshall CD (2001) Beyond retribution: a new testament vision for justice, crime, and punishment. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids Marshall C (2005a) The little book of biblical justice: a fresh approach to the bible’s teachings on justice. Good Books. Intercourse, Pennsylvania Marshall CD (2005b) Reflections on the spirit of justice. In: Maxwell G, James H, Liu JH (eds) Restorative justice and practices in New Zealand: towards a restorative society. Victoria University Institute of Policy Studies, Wellington, pp 311–320 Marshall CD (2012) Compassionate justice: in interdisciplinary dialogue with two gospel parables on law, crime, and restorative justice. Cascade Press, Eugene, Oregon Marshall CD (2014) Parables as paradigms for public theology. In: Neville DJ (ed) The Bible, justice and public theology. Sheffield Phoenix Press, Sheffield, pp 23–44 Marshall CD (2015a) A gracious legacy: changing lenses in New Zealand. Int J Restor Justice 3:439–444 Marshall CD (2015b) Restoring what? the practice, promise and perils of restorative justice in New Zealand. In: Brookbanks Warren (ed) Therapeutic jurisprudence: New Zealand perspectives. Thomson Reuters, Wellington, pp 147–160

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Marshall CD (2018a) All things reconciled: essays on restorative justice, religious violence, and the interpretation of scripture. Cascade Books, Eugene, Oregon Marshall CD (2018b) Offending, restoration and the law-abiding community: restorative justice in the new testament and in the New Zealand experience. In: Baffes MS (ed) Text and context: vernacular approaches to the Bible in global Christianity. Pickwick Publications, Eugene, Oregon, pp 200–225 Noakes-Duncan T (2017) Communities of restoration: ecclesial ethics and restorative justice. Bloomsbury T&T Clark, London, New York Rosenblatt FF (2015) The role of the community in restorative justice. Routledge, Abingdon Schrey H, Walz H, Whitehouse W (1955) The biblical doctrine of justice and law. SCM, London Swartley WM (2006) Covenant of peace: the missing peace in new testament theology and ethics. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids Thorsborne M, Riestenberg N, McCluskey G (2019) Getting more out of restorative practice in schools: practical approaches to improve school wellbeing and strengthen community engagement. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London, Philadelphia Umbreit M, Armour MP (2010) Restorative justice dialogue: an essential guide for research and practice. Springer, New York, pp 67–80 Van Ness DW, Heetderks K (2006) Restoring justice: an introduction to restorative justice. LexisNexis/Anderson, Cincinnati Walker MU (2006) Moral repair: reconstructing moral relations after wrongdoing. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Woolford A (2009) The politics of restorative justice: a critical introduction. Fernwood Publishing, Halifax, Winnipeg Yoder JH (1964) The Christian witness to the state. Institute of Mennonite Studies, vol 3. Faith & Life Press, Newton, Kansas Yoder JH (1971) The original revolution: essays on Christian pacifism. Herald Press, Scottdale, Pennsylvania Yoder JH (1972) The politics of Jesus: behold the man! our victorious lamb. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids Yoder PB (1982) Shalom: the Bible’s word for salvation, justice, peace. Faith and Life Press, Newton, Kansas Zehr H (1990) Changing lenses: a new focus for crime and justice. Herald Press, Scottdale, Pennsylvania Zehr H (1984) The VORP book: an organizational and operations manual. Victim Offender Reconciliation Resource Center, Valparaiso, Indiana

Chapter 8

The Contemporary Relevance of Religion to Criminological Sciences Rick Sarre

Abstract The case for greater interdisciplinary enquiry between those who engage in religious pursuits and those who participate in the criminological task is a strong one. For the most part, modern day theological insights have been ignored by criminologists. I do not set out to consider why this might be the case other than to repeat the passing observation of Stephen L Carter that religious practices and theological enquiries are probably perceived by many scholars as dominated by scriptural fundamentalists pushing theories of supernatural causality, and suited more for the needs of those seeking assurances about a life beyond this one than for those seeking to find meaning here and now. There is, however, a way that the criminological enterprise can be bolstered and illuminated by theological enquiries and religious precepts. This chapter is designed to explore how and why that can and should occur. It is focused upon the Christian religion and Christian theological precepts.

8.1 How Criminology and Religion Intersect Criminology is an interdisciplinary endeavour pursued by social and political scientists, sociologists, psychologists, social historians, philosophers and lawyers to determine the definition of crime, the ‘why’ of criminal behaviour, and society’s responses to it. The birth of modern criminology occurred with the onset of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century humanism. Prior to that time, ‘criminology’ (if it can be called that) was fixated upon causal theories that had everything to do with the supernatural. Deviance (and consequently ‘criminal’ conduct) were strongly equated with the religious notion of evil. An observer could rarely speak of one without the other. Deviant behaviour was either deemed to be caused by possession by the gods (the ancient Greek explanation) or by a pact with demonic spirits (explanations R. Sarre (B) University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

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evident in Renaissance Europe and colonial North America, for example). Exorcisms, sanctioned by the sovereign power, were commonplace. It was not uncommon for a religious authority to be assigned the task of searching for external signs on the bodies of accused persons which could be attributable to witchcraft. Consequently, if evil emanated from the supernatural, legal punishment (usually capital or corporal) was a form of divine retribution or, if the guilty party survived, of atonement. Conveniently for the authorities, those who were called upon to define deviant conduct were usually the same people called upon to determine guilt, and to carry out the prescribed punishment. The rule of law, a feature of modern democratic legal systems, was completely absent in these settings. Recall, too, that, in the seventeenth century, many Christians left England and Europe to establish strict, biblical communities in the New World (Baltzell 1979). Prominent religious men set out the law that was to apply, while simultaneously ensuring that it was carried out by god-fearing magistrates and judges. In 1692, the infamous Salem, Massachusetts, witch hunts began (Weisman 1984). The trials were underpinned by the strong belief among the legal and religious leaders of the time of the power of demons to lure people into evil conduct and, consequently, into eternal damnation (Ericson 1966). Twenty people were put to death in Salem before sanity finally prevailed. Gradually, following the Renaissance,1 scholars pursued a new ‘scientific’ method, and began to separate themselves from religious zealots and causal ‘theories’ based upon evil spirits. Scientists adopted the view that their studies could reveal, in an objective fashion, a better form of truth. There was a rush towards empirical certainties and rational explanations. As part of this movement there emerged a European ‘positivist’ criminology (Dykstra 1989). The shift away from metaphysical explanations of human behaviour towards anthropological approaches was bolstered by the writings of philosophers such as Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), Georg Hegel (1770–1831) and Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855). Other philosophical positions emerged in the late nineteenth century and continued throughout the twentieth century, influenced by the ‘death of God’ concept coined by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), the ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ espoused by Jürgen Habermas (1929–), and the ‘new beginnings’ posited by John B. Cobb (1925–). The consequence of this was an academic questioning about the existence and nature of God. Religious literalists responded, affirming their truths, for example, that the earth and humankind were created in the manner described in Genesis. In 1859, The Origin of Species written by Charles Darwin (1809–1882) was branded ‘heretical.’ The law was still on their side. English judicial officers, at least until the early nineteenth century, were still being directed to act under the premise that Christianity was part of the law of the land (Sarre 2019a). By the end of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century, therefore, criminological practitioners were principally pursuing humanist and other ‘scientific’ lines of enquiry. Religious leaders were holding doggedly to traditional ‘truths.’ The 1 14th

century through to the 17th century.

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path which had been shared for centuries between crime scientists and their former theological fellow travellers was now diverging markedly and rapidly.

8.2 Acceptance of Conjecture as a Path to Rapprochement In the second half of the twentieth century there emerged signs that a rapprochement between theologians and criminologists may have begun. The impetus was the growing acceptance by scientists (including social scientists) and theologians alike of the conjectural nature of their work. Both started to count among their number those who were willing to accept uncertainty in their findings. For example, one prominent social scientist, John Barnes, claimed that his current understandings were but ‘interpretations and models, together with a vast but only minimally interrelated array of empirical findings’ (Barnes 1990: 9). Scientists were gradually becoming more comfortable with the idea of truth being a fluid and transient concept, and thus only the arrogant or foolish would attempt to define it or to lay exclusive claim to it. Karl Popper (1902–1994), science philosopher, expressed the idea in the following way: The allegedly manifest truth is therefore in constant need, not only of interpretation and affirmation, but also of re-interpretation and re-affirmation. (Popper 1972: 9)

Where was theology moving in this period? The English mathematician, philosopher and theologian, A. N. Whitehead (1861–1947) had concluded in the 1920s that God was an organic and ecological concept, not a scientific reality (Whitehead 1929). But a key impetus for questioning Christian religious truths came, for many, from the devastation caused by the horrors of the Second World War, and the incongruity of the Christian view that God could favour one side over another. Swiss-born minister Karl Barth (1886–1968), German theologian Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976) and German-American writer Paul Tillich (1886–1965) were greatly influenced in their theological journeys by the inability of their theological and philosophical attempts to make sense of the war. Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945), executed in 1945 by the Nazis at the concentration camp at Flossenburg just days before it was liberated by the Allies, wrote of his suspicion that religion is merely an historically conditioned and transient form of human self-expression (Bonhoeffer 1953). A decade later, in 1963, English Anglican Bishop John Robinson published his watershed book, Honest to God, exploring similar themes. Robinson probed the possibilities and consequences of bringing Christian principles out of the ancient ‘truths’ and into the light of modern interpretation. It was Robinson’s view that … as supranaturalism becomes less and less credible, to tie the action of God to such a way of thinking is to banish it for increasing numbers into the preserve of the pagan myths and thereby to sever it from any real connection with history. (Robinson 1963: 68)

The book served as a call by Bishop Robinson for a review of the claims Christians often made concerning their authority and power. His observations have been echoed

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more recently by the former Episcopal Bishop of Newark, New Jersey, John Shelby Spong. [T]hose who would freeze truth in any words, concepts, or creed will guarantee a time warp that will finally doom that truth to extinction. Only truth that is freed from its captivity to time and words and allowed to float in the sea of relativity will survive the ravages of subjectivity. Only truth that can constantly call out new words capable of lifting yesterday’s experience into today’s mind-set will finally survive. (Spong 1991: 169)

There is, as the Australian philosopher Charles Birch once put it, a ‘fallacy of misplaced concreteness’ in any attempt to claim objectivity, religious or otherwise. Whoever said ‘You can’t argue with the facts’ cannot have been reading scientific journals or for that matter the daily newspapers. (Birch 1990: 119)

Moreover, No mere accumulation of facts can tell us how to decide on the definition of clinical death, whether a human foetus is a human being, whether aversion therapy for homosexuals is good, or whether the risks of nuclear power outweigh the benefits. All such decisions involve more than facts. They involve assessment of uncertainties and values. (Birch 1990: 123)

Theology and criminology can immediately find some common ground. It is time for that fertile landscape to be explored.

8.3 Common Ground: Progressive Christianity and Critical Criminology Just as theology has been freed from the shackles of concepts such as ‘truth’ and ‘certainty’, so, too, have many criminologists sought to find the same freedom. In the early 1970s, three theorists, Ian Taylor, Paul Walton and Jock Young, established so-called ‘new’ (or ‘radical’) criminology (Taylor et al. 1973). Extending so-called ‘conflict’ theory, they posited the view that crime is not an objective reality, but rather it is subjectively determined, more than anything else, by issues of politics and power. This book started a trend throughout the 1970s and beyond that gave rise to ‘critical’ criminology (for example, Schwartz and Hatty 2003). So we have come full circle. Theology is now being embraced by physicists who are at home speaking of purpose, meaning and consciousness (for example, Davies 1992: 189). Criminologists today can be seen exploring concepts such as hope, peace, happiness and love (for example, Pepinsky and Quinney 1991; Braithwaite 2002, 2004; Sullivan and Tifft 2005; Tonry 2011; Currie 2013: 9). There is another reason, too, why a greater collaboration between theologians and criminologists continues apace. It is because faith-aggravated violence or religiously motivated violence, something that has been a malignant human phenomenon for centuries, shows little sign of retreat (Sacks 2015). It continues today, most prominently exemplified by jihadist terrorism. This, in turn, has, sadly, inspired considerable

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vilification of Muslims worldwide and hate-based crimes more generally. It also regularly reveals itself in anti-Semitic attacks, and violent Christian zealotry. The media prominence given to stories of the more bizarre customs and practices of diverse sects and cults (for example, groups led by Jim Jones, Jeffrey Lundgren, David Koresh (all United States), Joseph di Mambro (Order of the Solar Temple, France), and Shoko Asahara of the Japanese-based Aum Shinri Kyo or Aum Supreme Truth) indicates the intense public interest in criminal behaviour that has a religious connection (see, for example, Dilulio 2009). There is little doubt that if there were to be greater understanding of the various religious antagonists, and the underpinnings of modern religious zealotry, we, as a global community, would be in a far better position to tackle these phenomena (Sarre 1993). Given that greater collaboration between criminologists and those who have an interest in religious studies is important, it is time to explore religious concepts and practices in the context of criminological understandings.

8.4 Bringing Religion to the Criminological Table In the discussion that follows, I review some ways in which religious leaders and theologians may be able to present criminologists with reasons for a stronger collaborative engagement.2 I acknowledge that the terms ‘religion’ and ‘theology’ are not interchangeable, but I blur religious practices and theological enquiries in the discussion that follows in order to offer avenues where they can (collectively) assist criminological insights. In this section, I detail some of the possible points of philosophical and practical intersection between those who pursue religious and theological enquiries, and those who undertake criminological quests. It is a rich field, and one that is growing richer by the day as more and more controversies erupt on the subject of the relationship between church and state (see, for example, Hamilton 2005) and religiously-inspired crime. There are seven broad areas under examination here: restorative justice, feminism, juvenile justice, human motivation, moral values, capital punishment and prison ministries. I consider each in turn now.3

8.4.1 Restorative Justice For more than forty years, around the world, criminologists have been developing theories of restorative justice (including victim/offender mediation and family ‘conferencing’) to challenge the primacy of the formal justice processes that are simply manifestations of policies that privilege (and do not castigate) anger and revenge 2 If

not vice versa. is only a start of a conversation. There are other topics that call out for exploration, too, such as state crime (in a theocracy), and religiously-motivated war crimes.

3 This

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(Rossner 2013; Nussbaum 2016; Marshall this volume). Theologians, likewise, in the process of exploring what it means to be biblically ‘just’, are re-developing notions of confession, forgiveness and redemption as important ingredients in modern ministry. Both disciplines, theology and criminology, are comfortable with the idea of restoration of self. Christianity has a complex and contradictory heritage with regard to restorative justice practices, however. For centuries, Christians were happy to embrace scriptural interpretations that permitted, condoned or encouraged slavery, ethnic cleansing, the disempowerment of women, gender-based violence, and the denial or dismissal of Indigenous beliefs and theologies. All of this was done with the blessing of the legal, political and ecclesiastical hierarchies of the day. There are, however, Christian scriptures, beliefs and practices that today empower many churchgoers to be at the forefront of alternative justice processes. Restorative justice approaches focus on forgiveness, mercy and the worth of all persons regardless of the acts that these persons may have perpetrated. There are a growing number of voices speaking from Christian pulpits calling for a greater commitment of justice policy-makers to reduce the amount of collateral damage inflicted upon offenders, victims and society-at-large by traditional processes. Restorative justice practitioners often expound upon their spiritual foundations. Some openly indicate that their support is motivated by their religious beliefs (for example, Zehr 2002, 2005). Principles of accountability, forgiveness, repentance (or radical change of direction), and reconciliation require all of the participants in the process to address fundamental issues: the nature and purpose of human life; the value of the human person; the nature of conflict; the importance of one’s responsibilities toward society, and the common good. On this view, only through personal engagement can one truly begin to heal the wounds that crime causes (Hadley 2006, 184). We can recognise immediately that religion has direct access to human emotions in ways that science cannot (Asma 2018). The restorative justice movement has spawned faith-based calls for its practitioners to seek to counter and address social inequities and injustices that can lead to criminal behaviours (Sarre and Young 2011). Christian restorative justice advocates can and regularly do align themselves with social policy initiatives that focus on education, employment, housing, and the provision of welfare designed to reduce the flow of offenders coming into the criminal justice system in the first place. Patching up the wounded, and ministering to both victim and perpetrator are not difficult tasks for those committed to holistic societal healing. The message here is that contemporary religious quests have much to offer criminologists exploring innovative justice practices.

8.4.2 Feminism Few movements in recent history have made as great an impact upon sociological and criminological theory as feminism. The revelation of gender bias in the courts,

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and in the law more generally, has led to major policy changes in the legal world (Naffine 1990). For example, feminist perspectives in criminology have explored the way in which masculinity plays a key role in the definition of violence (Naffine 1996). They have pushed legal theorists to include an examination of male bias in the hypotheses and methodological assumptions attached to law. Theology, too, has wrestled with these matters. Feminist theologians have explored bias in traditional practices and ecclesiastical law (Heyward 2011). A theology premised on patriarchal systems, says Lester (1993: 80–81), as presented, for example, by Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin and Karl Barth, is based on an anthropology of women as defective, and children as created only by the male seed deposited in women. Feminist theologians believe that women cannot be liberated while theology binds them to a human sexual difference (Daly 1968). Feminist theology can empower women to criticise and reconstruct more plausible models for interpreting themselves and their ultimate meaning (Ruether 1985). There is much to compare and contrast in this fertile field of social inquiry. The message here is that feminist theologians have much to offer criminologists, and vice versa.

8.4.3 Juvenile Justice Juvenile criminal justice systems recognise that juvenile offending is, for the most part, transitory. The vast majority of children who appear before the courts have only one appearance and an exceedingly small minority is ever involved in serious crimes (Cunneen and White 2002). Juvenile offending is unlikely to escalate to more serious or persistent crime. For these reasons, policy-makers, backed by criminological data, are usually at pains to explore ways of keeping young people out of the criminal justice system. There is much evidence that legal intervention in the lives of youthful offenders is often more harmful than beneficial (Braithwaite 2002). Similarly, criminologists continue to insist that governments and welfare agencies promote the view that violence against children should never be trivialised or excused. Research has found that abuse causes many young victims to become abusers themselves once they grow into adulthood (Briggs 1995). Similar concerns about the welfare of children have been expressed in theological explorations. Robert Mesle notes that Christian theological portrayals of divine justice provide poor role models for children. A tradition that praises a God of retributive justice needs redefinition when that God appears to be dispensing selective justice. How would [the prophets’] message of justice sound to the poor peasants in the Judean fields or in the streets of Jerusalem as the Assyrian and Babylonian armies slaughter them and their children? Where is the justice for the children of Israel when Yahweh lifts his mighty hand? (Mesle 1993: 117) (Emphasis in the original)

Criminologists regularly go to pains to expose societal structures and justice systems that have the potential to abuse children. The human rights record of Australia

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regarding young people in detention, for example, is a bleak one indeed (Amnesty International 2018). Policy-makers could well look to theological and religious developments that are challenging misunderstandings about the nature of the family and the ‘sinfulness’ of a child. There is much to commend the dialogue of religion and criminology when it comes to redoubling our efforts to benefit the lives of our children.

8.4.4 Human Motivation Many Christian theologians have great difficulty reconciling conflicting concepts of human motivation. They often speak of the concept of ‘agency’ that one is supposed to possess in order to accept or reject God (‘free will’), yet, in the same breath, scriptural literalists often speak of a ‘plan’ that God has for an individual’s life (‘determinism’) regardless of their wishes. While fear of damnation (or at the very least, a foreshadowed eternity separated from love) for unwise choices (free will) underpins much of fundamentalist Christian theology, more progressive theologians recognise the existence of the many influences upon a person’s ability to make rational choices (determinism). Indeed, some theologies allow the determinist view that ‘the devil made me do it’. The two—free will and determinism—struggle to be reconciled in any theological dialogue. Criminologists, too, struggle with the same question. A ‘free will’ notion of criminality asserts that humans are free to choose between law-breaking or lawful conduct. It says that humans are rational beings and are therefore capable of weighing up the arguments for and against proposed conduct and actions. A free will model of human motivation is the basis of deterrence theory, that is, the thought of the punishment deters potential law-breakers from engaging in crime. A free-willed view of human motivation lies at the heart of retribution, too; that is, the notion that punishment should be based upon delivering one’s ‘just deserts’ for one’s wrong-doing. It forms the underpinning of the ‘rational choice’ theory of criminology (Cornish and Clarke 1986) developed over three decades ago. Determinists, on the other hand, point out that much human deviance is as a result of the social, cultural and biological environment in which each one of us finds ourselves. Our behaviour is explained if not justified by our place in society, the well-being of our economy, our family upbringing, or simply our physical make-up and our mental state (including mental illness, anxiety or abnormality). The upshot of determinism is that our mistakes are often excused by the criminal law. In that environment, rehabilitation becomes the preferred punishment philosophy. Punishment cannot be set, say the determinists, on the basis of the conduct alone, if that conduct has been caused by factors over which the perpetrator has little or no control.4 4 Sentencing

occurs in the midst of this dilemma. Often it is the case that a judge will excuse a defendant’s law-breaking on the basis of the defendant’s family environment, lack of education or abusive spouse (a deterministic judgment). At a later time, if the defendant fronts the judge again,

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Both theologians and legal philosophers wrestle with the ‘why’ question whenever there is a murder, or when a young life turns unexpectedly upside-down. Rarely do they turn to each other for help in attempting to make sense of the events. If there is to be a useful exploration of alternative paradigms, both religious commentators and criminologists should be interested in the other’s thoughts and observations on this subject.

8.4.5 Moral Values Many criminologists today prefer to look beyond wrong-doers themselves and prefer, instead, to examine the nature of criminality, that is, the phenomenon of normbreaking, including the reasons why certain laws are created and how they are enforced, adjudicated and punished (Sarre 2019b). ‘Critical’ criminological commentators explore issues concerning the process by which law-breaking is defined and punished along social conscience and ‘moral consensus’ lines (Ericson and Shearing 1991: 6). Such theorists would find ready allies in the social justice theologians who look back with embarrassment and regret upon centuries of Christian scriptural interpretation that justified slavery, racism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia. Progressive criminologists and theologians alike are not content with settled legal and moral prescriptions, monitored by those whose power these prescriptions favour. Church leaders and criminal justice advocates alike are regularly seen in the forefront of those groups committed to standing up for the poor, the homeless and the powerless, whose numbers are wildly over-represented in prison populations. Many criminologists and religious leaders have stood side by side in the marches that have demonstrated the commitment they share for racial equality, and social justice for example. Theologians and criminologists alike mourn conditions of despair that drive many people to crime. Theologian Paul Tillich concluded that the prime human task is the exploration of how it is that we are granted the courage to be human in spite of life’s ostensible contradictions (Tillich 1952). Tillich had served as a chaplain in the German trenches of World War I. Twenty five years later, having fled the Nazis and while watching the destruction of Europe from his refuge in the United States, he reflected upon the experience. He found little help in mainstream Christian theology for anyone trying to make sense of human experience of conflict. His writings on Christian existentialism, and the role of courage in shaping the human condition, cannot be ignored by critical criminologists. The quests of those studying the phenomenon of religion and those pursuing the criminological task both involve an examination of human values (Drake-Brockman 2018). Both disciplines tackle moral policy issues such as the legalization of drug the sentence is usually manifestly harsher, on the basis that the defendant had failed to ‘learn a lesson’ from the earlier leniency (a free will view). Punishment is thus often delivered to repeat offenders in the shadow of a philosophical contradiction.

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use, homosexuality, abortion, and euthanasia. Both disciplines seek to right injustices, such as poverty, and unequal distribution of resources. This appears to be an ideal opportunity for various advocates to engage in similar lines of philosophical enquiry.

8.4.6 Capital Punishment Capital punishment has long been a sticking point in the criminal justice suite of options, both for criminologists and theologians. The second book of the Hebrew Testament, the Book of Exodus, carries the famous Thou Shalt Not Kill found in the admonitions of the Ten Commandments. But there appears to be an exception in some religious societies and nations, namely that state-sanctioned killing is acceptable in some circumstances. Thirty-one of the states of the United States, for example, still have the death penalty. These states are found predominantly in the South where the numbers of fundamentalist Christians are, and have historically been, the highest. President Bill Clinton gave an assurance after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 (a blast that killed 168 people including 19 children) that justice would be ‘swift, certain and severe.’ Oklahoma, a southern ‘Bible Belt’ State, has capital punishment as an optional penalty for murder. Indeed, the perpetrator of the Oklahoma City bombing, Timothy McVeigh, was executed by lethal injection six years later. President Clinton was of the view that he needed to assure the American people that his government could deal decisively with mass murder, and there is little doubt that many Christians of many persuasions in that State would not have disagreed with the final outcome. In contrast, the South African government, in the post-apartheid period and upon the election of Nelson Mandela in 1994, adopted the idea of Desmond Tutu5 that the preferred response to the murders of the past would be to establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Tutu 2016). This Commission focused upon forgiveness but only if the perpetrator were to come forward and tell his or her tale. Indeed, forgiveness has been found to be an important healing and empowering function for many victims, and especially the victims of apartheid (Shapland 2016).6 Reconciling these vastly opposing responses to grievous crimes is difficult. Both capital punishment and forgiveness can be justified if one is to appeal to scriptural interpretations (Sarre and Young 2011). There are also operative external and political factors to consider. President Clinton was motivated to assure his country that terrorism of this kind would be responded to swiftly and harshly. Archbishop Tutu was influenced by a desire to implement long-term social change and set down the parameters for a just future.

5 At

the time, he was the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town (1986–1996). has been wracked by violence since the mid-1960s, with the formation in 1964 of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC. Some 8 million lives have been lost in 50 years. In 2016 a peace deal was brokered, and since that time amnesties and restorative sanctions have been implemented (Braithwaite 2019).

6 Colombia

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The fact that religion plays a part here is not unusual. Religion has had a significant role in shaping punishment and justice practices for centuries, but not all Christians share the same views. Research highlights that ‘fundamentalist Christians are more supportive of greater correctional policies’ (Wing et al. 2013: 3). Progressive Christians, on the other hand, recognise that all persons are inherently children of God and that their lives are sacred, regardless of their crimes. For example, they join those criminologists who expose the myth that capital punishment acts as a deterrent. Joint theological and religious insights are essential for a satisfactory discussion in this ongoing debate.

8.4.7 Prison Ministries Christian prison ministries have grown considerably in the last decade, and certainly in the United States and Australia, if not elsewhere. Incarcerated or formerly incarcerated individuals consistently provide strong, positive feedback regarding the anti-recidivist effect of prison ministries and the profound impact that they have had on their lives (Roberts and Stacer 2016; Webber 2014). With that ‘evidence’, US President George W. Bush increased funding for religious programs and prison ministries during his tenure, and his successor, Barack Obama, subsequently retained this funding (Cullen et al. 2008). However, empirical verification of the touted lowering of recidivism rates is difficult to find. Despite the general consensus that there is a negative correlation between religiosity and crime (Harris et al. 2017: 103), quantitative research findings that show that a prison ministry leads to less crime are not readily available (Dodson et al. 2011: 381).7 The message here, nevertheless, is that criminologists must engage with the supporters and advocates of prison ministry programs to ensure that they clarify their objectives and evaluate their progress (Kewley et al. 2016) with joint research endeavours.

8.5 Where to from Here? The optimism expressed by religious scholars and criminologists already engaged in parallel enquiries is encouraging. Indeed, Richard Quinney, in 1991, appeared to be pointing criminology in the direction of nothing less than spiritual transformation, experimenting with criminological themes such as overcoming alienation, embracing individual inner peace and fostering personal awareness. 7 Indeed, the task of proving desistance from crime is complicated by extraneous variables including

race, socio-economic status, and social relationships (Conover-Williams and Chang 2016). Qualitative studies that support the value of Christian prison ministries have been more encouraging. However, they also face legitimate methodological criticism, as their small samples generate data with limited applicability to broad populations (see Clear et al. 2000).

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Each life is a spiritual journey into the unknown and the unknowable, beyond the egocentric self. Human existence is characterized by suffering; crime is suffering, and the sources of suffering are within each of us. Through love and compassion, beyond the egocentric self, we can end suffering and live in peace, personally and collectively. The end of suffering can be attained in a quieting of the mind and an opening of the heart, in being aware. Crime can be ended only with the ending of suffering, only when there is peace − through the love and compassion found in awareness. Understanding, service, justice: all these flow naturally from compassion, from mindful attention to the reality of all that is, here and now. A criminology of peacemaking, the non-violent criminology of compassion and service, seeks to end suffering and thereby eliminate crime. (Quinney 1991: 3–4)

He could equally have been speaking to a group of theologians, not criminologists. Criminologist John Braithwaite, writing two decades ago in the Dalhousie Review (Braithwaite 1996) narrates the story of a lad named Sam.8 We read that young Sam had robbed an elderly woman of her purse, and has been offered a restorative justice ‘conference’ as an alternative to facing juvenile court. Sam agrees to attend but remains belligerent as the conference proceeds. What struck me in reading this story were the following words found at the end of Braithwaite’s article. When the conference reconvenes, Sam’s sister speaks to him with love and strength. Looking straight into his eyes, the first gaze he could not avoid in the conference, she says that she knows exactly what he had been through with their parents. No details are spoken. But the victim seems to understand what is spoken of by the knowing communication between sister and brother. Tears rush down the old woman’s cheeks and over a trembling mouth. It is his sister’s love that penetrates Sam’s callous exterior. From then on he is emotionally engaged with the conference. He says he is sorry about what the victim has lost. He would like to pay it back, but has no money or job. He assures the victim he is not stalking her. … She wants her money back but says it will help her if they can talk about what to do to help Sam find a home and a job. … When the conference breaks up, the victim hugs Sam and tearfully wishes him good luck. He apologises again. Uncle George quietly slips a hundred dollars to Sam’s sister to defray the extra cost of having Sam in the house, and says he will be there for both of them if they need him. Sam has a rocky life punctuated by several periods of unemployment. A year later he has to go through another conference after he steals a bicycle. But he finds work when he can, mostly stays out of trouble and lives to mourn at the funerals of Uncle George and his sister. The victim gets her money back and enjoys taking long walks alone. Both she and her daughter say that they feel enriched as a result of the conference, [and] have a little more grace in their lives. (Braithwaite 1996: 30–31)

What interested me was Braithwaite’s use of the term ‘grace’. I was struck, too, by the healing that emerged as soon as Sam was able to apologize, and the importance (for healing) of his responding to his offending by a generosity of spirit. This story would be equally at home at a criminological conference lectern and a sabbath pulpit.

8 ‘Sam’ is a fictitious composite of a number of young men Dr. Braithwaite had observed in restorative

justice programs.

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8.6 Conclusion The union of two academic disciplines can be likened to a religious marriage ceremony. A marriage, it is often said, is not just the legal union of two people. There is potentially something greater than that; more than just the sum of the two parts. New theological and criminological enquiries can be seen in the same light. On their own they are interesting and potentially fulfilling. There is no denying that the two entities can live quite happily without each other. But placed together they have the potential to deliver insights greater than the mere sum of their parts. The growing number of advocates exploring these themes suggests the truth of this proposition (Sadique and Stanislas 2016; Jang and Franzen 2013) especially as interfaith dialogue becomes more readily accepted. The themes developed in this chapter serve as examples; they are not exclusive. Rather, they simply provide ideas for future development of these joint lines of enquiry. Religious studies have a lot to offer the discipline of criminology, and theologians often speak the same language as criminologists. By the same token, criminologists are not afraid to explore forgiveness, reconciliation and relationships. Excellent opportunities for symbiosis await those who are prepared for this interdisciplinary challenge.

References Amnesty International (2018) Australia: Nauru’s detained children must be given true freedom. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/11/australia-naurus-detained-children-mustbe-given-true-freedom/. Accessed 24 June 2019 Asma ST (2018) Why we need religion: an agnostic celebration of spiritual emotions. Oxford University Press, Oxford Baltzell ED (1979) Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia. Free Press, New York Barnes J (1990) Models and interpretations. Cambridge University Press, Avon, UK Birch C (1990) On purpose. New South Wales University Press, Sydney, Kensington Bonhoeffer D (1953) Letters and papers from prison. SCM Press, Philadelphia Braithwaite J (1996) Restorative justice and a better future. Dalhous Rev 76(1):9–32. Reprinted in Johnstone G (ed) (2013) A restorative justice reader. Willan, Cullompton, UK, pp 83–97 Braithwaite J (2002) Restorative justice and responsive regulation. Oxford University Press, Oxford Braithwaite J (2004) Emancipation and hope. Ann Am Acad Polit Soc Sci 592:79–99 Braithwaite J (2019) Restorative justice today. Keynote presentation to the Asian criminological society annual conference, Cebu, Philippines Briggs F (1995) From victim to offender: how child sexual abuse victims become offenders. Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest, New South Wales Carter SL (1993) The culture of disbelief: how American law and politics trivialize religious devotion. Random House, New York Clear T, Hardyman PL, Stout B, Lucken K, Dammer HR (2000) The value of religion in prison: an inmate perspective. J Contemp Crim Justice 16(1):53–74 Conover-Williams M, Chang J (2016) Pray away the criminal? Crime, religiosity, gender and sexuality over the life course. Humboldt J Soc Relat 38:28–45 Cornish D, Clarke RV (eds) (1986) The reasoning criminal. Springer, New York

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Cullen F, Pealer J, Santana S (2008) Public support for faith-based correctional programs: should sacred places serve civic purposes? J Offender Rehabil 45(3–4):29–46 Cunneen C, White R (2002) Juvenile justice: youth and crime in Australia. Oxford University Press, South Melbourne Currie E (2013) Consciousness, solidarity and hope as prevention and rehabilitation. Int J Crime Justice Soc Democr 2(2):3–11 Daly M (1968) The church and the second sex. Harper and Row, New York Davies P (1992) The mind of god: the scientific basis for a rational world. Simon and Schuster, New York Dilulio J (2009) More religion, less crime? Science, felonies, and the three faith factors. Annu Rev Law Soc Sci 5:115–133 Dodson K, Cabage L, Klenowski P (2011) An evidence-based assessment of faith-based programs: do faith-based programs “Work” to reduce recidivism? J Offender Rehabil 50(6):367–383 Drake-Brockman T (2018) Bad faith: the case for a new Christian humanist theology. Imprint Resource Publications, Sydney Dykstra C (1989) A fresh awakening. Theol Today 46(2):125 Ericson K (1966) Wayward Puritans: a study in the sociology of deviance. Wiley, NY Ericson RV, Shearing CD (1991) Introduction—an institutional approach to criminology. In: Gladstone J, Ericson R, Shearing C (eds) Criminology: a reader’s guide. Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto, Toronto, pp 3–19 Hadley ML (2006) Spiritual foundations of restorative justice. In: Sullivan D, Tifft L (eds) The handbook of restorative justice: a global perspective. Routledge, New York, pp 174–187 Hamilton M (2005) God versus the gavel: religion and the rule of law. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 240–241 Harris D, Ackerman A, Haley M (2017) Losing my religion: an exploration of religion and spirituality in men who claim to have desisted from sexual offending. Crim Justice Stud 30(2):101–116 Heyward C (2011) Keep your courage: a radical Christian feminist speaks. Seabury Books, New York Jang SJ, Franzen A (2013) Is being ‘spiritual’ enough without being religious? A study of violent and property crimes among emerging adults. Criminology 51(3):595–627 Kewley S, Larkin M, Harkins L, Beech A (2016) Restoring identity: the use of religion as a mechanism to transition between an identity of sexual offending to a non-offending identity. Criminol Crim Justice 17(1):79–96 Lester R (1993) Issues in Feminist Theologies. In: Brown RA (ed) Theology: from tradition to task. Graceland/Park Press, Independence, Missouri, pp 79–89 Mesle CR (1993) For the Welfare of Children: Current Theological Issues. In: Brown RA (ed) Theology: from tradition to task. Graceland/Park Press, Independence, Missouri, pp 113–123 Naffine N (1990) Law and the sexes: explorations in feminist jurisprudence. Allen and Unwin, Sydny Naffine N (1996) Feminism and criminology. Temple University Press, Philadelphia Nussbaum M (2016) Anger and forgiveness: resentment, generosity, and justice. Oxford University Press, Oxford Pepinsky H, Quinney R (eds) (1991) Criminology as peacemaking. Indiana University Press, Bloomington Popper K (1972) Conjectures and refutations: the growth of scientific knowledge, 4th edn. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London Quinney R (1991) The way of peace: on crime, suffering and service. In: Pepinsky H, Quinney R (eds) Criminology as peacemaking. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, pp 3–13 Roberts M, Stacer M (2016) In their own words: offenders’ perspectives on their participation in a faith-based diversion and reentry program. J Offender Rehabil 55(7):466–483 Robinson JAT (1963) Honest to god. SCM Press, Philadelphia Rossner M (2013) Just emotions: rituals of restorative justice. Oxford University Press, Oxford

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Ruether R (1985) Women-church: theology and practice of feminist liturgical communities. Harper and Row, New York Sacks J (2015) Not in god’s name: confronting religious violence. Hodder and Stoughton, London Sadique K, Stanislas P (2016) Religion, faith and crime. Palgrave Macmillan Sarre R (1993) Religious violence—an international reflection. In: Caswell D (ed) Restoration studies V. Herald Publishing House, Parkville, Missouri, pp 41–47 Sarre R (2019a) Section 116 of the Australian constitution in the context of first world war conscientious objection. In: In Benson IT, Quinlan M Thompson, AK (eds) Religious Freedom in Australia – a new Terra Nullius? Brisbane: Connor Court, Chapter 11, pp 240–260 Sarre R (2019b) Why theology should play a role in the criminological enterprise. In Guzik-Makaruk EM, Pływaczewski EW (eds) Current Problems of the Penal Law and Criminology. Wydawnictwo C.H. Beck, Warszawa, Poland, pp 677–694 Sarre R, Young J (2011) Christian approaches to the restorative justice movement: observations on scripture and praxis. Contemp Justice Rev 14(3):345–355 Schwartz MD, Hatty S (eds) (2003) Controversies in critical criminology. Anderson Publishing Co, Cincinnati Shapland J (2016) Forgiveness and restorative justice: is it necessary? Is it helpful? Oxf J Law Relig 5(1):94–112 Spong JS (1991) Rescuing the Bible from fundamentalism: a bishop rethinks the meaning of scripture. Harper, San Francisco Sullivan D, Tifft L (2005) Restorative justice: healing the foundations of our everyday lives. Willow Tree Press, Monsey, New York Taylor I, Walton P, Young J (1973) The new criminology: for a social theory of deviance. Routledge Kegan Paul, London Tillich P (1952) The courage to be. Yale University Press, New Haven Tonry M (2011) Making peace, not desert. Criminol Public Policy 10(3):637–649 Tutu VF (2016) Hawke Centre, University of South Australia, Annual Hawke lecture, by the reverend Canon Mpho, Forgiving the Only Way Forward, 20 June Webber R (2014) ‘I was in prison’: an exploration of Catholic prison ministry in Victoria. Cathol Soc Serv (Vic) 7–8:58 Weisman R (1984) Witchcraft, magic, and religion in 17th century Massachusetts. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, Massachussetts Whitehead AN (1929) Process and reality (corrected edition, (1978) In: Griffen DR, Sherbourne DW (eds) Free Press, New York Wing HC, Cheng K, Wong LP (2013) Spirituality and punitiveness: an exploration of Christian, Buddhist, and non-religious attitudes towards crime. Int J Law Crime Justice 41:1–15 Zehr H (2002) The little book of restorative justice. Good Books, Intercourse, Pennsylvania Zehr H (2005) Changing lenses: a new focus for crime and justice, 3rd edn. Herald Press, Scottdale, Pennsylvania

Chapter 9

Shaking the Invisible Hand: Religion and Individualism as Economic Foundations Simon Molloy

Abstract In the context of 10,000 years of human societies of growing complexity, individualism is a relatively new principle for social and economic organisation. Early societies were deeply tribal with the socioeconomic roles of individuals comprehensively prescribed. The two-and-a-half thousand-year journey from tribalism to individualism has traversed the democratic innovations of Athens, the deeply original conception of the individual at the founding of Christianity, the social philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment and England’s gradual expansion of enfranchisement. In Adam Smith’s vision, societies realise their positive potential when individuals and institutions balance the pursuit of individualistic and social goals, an orientation fundamental to Christianity.

There are illusions of popular history which a successful religion must promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair; honesty is the best policy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always triumphs; a good deed is its own reward; any bad human can be reformed; religious talismans protect one from demon possession; only females understand the ancient mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness. (Herbert 1976: 67) How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. … That we often derive sorrow from the sorrows of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any instances to prove it; for this sentiment, like all the other original passions of human nature, is by no means confined to the virtuous or the humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the most exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it. (Smith 1759: 4)

S. Molloy (B) Systems Knowledge Concepts Pty Ltd, Adelaide, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Babie and R. Sarre (eds.), Religion Matters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_9

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9.1 The Price of Religion Any meaningful reflection on the contemporary relevance of religion is impossible without an appreciation of its relevance in the past. But how far into the past? What kinds of religion? We know religion is old. We don’t know how old. The archaeological site of Gobekli Tepe, Turkey, thought to have been built in stages about 11,000 years ago, is the world’s first known temple (Drake 2008). It is a sprawling complex, constructed of stone megaliths that pre-date metal tools. Archaeologists believe that, at the time of its construction, the landscape around Gobekli Tepe was bountiful with plant and animal life. But it is nonetheless reasonable to question how the builders of these extensive religious artefacts were able to afford the resources required for their construction. The manual labour required to carve limestone blocks, some weighing seven tons, with flint tools, is almost unimaginable from a contemporary perspective, and every hour devoted to temple construction was an hour lost to producing food, building shelter, caring for children or making tools and weapons. What was the nature of the trade-offs than enabled these societies to afford what, at the time, must have been enormous expenditures on endeavours not directly supporting material wellbeing? This question echoes forward through time: the pyramids, the Parthenon, Notre Dame, Hagia Sophia and countless other examples. But the societies that built these later structures had the advantages of technology, scale and greater maturity. Going even further back in time than Gobekli Tepe, evidence of behaviours that strongly suggest ritual burial have been dated at around 100,000 years (Fossils 2015). Were these religious behaviours? What were the pragmatic rewards for the societies that undertook these rituals? What was the nature of the ‘value proposition’ in terms of social viability for the construction of the temples of Gobekli Tepe and for prehistoric religious activity in societies that were marginal, vulnerable and perhaps fragile with few resources to spare? The high-level answer that religion encouraged social cooperation which made religious societies more productive and successful leaves a trail of additional questions in its wake: what are the exact mechanisms by which religiosity impinges on societal productivity, how do various levels and types of religiosity translate into societal productivity, what proportion of social resources were devoted to religious activity by various societies, how were decisions made about the allocation of resources, does religion lead economic development or is it the other way round and so on? Such questions are a crossroads where multiple disciplines converge and depart. Consideration of the role of religion in the development and coherence of societies has been explored in theology, philosophy, history, sociology, and evolutionary biology and psychology, to identify a few. The questions are complex and deeply significant both historically and for contemporary societies; they include explorations, in addition to those above, such as: to what extent do religious beliefs and/or ethical constructs emerge from evolutionary processes; to what extent do ethical systems arise from religious traditions or independently of them; to what extent are shared

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ethical and/or religious systems a pre-condition for social coherence, what are the dynamics, are there tipping points, what do these look like?

9.2 The Economics of Everything Given the breadth and relevance of such questions, it is likely that many disciplines can provide useful insights. Economics might, a priori, be considered too narrow in focus to address such broadly social, historical and anthropological concerns. What does economics bring to the table? Essentially, it is deep reflection on the optimising behaviour of individuals—the detailed evaluation of benefits and costs that occurs within an individual mind. This focus on rational optimisation has appeared to practitioners of alternative behavioural disciplines such as psychology, sociology and anthropology as an excessively narrow or even a futile project because individual preferences are formed within a social context, individuals are incapable of conceptualising what is in their self-interest, let alone acting to promote it, and systematic irrationality abounds. All these factors, it is argued, mitigate against the usefulness of a focus on rational optimisation according to internal preferences. The neoclassical economists of the late Nineteenth Century such as Marshall, Walras and Jevons were indeed prepared to sacrifice realism for the analytical tractability of utilitarianism and were focused on material welfare, perhaps because, for the first time in history, consistent improvements in the living standards of working people were occurring with the reasonable prospect of these improvements continuing indefinitely. But this episode in the development of economics, although highly influential, was an outgrowth from earlier foundations located in the moral philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment. Over the past few decades economics has, like most other disciplines, developed its own labyrinthine structure of sub-disciplines and interdisciplinary approaches. Behavioural economics, experimental economics, evolutionary economics and institutional economics have brought greater richness, realism and relevance into economic thinking. Increasingly, the ambit of economics is not simply the behaviour of individuals in the exchange of goods and services but an exploration of how humans attempt to optimise across a wide range of diverse factors that impinge on their perceived wellbeing including their interaction with other individuals and the broader social context. We seek to understand as fully as possible the systems that nurture us – meaning that we ought to be interested in monetary and non-monetary mechanisms, self-interest as well as ethicality and altruism, perfect rationality as well as quasi-rationality, non-satiation as well as satiation, exchange as well as gift relationships, competition as well as cooperation and collective action – all as part of one discipline. (Binenbaum 2016: 25).

It’s also worth emphasising that economic behaviour has been around a long time. If we formulate the fundamental economic problem in the most general way— choice between competing ends using limited resources—then life itself can be seen

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as essentially an economic process. Primitive bacteria use energy to move towards more energy in the form of nutrients or sunlight and in doing so utilise their limited available energy as efficiently as possible. The lucky bacteria in the genetic lottery win because they are more efficient, can compete better and proliferate. From this perspective, the decisions on the evolutionary savannah about whether to search for bananas at this time of year in that part of the jungle frequented by leopards is not far removed from decisions about what proportion of one’s wealth portfolio to allocate to abstract high-return, high-risk derivative financial products. It’s arguable that primitive individuals needed to be better at allocating scarce resources than contemporary ones. Today, inattention, missed opportunities and mistakes mean a lower rate of wealth accumulation; on the evolutionary savannah these probably mean death. The point here is not that economics is a close substitute for all the other disciplines that enhance our understanding of complex, long term historical, cultural and social phenomenon, only that the push of economic behaviour can be seen operating across eras, cultures and societies and provides insights about the progress of broad historical movements such as the rise of individuality as a principle of social and political organisation.

9.3 Methodological Individualism and Holism Notwithstanding this broadening of the factors influencing individual behaviour which have been incorporated by modern economic thinking, economic enquiry is firmly grounded in methodological individualism, the precepts of which posit that: only individuals have aims and interests; social systems are the result of the actions of individuals; and “all large-scale sociological phenomena are ultimately to be explained in terms of theories that refer only to individuals, their dispositions, beliefs, resources, and interrelations” (Rutherford 1996). This is in distinct opposition to methodological holism which asserts that the social whole is more than the sum of its parts and that individual behaviour “should be deduced from macroscopic or social laws, its purposes, or forces that are sui generis and that apply only to the social system as a whole, and from the positions or functions of individuals within the whole” (Rutherford 1996). From the perspective of the social sciences, these considerations are ground-level and fundamental presuppositions about the nature of the realities being investigated. It is not difficult to see these presuppositions at work in competing Marxist or, more recently, ‘progressive’ interpretations of social and economic realities and, indeed, their manifestation in polarised contemporary political discourse. Taken at face value, methodological individualism and methodological holism cannot be reconciled or synthesised—either individuals create societies or societies create individuals. This kind of conceptual dichotomy, however, seems intuitively untenable in pragmatic application and, similarly to the ‘nurture versus nature’ dichotomy, typically invokes a ‘truth is somewhere in the middle’ response. This intuition is reflected in

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efforts in the literature to divine sub-categories within methodological individualism including structural, institutional and social individualism. Udehn (2002), for example, distinguishes institutional and structural individualism. In institutional individualism, social institutions appear as exogenous variables, or in the antecedent of social scientific explanations. Social structures, narrowly conceived, appear, if at all, typically as endogenous variables, or in the consequent. The defining characteristic of structural individualism, on the contrary, is that “social structures” in the sense intended here, appear as exogenous variables, or in the antecedent of social scientific explanations.

Characterising methodological holism, by way of contrast, Udehn observes: “Many Marxists, on the contrary, conceive of the market as a social structure, where actors occupy positions as capitalists and workers, before they start to exchange” (Udehn 2002: 495). In Udehn’s analysis, strong methodological individualism presupposes that atomistic individual decision-making drives all socio-economic outcomes whereas weak methodological individualism introduces the idea of larger scale socio-economic structures which form as the result of individuals’ decision-making and their interactions. These socio-economic structures, then, influence individual decision-making in a process of ongoing interacting causality. Udehn notes that the shift from strong to weak methodological individualism “makes it difficult to continue talking about individualism and holism as opposite doctrines” (Udehn 2002: 500). While this latter point is no doubt correct conceptually, two things do not need to be opposites to be nonetheless characterised as strongly differentiated. Based on the preceding discussion we could speculate that a strong form of methodological holism would assert that an individual’s decision-making is significantly predetermined by the social context within which one finds oneself. A weaker form of holism might admit of a higher degree of autonomy for individuals and a greater extent of individual influence on more malleable and evolving social structures. A discourse along these lines weakens the distinction between individualism and holism which, when it comes to pragmatic consideration of the role and behaviour of the individual in the social context, is probably a more realistic and useful perspective. Perhaps the methodological discussion has its greatest utility in clarifying the importance of belief about the relative importance of individual autonomy and pre-existing socio-economic determinants of individual decision-making and behaviour. These beliefs or presuppositions about individual autonomy are profoundly important for the way in which society, institutions, the nature of progress, and the potential for human wellbeing are understood. Such beliefs also underpin political positions which may be vehemently held yet whose conceptual foundations may not be fully appreciated. Alternatively, it is worth considering that while competing views about individualism are perfectly logical underpinnings for ideological positions, such ideological positions may, nonetheless, be held for other reasons. The visibility of fundamental underpinnings can get lost in the complex layering of contemporary issues and the obfuscating shadows of history. Returning to ground, principles can have a clarifying influence.

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9.4 The Individual in the Social Setting Considering the contemporary relevance of religion requires thinking about the relevance of religion to very large-scale advanced modern societies. The scope, complexity and diversity of modern economies and societies are distinctive characteristics of the contemporary setting. The study of non-human primates and the archaeological record tells us that society pre-dates humanity. Psychological traits that were adaptations to group living were evolving in our predecessors long before Homo sapiens existed as a distinct species. The vast majority of humanity’s time as a distinct species has been spent in small tribes of hunter gathers in which humans continued to develop as the planet’s high-functioning specialist co-operators. These small groups encouraged, or perhaps more accurately, enforced, a process of transparent cooperation. Anonymity was impossible, individual behaviours were apparent, levels of cooperation were easy to monitor, and deviations from cooperative norms were simple to punish. The ultimate punishment, ostracization from the group, represented near certain death. Thus, the success of Homo sapiens was founded on reliable reciprocity and ‘prosocial’ behaviours. Large modern societies, in contrast, are largely anonymous and individual behaviours are much harder to monitor. The rise of stable, large, cooperative societies is one of the great puzzles of human history, because the free-rider problem intensifies as groups expand. Proto-moral sentiments that are rooted in kin selection and reciprocal altruism have ancient evolutionary origins in the primate lineage … However, neither kin selection nor reciprocal altruism (including partner-choice mechanisms) can explain the rise of large, cooperative, anonymous societies. Genealogical relatedness decreases geometrically with increasing group size, and strategies based on direct or indirect reciprocity fail in expanding groups or as reputational information becomes increasingly noisy or unavailable. Without additional mechanisms to galvanize cooperation, groups collapse, fission, or feud, as has been shown repeatedly in small-scale societies. Our first puzzle, then, is how some groups, made up of individuals equipped with varying temperaments and motivations, which evolved and calibrated for life in relatively small scale ancestral societies, were able to dramatically expand their size and scale of cooperation while sustaining mutually beneficial exchange. How was this feat possible on a time scale of thousands of years, a rate too slow to be driven by demographic growth processes and too fast for substantial genetic evolution? (Norenzayan et al. 2016: 2–3)

In the context of this book, the answer to this question almost jumps off the page: ‘religion’. But religion is not the only possible answer. And the possibility should be explored that no answer is necessary—that somehow humans have evolved characteristics which enable them to be naturally predisposed to a cooperative orientation in large societies. The general question, then, is this: what are the drivers and processes of the large-scale social cohesion that self-evidently exists which got underway around 10,000 years ago and continue apace today? The processes which served to bind our ancestors in cooperative small tribal societies would seem to be not tenable at scale.

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9.5 Evolution for Grouping or Group Evolution or Neither? The benefits to individuals arising from membership of society come at a price. Part of that price are the costs of complying with legal systems and social behavioural norms. But, in addition, there is a range of discretionary behaviours occupying a spectrum from prosocial to antisocial. Individuals inescapably face the problem of allocating their limited resources to benefit themselves or benefit society. As E. O. Wilson, a leading proponent of the theory of group selection, puts it: “An unavoidable and perpetual war exists between honor, virtue, and duty, the products of group selection, on one side, and selfishness, cowardice, and hypocrisy, the products of individual selection, on the other side.” (Wilson 2012) Group selection proposes a process of human group selection that is analogous to the individual natural selection identified by Charles Darwin. More specifically, group selection posits that human psychological ‘prosocial’ traits emerge via an evolutionary process of between-group competition that makes the long-term success of groups exhibiting strong prosocial traits more likely—societies made up of individuals with strong prosocial traits outcompete those whose members are less prosocial. One of the attractions of a theory of group selection is that humans clearly prefer to live in groups, prosper within groups, and undertake various behaviours that promote the interests of their groups even when such behaviours may be personally costly. But does a process exist that is analogous to individual genetic selection, one that drives human nature towards social cooperation? Pinker (2012) is sceptical, asking: Does this mean that the human brain has been shaped by natural selection to promote the welfare of the group in competition with other groups, even when it damages the welfare of the person and his or her kin? If so, does the theory of natural selection have to be revamped to designate “groups” as units of selection, analogous to the role played in the theory by genes?

Group selection is criticised as a “cumbersome, time-wasting distraction” by evolutionary thinker Dawkins (2012). Both he and Pinker emphasise the simplicity and power of the original formulation of natural selection in which replicators (genes) reproduce exponentially under ideal conditions and random mutations that improve the rate of replication lead that lineage to dominate the population. This process “explains one of the greatest mysteries in science, the illusion of design in the natural world” (Pinker 2012). They argue that the concept of group selection is not necessary to explain “psychological traits adapted to group living such as tribalism, bravery, self-sacrifice, xenophobia, religion, empathy, and moralistic emotions” (Pinker 2012) but rather these can be explained by individual natural selection operating on individuals within social environments in the same way in which it operates in the natural environment. It’s an important distinction: are prosocial behaviours evolved through competition between individuals in the social setting or via competition between groups themselves. These are very different mechanisms with profoundly different implications.

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One of the implications of these different views about the mechanisms that drive the development of prosocial behaviours concerns the ways in which individuals should experience these behaviours. Pinker observes the instinctive behaviour of a bee that stings an intruder at the cost of its own life. This behaviour, which is evolved via individual selection in the context of the shared genes of the hive, is instinctive and automatic and contrasts with the behaviour of human combatants who must typically be coerced in some way into group conflicts. In primitive inter-tribal conflict, direct group confrontations typically involved more gesturing and caution than mass unrestrained physical violence while real warfare was undertaken by ambush and surprise precisely to minimise risk to the perpetrators (Pinker 2012). The “historically more recent phenomenon of standing national armies was made possible by the ability of increasingly bureaucratised governments to impose conscription, indoctrination, and brutal discipline on their powerless young men” (Pinker 2012). Much of the discussion regarding the viability of group selection turns on the problem of altruism. Nepotistic altruism, defined as altruism towards a genetically related individual can be explained within the framework of individual selection—one sacrificing for one’s kin is protecting some of one’s own genes so there is an evolutionary pathway to instinctive personal sacrifice for one’s kin. Reciprocal altruism can also be explained via individual selection although its operation is complicated by imperfect information, trust or its absence, uncertainty, time, anonymity, the veracity of reputation, and the efficacy of deception. Nonetheless, it makes sense for an individual to sacrifice for a group member if, on average, over time, reciprocity occurs as expected. This kind of in-group reciprocity can have the functions of important economic mechanisms such as specialisation and trade (you do this, I’ll do that), intertemporal trade and finance (do this for me now, I’ll do it for you later), and insurance (we’ll help each other if one of us gets injured) all of which will contribute to the productivity and resilience of the group. In relation to reciprocity and general prosociality, however, each individual has an incentive to overstate willingness to reciprocate and contribute and to maximise the gap between actual contribution and the perception of contribution (perhaps a definition of ‘virtue signalling’). This would suggest benefits to the individual from the evolution of traits such as capacity for lying, misdirection, deception, manipulation, and similar. One thing that we would expect not to evolve is a level of altruism where contributions to the group entail disadvantage to the individual and, in particular, a decrease in reproductive fitness and opportunity, “a gene that impelled a person to launch a suicide attack that allowed his group to prevail over an enemy. That is hardly a gene that could be selected! … What could evolve, instead, is the tendency to manipulate others to become suicide attackers, and more generally, to promulgate norms of morality and self-sacrifice that one intends to apply in full force to everyone in the group but oneself.” (Pinker 2012). As in the case with the dichotomy of methodological individualism and holism discussed above, the conceptual dichotomy represented by individual and group selection decisively influences the ways in which we conceive of the individual in

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the social setting. If indeed our prosocial behaviours were evolved as the group selectionists suggest, then we should experience such behaviours as instinctive and automatic in the same ways as we experience those behaviours clearly evolved through individual selection, such as freezing motionless when we hear an unexpected sound in the adjacent bushes. Evolved instinctive behaviour is, by its nature, rapid and noncalculating. Does the hero who rushes into the burning house to rescue a stranger’s child act instinctively? Is the internal dialogue that accompanies such an act different if the child is one’s own? If, on the other hand, behaviours are evolved by individual selection within the group context, then our behaviours should reflect an individual conscious awareness of the explicit trade-offs between group-oriented and self-oriented behaviours—we should have evolved not only prosocial behaviours but also capacities for exploitation and deception. Pinker’s rejection of group selection processes does not prevent us: from seeking to understand the evolution of social and moral institutions nor the dynamics of population and networks which turn individual psychology into large-scale societal and historical phenomena. It’s just that the notion of “group selection” is far more likely to confuse than enlighten – especially as we try to understand the ideas and institutions that human cognition has devised to make up for the shortcomings of our evolved adaptations to group living. (Pinker 2012)

In Pinker’s formulation of individual evolution of human psychological traits, we have evolved various prosocial psychological traits but not to the extent that we can expect these to explain the stability of large complex societies. In the absence of sufficiently instinctive prosocial behaviours, it is likely that other mechanisms have played a critical role in the formation and stabilisation of our societies. It should be clear from this discussion that there is ample scope for various mechanisms that encourage social cohesion and cooperation to evolve through cultural processes—as opposed to genetic—and for these to be sources of group success. Such mechanisms include religion, sovereign power and other political structures, the rule of law, economic and social institutions, cultural conventions, and so on. Empirically speaking, we would expect groups within which such mechanisms are more prevalent and effective to be more successful than otherwise. It is worth emphasising that this statement does not imply that other factors may not be even more decisive in promoting the success of particular societies, for example, access to resources or charismatic and talented leaders.

9.6 Are Religions Prosocial? Clearly religions cost something to operate—at the individual and social level there are costs in the form of time and resources devoted to following religious practices, constructing temples, sustaining a priestly workforce and so on. Given that, over millennia, societies have competed with each other for resources, if religions did not confer some kind of benefit that exceeds these costs then we would eventually expect to see religions competed out of existence. But we do not. In fact, as societies become

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larger and more complex, their religious systems tend to do the same. Religious practices become more complex (and costlier to sustain), religious art forms expand in scope and scale, Gods are understood to be increasingly interventionalist and concerned with and more prescriptive about moral behaviour. This contrasts with the more nebulous and removed character of primitive gods (Norenzayan et al. 2016). Beneath this high-level detail there are many more specific questions: what is the direction of causality, do more complex religions enable more complex society, is it the other way round, to what extent is the causation circular? Do religions encourage individual prosocial behaviour? To what extent compared with other drivers of prosocial behaviour? In what ways do these roles change over time? Anthropological evidence suggests a strong positive correlation between belief in complex moralising gods and the size of societies. Although, again, causation is ambiguous—“it has been hypothesized that one way that prosocial religions maintain social cohesion in expanding groups is by legitimizing authority, inequality, and hierarchical relations”—in which case hierarchy and power are the social glue and religion a palliative for the individual and an enabler of the accretion and maintenance of power. The archaeological record is not the only source of data. Experimental economics and psychology have explored questions of prosociality in great detail. For example, behavioural games have shown that “Religious reminders reduce cheating, curb selfish behaviour, increase fairness toward strangers, and promote cooperation in anonymous settings for samples drawn from societies shaped by prosocial religions … Religious priming reliably increases prosocial behaviour” (Norenzayan et al. 2016: 11). So far, so good, but, “these effects are moderated by prior religious belief. That is, religious priming effects are reliable for strong believers, but they vanish for nonbelievers” (Norenzayan et al. 2016: 11). Perhaps somewhat amusingly, “greater belief that God is punishing is more strongly associated with reductions in moral transgressions such as cheating, whereas greater belief that God is benevolent, if anything, has the opposite effect, increasing cheating” (Norenzayan et al. 2016: 11)—it seems that forgiveness has a downside. There are alternatives to religious priming, however, that elicit prosocial behaviour. “Experimentally induced reminders of secular moral authority had as much effect on generous behaviour in an economic game as reminders of God … There are signs that some societies with strong institutions and stable life conditions have passed a threshold, no longer leaning on prosocial religious elements to sustain largescale prosociality. Some of the most cooperative and trusting societies, such as those in Scandinavia, are also the least religious” (Norenzayan et al. 2016: 18). Our analysis accommodates the fact that religiosity systematically varies depending on the social conditions that exist in particular populations at particular times. Religious prosociality was once one of the most effective ways to foster exchange among strangers or organize them for cooperative endeavors. However, the recent spread of secular institutions since the industrial revolution – including democratic political institutions, policing authorities, and effective contract-enforcing mechanisms – has ushered in widespread large-scale prosociality without gods.

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Our framework, therefore, provides an account of how secular societies climbed the ladder of prosocial religion and then kicked it away. Prosocial religions may have buttressed a cultural bridge between the small-scale human societies that dominated much of our evolutionary history and the complex secular societies of the modern world [my emphasis]. (Norenzayan et al. 2016: 18)

If it is true that prosociality can be promoted as effectively by secular means as by religious then it is appropriate to consider what these secular mechanisms are, how they evolved and how they work. What ideas, assumptions and processes lie behind the development of our cultures and modern institutions? How durable are these mechanisms of social cohesion and what might constitute threats to them?

9.7 Thomas Hobbes and Adam Smith: God, Government and the Individual Thomas Hobbes published his political analysis masterpiece, Leviathan, in 1651. Writing over 200 years before Charles Darwin’s The Origin of The Species (1859), he lacked access to evolutionary thinking and to an archaeological record as fulsome as the one we have now. He famously imagined human life before society in a “state of nature” as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. As we have pointed out, however, society predates humanity; primitive life may have been poor, nasty, brutish, and short but it was not solitary. Of course, Hobbes was concerned with the question of political power in the large and complex societies of seventeenth century against the background of experiments, punctuated by civil war, in representative government in England. “His vision of the world is strikingly original and still relevant to contemporary politics. His main concern is the problem of social and political order: how human beings can live together in peace and avoid the danger and fear of civil conflict” (Williams 2003). Hobbes propounded the idea of a ‘social contract’—whereby ‘free men’ agree with one another to establish a political community. Within this community all members gain from increased security but surrender to the authority of a sovereign which may be a monarch or some form of parliament. In contrast to thinking of society as a naturally evolved phenomenon, Hobbes viewed it as a human construct and believed that even the risks associated with tyrannical rulers were outweighed by the anarchy of ‘state of nature’. Again, in Hobbes’ view of the world and human nature, expressed as a contract, we see a trade-off between self-interest and social interest—for the advantages of society, individuals should be willing to surrender some freedoms to authority. There are obvious parallels with the trade-offs that are discussed in the individual verses group selection debate. Hobbes’ ideas about human nature have been described as “mechanistic” in the sense that they were influenced by scientific revelations of the time and his thought does not provide significant insights about human motivations— “What it does not provide nor could it, given the rudimentary state of physiology and psychology in Hobbes’s day—are any decisive or substantive ideas about what

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human nature really is.” (Williams 2003). He seems to primarily see humans as selfinterested, in fear of conflict and death and at pains to maximise their wealth and access to power. “Hobbes argues that each of us, as a rational being, can see that a war of all against all is inimical to the satisfaction of her interests, and so can agree that “peace is good, and therefore also the way or means of peace are good”. Humans will recognize as imperatives the injunction to seek peace, and to do those things necessary to secure it, when they can do so safely.” (Lloyd and Sreedhar 2019). Just 108 years after Leviathan, in 1759, Adam Smith published The Theory of Moral Sentiments with its resolutely optimistic opening paragraph about human nature and our capacity for social functioning. How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. (Smith 1759: 4)

Although humans were characterised by self-interest—‘self love’—Smith argued that this was balanced by sympathy. Using concepts such as the ‘fellow feeling’, desire for approbation and the internal impartial spectator, Smith sought to demonstrate “man’s fitness for society”: Nature, when she formed man for society, endowed him with an original desire to please, and an original aversion to offend his brethren. She taught him to feel pleasure in their favourable, and pain in their unfavourable regard. She rendered their approbation most flattering and most agreeable to him for its own sake; and their disapprobation most mortifying and most offensive. But this desire of the approbation, and this aversion to the disapprobation of his brethren, would not alone have rendered him fit for that society for which he was made. Nature, accordingly, has endowed him, not only with a desire of being approved of, but with a desire of being what ought to be approved of; or of being what he himself approves of in other men (Smith 1759:105)

‘Nature’ in this context is likely almost synonymous with ‘God’. Smith, like Hobbes, predates evolutionary thinking, and though reputed to be not overly religious (Hill 2011), Smith makes, frequent reference to the divine and the “Author of Nature”—“but every part of nature, when attentively surveyed, equally demonstrates the providential care of its Author, and we may admire the wisdom and goodness of God even in the weakness and folly of man.” (Smith 1759: 230). Smith’s attribution of human nature to the ‘divine Author’ is very much a thing of his time and one can’t help but wonder what Smith might have written had he been able to read Darwin. Notwithstanding the stark contrast in perspectives on the origin of human nature—God on the one hand, and evolution on the other—again, there are striking parallels between the ways in which the two views see the operation of the individual in society. Just as our long-term evolution in the social context equips us to navigate relationships steeped in trade-offs, reciprocity and politics, while pursuing an individual agenda, in Smith’s view we pursue our self-interest from within a deep and nuanced context of sympathy, fellow feeling and the desire for approbation which all operate at the instinctive level—and are, for Smith, a deep and intrinsic part of our nature

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shared even by “the most hardened violator of the laws of society”. Smith saw God’s hand in the design of human moral sentiments, “Far from being incidental to his scheme, it is the theological constructs—the design principle and a teleology which embodies first, final and efficient causes—which make the system work.” (Hill 2011: 22). Pinker argues that while we have evolved many traits for dealing with the social context including a desire for cooperation and an alertness to the opportunities of reciprocal altruism we, in addition, have developed capacities for manipulation, subterfuge and deception and hence, as mentioned earlier, his interest in “the ideas and institutions that human cognition has devised to make up for the shortcomings of our evolved adaptations to group living.” Laws and institution evolve to encourage our prosocial and discourage our antisocial inclinations. Smith, likewise, recognised that although human sympathy might do the heavy lifting in the arena of social cooperation, individuals were nonetheless also motivated by the prospect of divine punishment and reward (Smith 1759: 83). and that, in addition, a system of “positive law” is required—“As the violation of justice is what men will never submit to from one another, the public magistrate is under a necessity of employing the power of the commonwealth to enforce the practice of this virtue.” (Smith 1759: 313). Thus, these very different perspectives—evolutionary and Smithian—one based on evolved and one on (natural or God-given) intrinsic characteristics, assert a similar morphology to the processes by which social order is achieved. Self-interested individuals whose potentially overly selfish, and therefore socially destructive, behaviours are moderated by instinctive prosocial behaviours is the fundamental atomistic unit of human society. The intrinsic, however, isn’t enough. Mechanisms that encourage prosocial behaviours, and manage antisocial ones, are required to promote the progress of society. Thus, religions, rule of law, well-functioning institutions, shared social and ethical conventions are necessary to promote social cooperation, material wellbeing, and economic and competitive superiority compared with societies that have less well-developed prosocial mechanisms. Conveniently, for the current exposition, Smith applied his genius not only to the exploration of emergent social order but also to the dazzling phenomenon of the early industrial revolution.

9.8 The Individual, the Economy and the Invisible Hand Of course, Smith is known less as a moral philosopher and more as the father of modern economics. Published in 1776, the Wealth of Nations ushered in a revolution in thinking about how modern states function—“where others had fished here and there, Smith spread his net wide; where others had clarified this and that issue, Smith illuminated the entire landscape. The Wealth of Nations is not a wholly original book, but it is unquestionably a masterpiece.” (Heilbroner 1972: 49).

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The Wealth of Nations is long, eclectic and wide-ranging and there are more than a few grand themes that can be divined from it, for example, that government intrusions into markets are often counter-productive and benefit entrenched interests, or that the source of rising material living standards is specialisation and the division of labour. But perhaps its most radical, visionary and far-reaching grand theme is that of beneficent order emerging from the uncoordinated pursuit of self-interest: Every individual… neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it… he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. (Smith 1776: 349)

Inured, as the modern mind is, to thinking in Darwinian evolutionary terms, it is difficult to appreciate how radical this thought was in Smith’s time. The astounding mechanism of evolution leading to infinitely refined ‘apparent design’ has acclimatised our minds to the concept of ‘order’ emerging from uncoordinated competition. Smith’s assertion that the economy functioned in this manner was revolutionary enough but further, Smith’s prescriptions that centuries of public policy making should be dismantled and reconstituted based on the veracity of the idea of a selforganising economy was an even more startling proposal and a jarring challenge to vested interests. For the purposes of this discussion, it is essential to emphasise Smith’s focus on the individual: The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition…is so powerful, that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations. (Smith 1776: 417)

Our knowledge of twentieth century national tyranny perhaps makes us less sanguine than Smith about the capacity of individual enterprise to overcome ‘impertinent obstructions’ but his contention here clearly shows his emphasis on the individual as the driver of progress and prosperity. The fact that individuals are blind to the social beneficence of their collective efforts is irrelevant to the potency of these efforts. When it came to an analysis of markets and market power, Smith was implacably on the side of the consumer: Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. (Smith 1776: 512)

He had no belief in the benevolence of business (‘trades’): People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices (Smith 1776: 105–106)

a view that now finds its manifestation in contemporary anti-trust and competition law in its prohibitions of collusion. He was a natural egalitarian:

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No society can surely be flourishing and happy of which by far the greater part of the numbers are poor and miserable (Smith 1776: 66)

and he was highly sceptical about the social control of capital: The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals would not only load himself with most unnecessary attention but assume an authority which could safely be trusted to no council and senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it (Smith 1776: 350)

Given this perspective, another unfortunate outcome of the historical sequencing of influential books meant that Smith was not able to peruse Das Kapital, published 91 years after the Wealth of Nations. One suspects this would have produced a review worth reading. The idea that governments and monarchs could best serve their citizens by attending to a well-defined but circumscribed domain of public spending, by keeping market power in check and then by basically ‘getting out of the way’—promoting economic freedom and competition—was revolutionary. Smith did no less than articulate, for the first time, the shape, functioning and logic of the modern liberal economic system. He was pro-individual, pro-market, pro-equality and pro-competition. Smith was a keen observer. He understood that what would come to be called the Industrial Revolution was well under way and that, for the first time in history, the prospect of an enormous reduction in poverty was imminent. He grasped how markets would create this unprecedented prosperity and he understood that the restrictions on trade were designed to serve the vested interests of the time, not the general good. But his most revolutionary idea, that the pursuit of self-interest by uncoordinated individuals would promote the general well-being of society, was as profound philosophically as it was profound pragmatically. His endorsement of the pursuit of self-interest, however, was predicated on the ideas contained in the Theory of Moral Sentiments—something argued extensively by Smithian scholars. The ‘invisible hand’ would guide the pursuit of self-interest by uncoordinated individuals towards a socially prosperous outcome only in the context of sympathy being a prime mover of human psychology and social behaviour. Smith had validated the role of individual freedom in the economic space—he foretold the idea of ‘consumer sovereignty’. On the political front, England had also been a tumultuous hotbed of innovation, progress and regress, twists and turns, ultimately resulting in significant steps towards instituting individualism in the political sphere. We will return to this below. But first, we need to ask, if the eighteenth century saw the political and economic role of the individual becoming increasingly established in law and policy, how did we get there from the evolutionary past? Where, originally, did this mysterious ‘phase transition’ from tribe as the fundamental social unit to the individual usurping that role occur? Where do we look for the origin of this radical discontinuity? Where else but the Greeks?

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9.9 From Birthright to Individual Right One of the most intellectually challenging endeavours faced by the historian is to understand the world from the perspective of the inhabitants of the past. Perhaps the most difficult of all is to conceive as fully as possible what now appear to be almost alien moral and ethical precepts that were held by our ancestors, to be in a world, for example, where racism is regarded as natural, or even a virtue, where slavery is common practice, and to understand, without the indulgence of judgment, their implications for historical development. Larry Siedentop, in Inventing the Individual (2015), explores the religion, society and politics of early ancient Greece. Agriculture is thought to have begun in the region around 6800 BCE and there was a gradual process of transformation from nomadic tribes or small semi-permanent villages to larger permanent cities which marked the beginning the first period of ancient Greek history, the Mycenaean period (around 1600–1000 BCE). From within our modern, dense, complex and interdependent societies is difficult to imagine these medium scale societies happening for the first time—to imagine society as ‘undiscovered’. Siedentop shows “how prehistoric religious beliefs shaped first the domestic and then the public institutions of Greece and Rome.” (Siedentop 2015: 9). The family was the fundamental social unit. In fact, from within the family, the rest of society was peripheral: “those outside the family circle were not deemed to share any attributes with those within. No common humanity was acknowledged, an attitude confirmed by the practice of enslavement. (Siedentop 2015: 13).” The fundamental duty of the family was the continuation of the worship of the family’s ancestors. The practices of the ancient family met the needs of self-conscious creatures seeking to overcome the fact of death…. The fire on the family hearth could not be allowed to die out, for it was deemed to be alive. Its flickering, immaterial flame did not just represent the family’s ancestors. It was their ancestors, who were thought to live underground and had to be provided with food and drink, if they were not to become malevolent spirits. Tending the fire therefore became an overarching obligation. The eldest son would succeed his father as custodian of the rights of the family hearth, that is, as its high priest.” (Siedentop 2015: 10–11)

Siedentop cites nineteenth century historian, Fustel do Coulanges, who argued that these beliefs “reflected a prehistoric period when the family, more or less extended, was the only social institution, long before the growth of cities and governments.” (Siedentop 2015: 12). There was a hermetic seal around each family’s religious practices: “no one was allowed to worship at more than one hearth or sacrifice to more than one series of divine ancestors … To be involved in sacrifices at more than one sacred hearth would have been seen as monstrous, an impiety likely to bring disaster to both families.” (Siedentop 2015: 14). Individual identity was subjugated to the family roles and the imperatives of family worship: “the authority of the father as priest and magistrate initially extended even to

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the right to repudiate or kill his wife as well as his children. Celibacy and adultery were counted serious crimes, for they threatened, in different ways, the family worship. … Charity, concern for humans as such, was not deemed a virtue, and would probably have been unintelligible. The fulfilling of the obligations attached to a role in the family was everything.” (Siedentop 2015: 15). Notwithstanding the insular nature of this social unit, larger settlements and eventually cities began to coalesce. These developments were no doubt driven by economic factors and the desire for greater security. How did such patriarchal families or gentes eventually form larger associations? They did so in the only way known to them. That is, they came to acknowledge a shared ancestor and founded a common worship. An altar was raised to a divinity or ‘hero’ held in common. … When these new associations, in turn, increased in size and proximity, they came to establish a still wider association, called a tribe. The tribe too required its sacred altar and a God. The ancient city came into being when several tribes became associated, by founding a common worship, a worship that supplemented rather than replaced the pre-existing worships. … The city that emerged was thus a confederation of cults, an association superimposed on other associations, all modelled on the family and its worship. The ancient city was not an association of individuals. (Siedentop 2015: 20–21)

Besides ensuring the continuity of family and tribal worship, the other obligation upon the patriarch was to fight for them. Reaching a pinnacle much later in Sparta, these were warrior societies. The twin obligations of religion and warfare dominated the citizen’s life. The successive of worships into which the ancient citizen was initiated left no space for individual conscience or choice. These worships claimed authority over not just his actions but also his thoughts. Their rules governed his relationships with himself as well as with others. there was no sphere of life into which these rules could not enter - whether it was a matter of dress, deportment, marriage, sport, education, conversation or even ambition. … The safety and welfare of the city was everything. (Siedentop 2015: 22)

After the fall of Mycenaean civilisation and the ensuring Grecian dark age the emergence of Greek city states around 750 BCE saw these traditions continued as the distinctive Greek polis began to take shape. These Greek cities had their own gods or their own versions and distinctive interpretations of gods who were shared with other city states. The priesthoods of these cities did not interact with those of other cities. Laws were given by the priests and these laws were immutable. As the polis grew in size and complexity, the patriarch at the head of the family evolved into the citizen, which as a class, became the collective head of the polis as monarchy gave way to aristocracy. The early Greek citizen was typically a ‘hoplite farmer’—a trained warrior and an owner manager of a farm. The citizen sought esteem from his peers through courage in battle and through skill in oratory especially in relation to matters concerning the government of the polis. The superior status of the citizen was founded on a ‘natural order’ and a concept of ‘reason’—“reason could identify that towards which each thing ‘naturally’ tends, finding its proper place in a ‘great chain of being’ … there was a natural hierarchy, a superior class entitled by ‘nature’ to rule, constrain and, if need be coerce.” (Siedentop 2015: 35) In this world-view, individuality was a non-concept, individual will was

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irrelevant. “What is more immediately striking is that Homeric Greek, the Greek of the Iliad and Odyssey, did not even have a word for ‘intention’.” (Siedentop 2015: 35) In this world, the trade-off between the pursuit of individual and social goals was largely predetermined. Compliance with high levels of obligation was enforced with the high level of scrutiny that were inescapable in these still relatively small communities. It was not a spontaneous ethical awakening that led to the gradual erosion of this entrenched inequality but rather economics and politics. By the sixth century BCE, independent (non-citizen) farmers and merchants were becoming wealthier and they sought a political voice. An increasing number of Greek citizens had become enslaved by a process of indebtedness and were expressing discontent (Kagan 2007). In many poleis actual and potential tyrants formed relationships with the disgruntled against the aristocrats. The Athenian aristocrats sensed a need for reform. Around 594 BCE the Athenians appointed Solon as sole archon (law giver) with sweeping powers. His innovations were many but included abolishing the debts of those previous citizens who had become enslaved. He extended citizenship to the wealthy, breaking the monopoly on citizenship of birthright. He also offered citizenship to immigrants to Athens who could demonstrate valuable skills or a valuable craft (Kagan 2007). Critically, Solon invented a court of appeal which would limit the power of magistrates which was open to all Athenian males, not just the citizens. Less than a hundred years later, after some significant reversals in Athens, the new constitution of Cleisthenes continued the development of something now recognisable as proto-democracy, “the thing that’s most important about it is, equality before the law. That is, something that wipes out distinctions among classes of people on that basis when it comes to the law. Every man who comes before the law is equal to every other man”, and critically, “equality of the opportunity to address the political body, meaning the assembly. Every Athenian male from the first adult regardless of what his money rating was, of his class, whether he was a thete or higher, everyone had the right to speak in the assembly.” (Kagan 2007). The concept of free speech, if not yet fully realised, had arrived. Athenian democracy was far from universal franchise but was one of the most important political innovations of all time—it initiated the point at which access to political power began to diverge from exclusively a right of birth. It would be over 500 years before the next great innovation in individualism—the rise of Christianity. Humanity had spent more than a million years wandering the evolutionary savannah and the cultural and religious practices oriented to the survival of family and tribe just managed to penetrate the written record of western history in early Greek civilisation. A mere few hundred years later we see the beginnings of the institutional recognition of the importance of individuality in Athenian democracy. This shift in the ways that humans view themselves and their roles in society is enormous and, from an evolutionary perspective, happened in less than an eye-blink. It speaks to the incredible flexibility of the human mind and also to the economic necessity of finding ways to make large societies function smoothly and productively.

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While Siedentop has much to say about how religious beliefs and practices accommodated the shift from family to polis as the focus of allegiance, he is relatively silent on what drove this fundamental shift to urbanisation. It is likely that ancient cities delivered the same benefits that are important in our contemporary world: specialisation, higher incomes, knowledge, greater choice, services, entertainment and so on, and additionally, greater security from military incursions. Thus, in this transition from family and tribe to city then city-state, religion appears as a flexible accommodating mechanism – members of these ancient communities appear to need a shared form of worship and its nature evolves relatively rapidly. Religion doesn’t appear to act as a centre of gravity around which societies coalesce. That is, it appears that economic necessity leads to the formation of larger social groups and adaptive religious forms follow rather than the reverse. The advent of Athenian democracy did not, by any means, signal the end of aristocratic power, and it meant little for the socioeconomically marginalised masses. The rise of Roman power and the fall of the city state in Greece, however, decisively eroded the power of local aristocracies: the undermining of local autonomy – of that civic life which provided the justification of citizenship and its privileges – had profound social and intellectual consequences. … Just as the ancient citizen class was stricken by a mortal illness, because of centralisation, so the familiar civic gods were fading into mere ghosts. In that place was a fierce, remote and often unfathomable power: Rome. (Siedentop 2015: 52)

These developments undermined the Greek idea of a natural order and their traditional polytheistic religions. To social disenfranchised classes throughout the growing Roman Empire, monotheistic religions Judaism and Christianity offered a new vision of the individual especially as preached by Paul the Apostle: Paul’s conception of the Christ overturns the assumption on which ancient thinking had hitherto rested, the assumption of natural inequality. Instead, Paul wagers on human equality. … As deployed by Paul, the concept of the Christ becomes a challenge to the ancient belief that humans are subject to an immutable order or ‘fate’. (Siedentop 2015: 60)

With the death of fate comes the necessity of free will. But if human behaviour was not governed by pre-ordained roles, what would govern it? No doubt this appeared a recipe for anarchy to many. Under Christianity the answer was God’s will within which individual identity could operate. Christianity provided “an ontological foundation for ‘the individual’, through the promise that humans have access to the deepest reality as individuals rather than merely as members of a group.” (Siedentop 2015: 63). In terms of the discussion above, Christianity was deeply prosocial “for the whole of the law is fulfilled in one word … Love your neighbour as yourself.” For the dispossessed at the beginning of the first century the message of Christianity was right for the times. It offered hope in the context of oppression. For the Roman Empire it was subversive. Suppression of Christianity through the practice of martyrdom, however, proved counterproductive: The interior conviction that marked them out was something that disregarded gender, class and status. Martyrdom illustrated the exercise of an individual will, founded on conscience.

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… Thus an unintended consequence of the persecution of Christians was to render the idea of the individual, or moral equality, more intelligible. The glimpse of a depth of motivation, at once individual and potentially universal, was not easily forgotten. (Siedentop 2015: 80)

Siedentop is in no doubt of the significance of Christianity’s contribution, “in Paul’s writings we see the emergence of a new sense of justice founded on the assumption of moral equality rather than on a natural inequality. … In his vision of Jesus, Paul discovered a moral reality which enabled him to lay the foundation for a new, universal social role.” (Siedentop 2015: 66). Nonetheless, with the fall of Rome and ensuring political fragmentation, it would be a long time before such principles were resiliently embodied in political institutions. In the late summer of 1647, at the end of the first phase of the [English] Civil War when Charles I had been captured and imprisoned in his palace at Hampton Court, officers and men of the New Model Army met at a church at Putney outside London to debate the basis for a peace settlement with the King. It was an extraordinary event, in the literal sense of ‘extraordinary’; there had quite probably been nothing like it since debates in the Athenian agora two millennia before. (Grayling 2017: 33)

The ‘Putney Debates’ were part of a long, convoluted process in England beginning with the Magna Carta in 1215, that included rebellions, civil wars and stop-start parliaments leading to the establishment of universal suffrage for men and women in the UK in 1928 (after near universal suffrage had been established in 1918 following the First World War). The significance of the Putney Debates is that representatives of the Parliament’s New Model Army argued passionately for universal male suffrage for the first time when it seemed, at least to them, that the confluence of events made it a real possibility. Thomas Rainsborough, senior representative of the Army Council famously asserted: I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly, Sir, I think it’s clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under. (Grayling 2017: 45)

He was arguing against the proposition being put by ‘The Grandees’, the senior officers of the New Model Army (mostly landed gentry), that representation should be based on property ownership. Although Rainsborough failed and was killed a year later (allegedly murdered by agents of the Parliament), from 1832 to 1928 the property requirements on suffrage were gradually relaxed. Even as late as 1884 in the UK, 40% of males were still disenfranchised because of property requirements. In 1879, New Zealand established universal male suffrage and became the first nation to enact women’s suffrage in 1893. The journey of political enfranchisement based on individualism had finally arrived at a robust institutionalisation.

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9.10 The Thread of Individualism Individual behaviour in the social context is influenced by our desire to advance our personal objectives, including those for our close families, and by a broad range of prosocial factors: evolutionary, ethical and cultural, social obligations, religious systems, law and institutions, and our needs for relatedness and approbation. One of the characteristics of the development of Western societies over the last two-and-a-half thousand years has been the rise of individualism. Notwithstanding significant reversals and pauses, the rights and autonomy of individuals have increased as reflected and embodied in the development of institutions such as universal suffrage, freedom of speech and equality before the law. This represents enormous change in human self-conception from a state in which prehistoric tribal and family roles strongly predetermined identities and behaviours with individual preferences and aspirations counting for little. The view of the individual as existing within a set of prosocial and self-interested trade-offs has emerged in discussion of individual and group competition and evolutionary and cultural selection, in the ideas of Hobbes and Smith and other thinkers, and in the precepts of, especially monotheistic, religions—‘love thy neighbour as thyself’. These concepts, which are a mixture of analytical and prescriptive ideas, envision autonomous individuals navigating complex sets of conscious and unconscious decisions resulting in behaviours that produce the kind of individual and collective equilibria that have enabled large scale social systems to form and prosper. This vision implies a degree of collective volition regarding the direction of longterm social development. It appears that individuals collectively want the things that individual autonomy and large-scale societies provide and that they are prepared to adopt behaviours and promote institutions that support their development. The kind of individual and social equilibria conceived of here are highly general and not reducible to quantitative analysis in any comprehensive manner, although the experimental economics and psychology described in the discussion regarding the prosociality of religion are attempts to divine specific aspects of the behaviours that lead to these outcomes, for example, behavioural responses to ‘religious priming’ or priming regarding secular authority. An important conclusion of such analysis appears to be that secular institutions, to some degree, are substitutes for religions in encouraging prosocial behaviours. It is worth keeping in mind, however, that such experiments provide ‘behavioural snapshots’ but do not necessarily inform us about longer term dynamics. In relation to such dynamics, it is reasonable to ask what factors might destabilise such equilibria—what type of changes might make individuals become less prosocial, for example? To put this in contemporary terms, do developments such as polarised political conflict, changes in inequality, popularism, and intensifying identity politics signal some breakdown in prosocial behaviour? Do processes associated with globalism, multiculturalism, and the rise of an aloof political and economic elite undermine the willingness of individuals to compromise in the social interest?

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And, if so, how would measure such dynamics and divine objective truths about such fundamental socio-economic change? Adam Smith’s vision of a beneficent invisible hand, be it a metaphor based on belief in instinctive human behaviour or be it religiously literal, surely operates effectively only within a limited range of social environments and a limited set of ‘payoffs’ for alternative individual behaviours. According to UK economist, Fred Hirsch, it could be concluded from John Rawls’, A Theory of Justice (Rawls 1971), that “Individuals can be expected to restrain the exercise of their individual power in the interests of protecting the fabric of their society if, but only if, they believe the society as a whole to be just one,” (Hirsch 1977: 152). History provides endless examples of what happens when this belief collapses, often on the streets of Paris. The slow historical rise of individualism and the dichotomy between methodological individualism and holism discussed earlier, are useful background to contemporary political diversity. Presuppositions that humans are, in essence, autonomous, self-actualising, and can form meaningful preferences and aspirations and move towards them clearly predisposes one to a political orientation that traditionally would be described as ‘liberal’. This worldview stands in contrast to one which views social structures and the individual’s location within them as the primary drivers of behaviour and broader social development from which various branches of Marxist thought emerge. The pre-designated roles imposed by tribal and aristocratic systems always embed inequality. A Marxist might respond that the primary objective of such roles is precisely to impose and maintain inequality. But as the early Greek religious practices show us, it’s more complicated than that. These earliest religious structures emerged from the necessities of survival on the evolutionary savannah. These nonindividualistic social structures were, in a sense, captured in their dying moments in the history of early Greece. What is most remarkable is how quickly the idea of individualism began to emerge and displace these tribal origins given the depths of evolutionary instincts and behavioural programming. What are the claims of individualism as a superior way of thinking about society and designing institutions? One powerful answer is that it is a basis for social organisation we have arrived at despite the obstructions of our evolutionary nature and of the vested interests of the status quo. It is human intention and human will that have driven us towards individualism. This human will has been aimed at pulling down socially or culturally defined immutable identities and roles which are invariably characterised by hierarchy and inequality. These broad high level observations inevitably invite the opening of a Pandora’s Box of objections and complications, for example: our modern societies are not viable or sustainable, they are in a state of collapse or on a road to ruin; modern societies are bad for individual mental health and relationships, we are witnessing a degradation of the human spirit in our vast anonymous cities; market-based societies are exploitative, create only the illusion of freedom, are wracked with inequality, and so on. Add to this, philosophical challenges to the concept of progress per se. Steven Pinker responds to these types of objections in his recent book ‘Enlightenment now’:

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What is progress? You might think that the question is so subjective and culturally relative as to be forever unanswerable. In fact, it’s one of the easier questions to answer. Most people agree that life is better than death. Abundance is better than poverty. Peace is better than war. Safety is better than danger. Freedom is better than tyranny. Equal rights are better than bigotry and discrimination. Literacy is better than illiteracy. Knowledge is better than ignorance. Intelligence is better than dull-wittedness. Happiness is better than misery. Opportunities to enjoy family, friends, culture, and nature are better than drudgery and monotony. All these things can be measured. If they have increased over time, that is progress. (Pinker 2018: 51)

Reviews of Pinker range from Bill Gates’ “My new favorite book of all time” (Gates 2018) to “triumphalist defence of scientific rationality” (Davis 2018) and “Pinker’s grand apology for capitalism” (Lynch 2018). If the polarisation of contemporary politics serves any useful function it is that it demonstrates the scope of our freedom to interpret the world around us and argue for our view, something that was unimaginable to our tribal ancestors and the foundation communities of ancient Greece. Human minds display an enormous diversity in the way that they theorise about the continuing existence of social problems, failures and challenges juxtaposed with the irrefutable existence of long-term and enormous improvements in human well-being. The principles of individualism have become gradually instantiated in the institutions of what we now identify as developed nations. This process, while starting over 2500 years ago, reached a significantly more advanced stage in only the last 200 to 300 years. This period coincides with an astounding rate of material progress in these nations. Individualism is built quintessentially on the principle of human uniqueness. Human uniqueness is no more clearly manifested than in human creativity and the proposition that the rise of individualism and the liberating of human creativity were major factors driving material progress cannot be easily dismissed. What is the alternative to individualism? It is to have one’s identity and destiny defined primarily by pre-ordained membership of a group—man, woman, patriarch, master, slave, firstborn son, wife, daughter, aristocrat, patrician, plebeian, thete, citizen, Protestant, Catholic, capitalist, worker and so on. Ultimately, the consequence of these designations of identity is to limit choice by pre-defining social roles and limiting individual choice and freedom. The attractions of tribal membership, however, are powerful and genetically encoded and are most attractive when actual, latent or potential tribes feel threatened or disenfranchised. Social challenges abound in developed societies because, to some extent, they are more visible in the context of general prosperity and because human societies are not perfectible. Ultimately, the question is whether a society founded on individualism or founded on tribalism enables the most progress to be made. Political fashions and social change are inherently unpredictable and at times appear improbably volatile. In this context, the metaphorical (or otherwise) function of the invisible hand has been astoundingly robust, just as Smith claimed it was, with free individuals collectively “capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity” (Smith 1776: 417) Individualism is a foundation principle on which over two thousand years of social development has been built. Whether secular institutions

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can, in the long-term, replace shared religious beliefs in encouraging the cooperation of free individuals is an experiment that is currently being run in the modern world— it is too early to tell. Recent developments on the global stage suggest that perhaps Nietzsche greatly exaggerated his reports of the death of God anyway—it is too early to tell. Many social architectures can be built on the foundation of individualism. It is not a policy prescription but rather a structural principle. Individualism is not a solution that causes thorny social conundrums to evaporate but it is a context within which they can be continuously addressed. Individualism does not connotate or endorse selfishness, greed, or excessive and unproductive inequality. If he were alive today, Adam Smith would be a withering critic of the national and global cabals of power—he was pro markets, pro competition and hostile to accretions of privilege and entitlement, particularly, those unearned. Although individualism is now decisively instantiated in core institutions in many societies, its form will continue to evolve, and the currency of the idea will always suffer reversals and will be subject to challenges. The Athenian political revolution, the rise of Christianity, the gradual innovations of English democracy, and the moral and secular philosophies of the Enlightenment have propelled human self-conception across the gulf between tribalism and individualism. Thus far, however, this achievement can only be regarded as tentative phenomenon, of only two or three hundred years duration. There is no guarantee that the principles of individualism will not be overthrown, or be significantly diluted, in a new era of tribalism. In the advanced economies of the world, it is all too easy, perhaps even fashionable, to see Adam Smith’s emphasis on “wealth and prosperity” as outdated or quaint or to believe that the prosperity of advanced nations is somehow irrevocably ‘locked in’. We build bigger and more complex cities and states on successively more complex layers of knowledge, technology, infrastructure and cooperation. But perhaps the deepest and most indispensable foundations of all is the manifest idea of the individual and its empowering of the creativity of free minds. It has been the revolutionary spark and the energetic source of over two millennia of political innovation, scientific discovery, institution formation, creativity and entrepreneurialism that have done nothing less than revolutionise human self-conception and experience.

References Binenbaum E (2016) The power of the provisioning concept: a reflection on the meaning and value of economics. University of Adelaide, School of Economics Davis W (2018) Enlightenment now by Steven Pinker review—life is getting better. The Guardian, 14 Feb 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/14/enlightenment-nowsteven-pinker-review. Accessed 25 Jan 2019 Dawkins R (2012) In: Pinker S (ed) The false allure of group selection. An EDGE original essay. https://www.edge.org/conversation/steven_pinker-the-false-allure-of-group-selection. Accessed 03 Dec 2018

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Drake N (2008) Gobekli Tepe: the world’s first temple? Smithsonian.com. https://www. smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665/ Accessed 06 Oct 2018 Fossils N (2015) Mystery lingers over ritual behavior of new human ancestor. National Geographic, 15 Sept 2015. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150915-humans-deathburial-anthropology-Homo-naledi/. Accessed 20 Sept 2018 Gates B (2018) https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Enlightenment-Now. Accessed 25 Jan 2019 Grayling A (2017) Democracy and its crisis. Oneworld Publications, London Heilbroner R (1972) The worldly philosophers: the lives, times and ideas of the great economic thinkers. Simon and Schuster, New York Herbert F (1976) Children of Dune, 2003. Gollancz, Orion Publishing Group Hill L (2011) The hidden theology of Adam Smith. Eur J Hist Econ Thought 8(1):1–29 Hirsch F (1977) The social limits to growth. Routledge and Kagan Paul, London and Henley Kagan D (2007) Open Yale courses. Introduction to Ancient Greek history, CLCV 205, Lecture 11. The rise of Athens (cont.). https://oyc.yale.edu/classics/clcv-205/lecture-8. Accessed 15 Jan 2019 Lloyd S, Sreedhar S (2019) Hobbes’s moral and political philosophy. In: Zalta EN (ed) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2019 Edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/ entries/hobbes-moral/. Lynch C (2018) “Enlightenment Now”: Steven Pinker’s grand apology for capitalism, Salon. https://www.salon.com/2018/03/10/enlightenment-now-steven-pinkers-grand-apology-forcapitalism-tk/. Accessed 29 Jan 2019 Norenzayan A, Shariff A, Gervais W, Willard A, McNamara R, Slingerland E, Henrich J (2016) The cultural evolution of prosocial religions. Behav Brain Sci 39:1–19 Pinker S (2012) The false allure of group selection. An EDGE original essay. https://www.edge. org/conversation/steven_pinker-the-false-allure-of-group-selection. Accessed 03 Dec 2018 Pinker S (2018) Enlightenment now: the case for reason, science, humanism, and progress. 2018 Viking Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press Rutherford A (1996) Institutions in economics (Historical Perspectives on Modern Economics). Cambridge University Press (July 13, 1996) Siedentop L (2015) Inventing the individual: the origins of liberalism. Penguin Books Smith A (1759) The theory of moral sentiments, 6th edn. (1770). MetaLibri (2006) Smith A (1776) An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. 6th edn. (1770). MetaLibri (2007) Udehn L (2002) The changing face of methodological individualism. Annu Rev Sociol 28:479–507 (2002) Williams G (2003) Thomas Hobbes: moral and political philosophy. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://www.iep.utm.edu/hobmoral/#H3. Accessed 10 Dec 2018 Wilson E (2012) The social conquest of earth. Liveright, New York

Chapter 10

Religion and Security in Today’s Neo-liberal World Kelly W. Sundberg

Abstract Religion stands as a powerful social and psychological influence, capable of compelling both individuals and groups to set aside their self-interest or even lives to advance the core aims of their religion or beliefs. This chapter aims to unravel the many challenges associated with defining and describing religion and security within the context of today’s neo-liberal world. Central to the examination is how overgeneralisations of the narrative regarding religious hostilities and conflict can risk these hostilities becoming exacerbated and expanded. Included is a critical discussion of the role security plays in either mitigating or aggravating the threat of religious violence. It is argued that religious violence is far less about one’s solemn belief in a mystical supernatural power, than it is about despondency, social alienation, and moral disengagement on the part of the combatants, and far more about the greed, social dominance, and desire for sovereign domain on the part of the instigators. Ultimately, it is held that in the absence of a broadly defined definition for religion, it is of fundamental importance that those with influence, agency, and voice—namely government leaders, journalists, and academics—use great caution when describing conflicts, hostilities, and threats that on the surface are justified by religion. It is concluded that peace and security are best achieved through a steadfast commitment to broad inquiry, accepting that what we hold as certainties may at times change as a result of this inquiry.

10.1 Introduction Aside from the multitude of challenges associated with defining and studying religion, it is widely accepted that as an institution it is primarily focused on providing people and communities peace, serenity, unity, and a sense of security (Wolffe and Moorhead 2014). Still, despite the multitude of benefits religious observance

K. W. Sundberg (B) Department of Economics, Justice and Policy Studies, Mount Royal University, Calgary, AB, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Babie and R. Sarre (eds.), Religion Matters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_10

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affords billions of people around the world, religion nonetheless can stand as a formative obstacle to achieving peace and security. As noted by the inaugural United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, Robert A. Seiple (1999–2001): There are people in the world today who are willing to die for their faith. And just as importantly, and perhaps unfortunately, there are people in the world today who are willing to kill for their religion. —2004 Washington, D.C.

Clearly, religion stands as a powerful social and psychological influence, capable of compelling both individuals and groups to set aside their self-interests or even lives to advance the core aims of their religion or beliefs (Beller and Kröger 2017). Yet, unlike most government systems, nearly all religions have reconciliation and forgiveness as core tenets. During the early history of modern-man, religious hostilities and wars typically constituted conventional territorially-focused state-on-state conflicts—the king or prince of one region believing it was their divine right to invade a neighbouring kingdom and impose both their authority and faith on the subjugated population. Conversely, over the past century most religious conflicts have been regional in scope—usually manifesting as civil wars or revolutionary uprisings. The 1975–1990 Lebanese Civil War1 stands as the most pronounced example of a contemporary religious conflict. During the over 15 years of civil war, groups of religiously-defined militias fought for control of post-colonial Lebanon—ultimately resulting in tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the nation and over one hundred thousand others being killed (see Henley 2008; Kreidie and Monroe 2002; Haugbolle 2011). Since the later part of the 20th century, nearly all religious hostilities have been in the form of asymmetric actions that unfold in unpredictable locations resulting in large numbers of civilian casualties—the September 11th, 2001 al-Qaeda attack on the

1 In

May of 1926, France transformed its colonial holding of Greater Lebanon into the Lebanese Republic (Lebanon). Notwithstanding Lebanon being a democratic republic with its own parliamentary system, the French continued to exert influence over the nation up until the establishment of the United Nations on October 24, 1945. During the early years of World War II, the Nazi aligned Vichy French forces garrisoned in Lebanon were defeated by the British Commonwealth and Free French forces—resulting in the exiled Free French government declaring Lebanon independent, yet remaining in the territory until December 1946. Two years later, Lebanon supported its Arab neighbours during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, resulting in over 100,000 Palestinian refugees fleeing across its border. In 1958, when Egypt and Syria formed the United Arab Republic (UAR), Lebanese Muslims wishing for Lebanon to join the UAR staged an attempted revolt, which resulted in the United States dispatching over 5,000 Marines to impose peace. In the following months, a new Lebanese government formed. During the following years, thousands of Palestinian militias entered Lebanon to launch attacks against Israel. As the nation destabilised, sectarian hostilities between Druze, Christians, Sunni Muslims, and Shia Muslims erupted into civil war in April 1975. It was not until October 1990 when the civil war ended, and not until 2005 until Syrian forces finally ended their occupation (see Moser 2004; Krayem 1997).

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United States2 (commonly referred to as 9/11) counting as the most pronounced and deadly example (9/11 Commission Report 2004). This chapter highlights the core challenges associated with defining and describing religious hostilities and conflicts in today’s neo-liberal world. Central is an examination of how overgeneralisations of the narrative surrounding contemporary religious hostilities and conflict can risk these hostilities becoming exacerbated and expanded. Likewise, this inquiry also includes a critical discussion of the role security plays in either mitigating or aggravating the threat of religious violence. As will be argued throughout, religious violence is far less about one’s solemn belief in a mystical supernatural power, than it is about despondency, social alienation, and moral disengagement on the part of the combatants, and greed, social dominance, and desire for sovereign domain on the part of the instigators. To this point, one must consider just how pious the impoverished, malnourished, illiterate, and subservient peasant masses of medieval Europe were—did they truly believe in the holy wars of their monarchs, or did they just have no other choice or even idea? Did the monarchs of this historic period genuinely believe in the divine right of kings, or did they simply enjoy conquering foreign lands, ruling their subjects, and living as comfortable a life as possible? Clearly these are rhetorical questions, for which it is suggested the answers are as true today as they were centuries ago. The major 19th century theorists Friedrich Nietzsche, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber each predicted that intellectualism, science, and industrialisation would mark the decline of religion, but fell far short in their forecasts. While they accurately projected the influence democracy and secularism would eventually have in Europe and the European colonies, they obviously could never have predicted the influence religious states such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Israel, Denmark, Vatican City, to name just a few, would have on today’s neo-liberal world (Berger 2008). Globalisation, liberal democracy, urbanisation, together with advances in science and technology—in particular the Digital Revolution—have all emerged as key influencers of contemporary religion and in turn security. Seemingly, aside from scope and speed, not much really has changed since 1648 when the Peace of Westphalia3 ended the three decades of religious hostilities and wars between factions of the Protestant and Catholic states of Europe, through to when Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States, tweeted that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant 2 On

September 11, 2001 (9/11), 19 al-Qaeda terrorist hijacked four commercial airliners and flew them into the World Trade Centre in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia—the highjacked flight destine for Washington, DC ultimately was commandeered by passengers and crashing in Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania. In total, 2,996 people were killed and over 6,000 injured—265 aboard the hijacked flights, 2,606 at the World Trade Centre, and another 125 at the Pentagon. Of those killed, 343 were firefighters, 72 law enforcement officers, and 55 military personnel (see 9/11 Commission Report 2004). 3 The Peace of Westphalia refers to the Treaties of Osnabrück (May 15, 1648) and Münster (October 24, 1648) ending the series of wars and hostilities that columnated into Europe’s Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648). During this period princes within the Holy Roman Empire fought over their right to assert a set religious doctrine for their respective principalities—nearly 30% of Europe’s population was killed during this period (see Bratt 2006).

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(commonly referred to as ISIL or Daesh) had been defeated.4 Simply, throughout history, autocratic tyrants, charismatic dictators, and monarchs alike have all in part used religious dogma to rally their followers (either willingly or by force) to invade, pillage, and occupy foreign lands—often using this religious dogma to justify their horrific atrocities.

10.2 War, Conquest, Imperialism, and Globalisation: Westphalia to Trump Since the earlier civilisations, religion has served as the central influence and doctrine by which civilisations were formed, governed, and developed—in almost every case, religious leaders were also political rulers, or visa-versa. As Cooper (2014) observes, ever since the time of ancient Mediterranean civilisations—where the Abrahamic religions eventually emerged—it was widely accepted that many gods existed. Cooper goes on to state that during this time no one contested the existence of the gods others believed in; rather, they pledged loyalty to the one or more that resonated personally with them. Interestingly, despite members of the same civilisation at times believing and pledging their loyalty to different gods, conflicts did not arise based on these differing beliefs. To this point, as the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam emerged, never has there been a debate or conflict surrounding the acceptance that G-d is the G-d of Israel. It was not until the fall of the Western Roman Empire and emergence of the medieval period that religious-based conflicts between European and Mediterranean kingdoms, princedoms, and empires became commonplace—ultimately transposing these conflicts globally during the Age of European Discovery (15th through 18th centuries). From medieval times through to the late 18th century, religion served as the central means for European, and in some cases Asian, monarchs to maintain social and economic control over their populations and territories. Known as the doctrine of the ‘divine right of kings’ (see Dogan 1985), monarchs convinced their followers that: (1) they regularly and directly communicated with G-d or the gods, (2) G-d or the gods explicitly anointed them to rule the territory (kingdom), (3) they were only accountable to the G-d or gods and not to the people or another ruler, and (4) opposition to their authority was tantamount to opposing the will of G-d or the gods. Considering the significant dominance achieved through this doctrine, combined with the power and influence religion itself had on populations of the time, it is unsurprising that monarchs of the time justified their hostilities and wars as being religiously-based. Up until the end of World War II, when Emperor Hirohito was 4 At its peak in 2014, Daesh controlled over 100,000 km2

(39,000 sq. mi.) of territory within Iraq and Syria, undertook or coordinated over 70 terrorist attacks in over 20 countries (not including Iraq and Syria), and has killing and injuring thousands. As of this article, Daesh has not been defeated—not even close—President Trump clearly was mistaken in his assessment (see, Day and Kleinmann 2017).

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made to publicly renounce his divinity, a vast majority of Japanese worshipped the Emperor as being a direct descendent of the sun goddess Amaterasu (Suzuki 2017). Similarly in North Korea, it is believed that under the “Cult of Kim”, most North Koreans view their first leader, Kim Il-sung, his son Kim Jong-il, and grandson Kim Jong-un, as sent from heaven to heroically protect and provide for the Korean people (Vazquez 2017). It was not until the Age of Enlightenment during the 18th and 19th centuries that the religious conflicts in Europe subsided, the notion of religious freedom emerged, and relative peace was achieved—the 1648 Peace of Westphalia serving as the pivotal historic point when the early notion of secularism emerged. In the aftermath of this devastating period, Protestant and Catholic rulers agreed that religious freedoms such as private worship, belief, and rights of religious minorities would be extended to those Protestants and Catholics living within the other’s territory. Moreover, it was also agreed that Protestants and Catholics living within these mixed territories would be permitted to share political offices (Krasner 2001; Gross 1948). The principles of the Peace of Westphalia—specifically that states have the right to establish their own laws and traditions which other states should respect despite their possible disagreement—have guided the modern context for state sovereignty and international relations for over five centuries (Bratt 2006; Pagden 2003; Krasner 2001; Gross 1948). As Krasner (1995: 115) observed: “…the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the ‘Thirty Years War’ in 1648, is taken to mark the beginning of the modern international system as a universe composed of sovereign states, each with exclusive authority within its own geographic boundaries”. As identified by Bratt (2006), following the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, the monarchs of early Europe suddenly had become the sovereign and supreme rulers of their own territories—ultimately gaining independence from the church. In essence, the Peace of Westphalia transposed religion in Europe from the exclusive domain of either the Protestant or Catholic churches to a pliable notion exclusively controlled by a national leader—the formation of the Prussian Union of Churches in 1817 by order of the King of Prussia, Frederick William III, serving as a key example. Today, Westphalian sovereignty remains as the historic foundation upon which organisations such as the United Nations (UN), European Union (EU), North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), and other longstanding international unions were established (Falk 2002). Notwithstanding the important insight scholars such as Krasner (2001), Gross (1948), and others offer in regard to the influence the Peace of Westphalia has had on the establishment of today’s international society, it is important to acknowledge that this scholarship has emerged predominately from a Eurocentric perspective. During the era of European global exploration and colonialism of the ‘New World’,5 the 5 The

‘New World’ refers to those lands outside of continental Europe that were ‘discovered’ then colonised by European explorers. The reality of the ‘Age of Discovery’ (15th through to the 18th century) and subsequent years of European exploration (18th through to the 20th century) was that European nations occupied lands throughout Africa, Asia, and the Americas—claiming them as extensions of their European sovereignty and using them to produce and extract commodities for export back to Europe (e.g. spices, tobacco, precious metals, etc.). The indigenous populations

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notion of state sovereignty (commonly known as Westphalian sovereignty) slowly became infused into the existing political cultures and governance systems of most nations around the world (Krasner 2001; Gross 1948). From the 18th through the 20th centuries, when European imperialism and colonisation was at its height, the Eurocentric perception of state sovereignty truly took the form of European states forcibly extending their dominion, and in turn religion, upon the indigenous populations of the territories they came to occupy (Kayaoglu 2010). In essence, the notion of Westphalian sovereignty, European exceptionalism, combined with utter contempt for the religious, cultural, and social norms of the indigenous populations living in territories colonised, set the stage for contemporary religiously-based hostilities (Slater and Constable 2019). One of the most pronounced latent after-effects of Westphalian sovereignty, when considered together with European imperialism and contemporary globalisation, is the eventual manifestation of anti-western nationalism throughout much of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, along with unrelenting economic depression across Africa (Fukuyama 2004). When a general sense of resentment toward external state influences (i.e., states that provide development aid, investment capital, manufactured goods, technologies, energy, etc.) is combined with a majority of the population lacking social and political agency, economic opportunity, along with healthcare, education, and reliable civic infrastructure, the risk of religious extremism significantly increases (Soares 2005; Thomas 2010; Nichiporuk 2003). Similarly, nations having weak political, social, and economic institutions are highly susceptible to autocratic, oppressive, corrupt, and disreputable leadership and governance—Syria, North Korea, Equatorial Guinea, and Algeria stand as a few contemporary examples. Ironically, the exploitive, corrupt, and belligerent autocratic rulers of weak nation states are primarily able to act with impunity because of Westphalian sovereignty— notwithstanding the fact that the international community might know of atrocities committed within the borders of a state, under the doctrine of Westphalian sovereignty, it can only protest and generally cannot intervene (Thomas 2010).

10.3 (Mis)Interpreting Religion Since 9/11, religion and security together have increasingly been the topic of academic, government, and public discourse. Having reviewed the extensive body of scholarship surrounding these topics, it is clear neither term is fully understood or otherwise defined. As Wolffe and Moorhead (2014) observe: Religious literacy and a wider vocabulary are needed by all. We must consider and explain what we mean by terms such as religion and security before we develop policy, research living within territories were commonly used as forced labour in European based industries and expected to convert to Christianity. The era of the ‘New World’ was mired with the exploitation of indigenous populations and resources, yet often heralded as a romanticised period of adventure, exploration, and industrialisation (see Love 2006).

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or media reports based on them. We must not assume that we all have the same or even compatible understanding. —p. 2

Far too often journalists, pundits, and scholars over-simplify the concepts of religion and security when discussing religious hostilities. When the combatants involved in religious violence and hostilities are described in overly simplistic terms—such as the community divides in Northern Ireland being described as primarily a conflict between Protestants and Catholics, or the subjugation of thousands of square kilometers by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or Daesh) within Syria and Iraq as simply an occupation by Islamic extremists—the important broader discussions surrounding such conflicts go unaddressed. To this point, when the multitude of complexities that often contribute to religious violence and conflict are omitted from discourse, or worse, erroneously evaluated, misconceptions and overgeneralisations of the religions and the people involved can develop (Powell 2011).

10.3.1 Defining, Describing, and Discussing Religion and Secularism Aside from the need for improved religious literacy, there is also a need for journalists, pundits, and scholars to avoid the lure of describing religion in monolithic terms or haphazardly pigeonholing certain factions as extremists. As found by Ost et al. (2008), members of the public who watch repeated news coverage and read reports concerning acts of terrorism, often misinterpret the issues and people involved— ultimately developing false memories and understandings of the events. Considering that one person’s misinterpretation can quickly transfer to others within their social sphere, spreading their misinterpretation to others in the community and even globally—if posted on social media—the importance of accuracy has never been more vital. In today’s digital age, one poorly researched article or news report risks being viewed as “fact” by tens or hundreds of thousands of people, even millions if it “virally trends” over social media—possibly even used to support purposefully misleading or malicious reports by others (Maheshwari 2016). In defining “religion”, Gunn (2003) points out that: Although many international and regional human rights instruments guarantee rights related to freedom of religion or belief, none attempts to define the term “religion”… [today] the term “religion” remains undefined as a matter of international law. —p. 190

Just as there is no accepted legal definition for the term “religion”, there is also no scholarly one (Babie 2007). Nevertheless, as described by Guthrie (1996), religion is not simply a shared belief guided by a series of doctrine, it is a concept that appears from a unique culture at a specific period. To this point, and as noted by Gunn (2003),

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Guthrie (1996), and Harvey (2015), a number of core elements regularly appear in the established scholarship that academics and lawyers alike can use to identify and inform what constitutes a “religion”: 1. The solemn belief in a mystical supernatural power 2. Invoking a psychological experience and feeling 3. It is both a cultural and social force that unites people into communities 4. It permeates all aspects of the physical and metaphysical worlds — allowing meaning and communication to exist at the divine level of being

Accepting the absence of a consistently agreed upon definition for the term “religion”, there nonetheless is broad agreement that Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Taoism, all constitute established “religions”. Of the three Abrahamic religions, Sunni Islam clearly has gained the most academic and media attention with respect to contemporary security concerns, with Christianity only recently being discussed more frequently as a result of white-nationalism, hate crimes, and xenophobia swelling in many neo-liberal democratic states such as Australia, Canada, and the United States, along with the European Union (see for example Johnson 2018; Whitehead et al. 2018). Shia Islam, however, aside from the relatively modest body of academic literature and regional news reports regarding the Lebanese-based terrorist group Hezbollah, along with books, articles, and reports concerning Iranian tensions with Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United States (in which Shia Islam typically is only discussed peripherally), is rarely discussed within the mainstream global media (Lynch 2008). And receiving even less attention, Islamic mysticism (commonly known as Sufism), receives intermittent reference as a Western-friendly and peace-focused counter to the more puritan forms of Islam (Schwartz 2008). Lastly, while Judaism is discussed occasionally within the context of Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank (see for example Eiran and Krause 2018; Clarno 2017; Getmansky and Sinmazdemir 2018), such reports typically are regional in nature and rarely make global headlines. A noted concern that has appeared over the past decade is the growing tendency among journalists, pundits, and scholars to muddle and overgeneralise the narrative surrounding Islam and security (Al-Anani 2015; Wolffe and Moorhead 2014; Thomas 2010). This muddling is particularly pronounced within the scholarship and discourse surrounding the connections between Sunni Islam (namely Jihadis-Salafism and Wahhabism), radicalisation, and global terrorism. While there is no debate that groups such as al-Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or Daesh), al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), among others, use violence to advance their organisational goals, to suggest any of these groups are closely aligned with any of the established Islamic movements—including the Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia—would be misleading. To this point, while there is no disagreement that the leadership and majority of members of these groups aim for a puritan Islamic life based on their own interpretations of Salafism, their interpretations of Salafism stand at the extreme fringes of the movement in the sense that most Salafi (including Wahhabi) do not support violence other than in defence, characteristically are not political, and in almost all cases are obedient to the ruler/government of the state in

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which they reside (Field and Hamam 2009). Simply, journalists, pundits, and scholars alike must exercise caution when labelling religiously-based terrorist groups; the failure to do so runs the risk of influencing those less familiar with the nuances of religions erroneously to view certain religions as being violent, dangerous, or even evil (Parvez 2017). Of importance when seeking to describe the term “religion” within the context of “security”, then, is the importance of considering the meaning of “secularism” within regional, social, and cultural contexts—in particular the notion of a “secular state”. While within the western neo-liberal context this task may seem generally self-evident—a secular state being one where formal religious considerations are absent from governance, rule of law, and other civil affairs—among the Arab states and neighbouring Israel, this same notion can be viewed very differently. In most western neo-liberal democracies, secularism is considered an anti-religious doctrine aimed at controlling religious expression and abolishing religious symbols from the public realm (Esposito 2010). Within the Arab states, secularism generally is viewed as a Euro-Christian doctrine entrenched in the history of European colonialism, subjugation, and occupation—a notion incompatible with the practice of sharia law, and unpalatable to an autocratic ruler or absolute monarch. In Israel, where religious rights are protected by the state’s secular democratic parliament (the Knesset) and courts, Judaism unquestionably stands as the foundational and central religion. Notwithstanding that many Jewish laws are Israeli laws (e.g., it is the law that only kosher foods be served on Israeli military bases), it is important to note that for a Jewish law to become a state law, it must be enacted by the Knesset. Though an issue of ongoing debate, it can be argued that the Jewish state of Israel is in large part dependent on a secular democratic parliamentary system to support the ethnonational Jewish identity, traditions, language, and religion (Yadgar 2011). Simply, “secularism”, like “religion”, is a complex notion to understand, let alone consistently operationalise—especially considering the vast regional, religious, cultural, and societal differences around the world.

10.3.2 Defining, Describing, and Deliberating Security Although defining the term “security” is far less complex when compared to “religion” or “secularism”, effectively operationalising “security” can be a formative challenge depending on the context in which applied. In general terms, “security” can be taken to be the state of being free from danger or threat, or the state of feeling safe, stable, and free from fear or anxiety (Oxford English Dictionary 2010). Whilst a seemingly straightforward definition, when considering the unique individual views people can have regarding what constitutes a “danger or threat” along with what feels “safe, stable, and free from fear or anxiety”, applying security within a community, let along a nation, can be difficult depending on the degree of variance between individual experiences, beliefs, and understandings. Moreover, security is also highly

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dependent on variables such as population size, community demographics, socioeconomics, history, along with geography and environment. And taking account of the fact that in today’s digital age misinformation and bias about a specific group can quickly and widely spread through the mainstream and social media, unjustified fears and insecurities unfortunately can drive perceived security needs. When false security needs manifest themselves in actual security, hostilities and violence can erupt. As Sundberg et al. (2017) identify, security specific to the safeguarding of persons and groups against physical harm and crime must be understood and operationalised in five physical scales and social contexts. First, at the individual or family level, security commonly refers to personal property being shielded against threats such as theft, damage, or misuse (e.g., alarm systems, locks on gates, doors, windows, etc.), or safeguarding persons against crimes such as assault, robbery, or even murder (e.g., self-defence training, carrying a whistle, possessing a firearm, etc.). Second, at the business, government, or organisational levels, security mainly focuses on asset protection along with employee and visitor safety (e.g., alarm systems, security guards, etc.), fortification and surveillance of physical property (e.g., video cameras, controlled gates, doors, etc.), along with the care and control of occupants (e.g., ID cards, fobs/prox-cards, etc.). Third, at the community or neighbourhood level up to the municipal or regional level, security primarily is focused on community crime reduction and public safety (e.g., police services, bylaw enforcement, neighbourhood watch, etc.). Fourth, at the provincial/state up to the national and international levels, security aims to maintain the rule of law, ensure state sovereignty, as well as protecting national resources and interests (e.g., military, border security, national intelligence, etc.). And, finally, at all scales and in every geography, security is achieved by first assessing the social context, then evaluating the relevant threats based on the social context, followed by a determination of the risks based on the threats, and lastly the application of appropriate countermeasures. When analysing the possible impact religion has on security within these five social contexts and scales, it is particularly important to ensure that the social context determination is unbiased and scholarly-informed. Equally, possible threats and corresponding risks must be assessed using evidence-based and accurate measures, with implemented countermeasures being relevant, reasonable, and prudent—always applied in the most tactful, strategic, and legal means possible (Sundberg et al. 2017). As discussed, when a peaceful religious group is erroneously labelled as being a threat to public safety and security, fear and anxiety among the members of this religious community understandably can develop—ultimately, misinformation itself becomes the security threat for the targeted religious group to consider. If the group takes relevant, reasonable, and prudent steps to safeguard against the determined risks resulting from the threat of misinformation, members of the public, or even the government, may mistakenly conclude that the group they erroneously believe is a threat to their safety is becoming belligerent. This scenario illustrates how unnecessary animosity, fear, prejudice, distrust, and even violence can all manifest as a result of misunderstandings, misinformation, and bias becoming commonplace within a community—not to mention radicalisation.

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Several studies that examined foreign Daesh fighters from western democracies found that most were males in their early- to mid-20s, from stable middle to upper income homes. Aside from those who suffered from mental illness or who had engaged in criminality, most were well-educated, had no prior history of violence or extremism, did not regularly attend religious services, and largely had healthy relations with their families. While all of these studies acknowledge that a sizable cohort of foreign fighters had experienced abuse and neglect in their homes, they all noted that a vast majority of these foreign fighters had experienced discrimination in their home countries as a result of their ethnicity, nationality, or family heritage (Prindle et al. 2015; Cottee 2015; Bandura 2002). A common theme among the western foreign fighters studies was that predominantly white Christian members of their communities would regularly publicly express fear and disdain towards them— making statements such as “go back where you came from” or “we don’t want [insert Middle East or South Asian nationality here] in our community” (Prindle et al. 2015). As noted in the scholarship, individuals who experience ongoing discrimination and harassment often manifest feelings of depression, social isolation, and eventual moral disengagement. This determination is supported by renowned social psychologist Bandura (1999) who notes: The findings from research on moral disengagement are in accord with the historical chronicle of human atrocities. It requires conducive social conditions rather than monstrous people to produce atrocious deeds. Given appropriate social conditions, decent, ordinary people can do extraordinarily cruel things. —p. 109

Considering that extremist groups, cults, and criminal gangs all are known to actively target individuals who feel isolated, alone, and trapped (see Seifert 2006; Levine 1999) and accepting that such groups pose a significant security threat at all scales (see Wintrobe 2006), it is perplexing why western governments are not taking greater steps to address community, regional, and national level concerns of religious groups being unjustly discriminated against, immigrant and refugee communities arbitrarily being viewed as threatening, along with other social minorities being perceived as a counter-culture that threatens public safety and security. If even from an economic perspective, the cost of programmes aimed at building community cohesion through informed understanding are far less costly than traditional counterterrorism efforts. By including community-focused programmes and efforts within the overarching scope of counterterrorism, policymakers, government officials, and academics alike can gain the opportunity to find new peace-focused and sustainable strategies and approaches for reducing the threats and risk of terrorism. Though the military, police, and intelligence services will always play the leading role in combating terrorism, there is no reason they cannot also lead the way in developing new peace-focused approaches (e.g., media campaigns focused at preventing antisemitism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, educational programmes for grade school students that promote cultural diversity and acceptance, etc.). Likewise, as noted by Day and Kleinmann

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(2017), there is also a need for existing Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programmes to be reviewed regularly to ensure they are reflective of contemporary research and are achieving optimised outcomes. Lastly, a central aim for all counterterrorism officials should be the building and maintenance of sincere relations between themselves and community-based religious leaders as being central to preventing members of their congregations from radicalising, and most importantly, for achieving sustained peace and understanding.

10.3.3 (Mis)Understanding the Gradations of Salafism In most cases, when security is discussed in relation to religion, security denotes the contemporary notion of “counterterrorism” and religion refers to “jihadists” (Roy 2017; Wolfendale 2007). In current terms, “counterterrorism” routinely refers to highly specialised, heavily armed, and technologically advanced military, police, border security, and national security intelligence units being in place to investigate and apprehend members of suspected terrorist organisations or that respond during a terrorist attack. In most nations, special counterterrorism laws are in place that allow government agencies (especially the aforementioned) to use exceptional legal powers when identifying possible terrorists and preventing acts of terrorism (e.g., interception of communications outside of typical judicial review processes, temporary detention without formal indictment, deportation without full disclosure of evidence, etc.). Jihadis or “Jihadi-Salafis”—a term coined by Gilles Kepel in the 1984 book Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh (Editions La Découverte, Paris)—refers to Muslims who advocate for the historic, literal, and rigid interpretation of the Quran. Although Kepel initially was referring to members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood6 and the splinter group Takfir wal-Hijra, this term is now regularly used to describe all Sunni-based terrorist groups that use violence against anyone whom they view as being either an infidel or apostate. Although those meeting Kepel’s definition of Jihadi-Salafis are by far the smallest cohort of Sunni Muslims, they arguably have become the most referenced within the western media, government reports, and academic discourse (Benmelech and Klor 2018; Day and Kleinmann 2017; Pratt 2010). 6 The

Society of the Muslim Brothers (Muslim Brotherhood), is an international Sunni revivalist organisation and movement founded in 1928 by Egyptian imam and schoolteacher, Sheikh Hassan al-Banna. Initially, the Muslim Brotherhood was focused on building schools and hospitals. It was not until the 1950s when influencers such as Sayyid Qutb began advocating for expulsion of western influences within the Arab world, along with destruction of the newly formed State of Israel, that the Muslim Brotherhood took an extremist form. Since the build-up to the Arab Spring (2010–2012), the Muslim Brotherhood has gained significance support from younger grass-root followers, yet in the aftermath of the uprising has become fractured. With many of its leaders either imprisoned or killed, the younger generation has increasingly turned to violence as a means of protest—in part resulting in the Muslim Brotherhood being deemed a terrorist organisation by many of the Sunni-led Arab states (see Hofmann 2017).

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Of further importance when defining Islam within the context of security is the identification of the distinct differences between Sunni and Shia Islamic extremist groups. As noted by Lynch (2008), extremist Sunni groups (namely Jihadi-Salafis terrorist organisations) routinely “operate in a continuous, mid-to-high intensity manner, seeing war against infidels and apostates as a perennial condition featuring overlapping waves” (p. 6). Conversely, Shia extremist groups (such as Hezbollah) typically are engaged in open-ended hostilities and terror campaigns against the State of Israel “…tethered to state and organisational objectives” (ibid). Moreover, where it is commonplace for Jihadi-Salafis terrorist organisations such as Daesh to use highly polished and multilingual social media campaigns aimed at recruiting foreign fighters and instantly publicising their attacks globally, Shia aligned terrorist organisations primarily communicate regionally to their base through Arabic radio or television broadcasts, do not always publicise their attacks, and rarely recruit outside of the Shia community (Field and Hamam 2009; Lynch 2008). In essence, Jihadi-Salafis terrorist organisations are far more fluid in their structure, receive their funding through a variety of illicit and semi-state sources, and are not aligned with a particular state government, whereas Shia terrorist organisations are mostly politically motivated, closely aligned and funded by a foreign state (most notably Iran), and focused regionally as opposed to globally. Considering that much of the western mainstream media, along with many western pundits and academics, often cite the Salafi movement as being the major influence on the dogma of Sunni terrorist groups—with numerous news reports and academic articles citing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s financing of Wahhabi mosques around the world as being particularly problematic—it is important to examine both the aptness and accurateness of these claims. As rightfully noted by Gleave (2007, 2014) and Wiktorowicz (2006), while members of the greater Salafi movement may all shares the same puritanical view of Islam, the goals, actions, and even leadership of the various Salafi movements are widely diverse. There are four main factions within the greater Salafi movement: Politico-Salafis, Purist-Salafis, Jihadi-Salafis, and the Wahhabis who are unique to Saudi Arabia yet also active in Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and to a much lesser degree in the United Arab Emirates (Choksy and Choksy 2015; Wagemakers 2009; Wiktorowicz 2006). Politicos-Salafis (also known as Activist-Salafis) constitute the largest Salafi cohort and characteristically are peace-focused yet highly political. They view the historic, literal, and rigid teachings of Islam as being of vital importance within the political realm—Islam being the most important contributor to moral governance (Wiktorowicz 2006). Purist-Salafis in most regards practice Islam the same as Politico-Salafis, the difference being that Purist-Salafis view politics as a distraction from the study and observance of Islam. Like Politico-Salafis, Purist-Salafis are obedient to the established territorial authority (Gregg 2016). Conversely, Jihadi-Salafis adamantly reject politics, view the Quran as the only law, and advocate for Islamic states in which the original set interpretation of the Quran guides the society. Finally, the Wahhabis arguably are much the same as Purist-Salafis. While many western journalists, academics, and government officials equate Wahhabis or Wahhabi-Salafis to Jihadi-Salafis, they are not.

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Since as early as 1932, when the House of Saud7 established today’s Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Wahhabi Grand Mufti for the Kingdom, along with the Majlis Hayat Kibar al-Ulama (Council of Senior Ulama), have taken care not to contradict or otherwise question the aims of the House of Saud in their teachings, sermons, or writings. Field and Hamam (2009) support this position by identifying Purist-Salafis and Wahhabis as both being highly obedient to the territorial rulers—a characteristic monarchs and other autocratic rulers support in that they do not need to worry about uprisings sparked by the established religious leadership within their state. Moreover, it is worth noting that the co-founder and former leader of al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, was raised Wahhabi, yet ultimately was expelled from Saudi Arabia after opposing the House of Saud, Grand Mufti, and the Senior Council of Ulama (Field and Hamam 2009; Wiktorowicz 2006). To this point, when Osama Bin Laden led the 9/11 attack, his religiosity clearly was that of a Jihadi-Salafis—not that of a Wahhabi. While there is no question that many affluent and wealthy members of the House of Saud, along with other wealthy Saudis, donate billions of dollars to build Wahhabi mosques around the world (see Moniquet 2013; Zuhur 2009), it is highly speculative to assume that these donors knowingly finance terrorism. Simply, when the lines between the differing Muslim groups are blurred by oversimplified, exaggerated, or unsupported narratives, otherwise peaceful and reserved Muslims can be made to feel alienated and marginalised—ultimately resulting in efforts to achieve understanding, peace, and security between western and Arab states to be near impossible. For this reason, while Saudi Arabia along with other Arab nations where the Salafi movement is a significant influence are indisputably “fundamentalist” Islam states, fundamentalism should not be equated with fanaticism, extremism, or radicalism. This is not to say that there are not groups that need to be categorised and sanctioned for being extremist terrorist organisations—there definitely are many. Rather, the point is a simple one: when governments, journalists, or academics make definitive and public determinations that a person or group is actively involved in terrorism, it is critical that this determination be: (1) based on observance of natural justice and international legal conventions, (2) evidence-based, unbiased, and precise, and (3) strategically communicated and objectively reviewed by an impartial third-party.

10.4 Discussion Irrespective how religiously-based extremist groups are described, it is clear that these groups are more about a charismatic leader and their elite manipulating religious doctrine to advance their power (influence), territory (sovereignty), and resources (wealth), rather than puritan religious observance, which is peripheral to their efforts. 7 Founded

in 1744, the House of Saud refers to the decedents of Muhammad bin Saud, founder of the Emirates of Diriyah (1744–1818), and his brother Ibn Saud, founder of today’s Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Today’s head of the House of Saud is Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud, King of Saudi Arabia and Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.

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Simply, referring to al-Qaeda, Daesh, al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, or JI as being extremist Muslims who use violence to advance their puritan visions would be as inappropriate as suggesting that the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), Army of G-d (AOG), or the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) are extremist Christians also advancing their puritan visions. Yes, all the aforementioned are not only groups that use religious dogma to justify their violent actions, but they are also groups that seek exclusive dominions where their select interpretation of G-d’s will is rigidly enforced. In other words, saying al-Qaeda or Daesh are representative of Islam, or the KKK, AOG, and LRA are representative of Christianity, both would be both grossly inaccurate and deeply inappropriate. As Cottee (2015) suggests, rather than trying to decipher the subjective desires and emotions of extremist fighters with the aim of identifying a common reason why they commit terrorist acts and violence, it is far more constructive and informative to explore how these individuals came to become radical in their views and ultimately join terrorist groups in the first place. As noted earlier, contemporary research supports that many of those who become radicalised and join terrorist groups do so because of their social environment—not because they are intensely pious, support a specific cause, or are from a tyrannical society (Benmelech and Klor 2018). Understandably, there are millions who have grown frustrated with poverty, lack of agency, and exploitation due in large part to colonialism and imperialism, and others who have taken inept steps to secure themselves against perceived threats posed by others whom view them with contempt; yet this at the root has little to do with religion. Rather, one must ask how many hours of watching hate-filled propaganda is actually needed to be considered a “radicalised” Islamic extremist or a neo-Nazi? Having worked for over a decade and a half in federal law enforcement, investigating and taking enforcement actions against suspected terrorists (including members of neo-Nazi groups, Islamic extremist groups, along with self-radicalised individuals who came to interpret then pervert religious doctrine to fit their demented fantasies of either race or religious war), and also having travelled extensively throughout the Arab states working to advance human rights through the education of police and security officials, my view is that much of the rhetoric surrounding the general Salafi (including Wahhabi) movement is grossly exaggerated. While I do not disagree that many Salafis and Wahhabis are religious fundamentalist, I do not find them to be any more fundamental in their views toward Islam than the Evangelists I have met in the United States (in particular, states such as Alabama, Georgia, and Texas) were toward Christianity. As alluded to above, having fundamentalist beliefs does not necessarily equate to being a radical or extremist. Without question, religion has a powerful influence on an individual’s viewpoint, behaviour, and politics. But in doing so, religion clearly stands as an important force for achieving peace at both the personal and community levels; true, it can also be used to achieve control and manipulate otherwise peaceful people to act discriminatorily and violently toward others. Yet, it is important to note that observance of a religious doctrine must first be learned—it is not an innate part of our existence. In reference to the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all three explicitly teach

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that G-d is so enormous, astounding, and mystical, with the power and influence of Gd being infinitely multidimensional, that no human can fully understand or appreciate the meaning of G-d—logically, anyone who suggests they fully understand, can speak for, and who have been given the divine authority to direct others to act in G-d’s name would be disingenuously proposing they somehow are closer to G-d than any other. Unfortunately, history is full of tragic examples where just such charismatic leaders have made these sorts of claims, with horrific outcomes—People Temple leader Jim Jones convincing 918 people (nearly of third of whom were children) to take their lives in Jonestown, Guyana on November 18, 1978, and Branch Davidians leader David Koresh causing the death of 79 people (nearly a third of whom were children) to die during the Mount Carmel Center raid in Waco, Texas, on April 19, 1993, serving as but two examples.

10.5 Conclusion In the absence of a broadly defined definition for “religion”, it is of fundamental importance that those with influence, agency, and voice—namely government leaders, journalists, and academics—use great caution when describing conflicts, hostilities, and threats that on the surface are justified by religion. Equally, those with influence, agency, and voice must be wholly aware of their own bias and contextual view. While it is both understandable and natural to perceive and defend one’s own beliefs as being the truth, and in turn for the counter beliefs of others to be flawed, in a world where societies and economies depend on multiculturalism and globalisation to succeed, stubbornness and intolerance serve no purpose. Peace and security within the context of modern globalisation requires the sincere and concerted effort of political, religious, and thought leaders to seek common ground, accept compromise, and ultimately to ensure that their efforts contribute to a shared peace and security. To this end, reconciliation, compromise, and tolerance must be accepted as central tenets of both religion and politics—including a steadfast commitment to broad inquiry, the courage to question conventional truths, and accepting that what we hold as certainties may at times change as a result. Acknowledgements The author wishes to thank Dr. Jamie K. Ferrill, along with Dan M. Levinson and Thomas D. Lamb, for their insight, feedback, and edits.

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Part IV

Humanities

Chapter 11

Une Danse Bizarre: The Contest of Theos-Logos and Socius-Logos in the Twenty First Century Public Square Lynn Arnold Abstract It has often been said that the church (and in this context the Christian church) must be in, but not of, the world. The practical consequence of this admonition, however, is difficult to implement, and sometimes impossible to reconcile. True, the church and the state today have their separate constituencies, but they also have combined constituencies. These important partnerships necessarily undergo constant realignment. In this chapter, I outline a path that I maintain can lead us safely through this somewhat awkward positioning. I offer the thought that the secular versus sacred interactions can best be described as a modern dance where three dancers: the church, the state and the collective voices of individuals engage with each other in an ever-changing embrace.

Royal authority and large-scale dynastic power are attained only through a group and group feeling … Dynasties of wide power and large royal authority have their origin in religion based either on prophethood or on truthful propaganda. Ibn Khaldu “n, The Muqaddimah Shmuel said that the law of the kingdom is the law, i.e., the halakha (Talmudic law) obligates Jews to observe the laws of the locale in which they reside. Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra, 54b, It should be said that promulgation of the law of nature comes about when God inserts it in the minds of men in order that they might naturally know it. St. Thomas Aquinas, On Law and Natural Law

‘Faith in the Public Square’ has obtained significant currency as a term in recent years; yet it is a concept in need of interrogation in order to move it from the realm of cliché to being a meaningful descriptor of the interaction of faith with the secular in public life. This chapter analyses that question and proposes an approach that might, L. Arnold (B) St Barnabas College, Adelaide, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

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in the post-modern context, give the phrase substance. At the outset, however, there is a Caveat Lector. Notwithstanding the Abrahamic faith diversity of the quotes above, due to the experience and knowledge of the writer, this chapter is heavily focussed on Christianity in the public square. That does not mean, however, that the analysis developed could not just as equally be applied to other faith contexts; indeed there is very much an opportunity for ongoing projects into the way those faiths interact with their secular domains.

11.1 Theos-Logos, Socius-Logos and Faith in the Public Square In the beginning was the Word and it was all so simple. The word of God informed the word of Humanity and lived in relationship with it. While all was not quite as synergistic and coherent as the three quotes above from Ibn Khaldu “n, Shmuel and Thomas Aquinas might have suggested, any flaws were perceived to have arisen out of misinterpretation of the superior word of God (Theos-Logos) by the word of Humanity (Socius-Logos).1 There was Faith in the Public Square, indeed Faith owned the Public Square; even if it occasionally needed to prove itself by public burnings. Before the Medieval period of the opening citations there had been spokespeople such as Aristotle [vide Politics Book III] through to Augustine [City of God] who had explained away any dissonance in the Public Square between Theos-Logos and Socius-Logos. Such explanations held until the coming of the Age of Reason and Immanuel Kant. It was then that the simplicities of such rationalisations began to suffer stress fractures. Peter Watson has written: … by the end of the seventeenth century … there was no shortage of people in Europe who felt that the Christian religion had been gravely discredited … The effect (was) to produce a world where the very nature of doubt (or the reasons for it) was itself always changing. (Watson 2010: 66)

Fast forward then to the modern era, beginning with that chasm of history, World War I. That cataclysmic event and its even more traumatic sequel required a substantial rethinking of the dual Logos and their relationship with each other. Theos-Logos had lost title to the Public Square but the credibility of Socius-Logos itself was not beyond challenge.2 The birth of -isms were both attempts on the part of Socius-Logos to face that challenge while at the same time were part causes of it. For its part, so too did Theos-Logos feel impelled to redefine its role—thus Faith in the Public Square came into being as an idea. As a recent part of that rethinking, in 2012 Rowan Williams published his book Faith in the Public Square (Williams 2012) compiling some of his writings from 1 Theos-Logos

literally God-Word and Socius-Logos Society-Word; these constructs are intended to capture the breadth and depth of God-driven and Human-driven metanarratives. 2 As a reflection of this, in his work on Theodor Adorno, Didier Fassin noted that ‘sociodicies have tended to replace theodicies’ (2011: 181).

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previous years dealing with faith responses to significant contemporary public issues. The book is a worthy study but has had the side effect of popularising the phrase of its title. That phrase—‘faith in the public square’—was indeed apt for the subject matter of the book. But there has been the collateral impact that has reached beyond the book’s content. The problem is that it is a reassuring phrase, for the expression seems to give a comforting credo that Theos-Logos and Socius-Logos could co-exist even in a situation where the primacy of the former was no longer automatically accepted by the latter. But, in this capacity as a free-floating radical of a phrase in the popular lexicon, it is also potentially a lazy phrase, one of that bevy of phrases that say too much with too little evidence. Phrases such as “Social Inclusion”, “Religious Freedom”, “Freedom of Conscience” which by their very statement are taken to imply argument completed rather than argument just begun. Yet Faith in the Public Square is very much an ongoing debate. A reprise of what it has looked like over the past fifty or so years reveals anything but a coherent or unitary concept of faith in public life. In the literal public square, Buddhist monks have immolated themselves and converts who have turned away from a compulsory faith have been stoned to death for apostasy—the one a statement of individual right to proclamation of a faith statement, the other a rejection of such a right. And in between the poles of individual right and obligation have come suicide bombers into that public square expressing their individual right to deny others theirs; all this alongside Hare Krishna devotees swaying through the square enjoying the expression of their own faith indifferent to that of others.

11.2 Three Propositions for the Relationship of Theos-Logos and Socius-Logos Could all of this diversity be considered as a coherent, if heterogeneous, whole? Could it be defined in terms of a meaningful statement of relationship between the two Logos? Just in terms of Christian responses to these questions, I will first briefly summarise three signature propositions then raise a number of issues which I contend need to be considered in critiquing those propositions—all of which suggests the need for an alternative way of considering the dynamics of that relationship. First that of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose own odyssey trying to cohere the two Logos would see him transition from pacifist to terrorist (for surely such a title should be given to one who abetted the assassination of a ‘legal’ head of state?). He would make this journey in part because he not only saw a chasm between Theos-Logos and Socius-Logos but an outrageous rebellion by the latter against the former: This Fuhrer, arising from the collective power of the people, now appears in the light as the one awaited by the people, the longed-for fulfilment of the meaning and power of the life of Volk. Thus the originally prosaic idea of political authority is transformed into the politicalmessianic idea of Fuhrer that we see today. All the religious thinking of its supporters flows into it as well. (Dejonge 2018: 77)

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Michael Dejonge summarised Bonhoeffer’s response to such a rebellion indicating six types of resistance were needed (Dejonge 2018: 77): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Individual and humanitarian resistance to state injustice The church’s diaconal service to victims of state injustice The church’s indirectly political word to the state The church’s directly political word against an unjust state Resistance through discipleship Resistance through the responsible action of the individual.

Importantly these six options all presumed not only a contested relationship, but also implied a primacy of Theos-Logos over Socius-Logos. The State Bonhoeffer sought to subvert would collapse within weeks of his execution; but with that collapse came further crumbling of a wider array of ongoing ‘certainties’ that had sustained belief in each of the two Logos. By 1951 the hot rage of war had morphed into the Cold War; that year brought with it a second proposition regarding the interaction of the two Logos with the publication of H. Richard Niebuhr’s work Christ and Culture. Noting the chaotic plurality of worldview and incipient alienation that was arising, Niebuhr wrote: Everyone has some kind of philosophy, some general worldview, which to men of other views will seem mythological.

In response he proposed a range of options as to how Christ and culture, TheosLogos and Socius-Logos to use my terms, might interact. Unlike Bonhoeffer, Niebuhr assumed some degree of complicity or collaboration between the two Logos, though he nevertheless still assumed the primacy of Theos-Logos. He did this by identifying two extremes—Christ against Culture at one end and Christ of Culture at the other with three intermediate options: Christ above Culture, Christ and Culture in Paradox and Christ Transforming Culture (Niebuhr 1951). Niebuhr wrote that his intention was: … to set forth typical Christian answers to the problems of Christ; and culture and so to contribute to the mutual understanding of variant and often conflicting Christian groups. The belief which lies back of this effort, however, is the conviction that Christ as living Lord is answering the question in the totality of history and life … (Niebuhr 1951: 2)

However, over the following fifty years doubts grew about whether that question was actually being answered; the chaotic plurality of worldview escalated in consequence. With that escalation would come the speculation of God’s death by Time magazine in 1966,3 the proclamation by Francis Fukuyama of the end of History in 1989 and the beginning of the post-modern era—the doubt unleashed in the time of Kant and the Age of Reason would seem to have swept all before it. All this suggested that the divorce of the two Logos had been finalised. It is in this post-Christendom age, that we come to the third proposition. Craig Carter, in his work Rethinking Christ and Culture: A post-Christendom Perspective, contended (2007: 19): 3 Though

it was Friedrich Nietzsche who first posited the death of God in 1882, it was Time magazine’s question that first prompted widespread discussion of the premise.

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We live now in the long, sad denouement of Western Christendom. A resurgent paganism that never really died, but merely went underground, is now reasserting itself. The secularization of Western society has been going on for a long time.

The divine divorcé would be sidelined; Yuval Noah Harari has written (2018: 208): Secular societies and institutions are happy to acknowledge … and embrace religious Jews, Christians, Muslims and Hindus, provided that when the secular code collides with religious doctrine, the latter gives way … there is no expectation that religious people should deny God or abandon traditional rites and rituals … A person can follow the most bizarre sectarian dress codes and practise the strangest of religious ceremonies, yet act out of a deep commitment to the core secular values.

Carter noted that secular society sought to limit faith community’s involvement in the now secular square: Privatized Christianity can be tolerated, but Christianity must be banished from the public square, except when it is trotted out as part of a civil religion, designed to rally the citizens in time of war. (Carter 2007: 19)

Though, were Christianity prepared to accept a subservient role, Carter noted the condescending willingness of the secular square to provide space where the church might set up its booth and act as ‘the religious chaplaincy of the post-Christian Western world.’ (Carter 2007: 23). Like Niebuhr, Carter thought the dilemmas posed by the interaction of TheosLogos and Socius-Logos demanded analysis. With the result being that Carter developed a typology of the ways in which the church might engage with this estranged society. His approach differed from Niebuhr inasmuch as it contrasted that section of the church which had historically entered into relationship with the state—Christendom—with that which had rejected such a co-existence. The singular marker he used to define the difference between the two was the attitude of each regarding the need for violent coercion—a New Testament oxymoron. He put it this way: When it refuses to be co-opted into rationalizing violent coercion, the church retains its integrity and maintains a distance from the state sufficient to keep its own separate identity from being absorbed into that of the state. Engaging culture is not a bad thing, but becoming worldly is. So the question is this: How can the church influence culture and avoid becoming violent? How can the church be in, but not of, the world? (Carter 2007: 112)

Describing the complicit church types as Christendom and the others as nonChristendom, Carter then identified three types of responses for each: 1. Christ legitimising culture 2. Christ humanising culture 3. Christ transforming culture In his conclusion Carter outlined his reason for choosing his form of analysis: Whether the culture will move toward Christ or farther from Christ is not within our control. We do not control history. We need to focus on the choices that actually are up to us. Basically, the church today faces a choice between following Jesus or following Constantine. (Carter 2007: 212)

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In other words, Carter acknowledged that the church had lost the levers of control in the public square but had the choice of either accepting a subservient role or choosing a space of faithfulness to its metanarrative in determining how it would stand in that public square.

11.3 The Changing Nature of the Individual in the Logos Those three propositions each assumed a monolithic character on the part each Logos or at least a sense of intrinsic solidarity. However, since the collective is made up of individuals as well as institutions, there is a need to understand that the interaction between Theos-Logos and Socius-Logos will always be an amalgam of institutional and individual elements, with varying degrees of participation by each. Over the centuries there has been a growing self-consciousness of the ‘I’. From the many milestones to choose from in this journey are these: the first was the appearance of artists’ names on their work in the fourteenth century; then Descartes’ declaration “I think therefore I am” of the seventeenth; through to the post-war with Ayn Rand’s hero in Anthem declaring: I am done with the monster of “We,” the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame. And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: “I.” (Rand 1999: 97)

With this growing self-consciousness came implications for both Theos-Logos and Socius-Logos. Prior times had passive worshippers and subjects within each Logos; but that would change. The birth of congregationalism and the idea of individual faith pilgrimages in the former; modern democracy and libertarianism noteworthy in the latter. There have been tensions through all of this including the perceived nature of the individual. Despite ideals of koinonia and demos in each of the Logos, the exact understanding of just how individuals should engage with the two Logos has been fuzzy. Attempts to resist what were perceived to be excessive individualism saw concepts such as the ‘body of the faithful’, ‘the greater good’, ‘the collective’ come into the language; while political philosophy and ethics would both flourish as academic attempts to explore the greyness of the individual within the group. Whilst all this reflection has been going on there has been evidence that individuals en masse have been developing metanarratives of their own—their own Logos, Vox Populi. Episodes of mob rule are as old as humanity; yet there has been a growing influence of the Crowd. Marx might dismiss as ignorant the lumpenproletariat for their failure to understand the communist project; while Hilary Clinton might label recalcitrants of the liberal project as ‘deplorables’ but that would not stop the crowd having contrary views about church and state—from the Peasants’ Rebellion onwards. Whatever pejoratives were used, the crowd would reveal its own capacity for thought; not always praiseworthy (lynchings of the US South) but sometimes admirable—from the Paperclip Resistance of Norwegians in WWII through

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to the variety of softly named Euro-revolutions such as the Velvet (Czechoslovakia and Armenia), Rose (Georgia) and Orange (Ukraine) Revolutions. In each of these individuals sought to contest Logos metanarratives at the level of the institutional. While the standout examples all dealt with Socius-Logos, Theos-Logos itself was also affected—most dramatically by congregants simply rising to their feet, leaving their pews and exiting the churches … sometimes forever, because of growing disenchantment which arose from a variety of causes such as the scandal of child sex abuse, undue collaboration with the state against the interests of the populace or even just the perceived contemporary irrelevance of the Church to the lived experience of many of its parishioners. The damage to the standing of the Church due to uncovering of wide-spread sexual predation against children over decades by church people has been so enormous that it needs no further attesting here. Likewise, the perceived contemporary irrelevance of the Church has been statistically tracked by regular census-taking in a number of Western countries. Perhaps less well known, however, and therefore worthy of mention here has been the negative impact of perceived undue collaboration of Church and State. A noteworthy example of this has been Spain where, during the Spanish Civil War, the Catholic church identified itself enthusiastically with the rebellion against democracy; indeed it leant its narrative to Falangism, a key component of the rebellion, and ‘Crusade’ became a banner word.4 Post-1975, with the death of Franco and the return of democracy, the Catholic church found itself cut adrift from the state and an increasing failure in its hope for ongoing reception by the populace.5 In the dance between Theos-Logos and Socius-Logos, Vox Populi, the collective voice of individuals, has therefore become the third dancer; and the two Logos have had to work out ways to deal with the newcomer. Firstly by appeals to loyalty then latterly by self-interrogating their own relevance as measured by Vox Populi rather than their own inherent metanarratives—and so was born faith-lite and populist politics. Hugh McKay, in his book Beyond Belief, encouraged the church to recognise that: Adaptation is the alternative to ultimate irrelevance for the Christian church in the West. (McKay 2016: 115)

Taking this idea suggestive of meeting the consumer where they are at, McKay went on to discuss ‘reasonable faith’ stating: Our faith must feel as if it is authentically ours or it will be a vain faith … the best reason for investing your faith in something … would be that it offers a pathway to a good life. (McKay 2016: 137–8)

While in Socius-Logos, Steve Bannon, one who pretends to the title of advocate for Vox Populi, declared war on its prevailing metanarrative: 4 In

appreciation, upon winning the Civil War, Franco presented his ‘sword of victory’ to Cardinal Goma of Toledo, primate of the Catholic Church. 5 For some statistics, particularly pertinent with regard to the most repressed regions of Catalonia and the Basque Country, refer to the statistics of the Centro de Investigaciones Sociólogicas cited in Nafría (2015).

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We think of ourselves as virulently anti-establishment, particularly ‘anti-’ the permanent political class. (quoted by Farhi 2016)

The Age of Reason had given birth to such concepts as Bildung (the call to selfcultivation), now the Post-Modern Age has given birth to what Pankaj Mishra has referred to as the Age of Anger (Mishra 2017). The tenor of much of Vox Populi’s voice in recent years has been anger; be it the justifiable anger against sexual abuse of children whilst they were in the protectorate of the church, through to the dispossessed left behind by the very society that promised their well-being. This angry voice would demand to be heard which required some recalibration of the interaction between Theos-Logos and Socius-Logos. The Public Square had become a very different place from that which confronted Bonhoeffer and Niebuhr and, in some senses, even Carter. It would be important therefore to re-examine, with contemporary eyes, the interaction of the metanarratives of the dual Logos as they appear in the Public Square; and do so taking into account the impact of the arrival of the interloper, Vox Populi. In so doing we will find a diversity of elements, too many for there to be an easy unitary conclusion as to what faith in the public square might mean.

11.4 Elements of Interaction 11.4.1 Theocracy … More or Less At its most elemental, there has always been the interaction of the two Logos at the institutional level. Institutional Theos-Logos in this interaction becomes the Christian Ekklesia, the Islamic Ummah or the Jewish Umma and when it links with SociusLogos at the same level it suggests theocracy—states such as Iran with its Guardian Council and Saudi Arabia with its Ulama (the learned ones) and in former times, the Papal States, or the Pilgrim colonies of the New World. But there are less dramatic forms of formalised relationship between faith institution and state, such as the concordats which the Vatican still maintains with a number of countries in Eastern Europe amongst others (though significantly down from the seventy-four that had been signed by the outbreak of WWI). Then there is the prescription by some states of official religions within all or part of their domains—such as many Islamic states, Israel and much of Scandinavia. The Malaysian constitution blends religion into the concept of natio (ethnicity) which traditionally just treats with racial origin; Article 160 states: ‘Malay’ means a person who professes the religion of Islam, habitually speaks the Malay language, conforms to Malay custom.

In 2018, by amendment to the Basic Law, Israel proclaimed itself a ‘nation state of the Jewish people’; though nevertheless continued to maintain a system of religious courts that include not only the Jewish batei din, but also courts for Muslim, Druze and

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Christian communities. While, in the Islamic context, Sharia law has been imposed in some entire countries or parts thereof (such as Malaysia and Indonesia). The role of faith institutions in law-making is clear in theocratic states but the long-term historical trend, at least in the western context, has been away from such involvement. In 1778, a foundational meeting for the short-lived Republic of Vermont resolved that the republic should be governed by the laws of God and Connecticut ‘until we have time to frame better’ (van de Water 1941: 227). In the Western democratic experience, legislatures progressively determined that they had indeed framed better and so the role of Theos-Logos would be reduced to token prayers before legislative sessions and, in some jurisdictions, to the permission for ‘conscience votes’ to be exercised—which, though an admirable expression of freedom of conscience, may also at the most cynical interpretation be mere salves for scars caused by a clash of metanarratives between the two Logos, a clash Theos-Logos would seem to be losing with increasing frequency. One apparent exception to the disappearance of Theos-Logos from the Western legislative domain has been in the United Kingdom where an artefact from before the Age of Reason has survived with the continued presence in the House of Lords of twenty-six Lords Spiritual (all bishops of the Church of England). Bishop Christopher of the diocese of Southwark said of this apparent anachronism of history that: Our absence would not exclude a Christian world-view, but our being there does guarantee it. We are here because (of) … the collective wisdom of many generations that allows us to sit where we do. (Anglican Communion News Service 2019)

However, this Western parliamentary presence of Theos-Logos remained the exception until just after WWII. With both Logos then feeling the integrity of their metanarratives confronted by what had taken place over the previous half century, some in the Theos-Logos camp felt the need both to expunge a share of guilt for past events and later to take the fight up to an increasingly aggressive secularism in the corridors of power—thus were born specifically Christian parties. The Christian parties of the immediate post-war era tended to be moderately right of centre but nevertheless looked towards that centre; while those of more recent decades have tended to be much more conservative both socially and economically, turning their back on the middle. The difference may be explained by the immediate post-war feeling of the Church, particularly in countries of the former Axis, to atone for their past failings6 ; while the latterly-created Christian parties arose from a more crusading sentiment to combat the perceived social failings of a post-modern secular agenda. By contrast with what has been happening inside the corridors of power, out in the square in front of the legislatures has been seen the growth of an alternative voice from Theos-Logos of a much more socially-activist nature. Based in the structures of civil society rather than the Ekklesia, there has been growing number of Christian NGOs operating both within the developed and the developing worlds. These NGOs have played leading roles in global advocacy campaigns such as Jubilee 2000 (seeking 6 Tony

Judt wrote of the establishment of the Christian Democrats in Germany: ‘especially in the aftermath of the German churches’ distinctly un-heroic record under the Nazis’ (2005: 267).

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relief for highly-indebted countries of the South), Banning Land Mines and the campaign against Child Soldiers, as well as their own organisational missions for economic development, empowerment and development of healthy communities. Individuals within the Ekklesia have also played key roles such as Desmond Tutu where his political advocacy both from the pulpit and the front steps of the cathedral played a key role in the downfall of Apartheid. While in 1986 Cardinal Jaime Sin played a pivotal role in the downfall of the Filipino dictator, Ferdinand Marcos. In 1987, in Seoul, the Catholic Priests Association for Justice played an important role in the June Democracy Movement which led to South Korea’s first democratic elections.

11.4.2 Narrative Appropriation The inherent strength of each Logos has inevitably depended upon the integrity of its adherence to its metanarrative; but what if that should be appropriated by the contending Logos? Or at the very least the brand be taken? Appropriation of a Logos’ metanarrative has taken place often through history; for example the case of much of the Church during the Third Reich has been well documented. But there have been other situations more recently where the metanarrative of Theos-Logos has been deconstructed or appropriated by Socius-Logos. Article 68 of North Korea’s constitution promises religious freedom but that freedom is constrained to the extent that ‘no one may use religion as a pretext for drawing in foreign forces or for harming the State and the social order.’ There is an ecumenical Christian organisation—the Korean Christian Federation; yet in ways more dramatic than even the Three Self Patriotic Church in China, North Korea has not only inserted its own narrative into the local Church, it has also appropriated the metanarrative of faith institutions by creating a secular deification of the country’s leadership along with its own ‘theology’—Juche.7 But such narrative appropriation has not just taken place in more obvious nondemocratic settings, it has also been seen in the increasingly secular West. In 2015, using a YouGov survey, the British and Foreign Bible Society found that seventy per cent of respondents claimed to have read or heard the parable of the Good Samaritan. Noting the survey result and the fact that the parable has been the most frequently referenced Biblical citation in parliamentary debates, Nick Spencer researched the question of the reach of that parable in an increasingly secular British society; the result was his book, Political Samaritan: How Power Hijacked a Parable. In that work, he chose a selection of British politicians across the spectrum and noted how they used this parable in varied ways: The Good Samaritan is a familiar figure on the British political landscape. He is deployed by Conservatives, new Labour and newly old Labour. He is deployed on Twitter, in the 7 For further information on this consult Thomas J. Belke, Juche: A Christian Study of North Korea’s

State Religion, Living Sacrifice Books, 1999.

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Commons, in the Lords, in the studios, in the Conference platforms … He is deployed to justify economic policy, to vindicate military intervention, to defend overseas aid, to shape refugee asylum … he is deployed to legitimise state intervention, and to argue for military involvement, and to praise personal activism, and to encourage voluntarism, and to overcome religious or ethnic or national differences, and to inspire moral universalism and to berate indifference, and to condemn political opponents … (Spencer 2017: 81–2)

The faith thesaurus has been a rich quarry for Socius-Logos to visit and there to find what Orwell referred to as a ‘half-dead metaphor’ (Spencer 2017: 164) in order to subsume such metaphors within its own narrative on its own terms. The parable of the Good Samaritan may have been the most popular from that rich Biblical quarry, but it has not been the only one.

11.4.3 Concept Change An extension of such narrative appropriation has been the change to the very essence of some concepts appropriated. In the previous section we considered the parable of the Good Samaritan to which the idea of ‘neighbour’ is integral. But what if the word ‘neighbour’ has changed its meaning much as other words in our lexicon have changed over time? ‘Awful’ no longer means ‘full of awe’; can fundamental concepts such as ‘neighbour’ do the same—can they become awful? In considering this, we need to revert to the key question that had prompted Jesus to give that parable two thousand years ago namely that asked of him: “Who is my neighbour?” Slavoj Zizek, Eric Santner and Kenneth Reinhard have had this to say about the concept of ‘neighbour’: After the slaughters of World War II, the Shoah, the gulag, multiple ethnic and religious slaughters, and so on, the notion of neighbour has lost its innocence … and, in our own societies, is not the multiculturalist notion of tolerance whose fundamental value is the right not to be harassed, precisely a strategy to keep the intrusive neighbour at a proper distance? (Zizek et al. 2005: 3)

Thus we have the suggestion that, in the modern context, neighbour as a concept has moved from deeply relational to a mere transactional arrangement. Likewise, with the growing ‘I’, the concept of ‘love’ has been changing. The supplanting of Christ’s second greatest commandment—“Love one another as I have loved you”—by the faux wisdom of the 1970s—“Love means never having to say you’re sorry”—suggests love may be changing in common understanding from being a sacrificial act to a contingent one. As the zeitgeist changes the meaning of key concepts, such as in the examples of ‘neighbour’ and ‘love’, there arises the dilemma of the misinterpretation that may so easily result when Theos-Logos speaks and Socius-Logos listens. One may speak with one meaning of a concept but it may be heard with another. In 2008, Rowan Williams spoke of the challenge this presented for the church:

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Sometimes the people whose language is hardest to learn are the people next door, the people among whom we live. We think we know how they work, how they feel and think, and yet we still must learn. So, the bishop is a linguist. (Williams 2008)

11.4.4 Transience Versus Transformation In my earlier consideration of both Niebuhr and Carter, I noted that both their typologies posed an option of Christ transforming culture. In that phrase there is the suggestion of an inexorable progress as culture is transformed—the spirit of ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ as in the Lord’s Prayer. Yet earthly experience suggests something quite different—the path to transformation is anything but inexorable, it may end up being merely transient. Take the example of faith in the public square in Brazil over the past half century. Back in the 1970s, Brazil became one of the birthplaces of Liberation Theology. People such as Leonardo Boff and Dom Hélder Camara not only took on social injustice in the world, they challenged their own church that had so often walked on the other side of the road. Dom Hélder Camara proclaimed: When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. (Camara and McDonagh 2009: 11)

It was not only secular politicians who called him a communist but often those within his own faith. For a period of some decades calls such as his transformed the view Theos-Logos had of its spiritually-intended role, namely an obligation to be firmly in the public square with Socius-Logos; and there to be proclaiming social justice. After initial institutional opposition within the Roman Catholic hierarchy there was some yielding and much of the wider society became amenable to such radical theology. A transformation indeed, but inexorable it was not. Internal tensions within both Theos-Logos (particularly from evangelical and Pentecostal churches in Brazil and later, under John Paul II and Benedict, a more conservative papacy) as well as within Socius-Logos (in the political realm) played their part in the election of Jair Messias Bolsonaro as President of Brazil in late 2018. During the campaign he promised to make Judeo-Christian principles a priority in his administration. Seeking to understand what he might have meant by Judeo-Christian principles leads to words he said on the campaign trail: … we are a Christian country, God above all. This history of a secular state doesn’t exist, no. The state is Christian and the minority that is against it can leave. Let’s make a country for the majority! The minority must bow to the majority. Law must exist to defend the majority! The minority suits itself [to the law] or just disappears.8

And a couple of years before that he spoke dismissively:

8 Quoted

on 29 September 2018 at Campina Grande Airport (Magalhães 2018).

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This idea of oh poor little black person, oh poor little poor person, oh poor little woman, oh poor little indigenous person, everybody’s a poor little something.9

This was not so much an appropriation of the metanarrative of Theos-Logos as brand-theft, backfilling the emptied chalice with secular populist dross. Thus within a few decades the prospect of the Kingdom coming held out by a newly energised Theos-Logos would see it pushed aside by a reactionary Socius-Logos which fought back against Liberation Theology. Theos-Logos might have sought permanent transformation of the Public Square but it would discover that it would need to temper its aspirations by accepting that it must engage in a never-ending tussle with Theos-Logos—a dance perhaps with uncertain leader.

11.5 Danse Bizarre Reflecting back on Rowan Williams’s idea of Faith in the Public Square, can that concept be defined meaningfully in the context of contemporary pressures for estrangement between Theos-Logos and Socius-Logos and how is Vox Populi to be taken into account? Is it possible to answer these questions or must the concept remain just a lazy phrase because the task is too hard? The purpose now is to explore those questions by proposing that the concept of public faith is best analysed by understanding that it may be compared to a dance between competing participants—and not just the traditional two Logos, but now also an interloper. In the Middle Ages there developed in art, music and literature the genre of the Danse Macabre [Dance of Death]; created in an epoch of the self-evident capriciousness of life epitomised by such events as the Black Death, the genre sought to alert humanity as to its transitory essence, for death would inevitably come for all and the best that might be hoped was to be deft in endeavouring to elude it for as long as possible—a dance with death. The genre not only addressed itself to ordinary humanity, it spoke too to those who held the divine right of power. A 1448 totentanz (the German equivalent) reminded such a divinely-ordained personage as the Emperor with these words: Emperor, your sword won’t help you out Sceptre and crown are worthless here I’ve taken you by the hand For you must come to my dance.

There was no doubting in that era where Socius-Logos stood in relation to TheosLogos; dance as it might, it would ultimately expire, be it as state, ruler or ruled. But this is not the dance we observe today. While the end of time and not this chapter will tell us whether eschatological prophecies are correct, and while the inevitably of death for each of us is certain well before that time, the postmodern dance between 9 Quoted

on 27 April 2016 by Young (2016).

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Theos-Logos and Socius-Logos seems less certain in its choreography and with Vox Populi joining in, it appears to have become une danse bizarre. A bizarre dance so it is, for all of the foregoing suggests that the diversity and uncertainty of the post-modern era on many different fronts, including an enormous transfer of power to individuals have resulted in a significant weakening of the influence of Theos-Logos upon Socius-Logos. While Bonhoeffer, Niebuhr and Carter provided typologies for such ongoing contestation; they can no longer interact solely one with another—contesting their relative strengths in a battle for supremacy. Furthermore, their typologies each have limits to their contemporary applicability. Firstly they all have an either/or character to them; the implication that only one option may be pursued for the relation of Theos-Logos with Socius-Logos. But that would ignore the capacity for multiple options to be chosen at any point in time or indeed over time. Secondly, the dramatic change in the relationship of institutions to individuals connected with them is not sufficiently referenced in any of the three typologies considered here. What seems to be missing in each of them, and many other such typologies, are an appreciation of both nuance and intent. English borrowed the word ‘nuance’ from French in the C18 because it did not have a term of its own capable of noting that, in this complex world, few things are ever simple. In the encounter in the public square between the two Logos with Vox Populi in attendance, there could never be simplicity of analysis however absolutist either Logos would wish to be; and so nuance came into play. One such nuance is the historical. Faith in the Public Square is where the two Logos and Vox Populi meet in the present, in the context of an interpreted past and a visioned future. In that square, Vox Populi lives in that present, Socius-Logos lives in history, both past and future; while Theos-Logos lives beyond past, present and future. By way of an ancient example, Pharaoh sought to keep the enslaved Hebrews within the realms of pharaonic history; while Moses sought to liberate them from that history by taking them to a promised land; and for the next forty years the people, trapped in the ever-present, mainly grumbled. Thus when three such different historical perspectives meet, only nuance can facilitate the encounter. In the previous section there was reference to the concept of language change, but there is also a nuance of language. Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander have written: Our intense human desire to avoid ambiguity, to pinpoint the true and to discard the false … tends to make us seek and believe in very sharp answers to questions that have none. (Hofstadter and Sander 2013: 61)

And so both Logos have sought sharp linguistic answers—religious creeds and liturgical litanies on the part of one, the Law on the part of the other. But the diversity of human experience makes an idea of unified comprehension impossible. John 1:29 cannot be literally translated into Tok Pisin which must rely on the capacity of linguistic nuance to cover the chasm of experience between cultures:

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Na Jon i tok, “Lukim. Em I Pikinini Sipsip Bilong God.”10

Failure is another nuance; for in the Christian project Theos-Logos’ endeavours of kingdom-building in the temporal domain must inevitably fail until the quantum event of the Second Coming. But the price and significance of such failure is neither constant in character nor in impact. In their book “Theologies of Failure”, Duncan B Reyburn and Roberto Sirvent noted: Failure may even have, in its paradoxical form, sacramental value. The broken body or text reveals a divine reality beneath and/or beyond the obviousness of our human assignments of meaning. (Reyburn and Sirvent 2019: 2)

The word ‘may’ is very significant of the nuance of failure in the divine project. For while at times failure may indeed appear sacramental beyond ‘human assignments of meaning’, at others there have been only overwhelming theodicic ugliness. Two contrasting examples of Theos-Logos approaches to divine investment in kingdombuilding can be considered both purportedly involving civilising missions. The two cases being the utopian Jesuit reduciones in South America in the C17-18 and the other that of complicity by various denominations in the removal of children from indigenous communities in the C20 in places such as Canada and Australia. The former were experiments in ‘socialist theocracy’ which sought to create selfgoverning, autonomous enclaves of indigenes as safe as possible from the rapaciousness of surrounding colonial settlements; though they inevitably failed, they were founded more on Christian principles than worldly-wise ones. The latter, however, though ostensibly for ‘their own good’, saw children made victims of social Darwinism, where an ugly accord was reached between the two Logos in order to achieve an assimilated but decidedly unequal society. With regard to intent, not all engagement of Theos-Logos with Socius-Logos is of the same character; there is in reality a hierarchy of three levels with which both the Church and individual Christians can express their Theos-Logos metanarrative in the Public Square. These levels may be labelled the Reactive, the Proactive and the Prophetic. The Reactive can be taken to express the metanarrative imperative to respond to need. The Good Samaritan provided urgently needed medical assistance followed up by financial help. The Proactive expresses the imperative to change the way things are but still fundamentally within the metanarrative of Socius-Logos. The Good Samaritan challenged the existing social order by helping one who was alien to him and taking him to an inn that either would have been alien to him or the victim; his deed anticipated that the existing social order could be changed. The Prophetic expresses the imperative to speak of how things could or should be in the Kingdom sense not just the world’s; a place where society would be so transformed that there would be no thugs and, by consequence, no victims. In this level the Good Samaritan, by his actions, defined the profound sense of neighbour that exceeded all contemporary expectations or possibility. 10 Literally:

Then John said, “Look, the suckling pig of God”.

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In these three levels there was Service, Lobbying and Forthtelling; or to put it another way, there was working within the kingdom of Socius-Logos, working on it to improve it within its own terms, or forthtelling in the sense of ‘Thy Kingdom come’—how things ought to be. How might all this look in the contemporary context as evolved from the past? Historically, reactive work by Theos-Logos has played a vitally important role in healing the wounds caused by a Socius-Logos often indifferent to human suffering. Its mission in this regard was in effect a reaction to Socius-Logos and driven by it; though sometimes it sought to extract a dividend by sinking to the level of being the religious equivalent of vote-buying—‘singing for one’s supper’ or ‘rice Christians’. But as Vox Populi has become more assertive, Christian aid and development agencies found themselves not simply reacting to the effects of statal Socius-Logos, but now having to earn mandates to work with communities through principles such as Appreciative Enquiry, co-design and even co-governance. At the Proactive level, previous efforts to lobby for systemic change were often very effective (such as the campaign against slavery in the C18-19), however, in those campaigns the beneficiaries were often mere bystanders to the process. Vox Populi today no longer accepts such a passive role, and so proactive efforts by faith agencies seek to engage with the very people whose conditions they are endeavouring to ameliorate by the sought-for systemic change. At the level of the Prophetic level, Theos-Logos by definition speaks transcendently; so that it would not preach neighbourliness as a mere transactional deal—‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’—but rather it would speak sacrificially and relationally—‘one’s neighbour as oneself’. Martin Luther King gave a profound example of the difference when he said11 : Another way that you love your enemy is this: when the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumours about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person … That’s the time you must not do it! That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about.

A distinctive element of the Prophetic in contrast to the Reactive and the Proactive is that the institutional voice has fallen away and the individual becomes paramount— Jesus gave his Sermon on the Mount to people not a clerical conclave. Admittedly Martin Luther King Jnr preached these words from a pulpit, but they were addressed to parishioners and intended to be heard more widely by people.

11 Loving

your enemies, sermon delivered in Montgomery AL 17 November 1957, reprinted in Carson et al. (2007: 318–9).

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11.6 Conclusion With such complexity of both nuance and intent, the interaction of the two Logos along with Vox Populi must ever be a mercurial dance. Both in time and in context, the relationship between them will seem to be ever-changing. The church and the town hall have faced each across the public square through history and tussled their relationship; the post-modern context insists that the validity of that tussle may only obtain purchase by both institutions paying attention to the individuals of the increasingly secular and individualistic suburbs that surround that public square. The proposition of this chapter has been that understanding how effective responses may be formed by the collectives of church and state to their separate and combined constituencies of individuals must move beyond the oversimplifications of creed or credo towards developing a rich tapestry of engagement between all three.

References Anglican Communion News Service (2019) Walking the way of Christ in the precincts of Parliament. https://www.anglicannews.org/features/2019/04/walking-the-way-of-christ-in-theprecincts-of-parliament.aspx Camara DH, McDonagh F (eds) (2009) Dom Hélder Camara: essential writings. Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York Carson C et al (eds) (2007) The Martin Luther King Jnr papers project, vol III. University of California Press, Berkeley Carter C (2007) Rethinking Christ and culture: a post-Christendom perspective. Brazos Press, Grand Rapids DeJonge MP (2018) Bonhoeffer on resistance: the word against the wheel. Oxford University Press, Oxford Farhi P (2016) How Breitbart has become a dominant voice in conservative media. The Washington Post, 27 January. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-breitbart-has-become-adominant-voice-in-conservative-media/2016/01/27/a705cb88-befe-11e5-9443-7074c3645405_ story.html Fassin D (2011) Humanitarian reason: a moral history of the present. University of California Press, Berkeley Harari YN (2018) 21 lessons for the twenty-first century. Vintage, New York Hofstadter D, Sander E (2013) Surfaces and essences: analogy as the fuel and fire of thinking. Basic Books, New York Judt T (2005) Postwar: a history of Europe since 1945. Penguin, London McKay H (2016) Beyond Belief: how we find meaning, with or without religion. Macmillan, Sydney Magalhães M (2018) A verdade é dura: quem fica em cima do muro consente com as ideias nazifascistas do bolsonarismo. The Intercept Brazil, 26 September. https://theintercept.com/ 2018/09/25/ideias-nazifascistas-bolsonarismo/ Mishra P (2017) Age of anger: a history of the present. Farrer, Straus & Giroux, New York Nafría I (2015) Interactivo: Creencias y prácticas religiosas en España. La Vanguardia, 2 April. www.lavanguardia.com/vangdata/20150402/54429637154/interactivo-creencias-y-practicasreligiosas-en-espana.html Niebuhr HR (1951) Christ and culture. Harper, New York Rand A (1999) Anthem. Plume, New York Reyburn DB, Sirvent R (eds) (2019) Theologies of failure. Cascade Books, Eugene, Oregon

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Spencer N (2017) Political Samaritan: how power hijacked a parable. Bloomsbury, London van de Water FF (1941) The reluctant republic: Vermont, 1724–1791. John Day Company, New York Watson P (2010) The German genius: Europe’s third renaissance, the second scientific revolution and the twentieth century. Harper, New York Williams R (2008) The Archbishop’s retreat addresses, 2008, Parts III, IV & V. Website of Dr Rowan Williams, 104th Archbishop of Canterbury. http://aoc2013.brix.fatbeehive.com/articles. php/1739/the-archbishops-retreat-addresses-parts-iii-iv-v Williams R (2012) Faith in the public square. Bloomsbury, London Young JA (2016) Meet Brazil’s Donald Trump: he’s deliberately outrageous and he wants to be president. Vice, 27 April. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbnwn4/meet-brazils-donaldtrump-hes-deliberately-outrageous-and-he-wants-to-be-president Zizek S, Santner EL, Reinhard K (2005) The neighbour: three inquiries in political theology. University of Chicago, Chicago

Chapter 12

The Contemporary Relevance of Religion in the Public Square Frank Brennan

Abstract Drawing upon personal experiences as a Catholic priest and a human rights lawyer who has worked mainly in Australia; as chair of the National Human Rights Consultation for the Rudd Government in 2009; as a participant in the public debate in the lead up to the 2017 Australian plebiscite on same sex marriage; and, as a member of the Australian government’s expert panel set up to report on freedom of religion in the wake of changes to the marriage laws, the author of this chapter offers a series of reflections on the contemporary relevance of religion in the public square.

I am a Catholic priest and a human rights lawyer who has worked mainly in my home country Australia. In recent years, I have chaired the National Human Rights Consultation for the Rudd Government in 2009; I participated in the public debate in the lead up to the 2017 plebiscite on same sex marriage; and I was a member of the Ruddock expert panel set up by the Turnbull government to report on freedom of religion in the wake of changes to the marriage laws. I have been a long-time advocate of Aboriginal and refugee rights, seeing the call for universal respect for human rights being best amplified by recognition of the rights of those on the margins of society. These experiences inform and convince me about the contemporary relevance of religion in the public square. I constantly meet well educated, compassionate human rights advocates who view religion as a hangover from a long past era. They find religious belief and practice marked by notions of tradition, authority, ritual and permanent commitment mystifying and counter-productive. Catholicism is thus particularly problematic for them. They prize individualism, freedom, personal autonomy and non-discrimination. They not only welcome increasing manifestations of the secular with a strict separation of church and state. They also relish increased secularisation of society with less reliance and respect being shown to the religious inclination which is quarantined to the sole preserve of the individual’s private life—not to be shared in polite company F. Brennan (B) Australian Catholic University, Sydney, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Babie and R. Sarre (eds.), Religion Matters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_12

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and not to be aired on the public airwaves. Or if aired ever so briefly, to be silently tolerated or publicly declaimed. Something crystallised for me at an appearance at the Sydney Opera House with the British philosopher A C Grayling, author of The God Argument, and Sean Faircloth, a US director of one of the Dawkins Institutes passionately committed to atheism. We were there to discuss their certainty about the absurdity of religious faith. It was March 2013, shortly after Jorge Bergoglio had become pope. Mr. Faircloth raised what has become a hoary old chestnut, the failure of Pope Francis when provincial of the Jesuits in Argentina during the Dirty Wars to adequately defend his fellow Jesuits who were detained and tortured by unscrupulous soldiers. Being a Jesuit, I thought I was peculiarly well situated to respond. I confess to having got a little carried away. I exclaimed: Yes, how much better it would have been if there had been just one secular, humanist, atheist philosopher who had stood up in the city square in Buenos Aires and shouted, ‘Stop it!’ The military junta would have collectively come to their senses, stopped it, and Argentinians would have lived happily ever after. The luxury for such philosophers is that they never have to get their hands dirty and they think that religious people who do are hypocrites unless of course they take the course of martyrdom. Without religious belief, it is difficult, if not impossible, to hold together ideals and reality, commitment and forgiveness. On my bad days, I think that religion is dying and its relevance declining all the time, particularly in the public square where politics and arguments based on public reason contribute to the resolution of conflicting claims and to the rules for civic engagement. On these days, I wonder how a society of individualistic secularists can arrive at the best answers to those questions central to the good of the cosmos and the dignity of all persons wherever they be in the life cycle and whatever their individual capacities. I am well used to hearing ‘human rights’ invoked as the ready answer to most difficult social and political questions. But I know that a catalogue of rights augmented by the principle of non-discrimination and underpinned by a notion of personal autonomy will always fall short in delivering justice to the poorest, most vulnerable and most marginalised. On my good days, I am hopeful that even an everreducing minority of religious interlocutors are able to be the yeast in the loaf helping to shape a better world. I take to heart Rowan Williams’ theological perspective ‘that we should not pretend that the discourse of universal ethics and inalienable rights has a firmer foundation than it actually has’ (Williams 2012: 159). Asking ‘Do Human Rights Exist?’, Williams concluded his 2008 lecture to the London School of Economics (LSE): As in other areas of political or social thinking, theology is one of those elements that continues to pose questions about the legitimacy of what is said and what is done in society, about the foundations of law itself. The secularist way may not have an answer and may not be convinced that the religious believer has an answer that can be generally accepted; but our discussion of social and political ethics will be a great deal poorer if we cannot acknowledge the force of the question. (Williams 2012: 159)

Whatever the shortcomings of those with a religious perspective, they being attentive to their religious tradition and teachings are unlikely to conclude that their

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humanity can be defined simply as autonomous individuality shielded by a bundle of human rights wrapped in a principle of non-discrimination. In his LSE Address, Williams pointed out that rights and utility are the two concepts that resonate most readily in the public square today. But we need concepts to set limits on rights when they interfere with the common good or the public interest, or dare I say it, public morality—the concepts used by the United Nations when first formulating and limiting human rights 70 years ago. These concepts are no longer in vogue, at least under these titles. We also need concepts to set limits on utility when it interferes with the dignity of the most vulnerable and the liberty of the most despised in our community. Those with a religious perspective can make their own distinctive contribution to these discussions about limits and balance. In his 2012 address to the World Council of Churches (WCC) on ‘Reconnecting Human Rights and Religious Faith’, Williams drew on Roger Ruston’s Human Rights and the Image of God. Ruston’s useful insight is that when religious people speak about human beings created in ‘the image of God’, this puts ‘the human person into a set of relationships: first with God, a relationship of filial adoption and answerability; second, with one another, relationships of equality and respect; third, with the non-human creation, which may be understood as a relationship of stewardship and freedom of use.’ (Ruston 2004: 279; Williams 2012: 171). Williams thinks this theological principle of the imago Dei is significant for human rights because ‘this nest of relationships means that we cannot separate any human individual from a “morally charged” environment, rooted first and foremost in relation with the Creator’ (Williams 2012: 171). Williams concluded his address to the WCC with a challenge both to the human rights secularists and to the leaders of religious bodies: It is essential that, in an age that is often simultaneously sentimental, utilitarian and impatient, we do not allow the language of rights to wander too far from its roots in an acknowledgement of the sacred. This means, on the one hand, that would be secular accounts of rights need to hear the arguments against an excessively abstract model of clearly defined claims to be tried before an impartial or universal tribunal. On the other hand, it means a warning to religious bodies not to try to make anxieties about their freedom to make religiously based ethical judgments an excuse for denying the unconditionality – and the self-critical imperatives – of the language of rights. Too much is at stake for the world’s well-being.’ (Williams 2012: 172)

Christian leaders in Australia do not get much airplay nowadays outside their churches and their own media outlets except at Easter and Christmas. On these great Christian feasts, it is customary for the church leaders to issue statements reflecting on the state of the world in the light of the Christian revelation. Of late, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, has given full vent to his anxieties about the freedom to make religiously based ethical judgments. A long-time sceptic about the need for a comprehensive national Human Rights Act, Archbishop Fisher suspects that the language of rights particularly as deployed during the recent debate and plebiscite on same sex marriage is a means for undermining religious freedom. He, like his fellow bishops, has also been concerned that the Royal Commission

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into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was too interventionist and not sufficiently respectful of religious freedom. In his 2018 Easter message, Fisher said: [W]e cannot take the freedom to hold and practice our beliefs for granted, even here in Australia. Powerful interests now seek to marginalise religious believers and beliefs, especially Christian ones, and exclude them from public life … We may not always be as free as we are now to evangelise and baptise as Jesus mandated at the first Easter. (Fisher 2018a)

I thought the tone of these remarks too shrill and said so publicly at the time. I wrote: ‘It’s time for everyone to be a little less shrill in the public square while the painstaking work is done to consider the implementation of recommendations from the royal commission which are workable and principled. It’s not being shrill to say that not all recommendations are equally workable and principled. It’s time to ensure that all institutions are safe for children. That’s the state’s business. And it’s time for all states to get on board, and for governments to share details of the proposed redress scheme, so that churches can sign up for truth, justice and healing for victims.’ (Brennan 2018). In his 2018 Christmas message, Archbishop Fisher sounded even more shrill when he lamented the growing hostility to Christianity: There are those in our society who want the same Baby we celebrate every December to be put away with our Christmas decorations, with no claim on the year ahead. A hard-edged secularism would exclude faith, and the faithful, from public life. Root out Judeo-Christian heritage from law and culture, and confine faith to an ever-narrowing field of private life. We’ve witnessed moves to make the celebration of the sacrament of confession illegal, to defund church schools, to charge an Archbishop with discrimination for teaching about marriage, and to deny faith-based institutions the right to choose what kind of community they will be. (Fisher 2018b)

Both the parishioner in the Cathedral pews and the listener on the national airwaves were left in no doubt that Church leaders like Archbishop Fisher were feeling besieged and that all religious citizens were at risk from this rising tide of secularism with the secular state doing little to arrest the damage. I found the intervention two months before by Fr Arturo Sosa SJ, the Superior General of the Jesuits, at the Vatican Synod on Youth and Vocational Discernment more heartening and more realistically pitched at bringing religion to life in the contemporary context. Sosa suggested that the original working document for this synod had a ‘simplified and negative view of secularisation’. Sosa asked: What if we dare, instead, to see secularization as a sign of the times, in the theological sense that the Second Vatican Council gave to this expression? It is about seeing secularization, and the secular world that emerges from it, as one of the ways in which the Spirit is speaking and guiding us in this time. Instead of multiplying regrets for an idealized past that is gone, let us ask ourselves sincerely what the Lord is telling us through secularization, where the Holy Spirit leads us through that path that humanity is living. (Sosa 2018)

Sosa was bold enough to suggest that secularisation being seen as a sign of the times could help make Christians aware of how the secular world frees us from simply following the Christian path ‘out of habit, because we live in a Christian environment, because we are part of a Christian family in a Christian society’. The

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more secular one’s society, the more likely that one will be a Christian by choice and not out of habit or social expectation. The one who responds to this call is more likely to recognise self and others as fellow human beings, as sons and daughters of the same Father. Too often religious identity is tied to tribal identity or national identity. Christians are ‘witnesses who have had a personal encounter with Christ and testify with their lives as disciples’. Citizens with a religious disposition can be just as open as committed secularists to universal respect for human rights. They can be even more insistent than their secularist counterparts when insisting that all considerations be placed on the table. Think only of those secularist human rights advocates who are more ready to put to one side ‘the rights’ of the unborn child or ‘the rights’ of the vulnerable ageing person with dementia when relatives are keen to utilise new laws for ‘physician assisted dying’. The biggest test of the contemporary relevance of religion in the Australian public square came with the 2017 plebiscite on same sex marriage. Like 62% of my fellow citizens who voted, I voted ‘yes’. As a priest, I was prepared to explain why I was voting ‘yes’ during the campaign. I voted ‘yes’, in part because I thought that the outcome was inevitable. But also, I thought that full civil recognition of such relationships was an idea whose time had come. What was needed was an outcome which helped to maintain respect for freedom of religion, the standing of the Churches, and the pastoral care and concern of everyone affected by such relationships, including the increasing number of children being brought up in households headed by same sex couples committed to each other and their children. I thought it appropriate that at least a handful of clergy should come out and, when asked, express their intention to vote ‘yes’. I drew three distinctions: marriage as a sacrament, marriage as a natural law institution, and marriage as a legal construct of civil law. Marriage as a sacrament is one of those graced moments in the life of the believing Christian who is a Catholic. As our Catechism puts it The sacraments are ‘of the Church’ in the double sense that they are ‘by her’ and ‘for her’. They are ‘by the Church’, for she is the sacrament of Christ’s action at work in her through the mission of the Holy Spirit. They are ‘for the Church’ in the sense that ‘the sacraments make the Church’, since they manifest and communicate to men, above all in the Eucharist, the mystery of communion with the God who is love, One in three persons. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1994: 290 #1118)

The sacrament of marriage typically is celebrated by two baptised persons (a man and a woman) who are free to marry, are committed to each other exclusively for life, and are open to the bearing and nurturing of their children from the union. Sacramental marriage follows the contours of marriage as a natural law institution. Unbaptised persons for example may enter into a natural law marriage, once again the classic instance being of a man and a woman committed to each other permanently and exclusively and open to the bearing and nurturing of children. One might even argue that baptised Catholics might enter into a natural law marriage even if their marriage not be recognised as sacramental. For example, one of the parties may have been previously married and their spouse is still alive, and the first sacramental marriage not annulled.

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Marriage as a legal construct of the civil law might follow the contours of the natural law institution, but then again it might not. For example, in Australia, the couple who are civilly married need not have any intention of bearing and nurturing children. They may even decide to preclude all possibility of same by seeking sterilisation, for example. They need not have a permanent and exclusive commitment to each other. They might decide on a variety of relationships outside marriage. Either party will be free to terminate the relationship unilaterally on one year’s notice. There is no need to give reasons or to establish a breakdown of the relationship. All three institutions are called ‘marriage’. But the three are different from each other. No doubt there is a lot to be said for maintaining the contours of all three institutions as consistent as possible. But they have grown more and more apart. At federation in 1901, most marriages were performed by clergy. Now most marriages are performed by civil celebrants. For a couple of generations, we have had developments in the civil law. First there was legal recognition of de facto relationships. Then in some jurisdictions there was legal recognition of civil partnerships between same sex couples. Over the last decade, even those jurisdictions such as the UK which provided recognition of civil unions moved to expand the definition of marriage to include a union of two persons of the same sex. This created an issue for those jurisdictions in similar countries which gave no legal recognition to same sex marriages. What was to happen with same sex couples married overseas who then migrated to Australia? Also, there has been an increasing number of children being brought up by same sex couples. I spent some years advocating for the legal recognition of civil unions. Neither the gay advocates nor our bishops were interested in that option. So it was then a matter of ‘winner take all’. Either there would continue to be no legal recognition of the increasing number of same sex partnerships (including children in their care) or these partnerships would be given the same legal status as a union of a man and a woman (including children in their care). I am one of those citizens who thought the time had come to extend that legal recognition, and yes I am a Catholic priest. I still adhere to the natural law view of marriage, though I concede to its critics that natural law does not make much sense to a lot of people nowadays unless they have some grounding in traditional philosophy. And it helps to have a Catholic heritage. Even those of us who espouse this natural law view of the institution need to concede that in Old Testament times, polygamy was clearly seen not only to be natural but also God’s will for those like Abraham. And of course, I still adhere firmly to the Church’s teaching about sacramental marriage. Even though most Catholics who voted ended up voting ‘yes’ as I did, I presume that the majority of our bishops voted ‘No’. But I know that some bishops did vote ‘Yes’. In the lead up to the vote, a couple of bishops (and there were only a couple, though others may have been upset while deciding not to communicate directly with me) wrote to me taking strong exception to the position I had taken. One of these bishops claimed, ‘With regard to the current postal survey on legally redefining marriage to include same sex unions, a Catholic is morally obligated to vote “no”. There is no option to claim that in good conscience that a Catholic can vote “yes”.’

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I disagreed strongly with this bishop. I think I voted ‘yes’ in good conscience. I thought his argument was the twenty-first century equivalent of a bishop telling the flock that they had to vote for the Democratic Labor Party as occurred back in the 1960s. I think those days have gone, and they’ve gone forever. During the plebiscite campaign I received one letter from a bishop who quoted an anonymous complaint from a member of the laity to another unnamed bishop. The bishop writing to me said, ‘I realise that you will probably also have had many communications congratulating you on distinguishing yourself from the Church on this matter.’ In response, I assured him that the overwhelming expressions of gratitude and congratulations had come not from people outside the Church thinking I was distinguishing myself from the Church on this matter. They came, and in their droves, from Catholics grateful that a priest had been prepared to give expression to what they themselves thought, and in good faith, congratulating me on putting a position which assured them that they were still members of the Church in good standing despite their strong disagreement with statements made by some of our bishops. I told the bishop about a woman unknown to me who approached me at a public event. She clasped my hand and thanked me profusely, saying, ‘I am one of those Catholics who is holding on just by a thread, and you are that thread. Thanks so much for all you do and say.’ Many well educated and reflective Catholics have thanked me for making the church sound credible and compassionate in the public square. I said to the complaining bishop, ‘I readily concede that these people are not your preferred sorts of Catholic—just as the anonymous complainant in your letter is not my preferred sort of Catholic. But I think we need to accept that they are all Catholics in good faith’. I appreciate that some of our bishops remain convinced that no Catholic in good faith could have voted yes. I think these bishops need to concede that a majority of Catholics in good faith who did vote voted yes. And that included some of our bishops, many of our priests, the majority of the flock, and a large majority of our federal politicians who are Catholic. Archbishop Mark Coleridge, an accomplished scripture scholar and now president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, got it right when interviewed on national television during the plebiscite campaign. He told David Speers: To think of a Catholic vote all going one way is just naïve. Of course, it’s possible to vote ‘yes’. It depends why you vote ‘yes’. It’s possible to vote ‘no’, but equally it depends why you vote ‘no’…As a Catholic you can vote ‘yes’, or you can vote ‘no’. I personally will vote ‘no’ but for quite particular reasons. But I’m not going to stand here and say: you vote ‘no’; and you vote ‘yes’, and you’re a Catholic, you’ll go to hell. It’s not like that. (Speers 2017)1 1 David Speers interviewed Archbishop Mark Coleridge on Skynews on 28 September 2017. When

asked how Catholics could vote, Coleridge answered at some length: ‘Catholics we’re a big mob. Anyone who thinks we’re monolithic does not know the Catholic Church. It’s like herding cats. Catholics are going to vote “yes”, some are going to vote “no”, some are not going to vote at all. Some are going to vote “yes” for one reason, some for another; ditto with “no”. To think of a Catholic vote all going one way is just naïve. Of course it’s possible to vote “yes”. It depends why you vote “yes”. It’s possible to vote “no” but equally it depends why you vote “no”. And we’ve seen some awful stuff on both sides of the debate, or all sides of the debate, because there aren’t

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A Catholic friend of mine who has long worked in the National Press Gallery recently attended a civil same sex marriage ceremony. He was asked to share a reflection. In part, he said: Just as every intimate relationship is a journey of discovery based on the reality of individuals making themselves vulnerable to each other, the Australian nation itself has been on a fraught journey finally enlightened by contemporary insights and a newer understanding of sexuality, gender and psychology. And most importantly on a newer recognition of the equality and unique worth of every person.

This realisation in secular Australia, to my mind has a profoundly Christian resonance. In the New Testament St. John makes no distinction between lovers. In his first letter, he gives all love an absolute foundation in the ground of our very being; he writes: Let us love one another Since love come from God And everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Anyone who fails to love can never have known God, Because God is love. (1 John 4:7–8)

No matter how we voted, we all now need to accept that the civil law of marriage will permit the exclusive, committed relationship of any two persons to be legally recognised, granting the couple endorsement and respect for their relationship and for their family. Religious perspectives were relevant to both sides of this debate. Religious perspectives added depth to the arguments and not just prejudice. Religious perspectives will continue to inform and shape the world view of those entering into marriages and those witnessing the exchange of vows, whether or not the ceremony be conducted in a church and whether or not the couple count themselves as religious. In 2009 when I chaired the National Human Rights Consultation for the Rudd Labor Government, some of the more conservative religious leaders were very opposed to a national Human Rights Act. One of their strong allies was Bob Carr one-time Labor premier of New South Wales and then later Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Gillard Labor Government. Carr delighted in telling the story about the visit he received at his Premier’s Office by the Catholic and Anglican Archbishops of Sydney. They were seeking exemptions for religious schools from some provisions of the state’s anti-discrimination law which would then permit the schools to teach their doctrine and enact their practices spared the threat of proceedings in any tribunal investigating whether their employment or enrolment practices were discriminatory. Carr indicated that without a Human rights Act, this arrangement could be reached on a simple handshake with a meeting of the premier and the two archbishops. He joked that he felt as if he was solving the Reformation. But a decade on, such an arrangement is far less likely to occur and even less likely to pass muster if publicised. just two sides As a Catholic you can vote “yes” or you can vote “no”. I personally will vote “no” but for quite particular reasons. But I’m not going to stand here and say you vote “no”; and you vote “yes” and you’re a Catholic, you’ll go to hell. It’s not like that.’

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Religious groups like political parties may well have an entitlement to employ staff who are willing to get with the program. Religious groups, like any other special interest groups in the community, need to be able to give an account of themselves especially if the services they are delivering are funded in part by the taxpayer. After the Commonwealth parliament legislated changes to the marriage laws in 2017, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull commissioned an expert panel to report on the adequacy of Australia’s laws in protecting religious freedom. Many ‘yes’ voters in the plebiscite were convinced that a change to the law of marriage would not make one iota of difference to freedom of religion in Australia. Many ‘no’ voters were worried that the changes could be frightful. The debate which then erupted about religious freedom when parliament was legislating to recognise same sex marriage highlighted that Australian legislation at the Commonwealth and State level for the protection of all human rights, including freedom of religion, was at best patchy. In the absence of a constitutional bill of rights or a national human rights act in Australia, both sides of politics have responded pragmatically and sensibly each time we have signed up to an international treaty enhancing our commitment to human rights. Over time, we have legislated against racial discrimination, sex discrimination, age discrimination and disability discrimination in the wake of specific treaty obligations not to discriminate against persons on the grounds of a particular attribute. The Ruddock Committee of which I was a member thought the time had come for similar legislation prohibiting adverse discrimination on the basis of a person’s religion. We thought that was now all the more pressing, not because of the debate about same sex marriage, but because in an increasingly secularist Australia, religious folk, particularly more conservative religious folk, were worried that their most basic rights were not being adequately protected. Some even had a sense that their religious beliefs and practices were being needlessly parodied and demeaned in the public square. We thought that religious institutions, like other groups including political parties, should be free to employ or include members who subscribe to the group’s ethos, practices and teachings. Australia is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which recognises the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the freedom ‘either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest one’s religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching’. There have been numerous Australian inquiries by parliamentary committees, the Australian Law Reform Commission and the Australian Human Rights Commission which have highlighted the need for some further legislative protection of this right at a Commonwealth level. Like all competing or conflicting rights, the right to religious freedom is limited in its scope. There is often a need to balance conflicting rights. For example, Article 26 of the ICCPR recognises the right of all persons to equality. The most recent report of the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief to the UN Human Rights Council notes that ‘it is not permissible for individuals or groups to invoke “religious liberty” to perpetuate discrimination against groups in vulnerable situations, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons, when it comes to the provision of goods or services in the public sphere’ (Shaheed 2018: [40]).

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In the wake of the same sex marriage plebiscite, the Australian challenge has been to strike the right balance between the right to freedom of religion or belief for religious educators and the rights to equality and non-discrimination for teachers and students. If we had an Equality Act, we might consider the need for a Religious Freedom Act. As we have a Sex Discrimination Act which deals with discrimination on the basis of various criteria including sexual orientation, the Ruddock panel thought it desirable that we at least have a Religious Discrimination Act. The government agrees, and hopefully so too will the Opposition and cross benchers. We thought the protection of religious freedom should be put up in lights as part of the day job of the Australian Human Rights Commission. The government agrees and has gone one step further, proposing a Freedom of Religion Commissioner. Kent Greenawalt, one of the US’s leading scholars on law and religion published a major collection of his essays in 2016. Sufficiently aware of American exceptionalism, he wrote, ‘I do not believe that what is appropriate for the United States is necessarily so for other liberal democracies. I recently read that Australian society is sufficiently nonreligious so that an official making a religious argument for a political position would be laughed at.’ (Greenawalt 2016: 29) I don’t know that we have quite come to that. But we are getting close. I well recall a mass celebrated in the Dili Cathedral in Timor Leste in 2001 by Nobel Peace Prize Winner Bishop Carlos Belo. As Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service, I was working in Timor Leste at the time and I accompanied Bishop Belo at the mass which was offered in thanks for the contribution by the departing Australian INTERFET forces. At the end of the mass, Major General Peter Cosgrove spoke. The burly Australian commander was accompanied by a translator who was a petite Timorese religious sister in her pure white habit, replete with veil. Before them was the usual international media scrum which accompanies such events in countries overrun by the UN and international NGOs. Cosgrove recalled his first visit to the cathedral three months earlier when he was so moved by the singing that he realised two things: the people of East Timor had not abandoned their God, and God had not abandoned the people of East Timor. His words surprised me, and I knew that this speech would not be reported back in Australia. We don’t do religion in public this way. It was unimaginable that an Australian military leader would give such a speech back in Australia. If Cosgrove were a US General, we would expect it. It was then unimaginable that Cosgrove when Governor General would make any such speech onshore in Australia, no matter what the audience or occasion. Here in Australia, the public silence about things religious does not mean that religion does not animate and inspire many of us. It just has a less acknowledged place in the public forum. It marks its presence by the reverence of the silence. That is why we Australians need to be so attentive to keeping politics and religion in place. Each has its place, and each must be kept in place for the good of us all, and for the good of our Commonwealth. Many citizens wanting to contribute to the shaping of law, public policy, and conversation in the public square come to the task with their own comprehensive worldview. For some, that view is shaped not just by their culture and intellectual peers but also by their religious tradition and beliefs. Just because they do not often talk about such tradition and beliefs outside their own circle of family and friends

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does not mean that this tradition and these beliefs are left at home once the individual steps into the public square. When launching his foundation on ‘Faith and Globalisation’, the retired British Prime Minister Tony Blair observed that his former press secretary, Alastair Campbell, was fond of saying, ‘We don’t do God.’ Blair clarified that Campbell ‘didn’t mean that politicians shouldn’t have faith, just that it was always a packet of trouble to talk about it.’ In the British culture, as in Australia, Blair noted that ‘to admit to having faith leads to a whole series of suppositions, none of which are very helpful to the practising politician.’ He listed five suppositions: First, you may be considered weird. Normal people aren’t supposed to ‘do God’. Second, there is an assumption that before you take a decision, you engage in some slightly cultish interaction with your religion – ‘So, God, tell me what you think of City Academies or Health Service Reform or nuclear power’ i.e. people assume that your religion makes you act, as a leader, at the promptings of an inscrutable deity, free from reason rather than in accordance with it. Third, you want to impose your religious faith on others. Fourth, you are pretending to be better than the next person. And finally and worst of all, that you are somehow messianically trying to co-opt God to bestow a divine legitimacy on your politics. (Blair 2008)

Whether or not our comprehensive worldview is shaped by religious influences, it informs the development of values which the individual expresses and lives out in their own specific cultural context. From those values, one is able to articulate principles which underpin informed and considered decision making about laws, public policies and public deliberation on contested social questions. We can practise politics, that art of compromise in the public square where laws and policies are determined in relation to the allocation of scarce resources or in relation to conflicts where there is no clear resolution either in principle or by the exercise of legitimate authority. Public policy can include the allocation of preferences by the State extended to individuals who can avail themselves of state benefits while avoiding state burdens. Laws can include the dictates of the State enforceable against individuals who fail to comply voluntarily. In his book Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism, Larry Siedentop, a long-time Fellow of Keble College, Oxford, claims that it is no mere coincidence ‘that liberal secularism developed in the Christian West’ (Siedentop 2014: 3). He assumes that ‘if we are to understand the relationship between beliefs and social institutions—that is, to understand ourselves—then we have to take a very long view’ (Siedentop 2014: 2). Looking back at the French Revolution, he assesses the positions of the anti-clericals who were followers of Voltaire and the religious camp ‘who saw the separating of church and state as nothing less than an insurrection against God, public denial of beliefs which had shaped Europe’ (Siedentop 2014: 360). Two centuries on, he thinks that the old antagonism still lurks below the surface. However he notes: ‘The religious camp have come, by and large to accept civil liberty and religious pluralism. The anti-clericals have—with the exception of hardline Marxists and writers such as Richard Dawkins—given

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up on the attempt to extirpate religious belief.’ (Siedentop 2014: 360). He identifies Europe’s undeclared civil war: ‘The visceral reaction of the French left to the prospect of acknowledging the Christian roots of Europe has its counterpart in much church rhetoric deploring the growth of Godless secularism’ (Siedentop 2014: 360). He says this civil war is tragic and unnecessary: It is tragic because, by identifying secularism with non-belief, with indifference and materialism, it deprives Europe of moral authority, playing into the hands of those who are only too anxious to portray Europe as decadent and without conviction. It is unnecessary because it rests on a misunderstanding of the nature of secularism. Properly understood, secularism can be seen as Europe’s noblest achievement which should be its primary contribution to the creation of a world order, while different religious beliefs continue to contend for followers. Secularism is Christianity’s gift to the world, ideas and practices which have often turned against ‘excesses’ of the Christian Church itself. What is the crux of secularism? It is that belief in an underlying or moral equality of humans implies that there is a sphere in which each should be free to make his or her own decisions, a sphere of conscience and free action. That belief is summarised in the central value of classical liberalism: the commitment to ‘equal liberty’. Is this indifference or non-belief? Not at all. It rests on the firm belief that to be human means being a rational and moral agent, a free chooser with responsibility for one’s actions. It puts a premium on conscience rather than the ‘blind’ following of rules. It joins rights with duties to others. (Siedentop 2014: 360–361)

One of the delights of the papacy of Pope Francis, a Jesuit, is that the old debates about conscience and authority have been put to rest. The Church is not seen as the crucible of all wisdom. Secularism is no longer a dirty word. We can all more readily embrace the secularist insights about human dignity, autonomy, rights and duties. We can even admit, as we have had to with the child sex abuse crisis in the Church, that the State and civil society can contribute and help the Church espouse its true mission and values. In the past some of our church leaders have been suspicious or wary about the language of human rights and legal regimes for protection of same. Here in Australia, we religious people know that there are many of our fellow citizens who have not ‘given up on the attempt to extirpate religious belief’ and that there is a prevalent view that only the stupid or perverted could embrace religious faith or commitment to a church. It’s in this context that we come to consider the issue of human rights, the national interest and the will of the people. Whether or not we have a bill of rights, much of our human rights jurisprudence remains partial, failing to extend rights equally to all. Once we investigate much of the contemporary discussion about human rights, we find that often the intended recipients of rights do not include all human beings but only those with certain capacities or those who share sufficient common attributes with the decision makers. It is always at the edges that there is real work for human rights discourse to do. In his LSE Address, Williams boldly and correctly asserted: The question of foundations for the discourse of non-negotiable rights is not one that lends itself to simple resolution in secular terms; so it is not at all odd if diverse ways of framing this question in religious terms flourish so persistently. The uncomfortable truth is that a purely secular account of human rights is always going to be problematic if it attempts to establish a language of rights as a supreme and non-contestable governing concept in ethics. (Williams 2012: 157–158)

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Once we abandon any religious sense that the human person is created in the image and likeness of God and that God has commissioned even the powerful to act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly, it may be very difficult to maintain a human rights commitment to the weakest and most vulnerable in society. It may come down to the vote, moral sentiment or tribal affiliations. And that will not be enough to extend human rights universally. Think just of the unborn child, the isolated aged person, the asylum seeker banished to Nauru or Manus Island, or the young offender caught in the web of mandatory sentencing laws. In the name of utility, society might not feel so impeded, limiting social inclusion to those like us, ‘us’ being the decision makers who determine which common characteristics render embodied persons eligible for human rights protection. Nicholas Wolterstorff says, ‘Our moral subculture of rights is as frail as it is remarkable. If the secularisation thesis proves true, we must expect that that subculture will have been a brief shining episode in the odyssey of human beings on earth.’ (Wolterstorff 2008: 393). Marking the 60th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the late Irish poet Seamus Heaney said: Since it was framed, the Declaration has succeeded in creating an international moral consensus. It is always there as a means of highlighting abuse if not always as a remedy: it exists instead in the moral imagination as an equivalent of the gold standard in the monetary system. The articulation of its tenets has made them into world currency of a negotiable sort. Even if its Articles are ignored or flouted—in many cases by governments who have signed up to them—it provides a worldwide amplification system for the ‘still, small voice’. (Heaney 2008)

The concept of human rights has real work to do whenever those with power justify their solutions to social ills or political conflicts only on the basis of majority support or by claiming the solutions will lead to an improved situation for the mainstream majority. Even if a particular solution is popular or maximises gains for the greatest number of people, it might still be wrong and objectionable. There is a need to have regard to the wellbeing of all members of the community. When marking the 50th anniversary of the UN Declaration, the late Professor Louis Henkin, arguably the US’s most outstanding international human rights lawyer of the twentieth century, neatly summarised the varying perspectives on the origin and basis of human rights, espousing the centrality of the idea in any society committed to freedom, justice and peace for all: Although there is no agreement between the secular and the theological, or between traditional and modern perspectives on human beings and on the universe, there is now a working consensus that every man and woman, between birth and death, counts, and has a claim to an irreducible core of integrity and dignity. In that consensus, in the world we have and are shaping, the idea of human rights is an essential idea. (Henkin 1998: 239)

‘Human rights’ is the contemporary language for embracing, and the modern means of achieving, respect and dignity for all. Addressing the UN General Assembly to mark the 60th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR), Pope Benedict XVI said, ‘This document was the outcome of a convergence of different religious and cultural traditions, all of them motivated by the common

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desire to place the human person at the heart of institutions, laws and the workings of society, and to consider the human person essential for the world of culture, religion and science…(T)he universality, indivisibility and interdependence of human rights all serve as guarantees safeguarding human dignity.’ (Benedict XVI 2008). It would be a serious mistake to view the UNDHR stipulation and limitation of rights as a western Judaeo-Christian construct. Like Tony Blair, Kevin Rudd was a prime minister happy to profess his Christian beliefs. I take heart from the recent observation by ex-Prime Minister and unashamed Christian Kevin Rudd when he was speaking at the Australian Catholic University: You need folks out there who are professionally committed to the business of what I describe as focused, uncompromising Christian ethics, or in the case of the academy more broadly, public policy which in a given set of circumstances will deliver the goods minus politics of compromise. You need folks out there who are constantly holding up the ethical goal posts of our society. Because the nature of parliamentary democracy is that it will be a process of compromise south of that. And the day to day question, the week to week question, the year to year question, is how far south, a little bit, or a long way, or disappearing through the floor? (Rudd and Craven 2018a, b)

I am one Catholic priest who has been speaking in the public square trying to set true north for those ethical goal posts for the last 30 years. Australian politics has become a deadly sport. And perhaps it was always so. Rudd lived by the sword, and politically he died by the sword. Through it all, he proudly professed his Christian faith. He went onto the public field to play this deadly game in order to make a difference. It’s his family and his faith which sustained him every step of the way. His family paid a price and he feels that deeply. And he knows it’s deeply unfashionable to be a political leader professing any sort of religious faith: ‘the view in polite post-Christian society is that religious believers are emotionally fragile, scientifically illiterate and morally hypocritical. But apart from all that, we believers can be perfectly pleasant, although totally delusional, human beings.’ Classic Rudd! In May 2005, prior to becoming prime minister, Rudd agreed to be interviewed by Geraldine Doogue on the ABC religious affairs program Compass. He told Doogue: ‘I’m doing what I think at this time in Australia’s political history is right. And that is to engage this debate about faith, values and politics and not to vacate the ground to the other mob; for those on the political right who believe that faith is their natural preserve. I don’t intend to stand around and let that happen.’ (Rudd 2017: 395). This has been a constant refrain from Rudd in public life. Back when he was campaigning for Wayne Goss as Queensland premier in 1989, the conservatives started a scare campaign that Labor would decriminalise homosexuality. Goss, an atheist, was surprised when Rudd phoned an Anglican clergyman to enlist his support in taking on this ‘fundamentalist ratbaggery’. Rudd explains: ‘As I put down the phone, there was total silence from my atheist mates gathered around the conference table. “Why should the conservatives have a monopoly on God?” I said. “In this election, Jesus was not a paid-up conservative voter. Jesus was either with us, or at least a swinging voter.”’ (Rudd 2017: 148). I am one of those Catholics who delights not to live in a theocracy dominated by the papacy. I enjoy what Rowan Williams when Archbishop of Canterbury often

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described as my multiple affiliations as a member of the Catholic Church and as a citizen of a robust, pluralistic democratic society. I do lament that there is an increasing number of citizens who think that an essential attribute of a secular society is that a non-religious or anti-religious perspective should always be trumps in the public square. No ultimate world view should be trumps, not even a secularist one centred on individual autonomy and equality with little regard for the common good and community. I am also one of those Catholics who delights in some aspects of the other Christian Churches spared some of the barnacles on the barque of Peter. But I cherish my membership of the Catholic Church because like Geraldine Doogue, I believe ‘as a source of ongoing consolation and meaning, of searching alongside others not merely alone, the broader Catholic Church simply has no peer.’ (Doogue 2017). In this ecumenical age, I am even more delighted to share the strengths of our tradition. I was very touched to hear the Anglican bishop George Browning say to me shortly after the election of Pope Francis, ‘I do like our new pope.’ Someone like Pope Francis is good news for all Christians and for all the world. In his first encyclical Laudato Si’, he explained why he took the name ‘Francis’ and what an inspiration Francis of Assisi has been for him: He loved, and was deeply loved for his joy, his generous self-giving, his openheartedness. He was a mystic and a pilgrim who lived in simplicity and in wonderful harmony with God, with others, with nature and with himself. He shows us just how inseparable the bond is between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace. (Francis 2015: 16 #10)

In the mess and complexity of our world, a religious person often finds themselves saying, ‘There’s nothing more I can do but pray.’ The secularist might think they could do more. They might be able. But then again, they might be mistaken. They might then think that prayer could achieve nothing. They may well be right. But at least through prayer, the religious person in that moment of powerlessness is thrown back into that comprehensive world of relationships—with Creator, with humanity, and with the whole of creation. That web of relationships which is sustaining might just provide the underpinning for a concerted new stand for nature, for peace, and for universal human rights. While ever there is hope of this prospect, religion will contribute both in personal conscience and in the public square to human flourishing and the human quest for a world made whole.

References Benedict XVI, Meeting with the Members of the General Assembly of the United Nations Organisation, 18 April 2008. http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2008/april/ documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20080418_un-visit.html. Accessed 6 Jan 2019 Blair A (2008) Faith and globalisation. The Cardinal’s Lectures, Westminster Cathedral, 3 April 2008. https://sewauk.org/tony-blair-speech-on-faith-and-globalisation/. Accessed 6 Jan 2019 Brennan F (2018) Let’s be less shrill about Church-State relations. Eureka Street. https://www. eurekastreet.com.au/article/let-s-be-less-shrill-about-church-state-relations. Accessed 6 Jan 2019

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Catechism of Catholic Church (1994) St Pauls, Homebush Doogue G (2017) Flawed Catholic Church a test for the true believers. The Australian, 2 July. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/inquirer/flawed-catholic-church-a-test-for-thetrue-believers/news-story/0d13f435e3581065fdfcd0a59fe607bc. Accessed 24 June 2019 Fisher A (2018a) Easter message. The Australian, 2 April. https://www.theaustralian.com. au/news/nation/powerful-forces-threaten-our-religious-freedom-says-archbishop/news-story/ 092f8c1ceb560e5fb5bf0796e423e8b9. Accessed 6 Jan 2019 Fisher A (2018b) Christmas message. Catholic Weekly. https://www.catholicweekly.com.au/ archbishop-anthony-fishers-christmas-message/. Accessed 6 Jan 2019 Francis Pope (2015) Laudato Si’. St Paul’s, Sydney Greenawalt K (2016) From the bottom up: selected essays. Oxford University Press, New York Heaney S (2008) Human rights, poetic redress. Irish Times, 15 March. https://www.irishtimes.com/ news/human-rights-poetic-redress-1.903757. Accessed 6 Jan 2019 Henkin L (1998) Religion, religions, and human rights. J Relig Ethics 26(2):229–239 Rudd K, Craven (2018a) Launch of the Institute of Religion Politics and Society’s Leadership Series: In conversation with Rudd K, Craven G (2018b) Australian Catholic University, 22 February 2018. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=PAPxwBj3VOo&feature=youtu.be&t=1s. Accessed 6 January 2019 Rudd K (2017) Not for the Faint hearted: a personal reflection on life, politics and purpose. Macmillan, Sydney Ruston R (2004) Human rights and the image of god. SCM, London Shaheed A (2018) Report of the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief. UN Doc A/HRC/34/50, 28 February 2018 Siedentop L (2014) Inventing the individual: the origins of western liberalism. Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA Sosa A (2018) Intervention at synod, 24 October 2018. https://sjcuria.global/en/more-speeches/ 204-father-general-s-intervention-at-the-synod-complete-text. Accessed 6 Jan 2019 Speers D (2017) Interview of Archbishop Mark Coleridge. Skynews, 28 September Williams R (2012) Faith in the public square. Bloomsbury, London Wolterstorff N (2008) Justice: rights and wrongs. Princeton University Press, Princeton

Chapter 13

Revivalistics: Language Reclamation, Spirituality and Wellbeing Ghil’ad Zuckermann

Abstract To what extent does knowledge and use of language affect spirituality and wellbeing? Hallett et al. discovered a clear correlation in British Columbia (Canada) between Aboriginal language loss and youth suicide. However, so far there has been no study of a correlation in the other direction, i.e. the impact of language revival on improved mental health and reduction in suicide. There is some evidence that just as language loss increases suicidal ideation and depression, language gain reduces mental ill-health, and improves spirituality and wellbeing. In this chapter I make these links, and argue that language revival reconnects people who have ‘lost’ their ‘soul’ with their cultural autonomy, intellectual sovereignty and spirituality.

13.1 Introduction John Adams, the second President of the United States in (1797–1801), wrote to Abigail Adams in 1780: I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.

After ‘porcelain’ I would add: language, heritage, culture, revivalistics, and language revival. I believe that, so far, there have been four linguistic revolutions in history: (1) The emergence of speaking: more than 70,000 years ago; (2) The emergence of writing: approximately 5,200 years ago; (3) The emergence of type-printing: first half of the second millennium AD: Bì Sh¯eng develops in 1041–1048 the first moveable type printing press; Johannes Gutenberg develops in c. 1450 the first European moveable type printing press, enabling mass production of books. G. Zuckermann (B) Department of Linguistics, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Babie and R. Sarre (eds.), Religion Matters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_13

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Fig. 13.1 Abraham Maslow’s 1943 hierarchy of needs, addenda by Zuckermann

(4) The emergence of talknology (talk+technology): twentieth century-present: digital mass media, CNN, Facebook, Twitter etc., resulting in ‘big data’. Whereas the Industrial Revolution (1760–1840) turned people from seeking food to seeking things, I propose that the current ‘talknological revolution’ will eventually turn the hoi polloi from seeking things to seeking ideas. In his seminal article ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’, Maslow (1943) explored the hierarchy of needs—see the slightly modified pyramid below (Fig. 13.1). In accordance with searching for ideas, resulting from this Talknological Revolution, more and more people in the future will go up Maslow’s ladder and be interested not just in, say, large houses and speedy cars but also in heritage, culture, and language. This is when language revival would become more prevalent than it is today.

13.2 Revivalistics Revivalistics is a new trans-disciplinary field of enquiry studying comparatively and systematically the universal constraints and global mechanisms on the one hand (see Zuckermann 2009, 2020), and particularistic peculiarities and cultural relativist idiosyncrasies on the other, apparent in linguistic reclamation, revitalization and reinvigoration across various sociological backgrounds, all over the globe (Zuckermann and Walsh 2011).

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Reclamation

Revitalization

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Reinvigoration

There were NO native speakers when the Severely endangered. Endangered. revival began. Some speakers. speakers.

Many

e.g. Hebrew, Kaurna, Barngarla, e.g. Adnyamathanha, e.g. Welsh, Irish, Wampanoag, Siraya, Myaamia; Tunica Karuk, Walmajarri Catalan, Quebecoise (Central and Lower Mississippi Valley, French USA) Fig. 13.2 Comparison of reclamation, revitalization and reinvigoration

What is the difference between reclamation, revitalization, and reinvigoration? All of them are on the revival spectrum. Here are my specific definitions: • Reclamation is the revival of a ‘Sleeping Beauty’ tongue, i.e. a no-longer natively spoken language, as in the case of Hebrew, Barngarla (the Aboriginal language of Eyre Peninsula, South Australia), Kaurna (the Aboriginal language of Adelaide, Australia), Wampanoag, Siraya and Myaamia. • Revitalization is the revival of a severely endangered language, for example Adnyamathanha of the Flinders Ranges in Australia, as well as Karuk and Walmajarri. • Reinvigoration is the revival of an endangered language that still has a high percentage of children speaking it, for example the Celtic languages Welsh and Irish, and the Romance languages Catalan and Quebecoise French. Figure 13.2 describes the difference. Revivalistics is trans-disciplinary because it studies language revival from various angles such as law, mental health, linguistics, anthropology, sociology, geography, politics, history, biology, evolution, genetics, genomics, colonization studies, missionary studies, media, animation, film, technology, talknology, art, theatre, dance, agriculture, archaeology, music (see Grant 2014), education, games (indirect learning), pedagogy (see Hinton 2011), and even architecture. Consider architecture. An architect involved in revivalistics might ask the following ‘location, location, location’ question, which is, of course, beyond language: • Should we reclaim an Indigenous language in a natural Indigenous setting, to replicate the original ambience of heritage, culture, laws, and lores? • Should we reclaim an Indigenous language in a modern building that has Indigenous characteristics such as Aboriginal colours and shapes? • Should we reclaim an Aboriginal language in a western governmental building— to give the empowering signal that the tribe has full support of contemporary mainstream society?

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13.3 Why Should We Invest Time and Money in Reclaiming ‘Sleeping Beauty’ Languages? A fundamental question for revivalistics, which both the tax-paying general public and the scholarly community ought to ask, is why does it matter to speak a different language? As Evans (2010) puts it eloquently in the introduction to his book Dying Words: You only hear what you listen for, and you only listen for what you are wondering about. The goal of this book is to take stock of what we should be wondering about as we listen to the dying words of the thousands of languages falling silent around us, across the totality of what Mike Krauss has christened the ‘logosphere’: just as the ‘biosphere’ is the totality of all species of life and all ecological links on earth, the logosphere is the whole vast realm of the world’s words, the languages that they build, and the links between them.

Evans (2010) ranges over the manifold ways languages can differ, the information they can hold about the deep past of their speakers, the interdependence of language and thought, the intertwining of language and oral literature. Relevant to revivalistics, it concludes by asking how linguistics can best go about recording existing knowledge so as to ensure that the richest, most culturally distinctive record of a language is captured, for use by those wanting to revive it in the future (see also Brenzinger 1992, 1998, 2007a; Enfield 2011). Brenzinger emphasizes the threats to knowledge on the environment (Brenzinger et al. 1994; Heine and Brenzinger 1988), conceptual diversity as a crucial loss in language shifts (Brenzinger 2006, 2007b, 2018). The following is my own categorization of the main reasons for language revival.

13.3.1 Ethical Reasons A plethora of the world’s languages have not just been dying of their own accord; many were destroyed by settlers of this land. For example, in Australia we owe it to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to support the maintenance and revival of their cultural heritage, in this instance through language revival. According to the international law of human rights, persons belonging to ethnic, religious, or linguistic minorities have the right to use their own language (Article (art.) 27 of the ICCPR). Thus, every person has the right to express themselves in the language of their ancestors, not just in the language of convenience that English has become. Through supporting language revival, we can appreciate the significance of Indigenous languages and recognise their importance to Indigenous people and to Australia. We can then right some small part of the wrong against the original inhabitants of this country and support the wishes of their ancestors with the help of linguistic knowledge.

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13.3.2 Aesthetic Reasons The linguist Ken Hale, who worked with many endangered languages and saw the effect of loss of language, compared losing language to bombing the Louvre: ‘When you lose a language, you lose a culture, intellectual wealth, a work of art. It’s like dropping a bomb on a museum, the Louvre’ (The Economist, 3 November 2001). A museum is a repository of human artistic culture. Languages are at least equally important since they store the cultural practices and beliefs of an entire people. Different languages have different ways of expressing ideas and this can indicate which concepts are important to a certain culture. For example, in Australia, information relating to food sources, surviving in nature, and Dreaming/history is being lost along with the loss of Aboriginal languages. A study by Boroditsky and Gaby (2010) found that speakers of Kuuk Thaayorre, a language spoken in Pormpuraaw on the west coast of Cape York, do not use ‘left’ or ‘right’, but always use cardinal directions (i.e. north, south, east, west). They claim that Kuuk Thaayorre speakers are constantly aware of where they are situated and that this use of directions also affects their awareness of time (Boroditsky and Gaby 2010). Language supports different ways of ‘being in the world’. Such cases are abundant around the world. An example of a grammatical way to express a familiar concept is mamihlapinatapai, a lexical item in the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego in Chile and Argentina. It refers to ‘a look shared by two people, each wishing that the other would offer something that they both desire but have been unwilling to suggest or offer themselves’. This lexical item, which refers to a concept many of us are familiar with, despite lacking a specific word for it in their language, can be broken down into morphemes: ma- is a reflexive/passive prefix (realized as the allomorph mam- before a vowel); ihlapi ‘to be at a loss as what to do next’; -n, stative suffix; -ata, achievement suffix; and -apai, a dual suffix, which has a reciprocal sense with ma- (circumfix). Two examples of concepts that most people might never imagine are: (1) nakhur, in Ancient Persian, which refers to a ‘camel that will not give milk until her nostrils have been tickled’ (camels are clearly very important in this society, and survival may have depended on camel milk); (2) tingo, in Rapa Nui (Pasquan) of Easter Island (Eastern Polynesian language), is ‘to take all the objects one desires from the house of a friend, one at a time, by asking to borrow them, until there is nothing left’ (see De Boinod 2005); (3) bunjurrbi, in Wambaya (Non-Pama-Nyungan West Barkly Australian language, Barkly Tableland of the Northern Territory, Australia), is a verb meaning ‘to face your bottom toward someone when getting up from the ground’. Such fascinating and multifaceted words, maximus in minim¯ıs, should not be lost. They are important to the cultures they are from and make the outsiders reflective of their own cultures. Through language maintenance and reclamation we can keep important cultural practices and concepts alive.

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13.3.3 Utilitarian Benefits Language revival benefits the speakers involved through improvement of wellbeing, cognitive abilities, and mental health (see Zuckermann and Walsh 2014); language revival also reduces delinquency and increases cultural tourism. Language revival has a positive effect on the mental and physical wellbeing of people involved in such projects. Participants develop a better and sense of connection with their cultural heritage. Learning the language of their ancestors can be an emotional experience and can provide people with a strong sense of pride and identity. There are also cognitive advantages to bilingualism and multilingualism. Several studies have found that bilingual children have better non-linguistic cognitive abilities compared with monolingual children (Kovács and Mehler 2009) and improved attention and auditory processing (Krizman et al. 2012: 7879): the bilingual’s ‘enhanced experience with sound results in an auditory system that is highly efficient, flexible and focused in its automatic sound processing, especially in challenging or novel listening conditions’. Furthermore, the effects of multilingualism extend to those who have learned another language in later life and can be found across the whole lifespan. This is relevant to the first generation of revivalists, who might themselves be monolingual (as they won’t become native speakers of the Revival Language). The effects of non-native multilingualism include better cognitive performance in old age (Bak et al. 2014), a significantly later onset of dementia (Alladi et al. 2013), and a better cognitive outcome after stroke (Alladi et al. 2016; Paplikar et al. 2018). Moreover, a measurable improvement in attention has been documented in participants aged from 18 to 78 years after just one week of an intensive language course (Bak et al. 2016). Language learning and active multilingualism are increasingly seen as contributing not only to psychological wellbeing but also to brain health (Bak and Mehmedbegovic 2017), with a potential of reducing money spent on medical care (Bak 2017). Further benefits to non-native multilingualism are demonstrated by Keysar et al. (2012: 661). They found that decision-making biases are reduced when using a non-native language, as follows: Four experiments show that the ‘framing effect’ disappears when choices are presented in a foreign tongue. Whereas people were risk averse for gains and risk seeking for losses when choices were presented in their native tongue, they were not influenced by this framing manipulation in a foreign language. Two additional experiments show that using a foreign language reduces loss aversion, increasing the acceptance of both hypothetical and real bets with positive expected value. We propose that these effects arise because a foreign language provides greater cognitive and emotional distance than a native tongue does.

Therefore, language revival is not only empowering culturally, but also cognitively, and not only for the possibly-envisioned native speakers of the future but also the learning revivalists of the present.

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13.4 Language Loss and Youth Suicide: Canada Language is postulated as core to people’s wellbeing. But it is one thing to have a qualitative statement about the importance of language for mental health; it is another to have the statistical, quantitative evidence that governments so often require to implement policies that will affect cultural and social wellbeing. One fundamental study, conducted in 2007 in British Columbia, Canada, began that evidence gathering: Hallett et al. (2007) reported a clear correlation between youth suicide and lack of conversational knowledge in the native tongue. They matched seven cultural continuity factors and measured them against reported suicide from 150 Indigenous Inuit communities and almost 14,000 individuals. These cultural continuing factors were self-governance, land claims, education, health care, cultural facilities, police/fire service and language. Of all the communities that that research sampled, the results indicated that those communities with higher levels of language knowledge (over 50% of the community) had lower suicide levels when compared to other communities with less knowledge. The 16 communities with high levels of language had a suicide rate of 13 deaths per 100,000 people, compared to low levels of language which had 97 deaths per 100,000. The suicide rate in high language communities was six times lower than the other communities. When coupled with other cultural protective factors, there was an even higher protective effect against suicide. Hallett, Chandler and Lalonde demonstrated that youth suicide rates dropped to zero in those few communities in which at least half the members reported a conversational knowledge of their own native tongue. That landmark research was the first to study the correlation between language knowledge and mental health. However, so far there has been no study of a correlation in the other direction, i.e. the impact of language revival on improved mental health and reduction in suicide. This is partly because language reclamation is still rare (see Waldram 1990; Chandler and Lalonde 2008). This chapter hypothesizes that just as language loss increases the suicide rate, language gain reduces the suicide rate, and improves spirituality and wellbeing.

13.5 Language Revival and Improved Wellbeing: Australia and Beyond Due to invasion, colonization, globalization, and homogenization, there are more and more groups losing their heritage. Linguicide (language killing) results in the loss of cultural autonomy, intellectual sovereignty and spirituality (Zuckermann 2020). The dependence of the linguicided group on the colonizer’s tongue further increases the phenomena of disempowerment, self-loathing and suicide (see also Biddle and Swee 2012; King et al. 2009). According to the 2008 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) Social Survey, 31% of Indigenous Australians aged 15+ experienced high or very

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high levels of psychological distress in the four weeks prior to interview. This is 2.5 times the rate for non-Indigenous Australians. I arrived in Australia in 2004. My main goal has been to apply lessons from the Hebrew revival, of which I have been an expert, to the reclamation and empowerment of Indigenous languages and cultures. Throughout my revivalistic activities in the field in Australia and globally (e.g. China, Thailand, New Zealand, Namibia, South Africa, Canada, Israel, Norfolk Island and Cook Islands), I have noticed, qualitatively, that language reclamation has an empowering effect on the community wellbeing and mental health of the people directly involved, as well as on their extended families. Participants in my language reclamation workshops have developed a better appreciation of, and sense of connection with, their identity and cultural heritage. I have been working closely with the Barngarla Aboriginal people of Eyre Peninsula, South Australia since 2011, when I asked them if they were interested in reclaiming their Dreaming, Sleeping Beauty tongue with the assistance of a dictionary and brief grammar written in 1844 by the German Lutheran missionary Clamor Wilhelm Schürmann, without whom the reclamation would have been impossible. At our first meeting, on 14 September 2011 at my Adelaide University office at the Napier Building (North Terrace, Adelaide), I asked the five Barngarla representatives whether or not they would like to reclaim their heritage tongue and thus to improve the Barngarla people’s wellbeing, mental health, cultural autonomy, intellectual sovereignty, spirituality, and education. They told me: ‘We’ve been waiting for you for fifty years!’ In May 2013, my Barngarla learners expressed clear feelings of empowerment during an interview on SBS ‘Living Black’ Series 18.1 Language reclamation increases emotions of wellbeing and pride amongst disempowered people, who fall between the cracks, feeling that they are neither white fellas nor in command of their own Aboriginal heritage. As Fishman (2006: 90) puts it: The real question of modern life and for RLS [reversing language shift] is […] how one […] can build a home that one can still call one’s own and, by cultivating it, find community, comfort, companionship and meaning in a world whose mainstreams are increasingly unable to provide these basic ingredients for their own members.

Anecdotally, I add that people have been spurred to begin language reclamation by a personal experience of suicide. Kaurna Aboriginal man Jack Buckskin began learning the Kaurna language after his sister committed suicide. Wiradjuri Aboriginal man Geoff Anderson had severe anxiety and depression and attempted suicide before beginning classes to learn his heritage language Wiradjuri. He says it saved his life. Both are now language teachers and have leading roles in language reclamation. The language revival process is as important as the revival goals. The reward is in the journey. Figure 13.3 shows that more Aboriginal Australians see ‘improving wellbeing’ as more important than ‘increasing language use’ (79% vs. 70%/65%, respectively). 1 Episode

9 (Linguicide) about the Barngarla revival, see www.youtube.com/watch?v= DZPjdNaLCho accessed 4 September 2019.

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Fig. 13.3 Goals of language activities; data drawn from the Second, most recent, National Indigenous Languages Survey (NILS2) Report and analysed by Marmion et al. (2014)

In 2017, Alex Brown, our team, the Barngarla Aboriginal people and I were awarded a grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) to assess quantitatively (rather than qualitatively) the correlation between language revival and mental health. As Brown said (personal communication): What scientists hold stock in is only what they can measure. But you can’t measure the mind or spirit. You can’t weigh it, you can’t deconstruct it. But only if we do will they see that Aboriginal people are spectators to the death of their culture, their lives […]. We watch as our culture dies. How are you going to measure that?

The quantitative instruments we employ have already been validated: Health and Wellbeing Survey Instrument consists of already-validated questionnaires selected from the ABS National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Health & Social Survey and the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC). Most importantly, however, the wellbeing measurement must be created together with the Aboriginal

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people themselves. And what we have done so far is exactly that: We have so far determined—together with the Aboriginal people themselves—how to assess their wellbeing. Indigenous assessment offers both an enhanced understanding of psychological constructs in their cultural context, and the potential to enrich universalistic psychological models. As Cheung and Fetvadjiev (2016: 334) argue, the need for Indigenous assessment tools that are sensitive to the cultural context becomes increasingly apparent with globalization and international mobility trends. The inadequacies of translating Western tests that ‘coax the observed pattern behaviour to fit the imposed model and ignore the local conceptualization of the observed pattern of behaviour’ have been recognized by cross-cultural psychologists (Cheung et al. 2003: 280). After all, establishing test equivalence and local norms for standardized translated tests demands considerable efforts in building a research program. Instead of ‘cutting one’s toes to fit the [imported] shoes’, there would be a greater incentive to develop Indigenous psychological tests that fit the local needs (Cheung et al. 2013). It is not only professional ethics that stipulate the use of culturally relevant and psychometrically reliable and valid tests; in some countries, such as South Africa, it is a legal requirement to adhere to such criteria. The main purpose of our NHMRC project is to assess the effectiveness of language reclamation in improving mental health and reducing suicide ideation, self-harm and suicide. Key outcomes will also include the following: • Establishing the first formal test of a causal relationship between language revival and mental health. • Providing a model for language revival to be used by communities all over the world. My MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) Lang101x: Language Revival: Securing the Future of Endangered Languages has so far attracted 15,000 learners from 190 countries. On average I receive an email message once a week from a minority or an indigenous group, e.g. from Africa and South America, hoping to reclaim its language. • Promoting language rights globally, e.g. by defining Aboriginal languages as the official languages of their region and by proposing ‘Native Tongue Title’ (Zuckermann et al. 2014), the enactment of an ex gratia compensation scheme for the linguicided tribes. Although some Australian states have enacted ex gratia compensation schemes for the victims of the ‘Stolen Generations’ policies, the victims of linguicide are largely overlooked by the Australian Government. Existing competitive grant schemes to support Aboriginal languages should be complemented with compensation schemes, which are based on a claim of right. I believe that language is more important than land (cf. ‘Native Title’), despite its intangibility.

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While continuing to support the reclamation of Barngarla,2 our NHMRC project seeks to find out systematically whether there is an interdependence between language revival and important benefits such as personal and community empowerment, improved sense of identity and purpose, and enhanced mental health, thus closing the health gap between Indigenous peoples and others. The systematic measuring of these significant aspects of life has the potential to create a change not only in Australia but also all over the globe. More and more indigenous and minority communities seek to reinstate their cultural authority in the world. However, many of them lack not only their heritage language but also the revivalistic knowledge required for language reclamation. One should listen to the voice of Jenna Richards, a Barngarla Aboriginal woman who took part in my Barngarla reclamation workshop in Port Lincoln, South Australia, on 18–20 April 2012. She wrote to me the following sentence in an unsolicited email message on 3 May 2012: Personally, I found the experience of learning our language liberating and went home feeling very overwhelmed because we were finally going to learn our “own” language, it gave me a sense of identity and I think if the whole family learnt our language then we would all feel totally different about ourselves and each other cause it’s almost like it gives you a purpose in life.

As Barngarla woman Evelyn Walker (née Dohnt) wrote to me following the same reclamation workshop: Our ancestors are happy!

This is a significant and important modern quest. Language revival reconnects people who have ‘lost’ their ‘soul’ with their cultural autonomy, intellectual sovereignty and spirituality.

References Alladi S, Bak TH, Duggirala V, Surampudi B, Shailaja M, Shukla AK, Chaudhuri JD, Kaul S (2013) Bilingualism delays age at onset of dementia, independent of education and immigration status. Neurology 81(22):1938–1944 Alladi S, Bak TH, Mekala S, Rajan A, Chaudhuri JR, Mioshi E, Krovvidi R, Surampudi B, Duggirala V, Kaul S (2016) Impact of bilingualism on cognitive outcome after stroke. Stroke 47:258–261 ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) (2010a) 4704.0: the health and welfare of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, October 2010. ABS, Canberra ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) (2010b) Measures of Australia’s progress 2010. ABS, Canberra ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) (2010c) Suicides, Australia, 2010. ABS, Canberra ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) (2012) Publication 4725.0 Bak TH, Nissan J, Allerhand M, Deary IJ (2014) Does bilingualism influence cognitive ageing? Ann Neurol 75(6):959–963 2I

am currently training Barngarla people to teach Barngarla, replacing me.

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Bak TH, Long MR, Vega-Mendoza M, Sorace A (2016) Novelty, challenge, and practice: the impact of intensive language learning on attentional functions. PLoS ONE 11(4):e0153485 Bak TH, Mehmedbegovic D (2017) ‘Healthy linguistic diet: the value of linguistic diversity and language learning’. J Lang, Soc Policy. Policy paper, published online. http://www.meits.org/ policy-papers/paper/healthy-linguistic-diet Biddle N, Swee H (2012) The relationship between wellbeing and Indigenous land, language and culture in Australia. Aust Geogr 43(3):215–232 Boroditsky L, Gaby A (2010) Remembrances of times east absolute spatial representations of time in an Australian aboriginal community. Psychol Sci 21(11):1635–1639 Chandler MJ, Lalonde CE (2008) Cultural continuity as a protective factor against suicide in First Nations youth. Horizons—a Spec Issue Aborig Youth, Hope Hear: Aborig Youth Canada’s Futur 10(1):68–72 Cheung FM, Cheung SF, Wada S, Zhang JX (2003) Indigenous measures of personality assessment in Asian countries: a review. Psychol Assess 15(3):280–289 Cheung FM, Fan WQ, Cheung SF (2013) From Chinese to cross-cultural personality assessment: a combined emic-etic approach to study personality in culture. In: Gelfand M, Hong YY, Chiu CY (eds) Advances in psychology and culture series, vol 3. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 117–178 De Boinod AJ (2005) The meaning of Tingo: and other extraordinary words from around the world. Penguin, London Evans N (2010) Dying words. Endangered languages and what they have to tell us. Wiley-Blackwell, Malden and Oxford Hallett D, Chandler M, Lalonde C (2007) Aboriginal language knowledge and youth suicide. Cogn Dev 22(3):392–399 Keysar B, Hayakawa SL, An SG (2012) The foreign-language effect thinking in a foreign tongue reduces decision biases. Psychol Sci 23(6):661–668 King M, Smith A, Gracey M (2009) Indigenous health part 2: the underlying causes of the health gap. Lancet 374(9683):76–85 Krizman J, Marian V, Shook A, Skoe E, Kraus N (2012) Subcortical encoding of sound is enhanced in bilinguals and relates to executive function advantages. Proc Natl Acad Sci 109(20):7877–7881 Marmion D, Obata K, Troy J (2014) Community, identity, wellbeing: the report of the Second National Indigenous Languages Survey. Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra Maslow A (1943) A theory of human motivation. Psychol Rev 50(4):370–396 Paplikar A, Mekala S, Bak TH, Dharamkar S, Alladi S, Kaul S (2018) Bilingualism and the severity of post-stroke aphasia. Aphasiology. Published on-line 15 January 2018 SBS (2013) Televised interview with Barngarla men Stephen Atkinson and Harry Dare, Living Black, Series 18, Episode 9 Waldram JB (1990) The persistence of traditional medicine in urban areas: the case of Canada’s Indians. Am Indian Alsk Native Ment Health Res 4(1):9–29 Zuckermann G (2009) Hybridity versus revivability: multiple causation, forms and patterns. J Lang Contact—Varia 2:40–67 Zuckermann G (2020) Revivalistics: from the genesis of Israeli to language reclamation in Australia and beyond. Oxford University Press, New York Zuckermann G, Walsh M (2011) Stop, revive, survive!: Lessons from the Hebrew revival applicable to the reclamation, maintenance and empowerment of aboriginal languages and cultures. Aust J Linguist 31:111–127

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Zuckermann G, Walsh M (2014) “Our ancestors are happy!”: revivalistics in the service of indigenous wellbeing. In: Heinrich P, Ostler N (eds) Indigenous languages: value to the community. Proceedings of the conference foundation for endangered languages, XVIII, 17–20 September 2014, Okinawa International University, Ginowan City, Okinawa (Japan). Foundation for Endangered Languages, Bath, pp 113–119 Zuckermann G, Shakuto-Neoh S, Quer GM (2014) Native tongue title: compensation for the loss of aboriginal languages. Aust Aborig Stud (1):55–71

Chapter 14

Law, Religion, and Theology: A Relationship That Matters Paul Babie

Abstract This chapter examines why the relationship between law, religion, and theology matters. It contains four sections. The first explores why, in addition to sociology, we ought to be concerned to study the relationship between law and religion. If it is important, the second section suggests how we can go about studying this relationship. For that, we must make a distinction between ‘religion’ and ‘theology’. From that distinction, the third section suggests two methodological approaches for use in such study. And, finally, the chapter concludes with some brief reflections on the relationship between religion, theology, and law.

14.1 Introduction In The Edges of the Field: Lessons on the Obligations of Ownership, Joseph William Singer recounts the story of Aaron Feuerstein, owner of the Malden Mills textile factory in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Just before Christmas, 1995, the Malden factory suffered a devastating fire. Mr. Feuerstein assembled the 3000 workers the next day in the local high school. The workers, fearing that the factory would close permanently and that they would lose their jobs, were astonished when Feuerstein announced that rather than shutting down, the factory would be rebuilt and the business would re-hire every worker who still wanted a job. What is more, in the meantime, they would continue to be paid for the next month and each would get a Christmas bonus of $275. Of course, while there was no legal obligation to do so, Feuerstein made good on these promises; indeed, each worker was paid for several more months, until the money ran out. Ultimately, the factory was rebuilt and, as of 1998, almost all of the workers had been re-hired. For the town of Lawrence, this avoided economic collapse; for the workers, it avoided personal ruin (Singer 2000: 7–8). Earlier versions of parts of this chapter appeared as Babie (2007a, 2009). Sincere thanks to the publishers for permission to reproduce them here in this revised and updated form. P. Babie (B) The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Babie and R. Sarre (eds.), Religion Matters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_14

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When questioned, Feuerstein said these steps followed from a personal sense of moral obligation: ‘The workers are depending upon me. The community is depending upon me. My customers are depending upon me. And my family (Singer 2000: 8).’ He knew his actions, one way or the other, would have consequences far beyond himself. ‘There was no way I was going to take about 3000 people and throw them in the street. There was no way I was going to send the city of Lawrence into economic oblivion.’ Why? ‘Because it wouldn’t be right (Singer 2000: 8).’ As an Orthodox Jew, Feuerstein relied on traditional Jewish teachings about the moral obligations of property owners, drawing especially on the Talmudic sayings of the great Jewish teacher Hillel (Singer 2000: 8). For Singer, Feuerstein’s actions model the behaviour of a mensch: a ‘human being’ marked by compassion and care, integrity and honour, seeking to do the right thing, looking out for others, whose actions warm your heart. In short, someone you wish you were like (Singer 2000: 8–9). Singer’s interest in Feuerstein’s behaviour stems from the search for what it revealed about ‘the cultural, moral, religious, and legal traditions that help define our understanding of private property (Singer 2000: 3).’ That conclusion perhaps best summarises the relationship between law and religion, why it matters, and why it deserves to be studied. Religion is an undeniable part of both the public forum and of the world in which we live. The exploration of the underlying motivations for and the historical background to the liberal tradition (see Mensch 2001: 54–72), and the western legal tradition founded upon it, stands as an important reason for the study of law and religion. As academics, as lawyers, and as members of the social world, to ignore this background is to ignore something important about both our own history and about our contemporary life (see Berman 1974: 49–76; 1983: 33–45; 1993: 23–238). This chapter contains four sections. Section14.2 explores why, in addition to sociology, we ought to be concerned to study the relationship between law and religion. If it is important, and I believe that it is, Sect. 14.3 suggests how we can go about studying this relationship. For that, we must make a distinction between ‘religion’ and ‘theology’. From that distinction, Sect. 14.4 suggests two methodological approaches for use in such study. And, finally, Sect. 14.5 concludes with some brief reflections on the relationship between religion, theology, and law.

14.2 Why Study the Relationship? In addition to the sociological reason for studying the relationship between law and religion revealed in the story of Aaron Feuerbach, we can identity four other important reasons for doing so. First, while political liberalism confers choice, and liberal law protects it, it is at least arguable that liberalism, alone, may not always differentiate good from bad choices. Stephen L Carter, for instance, argues that because secular morality is not linked to any sense of the transcendent, its hold on human personality is often weaker than the hold of religion. I do not contend that the hold is always weaker, any more than I contend that religious moral systems always generate better choices

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than secular ones; history refutes that idea. I contend only that virtuous adult citizens could believe quite rationally (pace Hume) that their religious faith is the appropriate source of values to guide both private and public actions, and that a theory of the state that implies that it isn’t will neither win, nor deserve, their adherence (Carter 2001: 49).

Second, religion and faith influence values and behaviour—the values and behaviour that are part of making decisions when faced with liberal choice—and those values and behaviours ultimately become law. To fail, then, to explore what religion says about any legal issue is to abdicate our responsibility to uncover those dimensions of social life that become law (see Caudill 2001: 109). Phillip E Johnson says this: ‘Religious questions have to do with our perceptions of ultimate reality, our sense of what life is really about. Such beliefs form our values, and law reflects those values (Johnson 1984: 288–329).’ The third, and closely related reason for exploring the relationship between law and religion is that by overlooking the societal importance of religion, we miss something central to what law is and what it is becoming. In other words, plural and communitarian approaches to understanding human existence tell us that many social inputs construct law. Each makes a valid contribution, and each ought to be heard in order to assist in understanding and critiquing the legal order (McConnell et al. 2001a, b: xvii–xxii. See also Taylor 2007). Religion assists in understanding how law ought or ought not to develop; understanding religion, in turn, assists in determining whether or not it ought to have a place in the public forum. Finally, by failing to recognise the place of religion in these debates, those in the academy and beyond it who study legal, political, and social structures fail to address an increasingly important part of contemporary social life, and so fail to connect with ‘the deepest interests and most pressing concerns… (Sommerville 2006: 6)’ of those in the society in which we live. In the case of law, ‘the central problem… is a doctrinal one, a question of how we should relate to each other (Sommerville 2006: 132).’ Leaving religion out of this mix, therefore, tells us only part of how we relate to each other. And, for that reason, a growing body of scholarship explores the relationship between the two. The rich and diverse American literature reveals a number of possible dimensions to the relationship between law and religion.1 Some scholars consider the ways in which law exhibits theological dimensions, the ways in which law is a dimension of theology, and the fact that theology played a role in, and influenced the development, application and operation of ‘secular’ (Berman 1983: Chap. 8) domestic civil law (Berman 1974: Chaps. 1 and 3; Berman 1983: pt 11). Each of the three monotheistic traditions—Judaism (see Hecht et al. 1996), Christianity (see Rodes 1998; Bane and Mead 2003; Drinan 2004), and Islam (see Abou El Fadl 2001, 2004; Greaves 2005; Nasr 2004)—are represented in this enterprise. Others study religious law, itself based upon theological conclusions, as an inherently interesting and important

1 The

seminal works in this area, and those which masterfully summarise the historical evidence of this relationship, are those of Berman (1974, 1983, 1993). See also the stimulating collection of essays found in Pennock and Chapman (1988).

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field in its own right.2 Still others note the necessity of understanding the history of a theological tradition in order to comprehend the contemporary operation of a modern legal system (Berman 1974: Chap. 2; 1983). The search for historical connections and influences in the development of modern law has been particularly illuminating in the case of Christianity (see especially Berman 1983; Peters 2003, 2004). The earliest courts in England, for instance, were not the courts of common law but the ecclesiastical courts. By the 12th century, when judicial process was only just beginning in the English secular courts, ecclesiastical courts had already long looked very much like what we would call a court today: a judge trying to find out what had happened between the parties, comparing evidence given by witnesses, and applying rules that could be looked up in books that contained precedents (Milsom 1981: 25, and see also 87–8). Harold J. Berman, in his monumental study Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition, writes that: basic institutions, concepts, and values of Western legal systems have their sources in religious rituals, liturgies, and doctrines of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, reflecting new attitudes toward death, sin, punishment, forgiveness, and salvation, as well as new assumptions concerning the relationship of the divine to the human and of faith to reason. Over the intervening centuries, these religious attitudes and assumptions have changed fundamentally, and today their theological sources seem to be in the process of drying up. Yet the legal institutions, conceptions, and values that have derived from them still survive, often unchanged. Western legal science is a secular theology, which often makes no sense because its theological presuppositions are no longer accepted (Berman 1983: 165).

In other words, the history of the Western legal tradition, of the common law itself, is intimately bound up with Christian theology (Berman 1974; 1983: 165: Chap. 2). Recent American scholarship builds upon this conclusion, elucidating the extent to which the United States Constitution and its recognition of fundamental human rights, especially that of religious liberty (see, most recently, for instance, Wilken 2019), was strongly influenced by the Christian faith of its authors (see, e.g., Ahlstrom 2004: Chap. 23; Wilken 2019). Indeed, only in ‘[o]ur own age…[have we]…felt able to relegate the relationship between law and morals to the classroom (Milsom 1981: 25).’3 However, there are some significant recent works which argue persuasively that natural law still has something to contribute to contemporary jurisprudence (see, e.g., Grisez and Shaw 1980; Finnis 1997; George 2001).’ While there may be reasons for this, such as the comparatively recent rejection of natural law as having anything useful to say in the modern legal academy, it is nonetheless disappointing. Instead, the historic relationship between law and religion ought to lead to a more thoroughgoing engagement between the two for, as Singer explains, from religion we can learn from centuries of study and debate about the appropriate role of morality in the economic world. Major religions have grappled with the question of what obligations a good 2 In

relation to Judaic law: see, e.g., Litman (2005); in relation to Christian law, ZENIT (2005); in relation to Shari‘a law, Abou El Fadl (2001, 2004), Hussain (2011), Fyzee (1974), Rosen (2000), Rauf (2006), Emon (2005: 20). 3 And see also Freeman (2001: 120–3).

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person has in the world of commerce, and have suggested ways to make an economic system compatible with the full range of our values. By looking at religious traditions, we may deepen our engagement with those values and find some inspiration on how to negotiate tensions we face between the pursuit of profit and the pursuit of humanity (Singer 2000: 41–2. See also Pennock and Chapman 1988).

The interdisciplinary study of law and religion seeks to determine the ways in which both may actually be pursuing the same goal—morality and justice—and how, in that common pursuit, they might offer insights to one another (Berman 1983: 33–45). If, then, the relationship between law and religion is both important and one which we ought to explore, the question arises: how should we go about doing that? To address that question, we must first make an important distinction, to which I now turn.

14.3 ‘Religion’ and ‘Theology’ I suggest in Sect. 14.4 that there are two ways in which we can study the relationship between law and religion. The first involves looking at the meaning of religion and determining how that relates to law and how the two might influence each other. The second requires us to understand what is meant by theology and, from there, to consider the relationship between that and law, and, as with religion, how the two influence each other. But in suggesting these two methodological approaches, one immediately sees that framing the matter as one of exploring the relationship between law and religion is problematic. This is so because there is more to religion—and while that something more is theology, the two are not the same. So I begin first with an important distinction. While they are related, ‘theology’ and ‘religion’ are not the same. This may seem a minor point, yet in fact it makes all the difference; as we will see it has implications for the methodological approach one adopts. There are many ways in which one might approach the task of defining and distinguishing theology and religion—a vast literature covers this area, and no claim is made here to be comprehensive (Gunn 2003: 193–5). Here, I suggest my own approach. ‘Theology’ can be taken to mean, literally, ‘god discourse’. It involves reflection on the existence of god(s), the nature or being of god(s), and the relationships that exist between god(s) and humanity and between humans (see the definition of ‘theology’ given by Bowker 1997: 970). Theology begins from the baseline assumption of the existence of, and human faith in, god(s), and then attempts to understand that faith (Bowker 1997: 970). The origins of this concept of theology as ‘faith seeking understanding’ can be traced back to Saint Augustine’s famous exhortation to both ‘understand, in order to believe’ and ‘believe, in order to understand (Saint Augustine 1990: 241–3).’ The word ‘god(s)’ captures the use of theology to describe the process of enquiry in relation to either monotheistic traditions (belief in one god)

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or polytheistic traditions (belief in more than one god). This is not an uncontroversial approach to theology. One must be sensitive to the fact that, as a discipline, theology is typically associated with Christianity—a monotheistic faith. As such, non-Christians, especially those who adhere to polytheistic traditions, sometimes consider ‘theology’ to be pejorative and imperialistic when used in relation to their traditions (Murphy 2017). As with theology, many have attempted to define ‘religion’, but with little agreement (see, e.g., Gunn 2003, 193–9; Oxtoby 2001a, b). Some offer tentative definitions while others refer to ‘facets’. John Bowker, for instance, takes the former approach, emphasising that religions are organised systems which hold people together (Bowker 1997: xv–xxiv). The origins of, and reasons for, this systematisation lie in the fundamental condition of human life and survival, which in turn lies in the human biogenetic structuralism that prepares humans, in a gene/protein sense, for those characteristic behaviours which we might call ‘religious’ (Bowker 1997: xvii). This preparedness and its role in human survival in turn give rise to somatic exploration and discovery. It might be said that survival and biological preparedness are what give rise to theology—the somatic search for an understanding of faith. Finally, once all of this occurs, various forms of organisation may arise: large-scale, coherently organised and hierarchical, as is the case with Roman Catholicism; large-scale and loosely organised, with virtually no structure at all, such as Hinduism; or small-scale and local, of which there are a great variety of examples. Countless variations on these three ideal-types can be found. But the unifying theme is that the organisational structure which defines religion grows around theology. And whatever its level and degree of organisation, a religion typically views itself as being metaphysical—not an end in itself but a means to an end—based upon a theology built upon particular texts, traditions, and stories, which are themselves based upon core myths, rituals, and symbols (Bowker 1997: xv–xxiv). In lieu of a definition, T. Jeremy Gunn offers three central ‘facets’ of religion. The first, belief, refers to the convictions that people hold regarding such matters as god(s), truth, or doctrines of faith. Second, and in contrast to belief, identity emphasises affiliation with a group—religion is experienced as something akin to family, ethnicity, race or nationality. Finally, and analytically distinct from belief and identity, but tied to one of them in the mind of the religious person, is the way of life—religion is associated with actions, rituals, customs and traditions capable of distinguishing the believer from adherents of other religions (Gunn 2003: 204–5). Defining theology and religion allows us to distinguish between them, and so explain their relationship to one another. Based on the definitions used in this essay, we can say that theology captures the attempt to explain and explore the existence of god(s), our relationship to god(s) and its impact on our relationship with one another, while religion describes the institution that grows up around, and which is based upon, a particular theology. The important point here is that religion is an organisational structure by which one gains identity and a way of life, founded upon a metaphysical (that is, theological) assumption or set of assumptions about god(s). Thus, religion as an institution may be broadly understood, as in the case of the Christian church, or narrowly understood, as in the case of the Orthodox Church,

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which is a denomination within the Christian church. But in either case, theology is the core of the religion—both Christianity and Orthodoxy are institutions founded upon a particular theology. An example assists: consider religious law—a legal system based upon the theological assumptions that underlie a particular faith. The system of laws is a structure established by humans founded upon the theological assumptions that form the core of that religious tradition. The system of laws is part of the religion, while the underlying theological assumptions are its core. Islamic or Judaic law are examples of this. Or, to take a recent and controversial issue, consider the Christian debate over intelligent design (see, e.g., Denton 2016). Assuming that intelligent design is correct, theology would ask what that might tell us about the Christian understanding of God and God’s relationship to humanity. Christianity, whether Catholic, Orthodox, evangelical, or any other confessional group falling under that banner, might issue dogmatic teachings about how the conclusion of intelligent design structures the lives of those who make up the institution (see Johnson 1991). Why is this distinction important? Simply because deciding whether one is dealing with theology or religion has methodological implications. Here, then, I suggest two such approaches, each of which follows from my defining and distinguishing ‘theology’ from ‘religion’. One approach, which focusses on religion, considers whether religion as an institution is a partner of law as an institution (a legal system). A second approach takes as its starting point theology, so as to study theoretical questions, such as the relationship between a particular theological assumption in a specified religion, and a legal system or theory of law. This approach seeks answers to questions about the relationship between the theory of law—jurisprudence, or what law is and how it structures relationships between people—and theories about the existence of, and faith in, god(s), and our relationship with god(s) and one another. The next Part outlines two methodological approaches that follow from drawing this distinction between religion and theology.

14.4 Two Methodological Approaches Gordon Preece outlines five possible approaches to the question of whether ‘theology and law’ can work together, at the theoretical level: 1. The first approach attempts a synthesis of the two disciplines at a highly theoretical level (Preece 2005: 1–5). 2. The second approach involves the search for essential themes which find resonance with the other discipline at a less theoretical and technical level than the first approach (Preece 2005: 1–5).4 3. The third approach seeks integration of the two disciplines—scholars who take this approach may view the two disciplines as being at war, as running parallel, or 4 This

is not an unknown approach in the American literature: see, e.g., Singer (2000).

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as being intimately engaged. Alternatively, they may argue that theology, being ‘the queen of all sciences’ (Preece 2005: 2. See also Polkinghorne 1995: 58–9) is paramount to law, or that it transforms other disciplines such as law (Preece 2005: 2).5 4. The fourth approach ‘examine[s] a range of contentious issues where law adjudicates the contested boundary between an allegedly secular society and public religion’ (Preece 2005: 3). 5. The fifth approach asks questions about the ‘character formation of professionals’ in the light of theological and experiential narratives which sustain Christian and ethical character (Preece 2005: 3). We might, though, consolidate these five approaches into two, both of which more closely correspond to the relationship between theology and religion outlined above and, therefore, more accurately reflect the existing methodological approach found in the literature. The first approach, which we can call ‘theology and law’ or simply ‘engagement’, comprises Preece’s first, second, third and fifth approaches. Remember that theology is discourse about god(s). Thus, if we seek answers to whether theology and law are partners, we are really seeking answers to whether theology and law engage at the theoretical level. By calling such approaches ‘theology and law’ or ‘engagement’, we describe efforts to engage the two disciplines on their own terms—and sometimes to synthesise or integrate their positions—in a search for common objectives, pursuits or themes (typically, morality or justice). At a general level, such approaches might consider, by way of a comparative approach, how theology and law, for their own reasons, are sourced in, related to, and constitutive of, the relationships that structure the world in which we live. More specifically, a theology and law approach might examine and analyse the positions taken by the two disciplines on any particular social or moral topic, and ask whether they seek the same or divergent goals. Thus, the theology and law approach seeks some level of engagement at the ontological level, allowing the two disciplines to speak for themselves as to the world in which we live—what it was, what it is, and what it might or ought to be. It is only at this ontological level that one can truly decide whether, in contributing to and constituting the structure of the world in which we live, theology and law act at cross-purposes or in concert. Aside from studies of Islamic law (see, e.g., Lindsey 1998; Hussain 2011)—when they deal with the relationship between the underlying theology of Islamic faith and the system of laws which is based upon those assumptions—this approach is little represented in the legal literature. The second approach, which we can call ‘law and religion’, is captured by Preece’s fourth and fifth approaches.6 We know that a religion is an institution founded upon or growing around theology or theological assumptions or conclusions about god(s). If then, one is investigating the relationship between religion and law, one is exploring 5 This approach is known to the American academy through the integrative jurisprudence of scholars

like Berman (1983: Chap. 13). 6 Preece’s fifth approach falls into both theology and law, and law and religion, because it is possible

that in some cases, ethics may be founded upon theological assumptions, while in others they may draw upon the dogmatic teachings of a particular religion.

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the relationship between religion as an institution, and a legal system. To the extent that it considers theology at all, the law and religion approach typically considers the legal issues and arguments surrounding the separation of Church and state or the protection of religious freedom in a given state or group of states. This approach is well-established in both jurisprudence7 and legal literature (see, e.g., Radan et al. 2005; Frame 2007; Brennan 2006; Evans 2001, 2002; Janis and Evans 1999). As useful as a law and religion approach may be to understanding governmental structure and the role of religion in public life, aside from those scholars who examine religious law, it fails to examine questions concerning the relationship between theology and law. Why? Simply because of its implicit assumption: that law controls, regulates, and sometimes protects religion, either by securing religious freedom, or determining how much or how little religion should play a role in, or influence, public life. In contrast to the theology and law approach, the question is answered before one even begins: law and religion are not partners. According to this analysis, law acts as a wall separating religion from public civic life. The wall may be higher or lower, thus keeping more or less of religion out of public life—but as a wall, it cannot cross into the domain of religion, and certainly never into that of theology. Of course, a ‘law and religion’ approach accepts that religious traditions are founded on theological positions or assumptions; indeed, that is the point of the analysis—law either keeps those assumptions out of public life, or it allows them in to a limited extent. But law never penetrates the surface of the religious tradition, whatever it happens to be, to comment upon the underlying theological assumptions themselves. To do that would violate the very premise of the exercise—that Church and state are separate and that the latter merely provides, through law, a wall against such encroachments occurring in either direction. This approach then, is little interested in the underlying theology of any particular religious tradition, and what it might have to say about the law and its operation in the world in which we live, or vice versa. Rather, while it might consider what religion has to say about a particular moral or social problem in the course of determining separation or protection issues, it avoids exploring the underlying theology behind a religious-institutional position, and concerns itself only with the relationship between adherents to a particular religious tradition and the state in which they live. Clearly, ‘law and religion’ analysis has value in developing the law controlling the separation of Church and state, and in protecting religious freedom; but it has limited utility in seeking answers to any deeper ontological relationship between theology and law. Law and religion analysis falls more comfortably within doctrinal categories of law such as constitutional law, civil rights law, or international human rights law. A ‘theology and law’ approach, however, might offer valuable insights about both law and religion. But this form of integration remains ‘in its methodological infancy, despite many great theologians such as Tertullian and Calvin being lawyers by training (Preece 2005, 2–3)’; still, the work of Berman, Rodes and Singer has 7 See,

e.g., Church of the New Faith v Commissioner of Pay-Roll Tax (Vic) (1983) 154 CLR 120, in which the High Court of Australia dealt with the meaning of religion for the purposes of taxation laws.

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shown how beneficial engagement might be. To take but three such examples from their work: Berman propounds what has been called an integrative jurisprudence (Berman 1983: Chap. 13); Robert E. Rodes, Jr. demonstrates how liberation theology (the classic exposition of this school of theological thought is Gutierrez 1988) may be implemented in domestic law (Rodes 1998); and Joseph William Singer argues that the legal-political understanding of private property may benefit from insights gained from theology, which in turn leads to practical benefits for Western legal systems (Singer 2000).8 Indeed, the practice of ‘gleaning,’9 well-known to the ancient Judaic world, may even be making a modern comeback. Yet, while the substantial body of American literature supports them, these techniques still require a great deal of development; it is perhaps here, then, that the most fruitful engagement will occur.

14.5 Concluding Reflections There are both theoretical and practical benefits that flow from the paradoxical relationship between religion and law—benefits that help us better understand the nature of justice and how to promote it in the society in which we live. As Berman and others have shown, the Western legal tradition, far from being secular in its origins, owes much to Christian theology and the system of canon law that grew out of that theology (Berman 1983: pt 1; Milsom 1981: 24–5, 87–8. See also Baker 1990: 146–54). True, throughout its history, Western law has used Christianity in ways that have produced profoundly negative outcomes for individuals and groups. But that does not vitiate the very important relationship that exists between theology and law. And it is this relationship that is not only under-studied and forgotten, but also, much more alarmingly, sometimes denied. By failing to study this relationship, by forgetting it, by denying it, we blind ourselves not only to ‘the multiformity of the legal tradition… [but also to] the multiformity of history itself (Berman 1983: vii).’ Although addressing the American experience, Berman might just as easily have been writing about the contemporary legal academy anywhere when he observed that in such an environment: It is easier…to complain about the compartmentalization of knowledge than to do something constructive to overcome it. Any effort to reintegrate past times is likely to be understood and judged in terms of the prevailing categories and concepts. … Yet without a reintegration of the past there is no way either to retrace our steps or to find guidelines for the future (Berman 1983: viii).

The dialogue between religion (and especially theology) and law is a necessary one—without it, we overlook, forget, deny and reject the origins of our contemporary 8 See

also Babie (2007b), Oliphant and Babie (2006), Babie (2002, 2004, 2006). scavenging and foraging, which tend to be individual enterprises with commercial potential, gleaning has almost always been communal and charitable. Its roots lie in the allocation of fair shares between individuals. The leavings of prosperity, the unneeded or overlooked fragments, are made available to those who need help, whether in dole at the monastery gate or from a sacking bag filled in a harvested field (The Economist 2018).’

9 ‘Unlike

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law and legal tradition. And we do so at our peril, if for no other reason than to avoid the mistakes of the past while recognising that theology in the moral arena may still have much of value to say about, and to, our contemporary world. There will be sceptics, to be sure, but for those of us involved in this work, we can only answer that we do it because we believe that theology had, has, and will have, something to say about the way in which we structure the world in which we live and how the law that emerged from theological premisses is part of that structure, just as other disciplines, such as politics, economics or sociology do. In other words, the study of the relationship between theology and law is inherently valuable. Islamic legal scholar Khaled Abou El Fadl puts this best in a response to being asked about studying the Qur’an: I do believe in the authenticity of the Qur’an as God’s uncorrupted and immutable Word. Furthermore, I do believe that the Qur’an is worth exploring, studying and, in one sense or another, following. I do not hold this belief as a social scientist who notes that the Qur’an deserves to be studied because of the sociological fact that most Muslims hold it in high regard. The sociological reality is irrelevant for my purposes. I study the Qur’an as a jurist who believes in the object of his study, very much akin to a Rabbi studying the Talmud or an American constitutional scholar analyzing the American Constitution (Abou El Fadl 2001: 6–7).

Put another way: the theological voice behind the western legal tradition has been silenced for too long. It is time to break that silence and explore our own origins. Law and religion, when conceived as both the exploration of the relationship of church and state and the protection of religious freedoms, and as engagement of the theory of a religion (theology) and law, seeks to do just that.

References Abou El Fadl K (2001) Speaking in god’s name: Islamic law, authority and women. Oneworld, London Abou El Fadl K (2004) Islam and the challenge of democracy. Princeton University Press, Princeton Ahlstrom SE (2004) A religious history of the American people, 2nd edn. Yale University Press, New Haven Babie P (2002) Private property, the environment and Christianity. Pac: Australas Theol Stud 15:307 Babie P (2004) Private property and the Gospel of Luke. Aust Ejournal Theol 3. http://aejt.com.au/ __data/assets/pdf_file/0009/395649/AEJT_3.6_Babie.pdf Babie P (2006) The Ukrainian Catholic Church and moral theology: the pastoral writings of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptyts’kyi on private property. Aust Ejournal Theol 6. http://aejt.com. au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/395189/AEJT_6.6_Babie.pdf Babie P (2007a) Breaking the silence: law, theology and religion in Australia. Melb Univ Law Rev 31(1):296 Babie P (2007b) Two voices of the morality of private property. J Law Relig 23:271 Babie P (2009) The study of law and religion in Australia: it matters. Adel Law Rev 30(1):7 Baker JH (1990) An introduction to English legal history. Butterworths, London Bane MJ, Mead LM (2003) Lifting up the poor: a dialogue on religion, poverty and welfare reform. Pew, Washington Berman HJ (1974) The interaction of law and religion. SCM-Canterbury Press, London and Norwich

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Berman (1983) Law and revolution: the formation of the western legal tradition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Berman (1993) Faith and order: the reconciliation of law and religion. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Bowker J (ed) (1997) The Oxford Dictionary of world religions. Oxford University Press, Oxford Brennan F (2006) Acting on conscience: how can we responsibly mix law, religion and politics?. University of Queensland Press, Brisbane Carter SL (2001) Liberal hegemony and religious resistance: an essay on legal theory. In: McConnell MW, Cochran RF Jr, Carmella AC (eds) Christian perspectives on legal thought. Yale University Press, New Haven, p 25 Caudill DS (2001) Law and belief: critical legal studies and philosophy of the law-idea. In: McConnell MW, Cochran RF Jr, Carmella AC (eds) Christian perspectives on legal thought. Yale University Press, New Haven, p 109 Denton M (2016) Evolution still a theory in crisis. Discovery Institute Drinan RF (2004) Can God and Caesar coexist: balancing religious freedom and international law. Yale University Press, New Haven Emon A (2005) Understanding Sharia law: further education about Islamic history and Islamic law necessary. The Bulletin, University of Toronto, Toronto Evans C (2001) Freedom of religion under the European convention on human rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford Evans C (2002) Chinese law and the international protection of religious freedom. J Church State 44:749 Finnis J (1997) Natural law and natural rights, 9th imp. Oxford University Press, Oxford Frame T (2007) Church and state: Australia’s imaginary wall. UNSW Press, Sydney Freeman MDA (2001) Lloyds introduction to jurisprudence, 7th edn. Sweet & Maxwell, London Fyzee AA (1974) Outlines of Muhammadan law, 4th edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford George RP (2001) In defence of natural law. Oxford University Press, Oxford Greaves R (2005) Aspects of Islam. Darton, Longman and Todd, London Grisez G, Shaw RB (1980) Beyond the new morality: the responsibilities of freedom. University of Notre Dame Press, South Bend Gunn TJ (2003) The complexity of religion and the definition of “religion” in international law. Harv Hum Rights J 16:189 Gutierrez G (1988) A theology of liberation: history, politics, and salvation, Inda C, Eagleson J (trans), Orbis, rev ed, New York Hecht NS, Jackson BS, Passamaneck SM, Piattelli D, Rabello A (eds) (1996) An introduction to the history and sources of Jewish law. Oxford University Press, Oxford Hussain J (2011) Islam: its law and society, 3rd edn. Federation Press, Brisbane Janis M, Evans C (eds) (1999) Religion and international law. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Amsterdam Johnson PE (1984) Do you sincerely want to be radical? Stanf Law Rev 36:247 Johnson PE (1991) Darwin on trial. InterVarsity Press Lindsey T (ed) (1998) Indonesia: law and society. Federation Press, Brisbane Litman D (2005) Jewish law: deciphering the code by global process and analogy. Univ Detroit Mercy Law Rev 82:563 McConnell MW, Cochran RF Jr, Carmella AC (eds) (2001a) Christian perspectives on legal thought. Yale University Press, New Haven McConnell MW, Cochran RF Jr, Carmella AC (eds) (2001b) Introduction. In: McConnell MW, Cochran RF Jr, Carmella AC (eds) Christian perspectives on legal thought. Yale University Press, New Haven, p xvii Mensch E (2001) Christianity and the roots of liberalism. In: McConnell MW, Cochran RF Jr, Carmella AC (eds) Christian perspectives on legal thought. Yale University Press, New Haven, p 54 Milsom SFC (1981) Historical foundations of the common law, 2nd edn. Butterworths, London

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Murphy FA (2017) Does theology exist outside of Christianity? First Things. https://www. firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/10/does-theology-exist-outside-of-christianity Nasr SH (2004) The heart of Islam: enduring values for humanity. HarperOne, San Francisco Oliphant R, Babie P (2006) Can the Gospel of Luke speak to a contemporary understanding of private property: the parable of the rich man. Colloq: Aust N Z Theol Rev 38:3 Oxtoby WG (ed) (2001a) World religions: eastern traditions, 2nd edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford Oxtoby WG (ed) (2001b) World religions: western traditions, 2nd edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford Pennock JR, Chapman JW (eds) (1988) Religion, morality, and the law. New York University Press, New York Peters FE (2003) The monotheists: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in conflict and competition, 2 vols. Princeton University Press, Princeton Peters FE (2004) The children of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, Islam: a new edition. Princeton University Press, Princeton Polkinghorne J (1995) Serious talk: science and religion in dialogue. Trinity Press International, Salem Preece G (2005) Editorial. In: Preece G, Parker C (eds) Theology and law: partners or protagonists? ATF Press, Adelaide, p 1 Radan P, Meyerson D, Croucher RF (eds) (2005) Law and religion. Oxford University Press, Oxford Rauf FA (2006) What is Islamic law? Mercer Law Rev 57:595 Rodes RE Jr (1998) Pilgrim law. University of Notre Dame Press, South Bend Rosen L (2000) The justice of Islam. Oxford University Press, Oxford Saint Augustine (1990) Sermon 43—on what is written in Isaiah: unless you believe, you shall not understand. In: Rotelle J (ed), Hill E (trans), The works of Saint Augustine: a translation for the 21st century: Sermons, rev ed, vol 2. New City Press, New York, p 238 Singer JW (2000) Edges of the field: lessons on the obligations of ownership. Beacon Press, Boston Sommerville CJ (2006) The decline of the secular university. Oxford University Press, Oxford Taylor C (2007) A secular age. Harvard University Press, Cambridge The Economist (2018) The return of gleaning in the modern world. The Economist. https://www. economist.com/christmas-specials/2018/12/22/the-return-of-gleaning-in-the-modern-world Wilken RL (2019) Liberty in the things of god: The Christian origins of religious freedom. Yale University Press, New Haven ZENIT (2005) Michael Scaperlanda on a person-centered system

Chapter 15

Religion as Conceptual Scaffolding for Architecture Amit Srivastava, Peter Scriver and Joshua Nash

Abstract Religion and Architecture have a long and intimately intertwined relationship in virtually all cultural histories. Through a wide-ranging discussion centring on India and its global diaspora, this chapter considers some of the many ways in which religion continues to be invested in architecture in the world today, and vice versa, broadening and deepening understanding of how religion is literally ‘placed’ in contemporary life. Architecture, we conclude, sustains at least a part of the project that religion pursued more dominantly and directly, with the aid of architecture, in other times; it constructs and articulates space, both physical and social, as a medium in which individuals and collectives may engage and cohere, and through which the self and its relationship to greater wholes or entities may be defined and realised.

15.1 Introduction Religion and Architecture go hand-in-hand. Indisputable, certainly, is the wealth of inspiration and patronage that religion has lent, historically, to the discipline of architecture. Just consider the countless examples of extraordinary religious buildings that reside in popular imagination. From the sheer monumentality of the pyramids of Giza, to the soaring vaults and luminous Gothic filigree of Notre Dame de Paris, to the iridescent splendour of the tiled domes and arches of Isfahan or the Taj Mahal, the legacy of sublime architectural forms, spaces and textures that human civilisations have bequeathed over previous millennia is inextricably intertwined with the cultural and historical developments of religion. In the contemporary era, however, when global flows of human and economic capital have encouraged more homogeneous secular forms of social and technical organisation to dominate everyday life A. Srivastava · P. Scriver (B) School of Architecture and Built Environment, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia e-mail: [email protected] J. Nash Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education, School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, University of New England, Armidale, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Babie and R. Sarre (eds.), Religion Matters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_15

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and consciousness, religion would appear to have lost this capacity to inspire new architecture of comparable monumentality and significance. But, as this chapter will attempt to discern, whilst religion as symbolic form may not be so ubiquitously represented in the architecture of today as it once was, it continues to inform architectural conception and production in countless other ways. Contemplating the case of religious buildings it is apparent that architecture consists, at the very least, in the satisfaction of two essential qualities. On the one hand buildings are ‘structural’ in the prosaic sense that they physically contain and functionally support particular purposes or practices—the performance of religious rituals, for example—for which they were designed. On the other hand, buildings also tend to be ‘meaningful’, either as overt icons or symbols of particular ideas or beliefs, or more often simply by association with use or context. It may be argued, however, that the realm of architecture extends beyond these structural and symbolic aspects of form inherent in the building itself, incorporating additional realms or objects of order including notions of place, community and identity, and further still, intentions and personal discovery. It is through an examination of these categories of social and personal existence, and the values and beliefs that motivate them, that we begin to explore the shared realm between architecture and religion in defining our place in the world. Probing deeper we realise that religion also serves as the basis for a range of architecture related activities, from the valuation and transfer of goods and resources, to the motivations for construction and the beliefs that organise human labour. Here religion may be seen to exist as an ‘excess’ or an ‘unacknowledged condition’ that drives architecture and provides a conceptual scaffolding for its becoming (Chakrabarty 2008; Giddens 1984) or—to invoke another more general theory of cultural production—as a fundamental and therefore unquestioned set of beliefs or ‘doxa’ that underpin the interests of the faithful in investing themselves and their resources in the production of religious architectures (Bourdieu 1993; Lipstadt 2003: 397–98). Considered in this broader sense of human values and motivations, religion is a revealing lens through which architecture may be examined. By looking carefully and critically at some of the ways in which religion is invested in architecture in the world today, and vice versa, this chapter seeks both to broaden and to deepen appreciation of what the idea of architecture might entail. In so doing, we hope this more robust and expansive understanding of the discipline from which we speak may assist, in turn, to better understand how religion is literally ‘placed’ in contemporary life. As we embark on this broad-ranging discussion, it may also be salient to note the poly-vocal nature of this chapter in which the distinct life experiences and disciplinary expertise of the three authors offer different insights on the topic. Srivastava spent his childhood in religious education in India before migrating to Australia to study and teach architectural theory. Scriver, who began life and his initial architectural training in Canada, is an historian of architecture and settlement planning whose work focuses on the Indian sub-continent in the colonial and contemporary eras as a test-bed for paradigms of cross-cultural spatial and social development that have been broadly influential in other parts of the world as well. Nash is a linguist and ethnographer whose work extends to environment, place and architecture as conceptual frameworks

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for critical inquiry. Over the past two decades he has also been deeply engaged in India through religious pilgrimage and study. We have previously collaborated to think and write about architecture and Indian modernity, architecture and pilgrimage, linguistics and architecture, creative formulations of and in space(s), and the role of cultures and ecologies as conceptual scaffolding in assessing our built and made-up worlds. Beyond beliefs and borders, our individual geographies and academic lives intersect in the ex-colonial city of Adelaide, Australia where the present discussion begins, and in polytheistic India and its global diaspora on which our three-way dialogue will be primarily focused. The aim of the present collaboration has been to bring together our collective repository of migratory, spatial, and introspective insights conjoining religion, the built environment, and the ephemerally presentunpresent in a broader and less-predictable discussion of the designated topic than may have been anticipated, which we hope will be productive.

15.2 Community, Place and Identity If religion is no longer pre-eminent in defining the larger socio-political realm in many contemporary societies, let us begin by considering how the ‘placing’ and embeddedness of religion in everyday life may still provide a base or centre for communal identity and cohesion. Again, this may be self-evident when we think of the place that a historic temple or church may define within the fabric of an old town. The contemporary poignancy of the point may be more apparent, however, if we consider what such religiously defined places of community may provide for migrant or displaced groups whose sense of social security and empowerment is conditioned by self-consciousness of minority or marginal status relative to the dominant culture. Religious markedness and top-down or self-imposed minoritymaking can craft required energy dispersion and even micro cultural insurgency; distinction and dissimilitude can generate both fashionable and unwanted outcomes. Adelaide, the South Australian capital city from which Scriver and Srivastava write (Nash is from Adelaide and currently writes from Aarhus, Denmark), offers some salient examples as a point of departure. For well over a century after its establishment in 1836 as the capital of the new settler colony of South Australia, Adelaide was known as ‘the city of churches’ (Whitehead 1986). This label reflected a conspicuous preponderance of religious buildings, some grand but many more of which were decidedly humble houses of worship almost domestic in scale that had vied from the start with ordinary dwelling houses and Adelaide’s earliest commercial and industrial enterprises to populate and give substantive form to the abstract surveyor’s grid of the new town. Despite the ostensible conservatism that this architectural panoply of religiosity might have connoted, the early settlement history of the colony reveals a more plural if not radical outlook. The city’s nickname actually underscored the catholicity of the new colony in which religious freedom had been enshrined constitutionally as a fundamental right by the social reformers and religious ‘dissenters’ who were its promoters and founders (Whitelock 2000: 5, 26). Not only was there no favoured state church—a reformist challenge to the dominion that the Church of

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England was generally afforded throughout the rest of the British colonial Empire (Bremner 2013)—there was to be no favour or restriction applied to any religious group. The nascent settlement could just as well have been nicknamed ‘the city of refuge’ as Presbyterians, Baptists, and Congregationalists, who were the first off the boat, were soon followed by English Quakers and Jews, as well as German-speaking Lutherans. Little more than a generation after the foundation of the colony, Islam was also being practised in South Australia and as early as 1889 Adelaide could boast its first “Muslim Chapel” (A Mosque in Adelaide 1890). Indeed, as later claims for its cultural significance and local heritage protection (Government of South Australia 1979) and further historical research have established, it was not only the first permanent purpose-designed mosque to be built in the Australian colonies, but possibly anywhere else in the British Empire as well, outside the traditional Islamic world (The Open University 2019). The mosque was commissioned by migrant camel handlers of South Asian and Afghan origin, thousands of whom were recruited to the Australian colonies between the 1860s and the early 20th century to open-up and supply the continent’s harsh interior. Tucked away on a small residential street in the southwest corner of the new colonial city, the solid but relatively unremarkable stone building provided an inconspicuous place of worship and community for this far-flung brotherhood to congregate. But the addition in 1903 of four monumental brick minarets was to transform the humble structure into a place of unmistakably visible and distinctive religious and cultural identity. This was material evidence of the economic capacity and entrepreneurial ambition of the small but growing Islamic community in Australia. Built shortly after the federation of the Australian Commonwealth in 1901, however, the minarets were also indicative of a growing need to define and defend this minority community’s place in the context of the self-consciously ‘post-colonial’ new state and society, in which a newly legislated immigration restriction policy was already disenfranchising this and other ostensibly ‘alien’ migrant groups of previous rights and privileges. Ironically, this resort to a more monumental scale and symbolic form of religious architecture—an apparent celebration of difference—signalled the erosion of tolerance and the very right to be different that the original South Australian colonial project had sought to embody (Bartsch 2015; Scriver et al. 2016). Fast-forwarding to the early twenty-first century, the constantly growing community of the faithful who pray at the Adelaide Mosque today now struggle against the functional strictures and costs of maintaining the distinctive architecture of the original building and its minarets, which—irony redoubled—heritage listing now compels them to conserve for the sake of collective cultural memory (Scriver 2004). Meanwhile, few of Adelaide’s other surviving churches still host their original congregations if they serve any religious function at all. Yet new faith communities continue to emerge or to arrive from elsewhere, re-colonising the built fabric of the city. While a Mandarin speaking congregation co-shares the buildings of a dwindling Uniting Church congregation, as one example, a fast-growing new evangelical church has adapted a disused inner-city cinema into an auditorium better suited to its charismatic style of music making and worship, and a newly established Hindu

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temple has set-up a provisional shrine in a rented shop-space in a suburban mall. Generally, these are the provisional and pragmatic architectural tactics of new faith communities that are only just establishing an economic foothold with which to begin defining their place in the cultural fabric of the city. Novel surrounds, fresh viewpoints and possibilities. Where a new faith group has more financial and cultural capital, however, the architectural tactics of colonisation can be more forthright. In McLaren Vale, an idyllic wine-growing valley bounding Adelaide’s southern suburbs, for instance, a monumental stone figure recently erected high on the valley’s slope heralds the imminent construction of a new Buddhist temple and meditation retreat—Nan Hai Pu Tuo Temple, Sellicks Beach (Jones 2015). Committed to an architectural design in traditional Chinese temple style, the economically established diasporic faith community in this case has no need to compromise their vision with heuristic half-measures and is also intent on building it with authentic Chinese methods. It is noteworthy, nevertheless, that the project remains on hold at the time of writing pending agreement with the local construction-workers’ union to allow skilled Chinese craftsmen to assemble and finish the largely pre-fabricated temple on site (Giannone 2019). The preceding South Australian examples nicely muddy the religion and architecture water. The relevance of architectural symbols for displaced individuals to find a community identity in this case cannot be overstated. These buildings provide shelter and the sense of place that connects individuals in alien landscapes and provides them with the essential social connection to allow for their ongoing survival. For many such communities, imagining their lives outside of these architectural touchstones would be impossible, and there are numerous instances where communities fight to save such artefacts beyond reasonable grounds as they attach greater and greater emotional value to them through daily ritualistic practice. Beyond the sheltering and structuring functions that these buildings serve, however, and the social bonding within a local community that this enables, they also serve as symbols of the power struggles of the displaced community. Through the architectural project of church, mosque or temple-building, faith groups not only define and construct the symbolic identities of their communities but may actively build the strength and resources of the community itself. Seen in contrast to other local communities, these acts of building also allow these faith groups to mediate their relations with other larger global communities with which they may be culturally or contextually contiguous. In that sense, the symbolic language of the architecture associated with these sites does not emerge from the local community or from the sacred aspects of their religious belief but is often borrowed from another place and another community to signal a diasporic connection to a centre located elsewhere. In order to unpack these dynamics, we now depart Australia, first to England and then to another more central part of the former British Empire, India. One of the more extraordinary religious architectural projects of recent times was the design and construction, between 1991 and 1995, of a large and elaborate stone temple for the Swaminarayan sect of Hinduism in the inner north London suburb of Neasden. Not unlike the Buddhist temple example in McLaren Vale, this was the outcome of a diasporic community that had substantial financial and cultural

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capital to build what was at the time the largest Hindu temple to be constructed anywhere in the world outside of India, and substantially financed through the donations and fund-raising initiatives of its own devotees (Mathur 1995; BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha 2019). As the first purpose-built traditional Hindu temple in Europe, its elaborate marble architecture with countless symbolic carvings, and intricately sculpted shikharas or spires, or the 10 m high segmental cantilevered dome with 2.5 tonne keystones, were all architectural features that aimed to establish a powerful presence for the Hindu community in Europe. But to further ensure the diasporic connection to the cultural centre in India, the temple was conceived and built according to the ancient Hindu scriptures of Shilpa Shastra, a Vedic text on traditional architecture, by religious leaders in India. This desire to connect back to a cultural centre located elsewhere does not only manifest itself in architectural structures in foreign lands that are increasingly influenced by the language and symbolism at the perceived centre. The diasporic community further impacts the outcome back at the centre, where projects for new architectural edifices now rely on the prosperity of this diasporic community to achieve monumental outcomes. Shortly following the construction of the temple in Neasden, the Swaminarayan sect was also able to use the funding support of its diasporic community to help construct the Akshardham temple in New Delhi. Further developing on the experience in Neasden, the Akshardham temple in Delhi was a spectacular example of the contemporary application of traditional Hindu temple building practices based on ancient Hindu scriptures of Panchratra Shastra, and conceived by religious leaders and the traditional caste of temple architects. Only this time, measuring 356 feet long, 316 feet wide and 141 feet high, it won the accolade of being the “world’s largest comprehensive Hindu temple.” (Khandekar 2007). The above discussion clearly demonstrates how faith-based creed and conviction and architecture-as-product inculcate messy and sticky tropes like community, identity, and diaspora. But it is also important to recognise how separated and evolved communities might develop and even mature around religious architectural fabrication in locations far from the autochthonous homes of these ideals. The actual process of conceiving and constructing religious buildings and mobilising the resources to do so, is a further obvious but significant dimension of engagement between organised religion and architecture. And this is where we turn to next.

15.3 Religion, Mobility and Construction The discussion of the Swaminarayan temple at Neasden and the Akshardham temple in New Delhi reveal the specific agency of the religious diaspora in the architectural production of these edifices. But the role of religion in these cases is not limited to architectural patronage, and a deeper analysis of the construction of such buildings further reveals the impact of religion on the global networks of the related construction industry. The construction of the Neasden temple for instance can be used to

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track how the global transfer of expertise and the industrialisation of the production process are deeply tied to religious values and motivations. We have already discussed the aesthetic grandeur of the temple in Neasden, whose intricately carved Bulgarian limestone and Italian Carrara marble exterior is composed of seven sculpted shikharas and five ribbed domes, soaring up to 70 feet in height. But the project was equally remarkable from the perspective of its construction process and logistics. Following the sacred Indian building design principles of Vastu Shastra, the temple was to use the sophisticated stereotomic techniques that traditional Indian temple builders of the Sompura caste had developed over many centuries. However, achieving this goal required large numbers of skilled artisans who could only be procured and engaged in India. Nearly 5000 tonnes of stone sourced from different European quarries for suitability to the local English building conditions were therefore transported to India to be cut and carved there before being returned to the UK for assembly on the temple site in Neasden. At the peak of this 3 year-long outsourcing process, a total of 1,526 stone-carvers were engaged at 14 different sites across the Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan, producing a total of 26,300 individually shaped and carved pieces. Shipped back incrementally to England, over 6,300 miles away, in a series of 40 consignments, the structure was then assembled between 1993 and 1995 by a further team of 80 skilled masons assisted by over a thousand full and part-time volunteers (BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha 2019). This massive feat of just-in-time construction logistics entailing the global transfer of ship-loads of stone back and forth between India and Europe as well as the transnational exchange of expertise and knowledge would not have been possible without the role played by religion in organising the labour force. It would be easy to dismiss such religious agency by treating this process as an outcome of the industrialisation of labour and the practice of capital in the contemporary world. But architectural historian Megha Chand Inglis offers a closer reading of the production process of such structures (Inglis 2015, 2016). First it must be acknowledged how the construction of such temple structures is managed by the sompuras as a special religious caste of master builders in India. But as Inglis argues, merely recognising them as bearers of traditional knowledge obscures the diversity of their architectural and construction practice, and the way these traditional forms of knowledge intersect with contemporary construction processes needs to be understood. Traditionally sompuras were master builders who would train and organise a team of sculptors and carpenters and other craftspeople on the building site using religious castes and kinship as the basis of the organisational structure. But the demand for temples from the global diaspora has now shifted this process to the factory environment and human work is supplemented with appropriate machinery. In this new production context sompuras focus on the preparation of layered drawings and paper-based management routine while the production work is left to a class of craftspeople known as karigars. There is an extended discussion of the karigar class available from Inglis, but here we focus on the work of a specific class defined as adivasi karigars. In understanding the role of the adivasi karigars, Inglis mentions that there are several aspects of the carving work such as ubhar (rising), golai (roundness) and

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gehrai (depth) that can be translated and taught. In this case the adivasi karigars are overseen by supervising craftspeople or mistris and the workflow is divided into simplified aspects of production to achieve the final forms for the carved pieces of stone. But it would be wrong to consider the contribution of these adivasi karigars in terms of industrial production serving as mute cogs in a large machinery. Here Inglis discusses the specialised works of the subcategories of roop kaam karigar and nakshi kaam karigar. These karigars are responsible to draw out the correct mood of the figures being carved and deal with the mudra or emotional expression. This form of work cannot be done mechanically and is based on the subjectivity of the karigar. This is what Inglis, following Chakrabarty (2008), refers to as “an ‘excess’ that capital needs but can never truly domesticate.” (Inglis 2015: 306). It is our argument that it is in this place of ‘excess’, or the ‘unacknowledged condition’ of production that religion provides a conceptual scaffolding for the becoming of architecture. The values and motivations that govern the action of individuals within this transnational network of the construction industry are often determined by religious frameworks. In certain instances such as the work of the adivasi karigars this may be difficult to determine unless we look at the conditions of production more closely. But in other areas it is merely a recognition of the fact that the beliefs of the field or the ‘doxa’ that allow people to contribute to logistical exercises of structuring the labour are significantly based on the religious moral and ethical frameworks. The instrumental engagement of religious caste systems to engage sompuras or the further application of these caste systems in the organisation of labour on the construction site or the factory is evident in the above discussion. But also, the labour force of thousands of volunteers—primarily members of the temple congregation itself— that eventually allowed for the Neasden temple to be assembled in the UK show the ongoing contribution of the religious frameworks to the construction industry and the production of architecture. Whilst comparative archaeological studies of the architectures of the ancient world have offered a variety of ‘thermodynamic’ and ‘Darwinian’ explanations for the symbolic behaviours and power embodied in the construction of monumental religious architectures (Trigger 1990; Joye and Verpooten 2013), the place of religion in the matrix of such putative material and psychological motives for architectural monumentality is evidently undiminished in the contemporary era. Within the globally integrated Hindu religious world today other examples abound of such large-scale construction activities motivated by religious patronage and desire, and constructed through religiously organised labour forces, but where the flows of material and capital do not necessarily reflect identical logics. The construction of the Prem Mandir (Temple of Divine Love) by the Kripalu Maharaj Organisation (Parishat) in Vrindavan, India, for instance, epitomised much the same material mobility, engineering brilliance, and hyper religious capitalism that were manifested in the Neasden temple project. In this case, however, thousands of tonnes of top-grade marble were shipped from Italy to supersede India’s own venerable local marbles, whilst the $20 million plus funds to build the monumental structure on its 54-acre site have largely been raised from the donations of poor Indian devotees (Kumar 2019).

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We will have more to say about Vrindavan below, but it is clear that global frameworks of mobility of goods and service and the construction geographies that they define are deeply entwined with religious desires and motivations. But beyond the mobility of materials, we now turn to the mobility of people and the role religion and architecture play in orchestrating this.

15.4 Pilgrimage, Narratives and Science We now shift the discussion from architectural objects created for religious purposes and the impact of religion on their production process to the agents and agencies that are involved in these processes. Just as the desire to connect with larger global communities results in the mobility of materials and knowledge, it also prompts the mobility of people as part of religious tourism and pilgrimage. This not only results in the continuous shift of people from perceived peripheries to locations considered religious centres, but also in the creation of new religious centres and the management of growing mobilities to established historical centres. This creation of new narratives and development of these perceived centres as destinations for religious tourism and pilgrimage engages an understanding of place-making and architecture that is deeply connected with religious beliefs. Let us consider the case of the Kumbh Mela, which is the largest religious gathering in the world and with an estimated attendance exceeding 120 million people in 2013 had the distinction of being the world’s largest temporary settlement or ‘ephemeral megacity’. The Kumbh Mela is a Hindu religious gathering that is held on a 3 year cycle and has its most sacred iteration every 12 years when it is held in the city of Allahabad at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers allowing for ritual bathing in the holy rivers. In 2013, when this gathering was last held, a team from Harvard University led by Rahul Mehrotra decided to study the impact of the event on the design of the temporary infrastructure that emerges to accommodate this gathering of people. Indeed an entire megacity is planned and constructed in a matter of months, and the co-existence of religious frameworks with the planning process demonstrates the inter-reliance of the two realms of knowledge (Mehrotra and Vera 2015). The floodplains of the river Ganges where the gathering takes place is an area of about 24 km2 that remains under water until 6 months before the festival. And once the water recedes, the ground is levelled and roads marked out to set out a grid that will define an entire city infrastructure in a matter of weeks. The organisation of this ephemeral megacity includes intangible planning processes like general spatial zoning, electricity grids, and water distribution, but also the design of actual gathering spaces and social events, and the construction of massive urban infrastructure. For instance, the seventeen pontoon bridges that connect both sides of the river offer a design challenge in terms of construction and are the first pieces of infrastructure to be built when the water starts to recede. Following this, and only 3 months before the festival, construction starts across the settlement and a city of fabric clad over

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bamboo emerges within a few weeks to house tens of millions of people. Equally interesting is the fact that the entire city is dismantled within few weeks of the festival and parts put in storage for the next massive event. This cycle of design and construction extends well beyond the few weeks or months that the festival is in effect and the conception of housing the world’s largest human gathering launches efforts in architecture and planning that seemingly continue in an eternal cycle. As in the logistical management of goods and services in the narrative of transnational construction activities that we have discussed in the case of Neasden, it would be folly to consider this merely from a logistical management point of view. As the Harvard study noted, the organisation of this event is marked at every stage by a level of uncertainty and ephemerality that is central to the festival itself. Those familiar with the values and beliefs of the Hindu religion will recognise that these are not just outcomes of planning a massive event, but are values and principles espoused by the religion itself. The frameworks of uncertainty and ephemerality are not seen here as problems within an industrial field aiming to achieve greater efficiency, but an opportunity to embrace what is defined as the central basis of such an act of pilgrimage. Importantly, as the researchers discern, the design and planning process of the ephemeral city is based on “implementation of resilience redundancy, instead of optimization.” (Mehrotra and Vera 2015: 77). The design of such temporary megacities shows us how the mobility of people motivated by religious beliefs intersects with the realm of architecture. The scale of this event is important to consider, as this is not merely a case of regular human mobility where a small number of visitors are accommodated by large infrastructures like cities while maintaining their existing sense of architecture and place. Here, the entire city is constructed for the sake of the mobility of these individuals. And in that sense, the place-making activities and the narratives that surround it are specially designed for the religious pilgrims. Having considered this at the large scale of the Kumbh Mela, it becomes easier to acknowledge that similar types of place-making and spatial narratives emerge from more general and diffuse forms of religious tourism as well. These tourists are not merely accommodated in the urban infrastructure but new place-making strategies are adopted to ensure that the religious motivations of such purpose-bound tourists are captured in the architectural projects that come to serve as the destination of their journeys. Beyond the logistical and infrastructural ingenuity generated, the mobilisation of religious groups and individuals also engenders the exchange of ideas and knowledge. Pilgrims generate new narratives of their journeys that travel across space to inform the imagination and techno-scientific frameworks in which the architectures of other places may then be defined. The movement of religious agents, such as Christian medical missionaries and the networks of hospitals they built across parts of Asia and Africa in the 19th and early 20th centuries, is another example of mobility and knowledge transfer played by religion that has contributed significantly to the global diffusion and development of architectural technology (Ebrahimi 2019). And this concept is not bound to specific religious frameworks either. For instance, the over 2 million Muslims who head to Mecca in Saudi Arabia every year for the Islamic pilgrimage of Haj bring with them narratives from their respective cultural centres

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and the spread of ideas affects both religious narratives and architectural outcomes in those centres in the coming year. The diffusion of Hindu temple building forms and conventions from India to the farthest reaches of South East Asia in the centuries prior to the arrival of Islam is another salient historical example of such transfer. In a methodologically innovative study by Sambit Datta and David Beynon, for example, an array of digital tools including photogrammetric surveys, 3D virtual modelling and physical rapidprototyping enabled a process of parametric extrapolation, comparison and analysis through which archaeologically observed artefacts of historic temple design practices in South East Asia could be correlated methodically with cognate Indian building traditions and theoretical canons (Datta and Beynon 2014). Enhancing and supplementing the more schematic visual methods of a previous generation of art historical scholarship on the Indian temple, this parametric approach articulates the archetypal nature of religious architecture as an embodiment of underlying abstract values, revealing how cultural diffusion is a deeper phenomenon than mere formal mimicry. While technical knowledge may seem to be objectively exchangeable, the evidence suggests that the cultural knowledge that gives theory and meaning to built form is never transferable as such, but can only be translated. It is evident through the complex reading of context offered by such studies that the religious frameworks that have underpinned understanding of the world historically within different civilizational world-views, have been crucial in translating cultural values across space and time, as well as the techno-scientific knowledges through which these values have been given architectural form. The religio-architectural examples we have outlined demonstrate how perspectives of praxis transfer and praxis in action can develop vis-à-vis architecture production. Religious tourism, religious architecture, conservative and established planning, neoliberal mandates, and modern hyper-mobility converge and create the sites, the buildings, the literal and existential pathways, and the cultural ideas we have considered. Such constructions, city and social planning, and associated social and religious activities embody and exude at least some of the requests of the hyper displacement borne out of a quintessentially modern world. With present-day hyper mobility, an almost manic transfer of possible ideas in an incessantly changing contemporary world, and the role of religious tourism to and from the sacred roots of venerated pilgrimage centres, the perception and reality of a legitimised regional identity as represented abstractly as core belief and concretely as religious architecture is brought to bear. It is these self-focused and pilgrimage directed moves to which we now turn.

15.5 Otherness, Discovery, and Self In the previous section we have been discussing the religiously motivated mobility of people and knowledge, focusing primarily on ritualised journeys to centres of pilgrimage, and the impact of these travellers both on the development of these religious centres as well as the transfer of knowledge from these centres to the

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peripheries. In the case of diasporic communities oriented to their perceived centres of religious beliefs, these forms of mobility are still considered from the perspective of organised religion and the cultural identity that can be assumed by choosing to perform such ritualised journeys as a member of this larger global community. As such the symbolic centres that pilgrims travel to are designed in a manner so as to provide temporary exchange and motivation to the visitors who will eventually return to the peripheries. The functional instrumentality of the architecture and its place-making purposes tend to be entangled symbolically with the religious order and teachings that need to be spread through the spatial and temporal opportunity of pilgrimage for narrative exchange. We now shift our gaze towards another form of religious travel, distinct from the ritualised communality of organised pilgrimage; that is, the spiritual yearnings and experimentation of travellers on journeys of self-discovery. Here ‘other’ (i.e. culturally distant) faiths often have a special attraction, and from a secular startingpoint even religion itself as it may be re-appreciated in the context of such quests. Consciously embracing unfamiliar religious ideas and practices as (new) ‘ways’ of life is a means to experience and get close to the unknown, that which is not ours, and thereby transcend habitual practices, beliefs and values. Religion as a static-dynamic (s)coping mechanism offers one of several processes and conduits through which seekers may find and even willfully lose their own ‘self’ through engagement with the other. This focus of belief in ‘otherness’ as a source of religious wisdom also has its own distinctive manifestations in the contemporary production and interpretation of architecture. India has long served as a source of counter cultural ideas and practices in the West, a quintessential ‘other’ font of wisdom in the face of the global hegemony of the modern world system. As is well known, by the late 1960s, after The Beatles’ fateful encounter with South India’s gurus, backpacking ‘hippies’ were flocking to India in their thousands. It is in this context that the utopian settlement of Auroville was established in the former French colonial enclave of Pondicherry in Southern India. At the time of India’s Independence, the former freedom fighter-turned-mystic, Sri Aurobindo, had proposed that Pondicherry be declared an ‘international city’ in which Indian spiritual philosophy could nurture a new post-national form of global community. But it was only some years after his death that his spiritual successor, the Mother, had been able to take this idea forward and inaugurate the building of a futuristic new-town where her followers could pursue their material and spiritual experimentation. Auroville was intended as a place where people could live ‘away from national rivalries, social conventions, self-contradictory moralities and contending religions’ and seek a ‘direct relation to the divine’ (Namakkal 2012: 65, 70). However, this was not about ascetic detachment from the world, but rather, as the Mother had prescribed, a ‘transformation of the material into a divine world … that has been really concretely born.’ (Namakkal 2012: 68) To fulfil this vision, Roger Anger, the French architect and devotee who had been commissioned to produce the designs, conceived a radical new type of city plan and architectural language that would allow virtual ‘Lines of Force’ to define the core of this city, shaping its

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‘orientation, facilities, and inner direction’ and formulating the utopian ideals of how future urban structure and dynamism could be materialised (Kundoo 2009: 73–74). Over the decades since its founding, whilst very little of the architect’s megastructural vision for the city has actually been realised, the settlement has slowly grown and evolved to reflect an alternative more plural mode of development seemingly closer to the idea set out in its original charter. This had proclaimed a future city that was to be a “site of material and spiritual researches” (Auroville Charter 1968) and it is notable that a number of other talented architects, in addition to Anger, were influential members of the initial community of pioneering settler-builders. Joined in due course by other creative makers, Auroville subsequently became widely recognised in India and beyond as a centre of hands-on experimentation with innovative alternative building materials and processes such as rammed earth and fire-stabilised mud construction, where the practice of such ecologically and socially sustainable building and dwelling principles tended to reinforce if not effectively replace the religious practices and observances of a more ritualised spiritual life and search. Architecture remains a primary community-building tool of Auroville’s designers and planners today, particularly in the design of schools where the act of sensitive building and environmental design is closely connected to the moral scaffolding of the next generation of the project’s faithful devotees (Scriver and Srivastava 2015, 2016). If Auroville illustrates a somewhat abstracted conception of a quest for religious consciousness articulated into complementary concerns for spiritual harmony and ecological balance, it is also an uncommonly concrete example of an approach to a spiritually engaged way of life practiced in and through architecture. However, here we recognise Architecture not as the design of monumental objects of awe, but rather as a diffuse and holistic attention to environmental design and the spatial installation of meaning. Recent neuroscientific research has offered compelling physiological explanations for many conceptual phenomena, including religious faith, that posit potentially fundamental challenges to previous theories of consciousness. However, equally compelling findings of this research are also indicating how dynamic, fluid and extensible the human mind appears to be in its integral relationship not only with the body but the environments in which it is immersed. For architectural historians and theorists who have lamented the disenchantment of the world as it has become framed in the architectures that emerged and evolved from the rationalist theories and technologies of ‘Enlightenment Modernism’, the implications of this new brain and cognitive science for re-appraising our very understanding of architecture, past and future, are potentially profound (Robinson and Pallasmaa 2015; Goldhagen 2017; Varela et al. 1992). Re-‘atuning’ the embodied mind in its sentient outreach to the environments it crafts around it and in which it inscribes meaning, promises not only a more holistic appreciation of the architectural vocation and the significance of its work for enabling human well-being, but a clearer and potentially deeper understanding of what has previously been referred to as the ‘spiritual’ in architecture. It helps

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us understand how experiments in holistic living such as Auroville, where architectural integration with the environment has been an integral part of the process, may be recognised and appreciated as spatial installations of [religious] meaning. The Isha Yoga Centre near Coimbatore is another more recently established example in the mould of Auroville. It was set up primarily to facilitate the teaching of yogic practices, new forms of Hatha and Kriya yoga that are now synonymous with holistic living practices around the world, but the accommodation of over 2000 volunteers that help run the spiritual retreat has led to the development of a range of infrastructure including residential quarters, community kitchens, and even small school facilities. Residents describe it as a “model village, where the central binding force is one of spiritual longing.” (Brookes 2019). But in many ways this is unlike a village or a settlement elsewhere, where building facilities are designed for establishing a sense of settlement and permanence. Contrary to such a format of settlement, Sadhguru, the spiritual leader of Isha Yoga Centre, describes the place as a ‘living organism’ designed to “practice living homeless,” where people reside in transient accommodation and an aura of impermanence and experimentation abounds. It is valuable to note that when Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev wanted a domed structure to be built to house the sacred Dhyanalinga, he asked the Auroville Earth Institute to build that 22 m dome without any modern material like steel reinforcement and it was constructed with a volunteer labour force of over 200 people (Auroville Earth Institute 2019). As we approach the end of this chapter it is timely again to consider the polyvocal nature of this authorship. India has been a key to the personal and intellectual development of all three authors but most relevant to the discussion of architecture and religion in the context of individual journeys of self-discovery is the experience of Nash. As a linguist, ethnographer, and ecologist, his immersive relationship with the holy city of Vrindavan over more than two decades has inspired an enduring commitment to think and write about Indian ecology and spirituality (Nash 2012). Although an outsider, Nash’s fieldwork and original time in Vrindavan meant that his embedded standing enabled shifts from outsider to insider to outsider status, shuttling between identities of tourist, pilgrim, and ethnographer. His extended experiments on Indian ecology and spirituality were largely conducted between 2003 and 2008 when he stayed at Lata Bhavan, also known as Tehriwala Bagicha, the garden home of revered local Vrindavan ecologist, Shri Hitkinkar Sevak Sharan. Since around 1980 Sevakji and his wife Mataji have welcomed pilgrims, seekers, and friends to this beautifully remediated garden grove, which holds an ancient temple, as part of their work into conserving and preserving Vrindavan’s natural and cultural environment. Nash’s work examines the role of the architectural history of the temple on the property in terms of its sampradayic connection, i.e. to the Ram Vyasi sampradaya and the Radha Vallabh sampradaya. This ontological basis is built on with respect to a more detailed understanding of the role of the temple and the garden surrounds in Lata Bhavan in helping to create a specific genius loci. This concept is then used to explicate several key tenets in the philosophical background into the conservation of the modern town of Vrindavan. In a conversation in 2006 Sevak Sharan explains the architecture of Lata Bhavan: “The intention of additions to this structure is not on

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decoration and overt adornment. Nature and the people who inhabit this construction ornament, enhance and enrich the nakedness of the architecture.” (Sharan 2006). Here personal journeying and approaching both the ineffable and the natural is mediated by the built. This prompted Nash to write about the history of the Vrindavan ecological movement and the philosophy and practice of the sadhana (spiritual practice) which arose out of this system of thought (Nash 2015). Similar to the case of Auroville, among others to which we have referred, Lata Bhavan exemplifies how history, religion, and ontology, in this case Krishna philosophy with an ecological focus, can be brought to bear on an embodiment of personal pilgrimage and architectural interaction.

15.6 Conclusion Whilst the relationship between architecture and religion may seem to be intuitively obvious, the writing of this chapter has been an opportunity to challenge and extend the scope of conventional conceptions and delimitations in ways we hope have lent insight to both disciplines. We began by considering how religious persons or groups may apprehend the material and semiotic objectivity of actual built edifices, or what we might regard as architecture in monumental form, as symbols of identity and the substantive fabric of community. But we then sought to complicate that understanding by exploring some of the ways in which the making of religious buildings and complexes of increasingly extensive yet diffuse and even ephemeral nature could be just as much a ‘means’ to instil and mobilise religious faith as an end in themselves. In the final section we sought to extend our gaze further still from the role of architecture in the production and performance of collective religious identities and their rituals, to the practices of the individual spiritual seeker. Here we considered the possibility of apprehending the architecture and the ecology of the designed environment as a whole as a site of self-development and emancipation in which the quest for the spiritual serves as the conceptual scaffolding. Throughout this openly speculative essay we have also attempted to engage relevant insights from other scholarship and research across a broad spectrum of different fields ranging from archaeology, to psychology, human cognition and neuroscience. These furnish a comparably diverse range of scientifically grounded explanations for this perennial relationship between religion and architecture that underscore the potential significance of some of the additional, and perhaps less obvious, dimensions of such spiritual and material entanglements today that we have attempted to articulate here. If we have succeeded, at least to some degree, in expanding understanding of how the ‘architecture of religion’ may be explained, however, can we not also reflect on what might be called the ‘religion of architecture’ from what we have observed above? Beyond the external monumental manifestations of built form, we have pointed to the internal cognitive dimensions of order and agency through which human beings apprehend and construct their worlds, and the enduring conceptual scaffolding that

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ultimately governs human behaviour. Looking at the place of religion in a contemporary age defined by secular materialism through this cognitive conception of architecture, it may be arguable to conclude that architecture sustains at least a part of the project that religion pursued more dominantly and directly, with the aid of architecture, in other times; that is, it constructs and articulates space, both physical and social, as a medium in which individuals and collectives may engage and cohere, and through which the self and its relationship to greater wholes or entities may be defined and realised. In this sense it may not be too presumptuous to propose that both architecture and religion are comparable expressions of the propensity of human consciousness to construct worlds in which meaning, belief and hope are all essential and abiding values.

References A Mosque in Adelaide (1890) The Advertiser, 1 July 1890, 5 Auroville Charter (1968) The Auroville Charter: a new vision of power and promise for people choosing another way of life. https://www.auroville.org/contents/1 Auroville Earth Institute (2019) Dome of the Dhyanalinga Meditation Shrine. http://www.earthauroville.com/dhyanalinga_dome_en.php BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha (2019) The Mandir. http://londonmandir.baps.org/the-mandir/ Bartsch K (2015) Building identity in the colonial city: the case of the Adelaide Mosque. Contemp Islam 9(3):247–270 Bourdieu P (1993) The field of cultural production. Polity, Cambridge Bremner GA (2013) Imperial gothic: religious architecture and high Anglican culture in the British empire, 1840–1870. Yale University Press, New Haven and London Brookes D (2019) Electronic communication between the authors and Danny Brookes. Volunteer and Resident at Isha Yoga Centre, Coimbatore, March 2019 Chakrabarty D (2008) Provincialising Europe: postcolonial thought and historical difference. Princeton University Press, Princeton Datta S, Beynon D (2014) Digital archetypes: adaptations of early temple architecture in South and Southeast Asia. Ashgate, Farnham and Burlington Ebrahimi SH (2019) “Ploughing before Sowing”: trust and the architecture of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) medical missions. Arch Cult. https://doi.org/10.1080/20507828.2019.1608051 Giannone A (2019) Communication between the authors and Antonio Giannone, Director, Tectvs Architects, consulting architects for Nan Hai Pu Tuo Temple. Sellicks Beach, Adelaide, March 2019 Giddens A (1984) The constitution of society: outline of the theory of structuration. Polity Press, Cambridge Goldhagen SW (2017) Welcome to your world: how the built environment shapes our lives. Harper, New York Government of South Australia (1979) Department for the Environment to Islamic Society of SA Inc. re: Proposed Listing on the Register of State Heritage Items, signed B Rowney, 26 July 1979, Adelaide Mosque file, Heritage South Australia Inglis MC (2015) Factory processes and relations in Indian temple production. In: Lloyd Thomas K, Amhoff T, Beech N (eds) Industries of architecture. Routledge, London, pp 114–124 Inglis MC (2016) Reimagining tradition: the Sompura hereditary temple architects of Gujarat. PhD thesis, Cardiff University

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Jones E (2015) Sellicks Hill giant Buddha statue is welcomed by locals. Southern Times Messenger, The Advertiser. https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/messenger/south/sellicks-hill-giantbuddha-statue-is-welcomed-by-locals/news-story/aa4b1fc1844bc49c19425c71138320e3 Joye Y, Verpooten J (2013) An exploration of the functions of religious monumental architecture from a Darwinian perspective. Rev Gen Psychol 17(1):53–68 Khandekar N (2007) Delhi’s Akshardham is the world’s largest temple. Hindustan Times Kumar SS (2019) Vrindavan’s encounter with modernity: changing environment and life-worlds in an Indian temple town. LIT Verlag, Munster Kundoo A (2009) Roger Anger: research on beauty/recherche sur la beaute, architecture 1953–2008. Jovis, Berlin Lipstadt H (2003) Can “Art Professions” be Bourdieuian fields of cultural production? Cult Stud 17(3/4):390–418 Mathur R (1995) Swaminarayan Mission Stuns UK with its imposing White Mandir. Hinduism Today, Nov 1995. https://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php? itemid=3482. Accessed 30 Sept 2019 Mehrotra R, Vera F (2015) Kumbh Mela: mapping the ephemeral megacity. Niyogi Books, Mumbai Namakkal J (2012) European dreams, Tamil land: Auroville and the paradox of a postcolonial utopia. J Study Radic 6(1):59–88 Nash J (2012) Re-examining ecological aspects of Vrindavan pilgrimage. In Manderson L, Smith M, Tomlinson M (eds) Flows of faith: religious reach and community in Asia and the Pacific. Springer, New York, pp 105–121 Nash J (2015) Vrindavan: the human sanctuary. J Vaishnava Stud 24(1):55–66 Robinson S, Pallasmaa J (eds) (2015) Mind in architecture: neuroscience, embodiment, and the future of design. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts Scriver P (2004) Mosques, ghantowns and cameleers in the settlement history of colonial Australia. Fabr J Soc Arch Hist Aust N Z 13(2):19–41 Scriver P, Bartsch K, Rashid M (2016) The space of citizenship: drifting and dwelling in “Imperial” Australia. Fabr J Soc Arch Hist Aust N Z 26(2):133–157 Scriver P, Srivastava A (2015) India: modern architectures in history. Reaktion, London Scriver P, Srivastava A (2016) Building Utopia: fifty years of Auroville. Arch Rev (2016) Sharan S (2006) Communication between the authors and Sevak Sharan, Vrindavan, May 2006 The Open University (2019) The Shah Jahan Mosque, Woking. Making Britain: discover how South Asians shaped the nation, 1870–1950. http://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/makingbritain/ content/shah-jahan-mosque-woking Trigger BG (1990) Monumental architecture: a thermodynamic explanation of symbolic behaviour. World Archaeol 22(2):119–132 Varela FJ, Thompson E, Rosch E (1992) The embodied mind: cognitive science and human experience. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts Whitehead J (1986) Adelaide, city of churches. MC Publications, Magill, SA Whitelock D (2000) Adelaide: sense of difference. Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne

Chapter 16

Conscientious Objection as a Spiritual Path J. Andrew Bolton

Abstract Conscientious Objectors (COs) oppose war or oppressive social conditions. They suffer for their ethical resistance to that which dehumanizes themselves and others. Their spiritual path is listening to conscience, and the spirit of a deeper, bigger humanity. This listening enables them to take a harder, often lonelier, road. Stories of COs are chosen in this chapter from World War I (WWI). WWI itself was the first mechanized, industrialized, chemicalized war, and the first global war in history. It is also the ‘founding catastrophe of the twentieth century’. It led to the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the rise of Hitler and WWII 1939–45, the Cold War 1946–1989, and was the cause of many of the difficulties in the Middle East today, including the attacks on the World Trade Centre, Washington DC and Pennsylvania in September 2001. In a bigger picture of WWI opposition, including workers, women, and soldier poets, COs were at the forefront. Whether socialist or religious, COs have been called the shock troops of resistance in WWI, a war that ironically was promised to be ‘the war to end all wars’. Their stands against nationalism, and for commitment to a bigger humanity, is significant for us today. To echo Martin Luther King, their witness can also provoke us to be ‘creatively maladjusted’ to current nationalisms and social issues. We can be challenged by their example not only to be against war, but also against racism, sexism, poverty, climate change, and political corruption. Indeed, it includes a decision to stand against any violation of the worth of any person, and to champion the sacredness of creation in our troubled times.

16.1 The Spirit of Conscientious Objection Definition: Objection for reasons of conscience to complying with a particular requirement, especially serving in the armed forces. ‘he spent two months in military prison for conscientious objection’ ‘conscientious objections to gambling’ (Oxford Online Dictionary) J. A. Bolton (B) Leicester, England, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Babie and R. Sarre (eds.), Religion Matters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_16

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Conscientious objection is ethical disagreement with social pressure, an order, law, or regulation that is seen to be unjust or immoral. Sincere objection comes from deep in the soul, the spirit of a person. Conscientious objection is the fruit of being faithful to the whisper or nudge of the Divine, however understood. Authentic conscientious objection is being in touch with the depths of one’s own humanity, and also the humanity of others. We all have worldviews—frameworks that structure our lives with meaning and help us live. They may be religious or secular, for example, Muslim, Christian, Humanist or Marxist. They may be open or fixed, closed, and fundamentalist. They may be for all people and humanitarian, or violently tribal. I have found that the tools of secular religious studies and the insights of theology can illuminate how worldviews can function in times of war. I want to begin with Christian pacifists and how these worldviews not only support conscientious objection but can also advocate creatively for social and economic justice. Quakers began as a pacifist movement from its earliest days in the 1650s, first in England and then elsewhere. Their meetings for worship are held in silence. In the silence worshippers listen in their souls to the voice and guidance of Spirit, the presence of Christ in the meeting. Sometimes that sense of Spirit is spoken out in words. Mennonites, beginning in the Netherlands in the late 1530s, read all scripture, evaluate all prophets, and judge the actions of all governments through the lens of the Jesus of the Gospels, who taught “love your enemies.” Both Quakers and Mennonites remember the conscientious objection of those who have gone before, people who sometimes suffered terribly for keeping faith with the Divine. For Mennonites and Amish, Martyrs Mirror tells that early story (van Braght 2001). Quaker meetings, and Mennonite congregations are communities of Spirit and story, with memories of resistance. Conscientious objection is the fruit of a spiritual path. Some COs, without the support of peace church tradition, walk an even harder road alone. Isolated, and often estranged from their families and/or religious communities, she or he walk the same path of listening to the Spirit and remembering stories of resistance, but without the same support of memory and fellowship. Civil disobedience is often the action that stems from conscientious objection. It is not criminal disobedience because the individual does not run away from the consequences of breaking a particular law. Civil disobedience means being willing to face the penalty for breaking a law. The law might be a war tax, as in the case of Henry Thoreau (1849) in the Mexican-American war 1846–1848, or conscription into the military as in Britain in WWI (1916). Or, as in the case of Mahatma Gandhi, burning government passes that were racist and oppressive symbols of the British colonial government in South Africa in 1906. The first Biblical story of conscientious objection is of two midwives who were ordered by Egypt’s Pharaoh to kill all the Israelite boys as they were born: The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” But the midwives feared

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God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. (Exodus 1:15-17)1

This act of courage by these women is so great that the midwives are named: Shiphrah and Puah. They conscientiously defied Empire and prevented the genocide of an immigrant, oppressed people. Jesus also demonstrates or incarnates conscientious objection many times in the four gospels. He begins his public ministry by standing in the tradition of Exodus – good news for the poor—when he reads Isaiah 61:1-2a (as recorded in Luke 4:18-19). The conscientious protest that placed him under suspicion and put him ultimately to death was turning over the tables of the money changers and driving out the sacrificial animals from the Temple. The Temple merchants were cheating the pious poor with hugely inflated prices. According to Jesus, the Temple was to be a holy place, a sacred space, and a place of prayer for all people, but it had become a den of robbers (Luke 19:45-48; Mark 11:15-18). Moving in the spirit of Exodus, Jesus disrupted the Temple’s exploitive business. Conscientious objection, with truth telling, ended in crucifixion in the Roman Empire. I now want to turn to conscientious objectors in the context of the Great War 1914–1918, the first global war that was also the first industrialised, mechanised and chemicalised war.

16.2 Conscientious Objectors in the Context of World War I (WWI) Why focus on World War I conscientious objectors (COs)? Firstly, many have been remembering the centennial anniversary of World War I (2014–2018). A great deal of new information about WWI COs has been recently discovered by historians, and much has now been written about this group. Secondly, to understand WWI is to understand war and conflict for the rest of the twentieth and into the twenty first century. Australian Matthew Naylor, President and CEO of the USA National World War I Museum and Memorial calls WWI ‘the founding catastrophe of the twentieth century’ (Naylor 2018). It ended a hundred years of relative peace in Europe. It began for Britain and its Empire on August 4, 1914. Nobody at the time realised how serious it was going to be. Ultimately, the Great War involved many nations, resulted in over 8.5 million military deaths, and between 6.6 and 13 million civilian deaths (White 2011).2 50 million or more died from a devastatingly destructive Spanish flu epidemic, incubated in the war time trenches in France, and spread world-wide among many populations weakened by war time conditions (Taubenberger and Morens 2006). 1 All

biblical references are from the New Revised Standard Version unless indicated otherwise. is a consensus around 8.5 million military deaths. Civilian death estimates range from 6.6 million to 13 million depending on whether the Russian Civil War and the Armenian massacres (1915–1917) are included.

2 There

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WWI ended empires, added to others, and redrew maps, beginning in Europe. The successful Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 was followed by civil war and invasion by Britain, the USA, France and Japan. It is little wonder that Russia has distrusted the West and its allies since then. The vindictive Paris Treaty of Versailles in 1919 nearly destroyed the German economy and resulted in the rise of extreme German nationalism, the coming to power of Hitler, and the inevitability of WWII, an even more destructive war. The Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West after 1945 had its roots in World War I. The maps redrawn in the Middle East still plague us with consequences today. The Balfour Declaration in 1917 gave the go ahead for a future state of Israel, realised in 1948 and created the Palestinian conflict. Iraq was carved out of the defeated Ottoman Empire to aid British access to Gulf oil—the fuel on which the Royal Navy steamed. The 1990 and the 2003 Gulf Wars have their roots in WWI. Matthew Naylor also argues that ‘WWI and 9/11 are bookends of the 20th century’ (Naylor 2018). WWI was not the war to end all wars that Wells (1914), and later President Woodrow Wilson, had hoped for. Nor did it make the world safe for democracy as President Wilson promised (Jamieson 1988: 99). Both Wells and Wilson were failed prophets. Historians, both left and right, now see the WWI as a terrible and tragic mistake (Clinton 2017: 485). It is in this context of a tragic and unnecessary war that the stories of WWI COs are so significant. COs have been called the shock troops of dissent in World War I (Bennett and Howlett 2014: 15). What can we learn from their courageous stand?

16.3 How Conscientious Objectors Were Silenced The first thing to assert is that COs were silenced. Silenced by censorship. Silenced by ridicule in the press. Shamed into silence by neighbours. Tribunal records in Britain, where COs often gave moving testimony of their stand, were nearly all destroyed after the war. Like most former soldiers, COs did not talk after the war—they selfmuted. Their churches, even peace churches, encouraged COs to put their stand in the past, move on, overcome divisions in congregations, and mend fences with neighbours. The Mennonites in the USA did not start documenting their WWI COs until fifty years later in 1968 (Stoltzfus 2018). The stories of WWI COs in Leicester and Leicestershire, England, were not gathered until a hundred years later (Leicester Memories in Conflict Collective 2015). To now give voice to the silenced is both subversive, and potentially helpful for us in our possible spiritual journeys today, as we recover their courageous words and example.

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16.4 Conscientious Objectors Challenged Nationalism Mennonites and Quakers have long been internationalists. Quakers assert that there is something of God in everyone, whatever their nationality. Mennonites do not have the American flag in their sanctuaries, nor fly it over their colleges. When they confess Jesus as Lord, the king, the Kaiser, or the flag is not their first allegiance. Seventeen year old F. Henry Edwards, a British Reorganized Latter Day Saint (RLDS),3 wrote a letter to the church’s Saints Herald magazine in 1915 that included the following: My fellow countrymen are making great sacrifices for their king and country, and I want to be willing to give my life, if need be, for my King, the King of kings, and for the establishment of his kingdom – to be a patriot in the great sense. (Edwards 1915: 40)

Edwards’ brief statement says a great deal. It challenges the idolatrous worship of monarch and nation. The quotation “King of kings”, more fully “King of kings and Lord of lords”, is from Revelation, the final book of the New Testament and the Bible (Revelation 19:16, 17:14).4 In the New Testament church, people were baptised in the name of Jesus as Lord (Acts 8:16, 19:5; 1 Corinthians 6:11). This was subversive in the first century Mediterranean world, for Caesar claimed the title of Lord. For the early Christians, to say Jesus was Lord was in effect to dethrone Caesar and replace him with Jesus in their loyalty and worship. This ‘treasonous’ defection to Jesus was one reason why early Christians were persecuted as atheists and traitors. Edwards goes on to imply that the kingdom of God is international and much greater than any of the warring European empires, including his own British Empire—the greatest the world had ever seen. Obedience to the King of kings and God’s kingdom meant loyal disobedience to King George V and the British government’s call to war. In the view of Edwards, King George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the Tsar Nicholas II might urge war, but Jesus, the King of kings, said “love your enemies.” Professor of world religions, Ninian Smart (1989: 9), argued that both religions and secular ideologies (like nationalism, communism, fascism, capitalism and so on) are all ‘world views’ and, in fact, have similar structures and functions in societies. Sometimes Christianity hybridizes with an oppressive ideology and is used to give an ideology greater respectability or cover. Christianity is corrupted by this. Christianity married empire and its ideological violence first with Constantine, beginning in 3 The

Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS) were the ‘Prairie Saints’ who stayed in the Midwest of the USA after the assassination of Joseph Smith Jr. in 1844. They were anti-polygamy and eventually were led by Joseph Smith III, the son of the assassinated prophet. They embraced progressively a peace mission. The LDS were the ‘Mountain Saints’ led by Brigham Young to the Great Salt Basin that became Utah and are known today as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They practiced polygamy until 1890 and today are the largest group of Latter Day Saints and are often called Mormons. The RLDS changed their name on April 6, 2001 to Community of Christ. 4 “King of kings and Lord of lords” is sung in the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel’s Messiah. In the Book of Revelation it is Jesus who is King of kings and Lord of lords. An early Christian creed was simply “Jesus is Lord” (I Corinthians 12:3, Romans 10:9).

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313 CE, and this led to the formation of the hybrid of state and church we call Christendom. After the Protestant Reformation, Christendom was nationalized, and, for example, the state church in England was called the Church of England. The patriotic cry in Britain was “For God, king and country.” German soldiers had on their buckles in “Gott mit uns”—“God with us” (Matthew 1:23). If one were to go into any Anglican church in Britain today, one would find soldiers memorialized as heroes. Christian nationalism is an idolatrous world view, because the Creator God of the universe is reduced to the god of a particular nation. It is then no longer true to assert “For God so loved the world…” (John 3:16). Instead, “god” is one who only loves the British, or the Germans, or the Russians. To worship such a reduced, national god is idolatrous. Furthermore, in WWI, nationalist idolatries practised human sacrifice on a gigantic scale. Conscientious objectors refused to participate in demonic, violent nationalism. To them, the militant state at war, motivated by the collective egotism of nationalism, is demonic.

16.5 Conscientious Objectors Challenged the Myth of Redemptive Violence New Testament scholar Walter Wink (1992) very helpfully explains ‘the myth of redemptive violence’. This myth is the story that righteous violence saves us from the wicked. In popular culture, this myth is told through cartoons and movies like Superman, Captain America, Spiderman, Batman, and Superwoman. It is the story line in cowboy films, most war films, Star Wars, and Tom and Jerry cartoons. The myth of redemptive violence is closely entwined with militarism that includes the argument that what our country needs is bigger military budgets, military training in our schools, and national military service for everyone in our society. The hybridization of the myth of redemptive violence and Christianity ends up with Jesus carrying a gun instead of the cross, and holding (our) fallen soldiers in his arms as he welcomes them into heaven. The disaster of WWI itself completely debunks and refutes the myth of redemptive violence. “The First World War was a tragic and unnecessary conflict…” are the first and poignant words of British (and right of centre) military historian John Keegan (1998: 3) in his book The First World War. WWI violence did not save but, as said earlier, created more violence in its widening turbulence throughout the 20th century. WWI violence did not save us but engulfed the world in greater violence in later decades. The empirical and uncontested evidence of war-caused death in the 20th century illustrates that the value of redemptive violence is illusory. Conscientious objectors in WWI prophetically stood against the myth of redemptive violence. They can now be considered to have been on the right side of history.

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16.6 Conscientious Objectors Suffered in World War I In World War I, conscientious objectors sometimes suffered systematic brutality, physically and mentally, for their anti-war stands in the UK, Canada, New Zealand and the USA. David Lloyd George, British Secretary of State for War and later war time Prime Minister, wanted to make the path for COs “a very hard one” (Boulton 2014: 1). This ranged from COs standing in a pit just above water on a narrow board, open to all weathers, being frog marched, beaten, or experiencing Field Punishment No. 1, also called ‘crucifixion’. Prison itself was tough. F. Henry Edwards (discussed above) was sentenced to the standard 112 days hard labour for declaring his CO status, which he served in Wormwood Scrubs, London. For the first month, prison work was done alone in a small, claustrophobic cell that could be hellishly hot in summer and freezing in winter. Food was inadequate and awful, and was intended to physically weaken the resistance of COs. The bed was a bare wooden plank, and there were no visits or letters for the first two months. The hardest regulation was the silence rule. No talking was permitted at all (Boulton 2014: 220–223). Thirty-five British COs were sentenced to death in France in the summer of 1916. They were saved by the intervention of Quaker members of parliament with the assistance of the Prime Minister (Boulton 2014: 164–176). But thereafter, any man coming before a Tribunal to state his CO case did not know if he, too, would face the firing squad. Seventythree British COs died either in prison or as a direct result of their incarceration. Thirty-one went insane from their treatment (Boulton 2014: 266, 258). In Canada, a strong, healthy Pentecostal, David Wells, was driven insane and then died from his brutal treatment (Mittelstadt 2018). A very moving film has been made of Archibald Baxter, a New Zealand conscientious objector and a farmer, who, with others, was sent to France and brutally treated (Lippy Pictures 2014). In the USA, the story of four communal Hutterites, spiritual cousins of the Amish and Mennonites, has been well documented in a beautifully written account by Duane Stoltzfus (2013). About an hour from Kansas City, two of the four Hutterites died in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas from their earlier savage treatment in Alcatraz prison, California. At least twenty-nine COs died in the USA. Seventeen out of the twentynine who died were members of the Anabaptist family (Hutterites, Mennonites, Amish, Brethren). Out of nearly six hundred COs who were held at Fort Leavenworth, sixteen died there (Yoder 2002, 2017).5 Sometimes it is argued that the freedom of COs to resist came from the courage of those who served in the military and fought for democracy. The opposite is true. Most militaries were used by the rich and powerful to prevent the development of democracy. The militaries of all countries brutally repressed conscientious objectors in WWI. It was the suffering of conscientious objectors that won their right to conscientiously object through advocacy by civil liberties organizations. In the UK, it was

5 This may not include every CO sentenced to Fort Leavenworth; some are questionable. Names are

still being added and corrections made to the data base. Ann Yoder also kindly provided the author with a table of all twenty-nine USA COs who died in WWI, with details.

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through the work of the National Council for Civil Liberties (Boulton 2014: 119),6 and in the USA this is how the American Civil Liberties Union was born—defending COs in WWI.7 Many conscientious objectors came from democratic religious traditions that had centuries-old histories of suffering for their peaceful dissent and non-conformity: Anabaptist, Congregationalist, Baptist, Quaker and later Methodist members.8 It can be convincingly argued that it is the Non-conformist Christian tradition in Britain that established not only freedom of religion but led the way to the abolition of slavery, the reforming of working conditions in 19th century Victorian Britain, and so on. By WWII, the right to be a conscientious objector had been secured on both sides of the Atlantic through the suffering of conscientious objectors in WWI and their effective advocacy. The brutal treatment of COs in British prisons also led, after the war, to prison reform, including the abolition of the silence regulation (Boulton 2014: 300–301). It was Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. who developed even more effective ways of change through the power of unearned suffering in the cause of the right. To them, it was the way of Jesus; the way of the cross. The kingdom of God, the one that F. Henry Edwards stood for in his dissent against war, comes through righteous suffering, not out of the barrel of a gun.

16.7 Disobedience to Authority and the Importance of Existentialism After World War II, social scientists tried to understand what made Nazism possible. In the 1950s, psychologist Asch (1955) showed how an individual could be made to conform to a judgement one third of the time, against their sensory evidence, by the pressure of others. However, when just one other person said the ‘right’ answer, conformity fell from 32 to 5% of participants. Thus, even one conscientious objector’s voice against a patriotic nationalist government can be seen as dangerous in widening dissent. That is why COs had to be imprisoned, mistreated and supressed. Similarly, S. Milgram’s study on obedience showed how large numbers of people could be forced, by the pressure of an authority figure, to hurt and even ‘kill’ someone with a 6 Another civil liberties organization also called the National Council for Civil Liberties was founded

in 1934 and should not be confused with the organization that worked in WWI. 7 The National Civil Liberties Bureau working for COs in WWI was the forerunner of the American

Civil Liberties Union after WWI. suffering of Anabaptists from 1525 onwards is movingly told in Martyrs Mirror, already mentioned. Thomas Helwys, the first English Baptist leader was imprisoned by James II in the Tower in 1612 and argued for the separation of church and state. The Quakers from 1675 established “Meetings for Sufferings” to help Quakers suffering from persecution and to advocate for them. None of these groups was revolutionary—Anabaptists and Quakers were pacifists. The beginning of religious freedom in Britain was achieved by the 1689 Act of Toleration, and won by the suffering of religious ‘dissenters’ for more than a century. 8 The

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simulated electric shock machine using a stooge who acted increasingly distressed as higher voltages were “applied” (Milgram 1963). When Milgram’s experiment was replicated elsewhere, it was found that Australians had the lowest rate of obedience (Psych Yogi 2014). So, cultures, and by extension religious traditions, can also be resistant to authoritarianism. Quakers, Mennonites, and (in Britain) socialists in adult schools, provided dissidents from within their circles with much greater support and with a historical tradition and rationale for resistance to powers. How might these two psychological experiments inform our understanding of conscientious objectors? A CO resists authoritarian leaders and systems. They say ‘No!’ Existentialist philosopher Paul Edwards argues that his father, F. Henry Edwards, was an existentialist before he understood what it meant. F. Henry chose to make an authentic, but lonely, existential decision, that meant not following the ‘herd’ (as Kierkegaard, among others, referenced it) (Moore 2002).9 It is important for any society to have conscientious objectors. They are like canaries down a coal mine. They warn us of important dangers.

16.8 Conscientious Objectors Participated in a Bigger Picture of Resistance in WWI 16.8.1 Numbers of Non-cooperators and Conscientious Objectors In Britain it is currently estimated that there were nearly 20,000 COs with nearly 6,000 court-martialed in WWI (Pearce 2017). In the USA, roughly 3 million never registered at all, compared with 24 million who did. 338,000 who did register also disappeared. Kazin (2017: 208–209) called these ‘evaders’, or non-cooperators. Such evasions were more difficult for an individual to pursue in Britain (Hetherington 2017). 64,700 Americans did register as COs out of 3,810,296 inducted. Only 3,890 men refused orders once drafted. 504 Americans were court martialed (Stoltzfus 2013: 206–207, ix).

9 To quote Kierkegaard, considered by many as the first and greatest existentialist, “True individuality

is measured by this: how long or how far one can endure being alone without the understanding of others. The person who can endure being alone is poles apart from the social mixer. This person is miles apart from the one who manages successfully with everyone—the one who possesses no sharp edges. God never uses such people. The true individual, anyone who is going to be directly involved with God, will not and cannot avoid the human bite. The true individual will be thoroughly misunderstood. God is no friend of cozy human gathering.”

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16.8.2 Writers and Poets Erasmus (1466–1536), a Dutch cosmopolitan scholar at another troubled time in European history, wrote an essay on war entitled, Dulce bellum inexpertis, “War is sweet to them who know it not” (Erasmus 1907). The naivety and illusion about war by many in 1914, and later in the USA in 1917, was later dispelled as the stories of hell in the trenches was revealed by first hand reports, statistics of deaths and injuries, and later, diaries, novels and poetry. British WWI soldier poets began a new genre of poetry. Poets like Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen were realists who drew the reader into the horror and terror of war. In a few verses of a poem, skillfully crafted and passionately, angrily written, one can see the pouring rain, feel the squelching mud, hear the shell fire, feel the blasts, and smell the rotting corpses. These poets tell the truth of the absurd sacrifices of young men by old men in the cause of nationalism and empire. They are like Old Testament prophets who tell the truth about inhumanity and hell on earth, but without the hope. They were soldiers decorated for bravery who protested at the absurd waste of life (Stallworthy 2014 and Crane 2014). Sassoon (1917), a soldier from the beginning of the war in August 1914, wrote a letter of protest to his commanding officer in July 1917. It includes this line, I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops and can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust.

The letter was published in a number of papers, including the London Times, and read in Parliament by a sympathetic MP. Sassoon was saved from being courtmartialed by being sent for the rest of the war to the Craiglockhart mental asylum in Edinburgh to be treated for shell shock—although he was actually fine. It was here that he met Wilfred Owen, another soldier patient, and encouraged him in his poetry writing. Owen is now thought to be the greatest of the British WWI poets. In Dulce et decorum est, Owen (1917–1918) describes graphically the effect on tired soldiers of a gas attack. One soldier does not get his gas mask on in time, and the horror of his suffering death is told. Owen ends the poem writing these lines: My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old lie: Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.

The Latin phrase translated means, “It is sweet and right to die for your country.” Owen is saying it is a lie. He also said, “The people of England needn’t hope. They must agitate” (Owen 1917a, b). A week before the end of the war in November 1918, Owen was killed in action. Owen and Sassoon, trapped by the initial seduction of the ‘glories’ of war and social pressure, had later become ‘conscientious objectors’ who protested through their poetry. First World War poets, studied by many British teenagers in school English lessons, continue to shape British attitudes and consciousness about war.

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16.8.3 Women There were women on all sides who resisted the war. The International Congress of Women for a Permanent Peace had 2,000 women from opposing nations, and the USA, meet at The Hague, Holland, in 1915 to try and broker a peace (Kazin 2017: 48–56). They were unsuccessful. Charlotte French, a suffragist, socialist, and pacifist campaigned against conscription in Britain, even though her brother, Sir John French, was a leading military commander in France (Hochschild 2011). Women like Catherine Marshall and then Lilla Brockway took over the running of the NoConscription Fellowship, as men were conscripted or imprisoned (Haslam 2014: 22). The story of Vera Brittain, an English Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse, is particularly moving. She began the war by naively pleading with her father to allow her brother to enlist. She ended the war having left Oxford to serve as a nurse for wounded and dying soldiers, both British and German. Her brother, a fiancé, and a very close friend were all killed. She became an articulate and formidable pacifist (Brittain 1933).10

16.8.4 Reluctant Soldiers Not all soldiers shoot or shoot to kill. In his book On Killing, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (1995: 149–155) documents historically that up to and including WWII, most soldiers did not shoot or did not shoot to kill. Grossman argues, “The individual is not a killer, but the group is,” so people as individuals are reluctant killers and have to be deliberately trained and desensitized in order to be able to kill. Not everyone agrees with Grossman, and there is now criticism of some of his sources, especially S. L. A. Marshall, and his inadequate scientific methodology on firing rates in WWII, as explored by Chambers II (2003) and Engen (2011).11 However, it can still be argued that some WWI soldiers on all sides, were conscientious objectors, but hid it.

16.8.5 Socialists The witness of Socialist conscientious objectors is also important to note. In Britain, Socialist COs were the majority of COs whether in Huddersfield as Pearce indicates (2001: 317 [Table 11]), or in Princetown workcamp, Dartmoor where F. Henry 10 Brittain’s book, Testament of Youth, came out as a film in 2014. Alicia Vikander played Vera Brittain. The film director was James Kent. 11 Grossman is heavily dependent on S. L. A. Marshall’s work. Marshall was a US field historian in WWII, who served as a soldier in WWI. He argued from his field work that the firing rate was perhaps only 25% of soldiers and as many as 75% of soldiers were not firing, or were firing to miss. See Chambers II and Engen for a critical review of Marshall’s work.

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Edwards was held. In Princetown, a quarter of the thousand or so COs were religious, while three quarters were secular socialists, according to Goodall (1997: 44). However, this is not true in the USA where religious COs were a majority, (although socialist CO witness was still important). For example, Eugene V. Debs, a five times socialist presidential candidate, went to prison in the USA for his outspoken resistance, and the last time he ran for the presidency was from his prison cell in 1920 (Kazin 2017). Socialist COs had a sense of the international fellowship of all workers and often understood better than religious COs the economic issues underlying war: competition for markets, and clashing empires. Socialists witnessed in a secular way hope for the just economic kingdom of God, territory often sadly abandoned by many Christians, and a betrayal of their founder who stood in the radical tradition of Moses and Exodus from slavery.12

16.9 Conscientious Objectors Were Diverse F. Henry Edwards was one of about 1,100 COs at Princetown Work Centre located about 1,400 feet high in the chilling mist on Dartmoor, South Devon, England. Princetown Work Centre, temporarily converted from the notorious Dartmoor prison, was one of a number of work camps in the Home Office Scheme to deal with COs who would work under civilian direction. In some ways it was almost a university for COs. Among the 40 different religious sects and political parties at Princetown were 110 International Bible students (IBS), who, from 1931, became known as Jehovah’s Witnesses (Perkins 2016: 125).13 The Pelham Committee cited in Pearce (2001: 322–323) had the task of finding work of national importance for COs. It had 3,964 COs referred to it and classified COs into 45 different groups. The largest numbers were Christadelphians (1,716), Plymouth Brethren (145), Society of Friends (140), Methodists (112), Baptists (73), and IBS/Jehovah Witnesses (66). 1,050 did not state the nature of their objection.14 The two Anabaptist Hutterites who died in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas after the war had ended in 1918, are part of a moving story of three brothers and a brother in law, all married and fathers, who were absolutists. They would not cooperate with the military authorities in any way (Stoltzfus 2013). In October 2017, a conference was convened at the US National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City to explore these themes.15 12 See Luke 4:18-19 where Jesus reads at the beginning of his ministry his manifesto from Isaiah 61:1-2a, a passage that echoes the prophetic Exodus tradition. 13 Perkins’ (2016) carefully researched and well written account of this group of COs is very moving. 14 The Pelham samples is not representative of the 20,000 or so COs in WWI Britain, but gives an indication of the range of religious membership of COs. What brought them together was common suffering in a common cause. 15 Remembering Muted Voices: Conscience, Dissent, Resistance and Civil Liberties in World War I Through Today, Oct. 19–22, 2017—A Symposium on Resistance and Conscientious Objection in

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16.10 Conscientious Objectors and Religious Leaders in WWI Ahlstrom (1972, 884) summarises well the position in the USA: “The simple fact is that religious leaders—lay and clerical, Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant, through corporate as well as personal expressions, lifted their voices in a chorus of support for the war.” F. M. Smith, the president of the RLDS church, of which F. Henry Edwards was a member, was a vigorous US nationalist in both WWI and WWII (Smith 1939: 1443). See also Smith (1940, 10), Judd (1975, 9), and Hunt (1982, 438–448).16 In the Princetown Work Centre on Dartmoor, the Anglican Bishop of Exeter would not let any of the COs use the chapel in the former prison. If they had been normal criminals or murderers, they would have enjoyed the grace of the Church of England, but COs were rejected (Goodall 1997: 44). A patriotic ethic reduces the universal God of the Bible at its most profound, to a nationalist, tribal deity who demands human sacrifice. This is both an inadequate ethic and a failed theology. All COs rejected this violent nationalist god, either by being atheists, as many socialist resisters were, or by remembering that all humans were made in the image of God, and that Jesus taught, “Love your enemies.”

16.11 Conclusion WWI conscientious objectors are prophets of peace and human rights, a silenced and forgotten alternative, but important to remember a hundred years later. Mostly young adults, they endured a difficult path to be true to a higher ethic, sometimes at the loss of their own health and even their life. They knowingly or unknowingly followed the path taken by the crucified one. They suggest a deeper, authentic spirituality. Those motivated by socialism remind us to be critical of free-market capitalism in a neoliberal world with its violent foreign interventions. Socialists stand in the tradition of Exodus, the same tradition Jesus stood in as he read his manifesto, “The Spirit WWI at the National World War I Museum and Memorial at Kansas City, MO, USA. https://www. theworldwar.org/learn/remembering-muted-voices. Accessed 1 November 2018. The Hutterite story not only gathered us, but also held us together as we joined with academic historians, atheist socialists, other denominations and other faiths. 16 F. M. Smith was a strident nationalist in World War I like many other church leaders and members in other denominations in this period. At the outbreak of World War II Smith’s editorial “Our Attitude to War,” argues an ethic of obeying the law of land in terms of conscription. He also argues against conscientious objection in this editorial and other writings. Another summary of Smith’s convictions about war are given in a radio broadcast that he made in January 1940. He argues for peace but sees ‘ultra-pacifists’ and conscientious objectors as a problem in the cause of peace. Peter A. Judd in an unpublished essay describes well the change within the USA RLDS church from ‘a position of strict neutrality in 1914 to a position of unqualified support for the United States and allied nations by 1918’. For a good overview of F. M. Smith’s nationalist attitudes from WWI to WWII see Larry E. Hunt.

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of the Lord is upon me, to preach good news to the poor…” and as he cleansed the temple from its den of robbers and business sharks (Luke 4:18-19/Isaiah 61:1-2b; Luke 19:45-48; Mark 11:15-18.) No one can be sold for a price, he said. No one should be enslaved to kill others. Ninian Smart, a pioneer in secular religious studies, has stated that religions and ideologies are world views that function in the same way in giving frameworks of meaning (Smart 1989). They can be investigated in the same way (see above). Religions and ideologies can be tribal and viciously so in war time when co-opted by nationalism/patriotism and the state. Conversely some religions and ideologies are beyond tribalism, with a universal humanitarian commitment, and this is what conscientious objectors courageously demonstrated whether socialist or Christian. COs are hated in ‘tribal’ conflicts. Why? Charles Eisenstein, an insightful essayist and commentator on our current times, gives an answer: In a polarized environment such as a war, the pacifist is more unpopular than the enemy. The enemy is necessary to prop up one’s own [tribal] identity as being on Team Good. The pacifist calls that identity into question. (Eisenstein 2019)

Conscientious objectors are the few who are for all. To echo Martin Luther King Jr. (1963), WWI conscientious objectors were ‘creatively maladjusted’ to the mad patriotism and ethnocentrism of their times. Their witness provokes us to be ‘creatively maladjusted’ to the nationalisms and social issues of our time. We also are called to be ‘creatively maladjusted’—conscientious objectors—to not only war, but also racism, sexism, poverty, climate change, and political corruption. This is the significance of these WWI conscientious objectors for us today—to be ‘creatively maladjusted’ to evil—against any violation of the worth of any person, and for the sacredness of creation.

References Ahlstrom SE (1972) A religious history of the American people. Yale University Press, New Haven and London Asch SE (1955) Opinions and social pressure. Sci Am 193(5):31–35 Bennett SH, Howlett CF (2014) Antiwar dissent and peace activism in World War I America—a documentary reader. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE/London, UK Boulton D (2014) Objection overruled: conscription and conscience in the First World War. Dales Historical Monographs, Hobsons Farm, Dent, Cumbria Brittain V (1933) Testament of youth. Victor Gollancz, London Chambers II JW (2003) S. L. A. Marshall’s men against fire: new evidence regarding fire ratios. Parameters (Autumn) 113–121 Clinton M (2017) War against war: a conversation with Michael Kazin. Peace Change 42(4):485 Collective, Leicester Memories in Conflict (2015) Uncovering resistance—Leicester and Leicestershire in World War One. Leicester CND, Leicester, pp 9–22 Crane M (2014) Siegfried Sassoon. In: “British” World War one poetry: an introduction. Pod Cast Series Faculty of English Spring School, Oxford University, 3–5 Apr 2014. https://podcasts.ox. ac.uk/series/british-world-war-one-poetry-introduction Accessed 2 Nov 2018 Edwards FH (1915) Letter to the Editor, The Saint’s Herald, May 12, 40

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Eisenstein C (2019) The polarization trap. https://charleseisenstein.org/essays/the-polarizationtrap/. Accessed 10 June 2019 Engen R (2011) Killing for their country: a new look at “Killology”. Can Mil J 9(2):120–128 Erasmus D (1907) Against war—dulce bellum inexpertis. English edition: Updike, DB The Project Gutenberg EBook. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/39487/39487-h/39487-h.htm. Accessed 31 May 2017 Goodall F (1997) A question of conscience—conscientious objection in the two world wars. Sutton Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire Grossman Lt Colonel Dave (1995) On killing. Black Bay Books, Columbus, Georgia Haslam Oliver (2014) Refusing to kill: conscientious objection and human rights in the first world war, 2nd edn. Peace Pledge Union, London Hetherington B (2017) Email to author Hochschild A (2011) To end all wars: a story of loyalty and rebellion 1914–1918. Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, NY Hunt LE (1982) F. M. Smith: Saint as Reformer 1874–1946, vol 2. Herald House, Independence, MO Jamieson KH (1988) Eloquence in an electronic age—the transformation of political speechmaking. Oxford University Press, Oxford Judd PA (1975) RLDS attitudes toward World War I. Saint Paul School of Theology, Unpublished essay Kazin M (2017) War against war—the American fight for peace 1914–1918. Simon & Schuster, NY Keegan J (1998) The first world war. Hutchinson/Random House, London King Jr ML (1963) MLK at western. Western Michigan University Archives and Regional History Collections and University Libraries, 18 Dec 1963. https://www.wmich.edu/sites/default/files/ attachments/MLK.pdf. Accessed 3 Nov 2018 Lippy Pictures (2014) Field Punishment No. 1. Released 22 April, New Zealand Milgram S (1963) Behavioral study of obedience. J Abnorm Soc Psychol 67:371–378 Mittelstadt MW (2018) ‘Canada’s First Martyr’: the suspicious death of David Wells, Winnipeg’s First World War pentecostal conscientious objector. Manit Hist J Manit Hist Soc 87:12–18 Moore Charles E (ed) (2002) Provocations—spiritual writings of Kierkegaard. Plough Publishing, Walden, NY Naylor M (2018) Email to author Owen W (1917a) Letter, 18 January. The war poetry website. http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/Owena. html#short-biog_owen. Accessed 22 Mar 2017 Owen W (1917b) Dulce Et Decorum Est. The war poetry. http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html. Accessed 22 Mar 2017 Oxford Online Dictionary. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/conscientious_objection. Accessed 3 Oct 2018 Pearce Cyril (2001) Comrades in conscience—the story of an English community’s opposition to the great war. Francis Boutle, London Pearce C (2017) CO register VII access 2010.mdb. This was sent as a file to the author. An older public registry is available at “Imperial War Museum: Lives of the First World War”. https://search.livesofthefirstworldwar.org/search/world-records/conscientiousobjectors-register-1914-1918. Accessed 29 Oct 2018 Perkins G (2016) Bible student conscientious objectors in World War I—Britain. Self-published Psych Yogi (2014) Asch (1955)—opinion and social pressure—conformity experiment—a wealth of free psychology!. http://psychyogi.org/asch-1955-opinions-and-social-pressure-conformityexperiment/. Accessed 29 Oct 2018 Sassoon S (1917) Finished with the war—a soldier’s declaration. Bradford Pioneer. http://www. wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/20century/topic_1_05/ssassoon.htm. Accessed 1 Nov 2018 Smart N (1989) The world’s religions. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Smith FM (1939) Our attitude to war. Saints Herald, p 1443

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Smith FM (1940) The church and war. Herald, Independence, MO. Undated pamphlet, given as a radio broadcast, Jan 1940 Stallworthy J (2014) Wilfred Owen. In “British” world war one poetry: an introduction. Pod Cast Series Faculty of English Spring School, Oxford University. 3–5 Apr 2018. https://podcasts.ox. ac.uk/series/british-world-war-one-poetry-introduction. Accessed 2 Nov 2018 Stoltzfus Duane C S (2013) Pacifists in chains—the persecution of Hutterites during the great war. John Hopkins, Baltimore Stoltzfus DCS (2018) Email to author Taubenberger JK, Morens DM (2006) 1918 influenza: the mother of all pandemics. Emerg Infect Dis 12(1). https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/12/1/pdfs/05-0979.pdf. Accessed 1 Nov 2018 Thoreau HD (1849) Civil disobedience. American studies at Virginia University. http://xroads. virginia.edu/%7EHYPER2/thoreau/civil.html. Accessed 29 Oct 2018 van Braght TJ (2001) Martyrs mirror—the story of seventeen centuries of Christian martyrdom, from the time of Christ to A.D. 1660. Trans. J. Sohn, J, Reprint edn. Herald Press, Harrisonburg Wells HG (1914) The war that will end war. Frank and Cecil Palmer, London White M (2011) Source list and detailed death tolls for the primary megadeaths of the twentieth century. http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm#WW1. Accessed 3 Nov 2018 Wink Walter (1992) Engaging the powers: discernment and resistance in a world of domination. Fortress Press, Minneapolis Yoder AM (2002) World War I conscientious objection. Swarthmore College Peace Collection, PN. http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/peace/conscientiousobjection/WWI.COs. coverpage.htm. Accessed 2 Nov 2018

Chapter 17

Faiths and Feminisms Susan Carland

Abstract In this chapter, I argue that while faith and feminism have often been seen at war, both have much to offer the other, and history gives the blueprint to demonstrate that this has been the case for a long time. Yet while much attention has been paid (often justifiably) to what feminism can offer various religious approaches, very little has considered the opposite. I contend that some of the discipline and external accountability offered within religious systems may be beneficial and refining to feminism. However, humility from all camps is required.

If religion and feminism were people, we might imagine them as a long-bickering couple at marriage counselling. Sitting on the therapist’s couch with folded arms and set jaws, they seem to have little in common. They have a long history of distrust, seemingly different life goals, and hurting each other. They often view each other with contempt. “You’re selfish, arrogant, and are actively trying to destroy our family,” Religion would hurl at Feminism. “And you’re oppressive, sanctimonious, and a big part of everything I hate,” Feminism would snap back at Religion. “You just don’t understand me!” they would both huff, turning their backs on each other. On the surface, it would indeed seem that these two warring parties have little, if anything, to offer each other. But a good marriage counsellor could dig below the seemingly insurmountable differences and excavate a history where they worked well together, and offer not just hope for reconciliation, but potential for mutual benefit and a common goal. While there may always be at least some profound distinctions, there are also important things both parties can offer the other—to make them better, stronger, and perhaps even truer to the essence of who they are—in their joint work for a shared objective. This chapter serves as the therapist’s room, and strive to make the case not just that there is a forgotten mutually beneficial history and that religion and feminism can S. Carland (B) Monash University, Melbourne, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Babie and R. Sarre (eds.), Religion Matters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_17

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work together on a shared goal, but specifically and little considered: that religion has something important to offer feminism in today’s context.

17.1 In Sickness and in Health In some ways, it is easier to identify what feminism offers faith. Many committed religionists from a variety of traditions (Russell 1985; Gross 1996; Sharma and Young 1999; Groenhout and Bower 2003) have utilised the tool kit of feminism for decades to confront the sexism, gender inequality, and even misogyny found in their faith communities. Lurking and even flourishing in the practices and interpretations of the sacred, sexism abounds in religious communities, and is often shielded in a religious justification. The lazy accusation that often germinates from this is that there is something inherently and uniquely sexist about religion. Any religion. All religions. Such an analysis willfully ignores the sad inherency of sexism to people, and that religions are just an expression of human nature, as opposed to religion itself being the problem. As Associate Professor Andrew Singleton attests ‘religion, like all social institutions, is the product of society … and consequently reflects and reinforces societal norms and standards. Because most societies are traditionally patriarchal, religious organisations are as well’ (Singleton 2014: 188). What is paramount in this discussion is to give primacy to the human element of religion, and recognise the sexism we see as a (sadly) typical function of human behavior. Rachel Woodlock explains that: …[R]eligion isn’t inherently oppressive. It’s like saying politics oppresses women. If a bunch of misogynists are in government then you get laws that are bad for women. If a bunch of misogynists claim to speak for God, you get religious justifications for oppressing women. But, when women are in the game - politics, religion, or anything else – things look very different. The real question for believing women isn’t whether religion oppresses women but how can we reclaim the right to speak for ourselves?” (Woodlock 2013: 237).

Making this distinction is a necessary first step, as it removes one of the biggest stumbling blocks in the therapeutic reconciliation of religion and feminism: that of an inherent opposition. It is, in many ways, understandable to blame religion today. Our growing societal distrust in the biggest institutions that have for a long time ring-fenced us with structure, support, and mostly-unchallenged authority—political parties and democracy; organised religion—is predictable. The avalanche of reports of child sex abuse that occurred within religious orders more intent on protecting the good name of the faith than vulnerable children rightly infuriated many. That religious communities seem to weigh in most loudly on social matters that demonstrate a lack of the compassion their faith is meant to be predicated on and an unwillingness to move with the times, such as opposing same-sex marriage, has left many disgusted and impatient, wondering what purpose religion serves in modern life. And witnessing a litany of sexist

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practices in religious communities, often defended as matters of faith, has led some to argue that religion itself is innately, irredeemably sexist. But this does not mean the criticism is correct. Religion is not necessarily, by definition, sexist. It certainly can be, and often is, across the religious spectrum, but this is a function of the human nature (unfortunately apparent in every social institution) that makes up religious communities and scriptural interpretations. These interpretations have many and far-reaching effects on women, such as making decisions about which verses are still relevant today and which were time-bound for a no longer relevant context, which verses are to be taken literally and which are figurative, where prohibitions and permissions are implied or explicit, textually unquestionable or a clear human insertion, which words have been understood in one way and not another and why. And when it is men doing the interpreting, they, like any of us, cannot help but bring their own biases, prejudices, desires, and preferences to the act. As Mary Lee, the co-founder of the Women’s Suffrage League identified in 1890 in a public letter to the South Australian Register, “Could women ever have descended to such depths of misery and degradation if women had a voice in making the laws for women?” (Lee 1890: 5). The conclusions drawn from reading and interpreting a religious text often reveal more about the interpreter than they do about the text itself. To unpick the knots of sexism within religious communities, one must first understand their true origins, instead of levelling blame in convenient but misplaced directions based on our growing agitation at religion’s failures. And from a pragmatic perspective, it will be more helpful in eradicating sexism from religious communities to limit this erroneous analysis and focus our attention on the actual root of the sexism. As suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton observed, “The first step in the elevation of women under all systems of religion is to convince them that the great Spirit of the Universe is in no way responsible for any of these absurdities” (Daly 1973: 13). Of course, there is also the belief of an inherent opposition that works in reverse: that feminism is intrinsically anti-religion. This accusation has existed for a very long time; as long as religious women have been fighting for their rights, there seem to be people who try to quash their battle by telling them they are not fighting sexism, but faith, family, and perhaps even God “Him”self (Gross 1992; Wadud 1999; Bessey 2013; Anderson 2015; Carland 2017; Antler 2018; Fuchs 2018). Such arguments spring from very similar analytical grounds as the above criticism that faith is inherently anti-feminism, in that they both conflate the words, interpretations and practices of humans (mostly males) with the divine. Thus, the argument that feminism is implicitly anti-religion assumes that the permissible roles and requirements of women and girls within religious norms have been arrived at through something other than a patriarchal human lens. Both conflate human (mostly, if not entirely, male) readings of religious holy texts, and all the biases and prejudices that must come with that, as synonymous with the divine will. Thus, if someone poses a feminist challenge to a common religious belief (i.e., men are the leaders of/superior to women, women cannot perform a role of religious authority, being a mother and homemaker is the best role a woman can have) they are accused of questioning a sacred ordinance. And just as the above criticism that religion is innately sexist is misplaced, so too

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the accusation that feminism is, at its core, anti-religion. Feminism is anti-sexism and anti-misogyny. If and when those things present in religious communities and practices, feminists will challenge them, but that is importantly distinct from being wholesale anti-religion. Feminism is also viewed skeptically by some religious communities, such as the Muslim and Hindu communities, as being something that is fundamentally Western, foreign, secular, and colonial. As Maumoon states, many Muslims ‘dismiss Western feminism for being one of the main instruments of colonialism and causing family breakdown’ (Maumoon 1999: 275). This sentiment has existed for as long as feminism and colonialism have been present in countries such as Egypt, as Badran highlights: During the colonial and early postcolonial periods, its [feminism’s] Western associations implicated feminism as nationally subversive and treasonous. A dichotomy was set up early (by opponents of Islamic modernism within the Muslim Middle East) between Islam and modernity, constructed as an East-West antagonism. This opposition has been sustained not only in certain quarters in Middle Eastern societies but also by Westerners hostile toward or ignorant of Islam (Badran 2009: 216).

And this is seen as particularly unappealing given the little success “modernization” seemed to have on these regions and the role that local religions could have as a unifying force, as Fernea explains when she asks: [W]hat had westernization and modernization, women’s struggles for equality, and economic development plans done for people in the Middle East, Africa and Asia? It hadn’t brought peace and prosperity, nor freedom from tyranny. Islam on the other hand signified legitimacy, identity outside the Western sphere. Islam meant origins, heritage, tradition, all those things that had been devalued during the colonial period. Islam was the only shared identity of people that predated Western European colonialism (Fernea 1998: xiv–xv).

To help heal this fighting couple it is important, then, that a distinction be drawn between feminism and fighting sexism. Given the tensions springing from history and definitions of feminism (however fair or unfair they may be), perhaps an area of unification between our couple could be not on whether religions can be feminist or feminism can accommodate religion, but what the two camps can agree on: fighting sexism. While some religious people or communities may feel uncomfortable with the term “feminist” due to historical grievances or (mis)understandings of what feminism is, many within this category would reject the idea of sexism,1 and feel that honouring women and treating men and women equitably was important, and even a necessary part of their faith. While there may be disagreement on what constitutes sexism, this is not necessarily problematic; within feminism, there is vehement disagreement over what is and is not sexism. Thus, a single-mindedness over what is classified as sexism should not be required when it comes to engaging faith communities, but a willingness to sincerely listen to the perspective of the other should. This idea of uniting over this shared commitment will be discussed further below. 1 Some

would not, and be adamant that male superiority, and all the consequences of that, are religiously mandated. However, there would be many who would.

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17.2 To Have and to Hold To this point, I have discussed “religion” and “faith” as uniform. Clearly, this is reductive, as not only are there obviously many different religions, spiritualties, and faiths, but the way these religions view women, women’s relationship to men, and women’s relationship to a deity or deities (or no deity at all) vary, often considerably. Beyond this, even within religions, people often diverge strikingly on these matters. Defining “religion” is a slippery business. There is no agreed definition of religion, and nor has there ever been. However, as Clarke and Byrne note, “The great variety of competing definitions of “religion” and the difficulties in proving anyone to be correct point in our view not to the futility of the enterprise, but to the need to accept a looser, more informal mode of definition” (Clarke and Byrne 1993: 11). Thus, we must accept that however we describe religion, it will be imprecise. For the sake of this discussion, however, it is important to have a meaningful, consistent definition from which to base my contentions. I find Yinger’s definition to be a useful one: Where one finds awareness of and interest in the continuing, recurrent, permanent [emphasis in original] problems of human existence – the human condition itself, as contrasted with specific problems; where one finds rites and shared beliefs relevant to that awareness, which define the strategy of an ultimate victory; and where one has groups organized to heighten that awareness and to teach and maintain those rites and beliefs – there one has religion (1970: 33).

Yinger’s definition of religion, like all others, is imperfect and limited, but it has utility and offers necessary boundaries in this discussion. Similarly: “feminism”. There is no single type of feminism, nor any agreed-upon definition. Not only have there been different waves of feminism, beginning in the late 19th century with women’s suffrage (Margarey 2001) until the fourth wave in which we now exist (Rivers 2017), feminism itself is becoming more diversified and layered, particularly when intersectionality (an acknowledgment that there can be numerous and convergent forms of oppression occurring concurrently (Denis 2008) is considered. We now correctly speak of feminisms to demonstrate the broad church of feminism and the many forms of feminism that exist within it. Feminists will disagree with each other, sometimes ferociously (Hirsch and Keller 1990). This is neither new nor necessarily detrimental; just as within faith communities, feminists will understand key issues, and practice their feminism, in varying ways. Just as co-religionists do about matters of faith, feminists will sometimes feel astounded, confused, and even incensed at how differently other feminists view liberation and equality of women compared to themselves. A good example of this are the feminist debates around whether pornography can be feminist, which have been raging internally for decades (Snyder-Hall 2010; Smith and Attwood 2014), as have debates around sex work. And a more modern-day example may be that of nude selfies (Monteverde 2016). To define feminism is as difficult and elusive as defining religion, and yet for the sake of a meaningful discussion, I will offer Budgeon’s description, which paraphrases Delmar (1994): “Feminism asserts that women suffer discrimination because of their sex; that women have specific needs, which are negated and as such are left unmet;

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and that solutions to these problems require substantial transformation of the social, economic, and political orders” (Budgeon 2011: 2). This definition is limited and not without its problems, but it is a sufficient starting place for our discussion. And while the terms “religion” and “feminism” are broad, multifaceted and contested, they are not so extensive as to be meaningless. These definitions help us to properly conceptualise our struggling married couple, and frame our therapeutic responses accordingly. There are many different styles within the broad church of feminism, and with each wave of feminism, there have been greater variations in the types of feminism found, from variations based on political approaches, to religious and cultural forms of feminism. All of these types of feminism are important, as they reveal the reality of the diversity of women’s experiences and the most pressing issues different women face (which are not uniform across various environments), as well as the necessary range of approaches to handling them. That being said, this discussion will focus mostly on the way religion may benefit modern Western feminism (with the necessary acknowledgment that even that is not a single category) as that is the environment in which I as the author operate, and which I anticipate much of the audience will reside, and also because a single discussion cannot hope to adequately cover every type of feminism. Similarly, not every religious or spiritual expression can be covered or used as an example in this discussion; there are simply too many. Thus, discussions of religion will often be confined to the largest of organised religions, simply because they have the widest reach, with a firm acknowledgment that they are by no means the only faith paths, or even necessarily the religious or spiritual expressions that may make the most sense for women or feminists (Aune 2011).

17.3 For Richer or Poorer Much of the tension between our arguing pair blooms from a history replete with willful misunderstandings, scorn, coercion, stereotyping, and a lack of openness— all of it mutual. This history, stretching more than a century, leaves many involved today viewing the other side with skepticism, if not outright hostility. It is important to understand this history to better comprehend where we are now, and to lubricate ourselves out of this stalemate, for while there are religious women (and some religious men) who consider there to be no tension between faith and feminism, many feminists and many religious people are firmly in distinct camps, seeing the other’s beliefs as incompatible with their own. A complete historical account of every encounter between feminisms and religions is not feasible, but a few illustrative case studies will demonstrate some key cooperations between the two, demonstrating the extent to which not just that religious women (and men) and feminist women (and men) could work together, but also that they could be the same people. And more importantly than that, in the context of this discussion’s central argument, their religious backgrounds could facilitate and improve their feminism and thus the feminism of the entire wave in which they operated.

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The first wave of feminism in Australia had important links to religion, and without the work of Christian women, the road to women receiving the vote would have been a much longer and more painful one. Women’s suffrage was the first instance of a large social movement based around women’s rights in Australia. While informal discussions and individual agitation, of course, began earlier (no social movement appears out of nowhere), an organised, collaborative, large-scale Australian approach began in earnest in the late 1880s. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) began in Australia in the late 19th century, and as is eponymously evident, were a group of women against alcohol consumption and the social ills alcohol causes. They believed that they could facilitate the spread and success of their social reform agenda if women could vote, and joined the suffrage movement in earnest as partners with the Suffrage Leagues (Goldstein 1910). One of the most dedicated branches of the suffrage movement, the WCTU collected thousands of signatures in support of women’s right to vote by going door-to-door. Of the 11,600 votes tabled in the South Australian parliament (the first colony to grant women the right to vote in Australia) in 1891, the WCTU had collected 8,000 of them—nearly 70%. This alliance is a good example of a marriage of mutual benefit between religion and feminism, though it is doubtful any of the women involved would have used that label. The WCTU saw women’s empowerment through voting as a manifestation of their religious obligation to achieve positive social goals (namely, restricting alcohol), and were happy to work with their sisters who did not operate under a religious umbrella to achieve it together. It would be wrong to imagine this as just a selfish marriage of convenience, however. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union sincerely believed in women’s right to vote, and their collaboration with The Women’s Suffrage League was genuine. However, after the vote was achieved, the collaboration splintered as they disagreed over which causes to champion with their new-found right. While Christian women from the WCTU were both riding and exuding some of the lunar force to create this first wave of feminism in Australia, they along with the other women involved were later criticised for ignoring the plight of non-white women (indeed, Aboriginal women and men did not receive the full right to vote until many decades later). This animadversion was taken to heart by the WCTU, and Elizabeth Rees, editor of the WCTU’s White Ribbon Journal, wrote numerous impassioned critiques of the WCTU’s implications with colonisation, the devastating impact of Aboriginal people, and the racist underpinnings that allowed it in the 1930s. Elizabeth Rees admonished her fellow WCTU members, and other Christians, in 1937: We are all now cognisant of the fact that what was supplied to us in our childhood and even as late as the first twenty years of the present century, as proof that the Australian native was at the lowest point of civilization, incapable of being raised mentally, morally or spiritually, is a proven lie - a lie spread for the purpose of glossing over the atrocities committed by our ‘Christian’ settlers upon the owners of the stolen land. A lie perpetrated for the purpose of salving the ‘home’ [British] conscience … (in Grimshaw 1998: 200. Additions in original)

Rees’ turning of the CWTU’s attention to the new social cause of indigenous rights, and her criticism of other Christians’ role in “nothing less than the breaking up

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of the tribal life of thousands of natives and worse still, the shattering of traditions and customs…we smashed their family life” (Grimshaw 1998: 199) indicates a primacy of faith (her use of quotation marks around Christian insultingly implies they are not acting according to their faith). Recent historical explorations of the role of Jewish women in the second wave of feminism have revealed another significant, if previously hidden, relationship between religion and feminism. Joyce Antler’s important work, Jewish radical feminism: voices from the women’s liberation movement (2018), excavated the stories of the Jewish women who were over-represented in the Second Wave of feminism and played pivotal roles, by such influential women as Shulamith Firestone and Adrienne Rich. It highlighted the various ways their Jewishness influenced their feminist work as well as the extent to which their feminist work influenced their religious lives, including the way ‘feminism served as a “portal” into Judaism for many women … encouraging them to probe their own religious tradition and confront its oppressive elements’ (Antler 2018: 381), and also the extent to which they shared their Jewish identity in their work in their feminist circles. Significantly, a number of the women connected their identities as activists with their identities as Jews, showing how the two spheres can facilitate each other, rather than necessarily operating in opposition. Antler’s work demonstrates, as do the accounts of Christian women in the first wave of feminism in Australia, how essential the participation of women with religious backgrounds and leanings were to the development of that wave’s achievements and character, and the role that the social justice aspect of their religious tradition played in facilitating their feminist work, or in the case of the Christian Women’s Temperance Union’s evolution, in correcting their feminist approach to be more inclusive (something that would not really become a serious concern for wider feminism until the third-wave) and own the mistakes of their past. At this stage of scholarly investigation, it appears that the first two waves are those that had the biggest engagement with, and were most greatly impacted by, religious women. This is perhaps understandable when we consider that the Western world in general is shifting away from its commitment to formal religion (discussed further below). That being said, religion, spirituality, and religious women still interacted with third-wave (and beyond) feminism. The third-wave of feminism began in the early 1990s, and was post-structuralist and post-colonialist in its approach (particularly as a response to the style of second wave feminism), with a focus on the intersection of gender with other forms of oppression, such as class, race, religion and disability (Aune 2011). Aune’s study into third wave British feminists found that feminists were “significantly less supportive of traditional religion and somewhat more supportive of alternative and non-institutional spiritualties” (2011: 46); however, one of the areas of distinction of third-wave feminism was the opening up of the territory for voices of women previously excluded by feminism, including religious women (and often women from non-Western religious backgrounds) who could expand the borders of feminist concern, and approaches to liberation, beyond that of white middle-class Western women. We now find ourselves in the fourth wave of feminism, and the exact character of that wave is still being deliberated, although the centrality of the internet is mostly agreed upon (Munro 2013; Cochrane 2013).

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The manner in, and extent to which religions and feminisms will intersect is still being considered, and this uncertainty offers space for firmer collaborations between religions and feminisms.

17.4 For Better or Worse Our counselling session of the struggling couple of Religion and Feminism and this chapter circles around a central question: what, if anything, does religion have to offer feminism? This question cannot, however, be understood unidirectionally. We must also consider: what, if anything, does feminism have to offer religion? I argue both have something profound to offer the other, but both sides require humility to concede this, something our squabbling couple have been loath to grant the other on the metaphorical therapist’s couch. I also postulate that the two share a common goal that, if they could put their differences and grievances aside, could form the basis of a fruitful partnership. In considering these hypotheses, we must be critical. This marriage will not be perfect. Some differences may be insurmountable. We cannot necessarily interpret our religions or sculpt our feminisms so strenuously to our own desires—force them so intently into shapes they do not fit—as to make them hollow. But there is the capacity for far more common ground than many doubters are prepared to concede, and the potential benefit may make the struggle worth the effort. That which feminism can offer religion has received more thorough consideration than the reverse. Particularly from the second wave of feminism onward, religious women concerned about sexism have utilised the feminist tool-kit and taken it to the patriarchal structures in their faith communities (Daly 1973; Schüssler Fiorenza 1984; Loades 1990; Wadud 1999; Barlas 2002; Plaskow 1990; Heschel 1983), well documenting their new interpretations and approaches, as well as the tensions and criticisms they have faced in their endeavours. That religious institutions, like so many social institutions dominated by men, are patriarchal and have significant impact on the lives of women and girls were determining factors in women wanting to engage them on feminist terms. Sometimes overlooked in these discussions about the problems with religion, however, is that religion and faith can also be very important to women, offering women (just as men) meaning, support, and structure. Thus, women were unwilling to be forced into a false dichotomy of either caring about gender equality, or maintaining their attachment to a faith that was sexist, believing that just as other aspects of society could be reformed or reconsidered from a feminist lens, so too could their religions. As one woman who had been working to end sexism in her church for many decades told me at one of my book events, “God is too important to cede to the patriarchy.” Feminism is a social movement that has always been a product of its times and environments. This innate responsiveness of feminism has been one of its strengths, as this is what gives us Obioma Nnaemeka’s Nego-feminism of Africa (2004) and the ‘gender training’ of Chinese feminism (Wang and Zhang 2010)—each suited to

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the specific needs of its context. Similarly, the timely nature of the various waves of feminism; feminism in each specific period was addressing some of the most pressing matters facing women at each era. However, being a function of each time and place also means feminism absorbs and expresses the less desirable aspects of its time, too. In our current context, this presents in specific ways. The fourth wave of today’s western feminism is incubating online, along with so many other modern social movements, meaning it is both product and creator of the worst (and also best) aspects of online culture. Modern western feminism has absorbed aspects of neoliberal consumerism, where feminism is commodified by big corporations. A perfect example of this was fashion label Dior, who sold a “We should all be feminists” white cotton t-shirt for a staggering US$710 (Lubitz 2017). And modern western feminism can be very individualistic, placing the self at the centre of any debate about sexism and empowerment. As acting therapist to our struggling couple, I posit all of these elements would benefit from the intervention religions have to offer. For all their vast variations, nearly all (if not all) recognised religions would provide important guidance and calls for personal responsibility in these areas. Such religious perspectives can bring an important balance to the narcissism and capitalist overtones of a movement that at its heart was and is meant to be about positive social change and equality for all. This is particularly apparent in Western societies where religion is playing a decreased social role. In Western societies such as Australia and the United States, where the number of people “who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid pace” (Pew 2012: np, see also ABS 2017), there are very few alternative places where people, including feminists, are regularly receiving guidance, encouragement, and admonishment about moral behavior. How often are people who do not attend church, the synagogue, mosque, or temple regularly reminded to actively cultivate their patience instead of getting angry, to be less selfish and more generous, to see their enemy kindly, to exercise restraint, to be suspicious of their own ego? Instead, feminists, like anyone who does not engage in a religious community and practice, are awash in a society that constantly encourages and rewards rage, narcissism, arrogance, and scorn. Precious little alternative is heard anywhere. Our politicians and media peddle in fear, sensationalism, one-up-manship, and selfishness. Even our celebrities are now called “influencers”, which begs the question: influencing what? A scroll through their Instagram feeds reveals little more than a performed lifestyle funded by sponsored posts. Calls to one’s better self—to listen instead of blame, to give the benefit of the doubt, to bite back cruel words even if they are deserved, to serve for no personal gain, to build bridges instead of burning them, to love the enemy, to welcome the stranger—in our modern world are almost entirely absent. And this effect of emptying out religious influence can be seen in other social justice issues and movements. One study in the U.S. found that the less Christians attended church, the more anti-immigrant they became (Knoll 2009). Civil rights activist Barbara Reynolds identified a similar consequence when comparing Black Lives Matter (BLM) with the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1960s:

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The 1960s movement … had an innate respectability because our leaders often were heads of the black church … Unfortunately, church and spirituality are not high priorities for Black Lives Matter, and the ethics of love, forgiveness and reconciliation that empowered black leaders such as King and Nelson Mandela in their successful quests to win over their oppressors are missing from this movement (Reynolds 2015: np).

Reynold’s compared BLM’s “confrontational and divisive tactics … hate speech, profanity [and] raw emotion” to the civil rights movement’s approach of “dignity and decorum, sometimes … kneeling in prayer during protests to make a clear distinction between who was evil and who was good” (Reynolds 2015: np). Reynolds is careful to point out the areas where BLM improves upon the civil rights movement, such as having women in leadership positions, giving focus to black queer and transgender people, and also that older activists can expect too much reverence from younger activists. However, people such as Rev. Andrew Young, an aide to Martin Luther King and former ambassador to the United Nations, reflected upon BLM to Reynolds, “In our movement, we were not only spiritual, we were thoughtful … we didn’t burn any businesses down. I don’t see that discipline here. We also trained people not to get angry because we knew our minds, not our emotions, were our most powerful weapons” (Reynolds 2015: np). This matters particularly in fields such as feminism, as this is not merely a Pollyanna-ish call for everyone to just play nicer, or for activists to cow-tow to their oppressors; in the social justice sphere, this internal work is vital. Encountering inequality as one does in feminism, particularly when it has been going on for a long time, often generates either rage or despondency in people. Both can be dangerous. In any social movement fighting oppression, it is easy to descend into rage at the widespread manifest injustice, especially when the oppressors refuse to concede their power or privilege. Rage leads to lashing out and to viewing non-supporters as “the enemy”, which can then justify any manner of behaviour. Despondency leads to people giving up on important work and no longer protecting those who may not be able to protect themselves. Incorporating religious perspectives will offer a framework and justification of hope for the dejected, calm perseverance for the angry, and a perspective that is larger than one’s own self and base emotions. Religion shows us how to confront injustice without losing our own humanity. Fighting any sort of oppression is difficult work. A religious framework offers nourishment, perspective, and accountability that is rarely insisted upon in other settings. What religion may offer feminism is good character. This is not popular. Popular in our online call-out age is belittling sarcasm and attacking others for perceived infringements, big or small. There may be a reluctance to value good character as it is seen as weakness that will prevent necessary hard work being done. In feminism’s fight, when the goal is ultimately about eradicating sexism, there is no clear reason for it not to use whatever method feels good. Thus, there is no argument against humiliating “the enemy” by an online blood-thirsty mob. While feminism very rarely descends into violence—although it has been argued that the British suffragettes were terrorists (Monaghan 2000)—it can be vitriolic, smug, and dehumanizing, and what would be the internal argument against doing so? Religion, particularly as a source of authority external to the mere desires of individuals, urges

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people to have inner discipline in our treatment of others, even our oppressors. It demands a certain standard of behaviour that is not contingent on one’s emotions but is based on external standards and accountability, and gives a reason for doing so. Thus, while revenge and personal attacks may feel good, it does not mean they are the right, or even most effective, thing to do. Such perspectives also encourage people to consider the effect not just on others, but on their inner selves, when acting in such a way. Elevating ourselves and others is difficult work, but religion shows us that it is necessary, and gives us the examples of those who’ve come before us and achieved it. This is a crucial response to the argument that fighting oppression requires an uncompromising ferocity in the way we treat the oppressor. Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela are modern examples, as Barbara Reynolds highlighted, while every major religion has stories of the great leaders and prophets of the faith facing incredible oppression and responding with resistance that was at once firm and disciplined, and often even compassionate to their enemies and oppressors. In Islam, for example, there is the story of the Prophet Muhammad, who after finally reclaiming Mecca after years of brutality, ignored the tribal practice of revenge and left all his former oppressors unharmed. Jesus’ dying words on the cross were words of compassion for the very individuals and systems that had betrayed and killed him. The prophet Elisha demonstrated non-violent restraint (and even ordered a feast) for the Arameans in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, despite having the opportunity (twice) to have them all killed. Beyond mere platitudes, these great leaders of their respective faith lived out a model of almost radical grace to their enemies and oppressors, and this behavior can inspire people facing down oppression to this day. Perhaps the most important and contested term we have not defined is “sexism”. And it is in the debate around this term that we can introduce some ameliorative scrutiny to our poor warring couple’s quarreling. Because when it is argued that a practice within a religious community is sexist, we are not offering a clear-cut argument. Who decides what is sexist or problematic for women? Is any gendered treatment or separation of women from men sexist? Take, for example, an orthodox synagogue, where the women sit separately to the men. Is that more or less sexist than a “women’s room” (a woman-only space run by a left-leaning student feminist collective at a university) or a franchised woman-only gym in suburban Melbourne? Why, and who decides? Is it sexist or anti-feminist for an Indigenous Australian woman to not be permitted access to a male-only sacred ceremony? What about if she attends and even leads an equivalent female-only sacred ceremony that men were not permitted to attend (Bell 2005)? A non-Muslim may view the hijab as oppressive and sexist, but a Muslim woman in Sydney wearing it may say it is her choice and a determined act against a ubiquitous male gaze that sexualises and commodifies women’s bodies at every turn. Who may adjudicate on which is the more feminist act, and why? In these situations, and the many more like it, there may be no one correct answer, no inherently right way of viewing the circumstances. And this is at the heart of much of the tension between feminism and religion: sexism, liberation, and equality are not objective terms. Many of our Western ideas of liberation are tied to the individual as

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the most important member of society, which confronts problems when encountering collectivist societies or traditions, where the family or community is paramount. Is liberation the capacity to pursue whatever goals one wants, regardless of what others want? Or is that just selfish and hedonistic? It is through these issues that we begin to observe another offering religion has to a feminism that is rooted in a modern, neo-liberal, Western context—that of forcing it to confront the subjectivity of a viewpoint it assumes to be universal by offering alternative frames of reference for human liberation based in something beyond a time-contingent understanding of equality and freedom. As we have entered the third and fourth waves of feminism, some of the most important changes these waves have made to feminism compared to the first two waves is cracking open its borders and perspectives to consider other women’s experiences. Often, these have still required women to conceptualise freedom, equality, and sexism similarly to the modern Western interpretation, while allowing for different ways to tackle the problems. Religions, which often frame liberation differently to the secular Western understanding, can offer an important expansion of the way feminism frames its most fundamental concepts, which, if considered, can in turn lead to a more in-depth grappling with the nature of freedom (and how best to achieve it) for all.

17.5 From This Day Forward, as Long as We Both Shall Live Obscured by the mutual mistrust and disrespect that often permeates religious communities and feminists is that at the heart of all religions, and of feminism, is at least one congruent core principle, and it is a commitment to this unifying idea that may provide the greatest scope for mutual understanding and benefit. It is a commitment to justice. A pursuit of justice amongst people (and often also all living creatures) in this life and often the next, is paramount to all religions. Feminism is a quest for gender justice, and the work of feminism is to remove gender inequality. This joint commitment to justice may be a site of common ground for feminists and people of faith. This is perhaps most evident in the work of religious women who identify as feminists, a group of women whose existence highlights the ridiculousness of the feminist versus religious person dichotomy. Often, these women will say their pursuit of gender justice is motivated by their religious commitment; that creating social justice and eliminating any oppression (even religiously-justified patriarchy), often in the footsteps of the great leaders, prophets, and founders of their faith, is an obligation of their faith (Bessey 2013; Carland 2017). Their striving is not in spite of nor a rejection of their beliefs, but a continuation of them. If such people can locate this core of justice, a core that matters to the most anti-feminist of religious people

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and the most anti-religious of feminists, this could be the bridge that might make it possible to unite. Focusing on this common cause requires good will from both sides, and an acceptance that working together in this area does not mean that all other disagreements have been obliterated. It will require a certain resignation to specific topics that may never be reconciled, even in the area of women’s rights (such as abortion), so that both can work pragmatically together for the overall goal in which they both believe: ending injustice against women in areas in which they can agree, such as girl’s education or domestic violence. There will of course be people within every religious community that resist, just as there will be some feminists who refuse to work with religious groups—both citing irreconcilable differences. But there will be many who are prepared to work together in the area of gender justice, particularly if they feel people from the other side are viewing them respectfully and with a genuine spirit of collaboration. Individual differences between specific religions and the way they may conflict with feminism cannot be ironed out here. Nor can the differing ways feminism may align itself more naturally with some particular religious teachings or overarching themes than those within different faiths, or conversely have greater conflict with some teachings or traditions. Is it easier, for example, for feminism to cooperate with a religion that has a genderless deity as opposed to one that is explicitly male? Or a religion that has no deity, or a female deity or deities? These details are by no means irrelevant. However, feminism’s modern reach and women’s general interest in pushing back against sexism for thousands of years, long before “feminism” was ever a formulated concept, means that the different ways feminism and the work of gender justice have been conceptualised within specific religions has long been considered and can easily be drawn on by interested parties. These are not new concerns. Back in our therapist’s room, the minute hand on the clock is rapidly approaching 12, indicating the end of the session. So, can religion and feminism have a functional marriage? If they want to. There is enough common ground for people from all sides who have good will to come together and work together. The question is whether sufficient good will exists. Like a bitter married couple, the many years of pain inflicted by each side may have, and evidently in some cases certainly have, caused irreparable harm. Some on each side view the other as the antithesis of what they stand for; religion is intrinsically misogynist. Feminism is, by definition, anti-God or anti-faith. These myopic attitudes need to be restrained. Importantly, as in marriage counselling, both sides need to value what they can gain from the other. What feminism offers religion has been on offer for decades— this needs to be more widely considered. What religion offers feminism is rarely contemplated. This must be first acknowledged, and then also humbly and thoughtfully reviewed. No movement can consider itself above reproach, even if it may not feel particularly warmly towards the messenger. Feminism, like other social movements, would benefit from the moral discipline and perspective religion encourages. Feminism would also benefit from a more thorough interrogation of liberation and

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equality, facilitated by the alternative perspectives religions offer. Feminism considering these moral and intellectual challenges would, I argue, deepen and strengthen the movement. And both religion and feminism pragmatically embracing the areas in which they can work together, with a firm memory of the many times they have done so before, may just be the approach that benefits many. This may be the way to revive the marriage of faith and feminism.

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Gross RM (1996) Feminism and Religion: an introduction. Beacon Press, Massachusetts Heschel S (1983) On being a Jewish feminist. Schocken Books, New York Hirsch M, Keller EF (1990) Conflicts in feminism. Routledge, New York Knoll B (2009) “And who is my neighbor?” Religion and immigration policy attitudes. J Sci Study Relig 48(2):313–331 Lee M (1890) Letter to Women. South Australian Register 14 April, p. 5 Loades A (ed) (1990) Feminist theology: a reader. Westminster John Knox Press, London Lubitz R (2017) Dior is selling a cotton “We should all be feminists” t-shirt. It’s $710., Mic, 16 March Maumoon D (1999) Islamism and gender activism: Muslim women’s quest for autonomy. J Muslim Minor Aff 19(2):269–283 Margarey S (2001) Passions of the first wave feminists. UNSW Press, Sydney Monaghan R (2000) Single-issue terrorism: a neglected phenomenon. Stud Confl Terror 23(4):255– 265 Monteverde G (2016) Kardashian complicity: performing post-feminist beauty. Crit Stud Fash Beauty 7(2):153–172 Munro E (2013) Feminism: a fourth wave? Polit Insight 4(2):22–25 Nnaemeka O (2004) Nego-feminism: theorizing, practicing, and pruning Africa’s way. Signs 29(2):357–385 Page R (1990) Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s “The women’s bible”. In: Loades A (ed) Feminist theology: a reader. Westminster John Knox Press, London Pew (2012) “Nones” on the rise, 9 October. http://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-therise/ Plaskow J (1990) Standing again at Sinai: Judaism from a feminist perspective. Harper & Row, San Francisco Reynolds B (2015) I was a civil rights activist in the 1960s. But it’s hard for me to get behind Black Lives Matter, Washington Post, August 24. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/ wp/2015/08/24/i-was-a-civil-rights-activist-in-the-1960s-but-its-hard-for-me-to-get-behindblack-lives-matter/?utm_term=.c372d836c748 Rivers N (2017) Postfeminism(s) and the arrival of the fourth wave: turning tides. Palgrave Macmillan, Switzerland Russell L (ed) (1985) Feminist interpretation of the Bible. Westminster Press, Pennsylvania Schüssler Fiorenza E (1984) Bread not stones. Beacon Press, Boston Sharma A, Young K (eds) (1999) Feminism and world religions. State University of New York, Albany Singleton A (2014) Religion, culture and society: a global approach. Sage, London Smith C, Attwood F (2014) Anti/pro/critical porn studies. Porn Stud 1(1–2):7–23 Snyder-Hall RC (2010) Third-wave feminism and the defense of “choice”. Perspect Polit 8(1):255– 261 Wadud A (1999) Qur’an and Woman: rereading the sacred text from a woman’s perspective. Oxford University Press, Kuala Lumpur Wang Z, Zhang Y (2010) Global concepts, local practices: Chinese feminism since the fourth UN Conference on Women. Fem Stud 36(1):40–70 Woodlock R (2013) “Doesn’t religion oppress women?” In: Caro J, Lowenstein A, Smart S & Woodlcok R (eds) For God’s Sake: an Atheist, a Jew, a Christian & a Muslim debate religion, Macmillan: Sydney Yinger JM (1970) The scientific study of religion. Macmillan, London

Chapter 18

The Right Thing to Do: Australian Religion and the 2017 Same-Sex Marriage Debate Andrew Dutney

Abstract The normalisation of LGBTIQ+ identity, including same-sex marriage, has become part of neoliberal orthodoxy. This cultural development is a problem for religions that have a heteronormative worldview and their relationship to the host society. The 2017 same-sex marriage debate included the participation of a wide range of Australian religious bodies, providing a rare opportunity to survey the place of religion in Australian society today. It showed that the religious order in Australia has been transformed since the 1970s, when the process of decriminalising homosexuality began. It demonstrated that Australian religion is now a flourishing diversity of increasingly sectarian minority faiths and beliefs. Religious voices continue to make an important contribution to the public conversation on social policy and ethics. However, the re-shaping of Australian religion complicates their participation. Those who interpret and respond to the public conversation need to be intentionally attentive to the whole range of religious voices, not just the loudest ones.

18.1 Introduction The normalisation of LGBTIQ+ identity, including making provision for same-sex marriage, has become a marker of the transition of neoliberal societies from the twentieth to the twenty-first century. The Netherlands was the first country to permit same-sex couples to marry legally, in 2001. By mid-2018, twenty-seven countries had legalized same-sex marriage (Tang 2018). Nineteen of these are members of the thirty-five member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the ‘quintessential Western international organization’ that has promoted and resourced neoliberal economic policy since the 1980s (Hankewitz 2018; Leimgruber and Schmeizer 2017: 42). For several decades the OECD has leveraged its economic authority to speak into broader areas of social policy such as education or the environment (Leimgruber and Schmeizer 2017: 41–43). Accordingly, in 2014 the A. Dutney (B) Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Babie and R. Sarre (eds.), Religion Matters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_18

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OECD initiated an Action Plan to ‘review…the evidence on socio-economic participation of LGBTI’, identify ‘disparities across countries’ and isolate ‘discrimination in various areas of life such as labour, housing, education, health and public policies’ (OECD 2017; Valfort 2017). The existence of this OECD Action Plan reflects the way the normalisation of LGBTIQ+ identity has become part of neoliberal orthodoxy. Its terms of reference indicate that the normalisation of LGBTIQ+ identity as a ‘symbolic boundary’ has already begun to take on the character of a ‘social boundary’ for twenty-first century neoliberal societies and jurisdictions (Lamont 2002: 168–169). This is a surprising observation, given the relationship between neoliberalism and neo-conservatism—especially in the USA. However, the contradictions inherent in the neoliberal/neo-conservative alliance are already well known—the one championing privatisation and small government, the other on a crusade to shore up ‘traditional values’ legislatively (Brown 2006; Davis 2014). Furthermore, in the Australian context, the ‘origin story’ of neoliberalism gives prominence to the role of the left and the labour movement (Humphrys 2019). Through the lens of neoliberalism, the normalisation of LGBTIQ+ identity is not a ‘progressive’ project so much as another instance of privatisation, this time in the sphere of sexuality and family formation. Provided no one is being hurt, the state has no role in such matters beyond making provision for the registration of marriages and the necessary infrastructure of property and family law. It is certainly not the place of government to impose a particular moral or religious framework on the options available to private citizens. Nonetheless, the project is an intriguing turn in neoliberalism. While political scientists may be troubled by the normalisation of LGBTIQ+ identity for their own reasons, the Abrahamic religions have a serious problem with this cultural development. The sacred texts of these religions understand the human condition as exhaustively heterosexual, not leaving any room for any kind of ‘natural’ same-sex attraction. Judaism, Christianity and Islam traditionally regard same-sex attraction as disordered, and sexual relationships between people of the same sex as sinful (Loader 2012: 22–33, 293–338). Certainly, many mainline Protestant and some Jewish denominations in Britain, Europe and North America have affirmed the normalisation of LGBTIQ+ identity, including same-sex marriage. But many others and almost all Muslim, Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical and Pentecostal bodies remain steadfastly opposed. After a century of extraordinary progress in ecumenical and interfaith relationships, it has become the most divisive issue between and within religious bodies (Kirby et al. 2017). In a relatively short period, Australia has worked through its own process of normalising LGBTIQ+ identity including, after sustained public debate, legalising same-sex marriage. The first Australian state to decriminalise homosexuality was South Australia, in 1975, and the last was Tasmania, in 1997. While decriminalisation reflected the beginning of a shift in attitudes, it would be an exaggeration to interpret it as a signal of social acceptance, let alone the normalisation of LGBTIQ+ identity. As late as 2004, a Newspoll survey found only 38% of respondents supported samesex marriage while 44% were opposed and 18% were undecided (Reed 2014). But in 2017, after years of public debate and an abdication of leadership from the main political parties and the parliament, the government controversially commissioned

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the Australian Bureau of Statistics to conduct a non-compulsory opinion survey (Carson et al. 2018; Triggs 2018: 224–243). The Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey gave everyone on the electoral roll the opportunity to answer the question, “Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?” Of the 79.5% of eligible voters who responded, 61.6% indicated ‘Yes’ and 38.4% indicated ‘No’ (ABS 2017a). The shift in social attitudes in support of the normalisation of LGBTIQ+ identity, including same-sex marriage, was confirmed only twenty years after the last Australian state decriminalised homosexuality. Yielding to the survey result, the parliament amended the Marriage Act to allow same-sex marriage in November 2017. Australia, having tripped over its own political feet, had fallen back into step with the Western democracies to which it is normally compared.

18.2 The Right Thing to Do That this was a process of ‘normalisation’, of following ‘common sense’, was evident in a television advertisement for the Equality Campaign (VoteYes 2017). It involved individuals and groups striding purposefully along suburban streets, each delivering one line to camera. In the final areal shot the individuals and groups were shown to be all converging on a letter box, delivering their completed Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey forms. Each of their spoken lines encapsulated a recognisable moral value—the kind of common sense commitment that everyone can acknowledge, even if it might be hard to agree on what it means in a specific situation. Some were drawn from the canon of ‘Australian values’: A young worker in hard hat and high-viz jacket says, ‘It’s about a fair go’. A woman in a small group says, ‘Everyone should be treated equally’. A young man in a group of rugby players says, ‘Same rules for everyone’. A man in a group of young people says, ‘It’s about everyone having the same choices’. Others expressed ‘family values’: A young woman says, ‘I’m doing it for my brother’. A middle-aged woman walking with a young man and another man more her age says, ‘We’re doing it for our son’. A young woman walking with another young woman represents the value of ‘friendship’, saying, ‘I’m doing it for her’. Then an elderly couple, a man and a woman, connect all these values to the issue at hand when he says, ‘Everyone should be able to marry the person they love.’ Finally, a striding clergyman concludes the case for a Yes vote, saying, ‘I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do.’ After the final voice over encouraging viewers to ‘Commit now to voting Yes’, the campaign logo and website, there is one last line to deliver. Ian Thorpe AM, Australian Olympic swimming legend, former Young Australian of the Year, and gay man, stands alone at the letter box saying simply, ‘Let’s get it done’. The moral case having been made, the power of celebrity is deployed to reassuringly encourage viewers. It’s obvious. It’s common sense. It’s about getting to ‘normal’. The aspect of this very successful advertising campaign that interests me here is the deployment of religion. In times past the Christian churches, represented by their clergy, were expected to provide moral guidance and adjudication to the Australian

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community. While those days are long gone, caricatures of the clergy remain in the Australian cultural memory—immediately recognisable when they are included in comedy sketches, detective novels, or television advertisements. Some are not complimentary: the Fuddy-Duddy, the Hypocrite, or the Sexual Predator. But some are regarded with affection and trust: the Honest Broker, the Understanding Confidant, or the Wise Guide. The clergyman in the ‘Let’s get it done’ advertisement is a version of this second kind of caricature, carefully deployed to deliver his line convincingly: If you take all of these shared values of ours and apply them to the question on the Survey, voting Yes is simply ‘the right thing to do’. This was by no means the sole deployment of religion in the debate around the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey. The campaign leading up to the vote was one of the rare occasions on which religious bodies spoke directly to the Australia community on a matter of social ethics. Most, but not all, were Christian bodies and most, but not all, urged a ‘No’ vote. In this way, the process leading to the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Australia threw a light on key features of Australian religion. It became clear that in the same period during which Australian social attitudes towards LGBTIQ+ identity were being transformed, between the late 1960s and the twenty-first century, religion in Australia was also being fundamentally reshaped. Before examining the ways in which religious bodies engaged in the public conversation on same-sex marriage in 2017, I will offer a brief account of religion in Australia today.

18.3 Religion in Australia Australian religion is now a flourishing diversity of minority faiths and denominations. While a little more than half of all Australians identify as Christian, they report affiliation to one of more than ninety Christian denominations, not including the growing number that describe themselves simply as ‘Christian’. At the same time, almost as many Australians identify with another religion or none. At the last census, in 2016, 8% of Australians identified with a religion other than Christianity, the largest being Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism. Although this is a relatively small percentage of the population, it does indicate that these religions are now present in the society in numbers comparable to the smaller Christian denominations. The Muslim and Buddhist communities are now both larger than the Presbyterian or the Eastern Orthodox churches. There are more Hindus than Baptists or Lutherans, and more Sikhs and more Jews than there are Jehovah’s Witnesses or Seventh-day Adventists (ABS 2017a). In addition, over 30% of Australians chose to indicate No Religion on their census return, making it the largest Australian ‘religious’ category for the first time. Only a tiny minority in this group (less than 2%) chose to identify with an alternative to religion, e.g. Atheist, Agnostic, Humanist, or Spiritual. The vast majority of those indicating No Religion (more than 98%) left no clues as to their motives. The question about religion was the only optional question on the census. Fewer than 10% of respondents declined to answer. The overwhelming

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majority chose to answer it. This suggests that Australians continue to be engaged with questions of religious identity—even those who do not have one (ABS 2017b; Bouma 2017). This picture of a flourishing diversity of minority religions is in striking contrast to religion in Australia before the 1970s. Until that time, Australians generally identified as Christian (86%) and just over half of the population identified with one or other of the British Protestant denominations—mostly Anglican, Methodist or Presbyterian, with smaller numbers of, e.g., Baptists, Congregationalists, Brethren or Churches of Christ. At that time a quarter of the population was Catholic (CBCS 1971). A similar proportion of Australians identify as Catholic today, but rather than the largely Irish community they once were, different patterns of migration have resulted in Australian Catholics becoming a highly multicultural community. However, while the Catholic community has continued to grow and diversify culturally with the Australian population as a whole, the British Protestant denominations have been in steady decline—from 51% of Australians in 1971 to 22% in 2016. At that time Pentecostals were too small a group to be counted, whereas it emerged in the 2016 census that Pentecostals are now the third largest Christian group in Australia, equal with the Uniting Church (Bouma and Halafoff 2017: 132).1 The sociologist Gary Bouma has explored the significance of this profound change in the nature of Australian religion between the 1970s and the twenty-first century in a series of important studies (Bouma 2006, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2017; Bouma and Halafoff 2017). Three of Bouma’s conclusions are particularly relevant to this essay. The first is that British Protestantism has lost the Australian middle class. Until the 1970s, being Protestant had been integral to gaining the social capital necessary to succeed in politics, the professions or business. Those who aspired to or had succeeded in those areas sat in the pews and on the committees of Protestant congregations. They participated in serious discussions organised within the life of Protestant congregations on a wide range of questions of social ethics and public policy, forming the minds of society’s leaders. Now, if those community leaders are religious at all, they are ‘more likely to be Catholic, or Pentecostal, or Muslim, or…’ (Bouma 2013: 45). The informal processes by which Protestantism participated in and influenced Australian culture and social policy no longer operate. These denominations now have to compete with other minority faiths and denominations for a place in the public conversation. The second of Bouma’s conclusions is that the cultural and religious diversity which is such a striking feature of contemporary Australia exists not only between faiths and denominations but within them as well. This is particularly true of the larger, less-sectarian Christian denominations such as the Catholic, Anglican and Uniting churches which sit along a porous boundary between the church and Australian society. These are affected by the trend towards valuing diversity in the dominant Australian culture, as well as the increasingly multicultural character of these

1 The

Uniting Church in Australia was formed in 1977 by the union of the large Methodist and Presbyterian churches together with the smaller congregational church.

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denominations through migration—especially from the Majority World.2 Even the Catholic Church recognises the distance between the highly diverse pastoral realities of its Australian parishes and the clarity of its defined liturgical, doctrinal and moral positions. Whereas these denominations could once be regarded as ‘blocks of internal consistency’ they have become much looser associations possessed of ‘a diversity of views on virtually any topic’—from liturgy and theology to ethics and the public good, and ranging from deeply conservative to outlandishly ‘progressive’ (Bouma 2013: 45). This is far less true of the smaller, more sectarian, ‘vigorous’ faiths and denominations such as Islam, Pentecostalism or the Orthodox whose social boundaries tend to embrace uncontested clarity on most key questions. The third of Bouma’s conclusions relevant to this essay is that smaller, more sectarian, vigorous faiths and denominations have become important participants in public policy conversations—at the expense of the declining and remnant denominations that once had a central place in the settled religious order of the 1950s and 1960s, specifically British Protestantism. These are now the voices that the media seek out and which have organised coalitions of interest to lobby government and influence public opinion. Further, the values and aspirations of these emergent Australian faiths and denominations tend to be more conservative than the mainstream of society, whereas those of British Protestantism were, and are, effectively the same as the Australian middle class. The latter do not stand out or even add much in the public conversation, unlike those of the more conservative or sectarian faiths and denominations. Irrespective of the broadly liberal leanings of the larger Protestant denominations, the public face of Australian religion is increasingly counter-cultural or sectarian. This picture of religion in Australia seems to be confirmed in a major new study of ‘Religious Attitudes Towards LGBTIQ+ Issues’ in Australia that used data from the longitudinal Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey (HILDA 2019; Perales et al. 2019). In five waves of the annual survey of the same respondents, between 2005 and 2015, participants were asked to respond to the statement, ‘Homosexual couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples do.’ The study found that ‘as attendance at religious services becomes more frequent, the predicted probability of support of equal rights for same-sex couples decreases’ (Perales et al. 2019: 119). However, the study found significant diversity both between and within religious groups. Compared to the survey population as a whole, Muslims showed very low levels of support for equal rights for same-sex couples, Hindus showed mid-range levels of support, and Buddhists and Jews showed very high levels of support. Catholics reported support for equal rights for same-sex couples at exactly the same level as the survey population as a whole, in spite of consistent teaching and strong campaigning by the Catholic Church against that view. Anglicans showed slightly lower levels of support, and Uniting Church respondents lower levels again, 2 The

term ‘Majority World’ is now generally preferred over the less accurate alternatives such as ‘Global South’, ‘Developing World’ or ‘Third World’ to refer collectively to the peoples of Africa, Asia, Central and South America and the Pacific.

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but still in the mid-range. The lowest levels of support among Christian respondents were from Pentecostals, Evangelicals, the Brethren and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Only among Brethren and Jehovah’s Witnesses respondents was there no detectable level of support for equal rights for same-sex couples. Even among the Muslims and Pentecostals there were at least small numbers of supporters, and among the largest religious groups, Catholic, Anglican and Uniting churches, support was broadly comparable to the survey population as a whole. Nonetheless, the association between religiosity and low levels of support for equality for same-sex couples was genuine. The study also found that this association has strengthened over the first decades of the twenty-first century. In that period the view of the general survey population liberalised significantly—from 40% support in 2005 to 66% in 2015. Religious views did not liberalise at the same rate. The researchers predicted that ‘Australians who remain highly active in religion will progressively hold more countercultural views— a “sectarianization” of religion in Australia’ (Perales et al. 2019: 125). They observed that while religious voices have always participated in the public conversation in Australia, ‘the “tone” of religious arguments in the public realm is shifting to more sectarian and counter-cultural themes’ (Perales et al. 2019: 114).

18.4 The ‘Legalisation of Sin’ Many religious groups participated in the public discussion leading up to the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey. Most of these were campaigning for a ‘No’ vote. The explanations they offered for advocating a ‘No’ vote varied. For some of these participants—such as the Greek Orthodox Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Lutheran Church, the Chinese Methodist Church, and the Australian National Imams Council—it was sufficient to point out simply that their religious tradition had always regarded marriage as an exclusively heterosexual relationship. On that basis alone they would be encouraging their communities to vote No. Others, such as the Victorian Board of Imams and the Christian evangelical Hillsong Church, added reference to their faith’s traditional condemnation of homosexual relationships. As the Serbian Orthodox statement put it, ‘What is proposed is the legalisation of sin’. Some churches, such as the Lutheran Church and the Salvation Army, accepted the fact of same-sex relationships and the state’s authority to provide for same-sex unions, but did not agree that these unions could be ‘marriages’ (Delbridge 2017; Loussikian 2017). One Orthodox rabbi, Moshe Gutnick, took this tacit acceptance of the normalisation of LGBTIQ+ identity in Australian society further, while still advocating a No vote. Rabbi Gutnick identified ‘a fundamental principle of my faith, and the Judeo-Christian ethic, is that all human beings are created equal in the image of God and therefore, have unalienable rights’. For this reason, he said, ‘I would always fight for LGBTQI rights.’ However, he explained, it is also ‘a fundamental principle of Judaism, Christianity and Islam that the (same) one God revealed his will to mankind’, including that ‘there is only one form of marriage’, namely, ‘between a man and a woman’ (Gutnick 2017).

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Jewish and Muslim public contributions to the No campaign frequently referred to the fact that their understanding of marriage as an exclusively heterosexual relationship was a view that they held in common with each other and with Christians. Sometimes they noted that this view was founded on each of their scriptures (Gutnick 2017; Karp 2017). In this religious moment in the public discussion of marriage it seemed strategic for the smaller religions to connect their contribution to the dominant Christian voice. However, Christian statements did not return the courtesy or, rather, did not see a multi-faith stance as assisting their cause, particularly among their own members. A spokesman for the Islamic Council of Queensland, Ali Kadri, said that Imams and Muslim community leaders were generally staying out of the public debate. Conservative leaders, he said, ‘are afraid to express their concerns because they’re worried they’ll be labelled as extremists or terrorists’ (Karp 2017). On another occasion he said, ‘We are afraid if we come out with our opinion then the left may abandon us for going against their view and we can’t be friendly with the conservatives because they have been bashing us for 15, 20 years every chance they get … and that includes some Christian sects as well’ (Baird 2017). In a revealing aside while campaigning for a No vote, Keysar Trad, the former president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, expressed frustration at the impossibility of successfully campaigning for ‘Islamic marriage equality’, that is, the legal recognition of polygamous marriages as permitted in Islam. ‘Muslims, we have learnt to stop lobbying for anything’, he said (Johnson 2017). However, the negative view of Islam held by conservative Christians and the Muslim sense of disadvantage was muted during the campaign, primarily because Christian participants dominated the space. For both Yes and No campaigners, the multi-faith dimension of the debate was awkward. All the religious contributions to the public discussion mentioned so far had the character of speaking about, or to, their own religious communities. For this reason, they were relatively rich with theological terms and concepts. They referred to God, Scripture, God’s law, the Word of God, or creation. Several mentioned the concept of two people becoming ‘one flesh’ in marriage. The Lutheran statement deployed its distinctive doctrine of the ‘orders of creation’ (Delbridge 2017). The Presbyterian statement prefaced its unequivocal endorsement of a No vote with the Presbyterian essential, ‘Without binding consciences’ (PCA 2017). These contributions had a pastoral purpose in relation to the communities they represented, to use the public media to reassure their members that their leaders are actively representing their interests, and to remind or clarify for members what their tradition teaches. This was done with more frequency, in more detail and with less circumspection in meetings in their own churches, mosques or synagogues. These public statements also had a political purpose in signalling the presence and distinctiveness of these communities within Australian society. It is as if they were saying: We’re here and, whatever the majority decides in the end, we have a point of view which is deeply held and essential to our religion. Our right to hold that point of view, practise it and teach it to our children should be acknowledged and protected. However, the religious contributions to the public discussion mentioned so far did not have the intention or expectation of persuading the wider public to adopt an

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understanding of marriage held by a religious community that they did not belong to. In this respect they displayed cognisance of their minority status. They did not seek public agreement with their view and practice. They appealed for toleration. They adopted, in sociological terms, a sectarian posture.

18.5 ‘It’s OK to Vote No’ The loudest voice in the ‘No’ campaign was provided by an organisation called the Coalition for Marriage. It was a coalition championed by the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL), the Marriage Alliance, the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, and the Anglican Archdiocese of Sydney. Although it presented itself as an umbrella association for all No-voters (of any faith or none), the Coalition for Marriage was comprised entirely of Christian organisations and denominations. The partner organisations maintained their own campaigns for a No vote with their constituents and other networks while the Coalition led a different kind of public advertising campaign. Part of the new ‘common sense’ about same-sex unions is that they are benign with respect to partners, any children they are parenting, and society. Their unions are an utterly private matter, hurting no one. The No campaign focussed on contradicting this consensus. First, they argued that same-sex marriage is a threat to children’s psychological health by relativising gender identity, and a threat to parents’ ability to raise their children in a way that reflects traditional values. The Coalition for Marriage television advertisements argued that the change in marriage law would require changes to curriculum and policies in schools to reflect the normalisation of LGBTIQ+ identity, formally displacing heteronormativity. They asserted that ‘gay marriage equals gay sex-education’, that ‘removing gender from marriage means removing gender from classrooms’, and that, in particular, ‘parents will have no right to opt out’ of this intrusion into the formation of their children (ACL 2017a; C4M 2017). Secondly, they argued that if same-sex marriage is legalised, ‘freedom of speech and freedom of religion will be impacted in profound and far reaching ways.’ People will lose their right to dissent from the cultural shift towards the normalisation of LGBTIQ+ identity, they alleged. These arguments were accompanied by complaints from the No lobby about the intolerance of the marriage equality proponents. ‘They call defenders of marriage bigots, homophobes and child abusers, heretics who must be driven out of the public square, along with their deplorable religion’ (Devine 2017). This complaint then expressed itself in the prediction that those upholding a traditional view of marriage would be disenfranchised and persecuted should the definition of marriage be changed. The Marriage Alliance reported: In countries where same-sex marriage was debated and ultimately legalised, individuals have been fined, fired, denied business or employment, forced to resign and even prosecuted for not cooperating with the new definition of marriage. (TMA 2017: 59)

The statement was supported by references to specific cases. The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference booklet expressed the same concern:

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…people who adhere to the perennial and natural definition of marriage will be characterised as old-fashioned, even bigots, who must answer to social disapproval and the law… freedom of conscience, belief and worship will be curtailed in important ways. (ACBC 2015: 12)

Thirdly, materials distributed by Coalition for Marriage partner organisations argued that society, as a whole, is threatened by same-sex marriage. Marriage can only serve as the foundation of society if it is an exclusively heterosexual relationship. To begin with, they said, heterosexual marriage is the natural vehicle for procreation and the best environment for raising children. But, further, marriage is not merely an emotional tie, as the ‘love is love’ slogan of the marriage equality proponents suggests. Marriage is …about connecting the values and people in our lives which otherwise have a tendency to get fragmented: sex and love, male and female, sex and babies, parents and children… It involves a substantial bodily and spiritual union. (ACBC 2015: 6)

Moreover, they alleged, if that is lost by legalising same-sex marriage, there will be a general destabilising effect on families and society. ‘Redefining marriage has consequences for everyone’ (ACBC 2015, 14). Fourthly, they argued that, contrary to the ‘common sense’ view, social-scientific research shows that children ‘fare better on objective measures when raised by their biological parents’. It also shows that they ‘perform less well when raised by same-sex parents, or in any other family structure’. And lists of peer-reviewed studies supporting that claim and critiquing the studies that supported the contrary view were provided (ACBC 2015; ACL 2017b). In contrast to the public contributions of religious bodies described earlier, the arguments mounted by the Coalition for Marriage did not deploy religious motifs. Rather, the arguments were framed to appeal to non-religious Australians, using the kind of data and reasoning that could count as ‘evidence’ in public debate. So the campaign challenged ‘the science’ but not science itself. Instead, it deployed credible ideas but overlooked any science that contradicted the evidence supporting the normalisation of LGBTIQ+ identity. They were trying to show that, contrary to most reports, the science is not yet ‘in’ on this major exercise in social and cultural engineering. In terms of strategy, all they needed to argue was that it is plausible that legalising same-sex marriage may have unintended adverse consequences. Thus they adopted the very modest slogan, ‘It’s OK to Vote No’, hoping to hold onto or recover the late-adopters of this cultural change. Their primary, unstated, reasons for rejecting same-sex marriage were based on the authority of the Bible and Christian tradition, but their public arguments in favour of a No vote relied on what they argued was agreed authority. This approach to the public debate on same-sex marriage reflected the nature of the lead organisations in the Coalition for Marriage. The ACL is a conservative Christian organisation modelled on Christian ‘right’ lobby groups in the USA. The Marriage Alliance was a Sydney-based lobby group that had long been advocating for the retention of the legal definition of marriage as an exclusively heterosexual relationship. Its key supporters were the ACL, the Anglican and Catholic Archdioceses of Sydney, the Pentecostal denomination Australian Christian Churches, and the conservative

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parachurch organisation Family Voice Australia. Rebranded as ‘Binary Australia’ in 2018, after the vote was lost, it is now dedicated ‘to challenge the aggressive agenda to de-gender our society in the areas of education, health, military, business, politics and the law’ (Binary 2018). Beyond their well-known conservatism, the Anglican and Catholic Archdioceses embodied theological traditions in which it is expected that there should be congruence between the institutions and practices of the state and the will of God, and in which it is a ministry of the church to encourage that. The ACL and the Marriage Alliance were formed out of a similar conviction, although it is based upon a different theological vision (Maddox 2014: 13–28). Especially when working together as the Coalition for Marriage, these Christian groups display a theocratic orientation that is different to the more classical ‘sectarian’ posture adopted in the public statements of the religious bodies discussed above. But they remain ‘sectarian’ in the sense that they are fundamentally at odds with the dominant culture, and that toleration of their minority position is still a critical goal of their lobbying. However, ultimately, they are committed to influencing the state to adopt policies that are closer to conformity with the will of God in matters that, under neoliberalism, have been privatised.

18.6 Getting to Yes There were also many religious groups and religious leaders offering public support to the Yes campaign. This is not surprising, since polls were finding that a majority of Australian Christians, including a substantial majority of Australian Catholics, supported the legalisation of same-sex marriage (Hutchins 2017; White 2017). The striding clergyman in the Equality Campaign’s advertisement was not an actor. He was one of many members of the clergy who would gladly offer their support to the campaign. This support for a Yes vote had a multi-faith profile. It included the Australian Council of Hindu Clergy, Buddhism Australia, Muslims for Progressive Values, Muslims for Marriage Equality, the Rabbinic Council of the Union for Progressive Judaism, the Quakers, Australian Christians for Marriage Equality, and Australian Catholics for Equality (ACE 2017; Baird 2017; Barber 2017; Karp 2017). Their participation in the public debate was intended to send a number of relatively simple messages to the general public. It was a signal to the wider society that being religious does not automatically mean being opposed to the social movement to normalise LGBTIQ+ identity. It signalled that the ACL did not speak for all Christians and neither did the National Imams’ Council speak for all Muslims (Baird 2017; Knaus 2017; Mascord 2017). It signalled that commitment to one’s religion could even be a reason to support marriage equality (Barber 2017; Whitaker 2017). It was striking that the same faith-based reasons were offered to vote Yes across the religious traditions: the dignity and equality of all people and the importance of including the excluded as exemplified by that religion’s founder, or enjoined by its scriptures. These reasons are consistent with the ‘common sense’ values of the ‘Let’s Get It Done’ advertisement. In the wider community people did not generally

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need to justify a decision to vote Yes in the Survey; the tide of public opinion was already running strongly in that direction. Any reasons religious groups might offer in support of a Yes vote did not add substantially to the case. But religious proponents of a Yes vote needed to explain themselves, especially to their co-religionists. One well-reported episode provides an example. It occurred the year before the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey had been commissioned, during the long, highly politicised prelude. Activate, an Adelaide Pentecostal church with strong diversity credentials, discontinued its membership of the Australian Christian Churches (ACC) denomination, the pastor losing his authorisation and his registration as a religious celebrant. The ACC was unwilling to have a member congregation that accepted LGBTIQ+ people in leadership roles, which was Activate’s practice. Activate was uncomfortable being part of a denomination that had joined the Marriage Alliance. The pastor, Brad Chilcott, said that their intention was to ‘reflect the character of Jesus and the heart of God.’ He said: This isn’t a decision we’ve made in spite of our faith, but rather because of it. We simply believe that all people are equal and should have equal opportunity to belong and contribute to our church.

An Activate worship leader, Olivia Watson, added, ‘I understand this can be a divisive issue in churches but, unfortunately, some of the loudest Christian voices we hear in this discussion don’t tend to sound like the voice of Jesus. Churches should be safe and inclusive spaces for all people, regardless of their sexuality or relationship status’ (Lim 2016). The ‘elephant in that room’ was same-sex marriage. The Activate community chose not to offer any commentary on same-sex marriage but remained focussed on the problem they had with the ACC, namely, its decision to join the Marriage Alliance and actively work against LGBTIQ+ inclusion. How do Pentecostal communities like Activate come to support the normalisation of LGBTIQ+ identity against the clear teaching of the Bible and the unanimous verdict of Christian tradition? It is because during the last quarter of the twentieth century a Christian consensus had developed—particularly in the ecumenical movement, in mainline denominations, and in academic theology—that the Bible has a trajectory towards emancipation and inclusion. By the turn of the century, some Evangelical and Pentecostal groups and leaders had begun to promote their own version of this hermeneutic (Achtemeier 2014; Buckley 2017; McNight 2015). It begins with the recognition that the Bible itself models the critique and setting aside of its own apparent requirements when they are overruled by God’s biblicallyrevealed will to emancipate and include the excluded. So, in the Old Testament the command to exclude foreigners was challenged by later texts such as Ruth, Jonah, or Isaiah 56–66 which affirm the acceptability of non-Israelites in the community and even in the temple. In the New Testament, the transgression of the boundary between Jews and Gentiles was a major and defining discovery of the Gospel. Jesus himself subordinated adherence to the Sabbath to the impulse to love, heal and include. This biblical model of self-reflection and self-correction was taken up in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in arguing for the abolition of slavery. Although

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the Bible made provision for the keeping of slaves, its tacit approval of the practice can and should be overruled by the Bible’s affirmation that all people are made in the image of God and its ethical requirement to love one’s neighbour. Later in the period similar arguments were offered in support of women’s suffrage—a biblical argument against the Bible’s assumption that the subordination of women is part of the normal order of things. After the process of decolonisation got underway in Asia and Africa, and especially during the period of social transformation in the West in the 1960s and 1970s, the biblical theme of emancipation and inclusion was applied to a growing range of disadvantaged and excluded groups. The biblical vision, it was argued, required theologies and policies that were oriented towards the liberation and inclusion of the poor and oppressed, the liberation of women, the liberation of First Peoples, the liberation of nature, of animals, of children, of the disabled, and, eventually, the liberation and inclusion of gay and lesbian people (Grant-Henderson 2002: 133–141). This hermeneutic of liberation and inclusion became commonplace in the ecumenical movement, in academic theology, in mainstream denominations, and now in some Evangelical and Pentecostal groups. It has two key working principles. First, it involves the conviction that there is a trajectory towards emancipation and inclusion in the Bible as a whole. The Bible witnesses to a God whose mission is the liberation of humanity and all creation from sin and its effects, including ‘structural sin’ that creates classes of ‘sinned against’ people and creatures. Secondly, the starting point for theological reflection on this mission of God and what it means for the present is the experience of the ‘sinned against’, e.g. the experience of the poor for liberation theology, or the experience of women for feminist theology. Listening to the lived experience of LGBTIQ+ people in the light of the conviction that the mission of God is oriented towards emancipation and inclusion, Christians formed in this relatively new hermeneutical school were always going to vote Yes. They were prepared to challenge the biblical passages which appear to condemn same-sex attraction and sexual relationships on the basis of the message of the Bible as a whole—‘overriding some parts of Scripture with others’ or simply setting aside the offending passages (Loader 2016: 46). In doing so they would conscientiously part company with that aspect of their tradition and also, as Activate showed, the fellowship of churches and Christians who continue to resist the normalisation of LGBTIQ+ identity. While this represented a disruption of their religious identity, it was congruent with participation in the dominant neoliberal culture. Their reasons were not those of neoliberalism. They were religious and progressive. But the result was the same. They voted yes.

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18.7 Religion and the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey A survey of the debate leading up to the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey validates the profile of Australian religion as developed in recent sociological studies. It shows that Australian religion is not what it was when the process of decriminalising homosexuality began in the 1970s. But it also shows that religion continues to be an important dimension of debates over social policy and ethics—particularly when the interests of religious organisations are at stake. It shows that, except for the Anglican Archdiocese of Sydney, British Protestant denominations were barely visible in the public discussion, far more attention being drawn by the smaller, conservative religious groups. It shows striking diversity among religious groups, and especially within them. And it shows that, in general terms, religious groups are increasingly finding themselves at odds with the dominant culture—they are now minorities, adopting a sectarian posture. During the debate, and especially since the vote was completed in December 2017 and same-sex marriage was legalised, religious interests have principally clustered around freedom of religion and the toleration of dissenting minorities within the dominant neoliberal culture. Conservative Christian organisations that have consistently opposed legislative attempts to strengthen religious freedom (because that would mean protecting religious minorities like Muslims and Jews) are suddenly clamouring for guarantees about their own rights (Maddox 2019). They want their intolerance of the LGBTIQ+ community tolerated by the neoliberal host society, for which the normalisation of LGBTIQ+ identity is now a social boundary. The anxiety expressed in this refocussing of effort is not misplaced, even if it is unbecoming. Neoliberalism is ‘hegemonic’, a culture the values of which are embedded in everyday life as matters of ‘common sense’ (Davis 2014: 31). The 2017 marriage debate created the impression that religious organisations generally reject the normality of LGBTIQ+ identity, calling upon themselves the kind of disapproval that might be expected. They are not just morally ‘out of date’ but morally deficient by clinging to the old intolerance (Hobson 2001). The marginalising effect of this public episode is intensified by the public response to the appalling criminal, antisocial and cruel behaviour of some religious representatives and organisations revealed by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2013–2017). The Royal Commission presented its final report on the same day that the first same-sex marriages were conducted in Australia. It significantly compromised the moral authority of religious organisations and leaders in Australia. It made the attempt to defend traditional moral standards regarding sexuality and marriage look ridiculous and contemptable. It compounds the ‘sectarianization’ of Australian religion that has been exemplified in the same-sex marriage debate. Now, unless he or she is echoing the common sense values of the host society, it is very hard to take seriously a member of the clergy postulating on ‘the right thing to do’.

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18.8 Conclusion Religious voices continue to make an important contribution to the public conversation on social policy and ethics. However, the re-shaping of Australian religion into a flourishing diversity of increasingly sectarian minority faiths and denominations complicates their participation in the public conversation. Those whose role it is to interpret and respond to the public conversation need to be intentionally attentive to the whole range of religious voices, not just the loudest ones.

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Buckley M (2017) Notable Christians who’ve had a change of heart on LGBT issues. https:// religionnews.com/2017/07/12/notable-christians-whove-had-a-change-of-heart-on-lgbt-issues/ C4M (2017) Part of a bigger agenda. https://int.search.tb.ask.com/search/video.jhtml?enc=0& n=7857b12d&p2=%5ECPC%5Echr999%5ETTAB03%5E&pg=video&pn=1&ptb=77E4D23F46FA-4A21-AB1A-75F5E76B0ADD&qs=&searchfor=Coalition+for+Marriage+advertising& si=&ss=sub&st=sb&tpr=sbt Carson A, Ratcliff S, Dufresne Y (2018) Public opinion and policy responsiveness: the case of same-sex marriage in Australia. Australian Journal of Political Science 53(1):3–23 CBCS (1971) Census of population and housing. Bulletin 1. Summary of population. Part 9. Australia. https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/DetailsPage/2105.01971?OpenDocument Davis M (2014) Neoliberalism, the culture wars and public policy. In: Miller C, Miller L (eds) Australian public policy: progressive ideas in the neoliberal ascendancy. Policy Press, Bristol, England and Chicago, Illinois, pp 27–42 Delbridge T (2017) What do Christian churches really think about same-sex marriage? Eternity News. https://www.eternitynews.com.au/in-depth/fact-check-what-do-christian-churchesreally-think-about-same-sex-marriage/ Devine M (2017) Gay marriage lobby holds the aces, but the silent majority is stirring. news.com.au. https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/gay-marriage-lobby-holds-theaces-but-the-silent-majority-is-stirring/news-story/5674027d4f524b692d49f6b8f40415c3 Grant-Henderson A (2002) Inclusive voices in post-exilic Judah. The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota Gutnick M (2017) As an orthodox rabbi I will be voting no but it is not a vote against love. Brisbane Times. https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/as-an-othodox-rabbi-i-will-be-votingno-but-it-is-not-a-vote-against-love-20170916 Hankewitz S (2018) Estonia is one of the most homophobic countries in the OECD. Estonian World. http://estonianworld.com/life/estonia-is-one-of-the-most-homophobic-countries-in-the-oecd/ HILDA (2019) The household, income and labour dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. https://www.dss.gov.au/our-responsibilities/families-and-children/programmes-services/ the-household-income-and-labour-dynamics-in-australia-hilda-survey Hobson T (2001) A pink reformation. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/feb/05/ apinkreformation Humphrys E (2019) How labour built neoliberalism: Australia’s accord, the labour movement and the neoliberal project. Brill, Leiden, Boston Hutchins G (2017) Most Christians in Australia support marriage equality and want a free vote. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/21/most-christiansin-australia-support-marriage-equality-and-want-a-free-vote Johnson S (2017) Muslim leader Keysar Trad wants men to be allowed multiple wives. Daily Mail Australia. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4777260/Muslim-leader-wants-Australianmen-allowed-wives.html Karp P (2017) Same-sex marriage debate: conservative Muslims steer clear for fear of backlash. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/sep/04/same-sexmarriage-debate-conservative-muslims-steer-clear-for-fear-of-backlash Kirby A, McKenzie-Green B, McAra-Couper J, Nayar S (2017) Same-sex marriage: a dilemma for parish clergy. Sex Cult 21:901–918 Knaus C (2017) Pro-marriage equality Christians attack TV ad pushing no campaign. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/aug/30/pro-marriageequality-christians-attack-tv-ad-pushing-no-campaign Lamont MVM (2002) The study of boundaries in the social sciences. Ann Rev Sociol 28:167–195 Leimgruber M, Schmeizer M (2017) From the Marshall Plan to global governance: historical transformations of the OEEC/OECD, 1948 to present. In: Leimgruber M, Schmeizer M (eds) The OECD and the international political economy since 1948. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 23–61

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Lim J (2016) Activate Church leaves Australian Christian Churches denomination to stand by gay leaders. https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/lifestyle/relationships/activate-churchleaves-australian-christian-churches-denomination-to-stand-by-gay-leaders/news-story/ 6d0821b1e6d69c822d462866aa399390 Loader W (2012) The New Testament on sexuality. William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan Loader W (2016) Homosexuality and the Bible. In: Sprinkle PM (ed) Two views on homosexuality, the Bible, and the church. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, pp 17–68 Loussikian K (2017) Muslim leaders using sermons to urge no vote in same-sex marriage plebiscite. The Daily Telegraph. https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/ muslim-leaders-using-sermons-to-urge-no-vote-in-samesex-marriage-plebiscite/news-story/ d81f085a26d952905a3cc8076cdfed30 Maddox M (2014) Taking God to school: the end of Australia’s egalitarian education?. Allen & Unwin, Sydney Maddox M (2019) After his ‘miracle’ election, will Scott Morrison feel pressure from Christian leaders on religious freedom? https://theconversation.com/after-his-miracle-election-will-scottmorrison-feel-pressure-from-christian-leaders-on-religious-freedom-117798 Mascord K (2017) ‘You don’t speak for me’: Christian support for marriage equality is growing. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/07/you-dont-speakfor-me-christian-support-for-marriage-equality-is-growing McNight S (2015) A fellowship of differents: showing the world God’s design for life together. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan OECD (2017) LGBTI inclusiveness. http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/lgbti.htm PCA (2017) Presbyterian response to the announced postal marriage plebiscite. https:// presbyterian.org.au/index.php/resources/moderator-s-comments/139-presbyterian-responseto-the-announced-postal-marriage-plebiscite Perales F, Bouma G, Campbell A (2019) Religion, support for equal rights for same-sex couples and the Australian national vote on marriage equality. Sociol Relig Q Rev 80(1):107–129 Reed J (2014) The tides have turned on same-sex marriage. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/ news/2014–07-31/reed-the-tides-have-turned-on-same-sex-marriage/5637770 Tang E (2018) Here are the 27 countries where same-sex marriage is officially legal. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/27-countries-sexmarriage-officially-legal/ story?id=56041136 TMA (2017) Consequences: changing the law on marriage affects everyone. In: Wyld D (ed). http:// www.marriagealliance.com.au/marriage_campaign_handbook_download Triggs G (2018) Love is love: freedom of religion and marriage equality. Speaking up. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, pp 224–243 Valfort M-A (2017) LGBTI in OECD countries. OECD social, employment and migration {Valfort, 2017 #34} working papers, 198. https://doi.org/10.1787/d5d49711-en VoteYes (2017) Let’s get it done. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5pizTbhukY#action=share Whitaker R (2017) To Christians arguing ‘no’ on marriage equality: the Bible is not decisive. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/to-christians-arguing-no-on-marriage-equalitythe-bible-is-not-decisive-82498 White C (2017) Poll finds majority of Australian Catholics back same-sex marriage. Crux: taking the Catholic pulse. https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2017/08/29/poll-finds-majorityaustralian-catholics-back-sex-marriage/

Chapter 19

Life or Death? A Politico-philosophical Reflection on Religious Fundamentalism and Political Extremism Michael Trainor

Abstract In this chapter I reflect on the relationship between religion and violence. I come to this as a Catholic-Christian involved in inter-religious dialogue, particularly Jewish-Christian. Specifically, I seek (1) to explore how insights drawn from interreligious dialogue might help us understand the link which some make between religion and violence and (2) suggest how such genuine dialogue might contribute a balancing voice in a time of introverted nationalism, religious—sometimes violent— fundamentalism and political extremism.

19.1 Introduction: The International Political Climate The editors of this book noted in their introduction the growing interest in religion and the varying responses to it, even a polarity. We know that religious people do good things. We also know that some people, under the banner of religious devotion, do bad things. Unreflected observations could lead to the premise that religion is responsible for much that is so wrong in our world, especially acts of violence. Styles of popular political leadership that surface constantly in media briefings and international diplomacy further exacerbate this religious polarity and provide an environment that allows for expressions of religious extremism that can lead to violence. Common factors link those who exercise such approaches. They are male 1 Journalist Shekhar Gupta in a June 2017 address at a conference in India (https://www.ibtimes. co.in/alpha-males-modi-putin-trump-erdogan-xi-jinping-dominate-our-world-shekhar-gupta7317000).

This chapter is an adaptation of a key-note presentation at the June 2018 Budapest conference of the International Council of Christians and Jews, which was later published as Michael Trainor, ‘Fundamentalism and Political Extremism’ (2018) 5(4) Gesher: The Official Journal of the Council of Christians and Jews, Victoria, Inc. 46–50. Sincere thanks to the publishers for permission to reproduce it here in this revised and updated form. M. Trainor (B) Australian Catholic University, Adelaide, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Babie and R. Sarre (eds.), Religion Matters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_19

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(even ‘Alpha males’1 ), powerful and wealthy. While each is different because of their diverse political environments, their style of leadership dismisses dissent, removes opposition, invents ‘truths’ they believe to be self-evident and dismisses opposing views as ‘fake news’. They easily spot their political enemies who conspire against them in their use of social media to critique the predominant political agenda. The climate that results is two-fold. One is rapturous applause by their followers and political allies. The climate that results deifies those leaders antagonistic to liberal-progressive views. They can do no wrong. A simple, monochromatic interpretation of the world dominates. The single most important defining value that shapes political success and popularity is nationalism and national loyalty (Smith 2001: 3). Economic success, protected by militarism, legitimizes a national identity and becomes the litmus test of global importance. An exaggerated nationalistic ideology when promoted by the kind of political leadership described above further emboldens those who hold fundamentalist and extremist views. Those who have such a mindset reject pluralism and affirm a political system that encourages egoistical pursuits antithetical to the common good (Backes 2007: 242–262). Another climate also emerges. It is one of suspicion, fear, antagonism and indifference to others. These ‘others’ include asylum seekers, and, depending on the political context, religious adherents of ‘other’ faith traditions, and the poor—though in the first blush of the appeal which such leaders have to a popular nationalism or populism, these political leaders would have wooed the poorer members of their constituencies who eventually become their victims. In the first part of what follows, I propose a definition of political extremism and fundamentalism and explicate their epistemological and economic foundations. I suggest that these social expressions are a response to western neo-liberalism. In a second part, I propose some responses to political extremism and religious fundamentalism that draw upon theological insights that come from a ChristianJewish context. Here I explicate how authentic religious belief and practice can help reconstruct social meaning in a time of national extremism and naïve commentary on the role of religion. The contributions which religions can make centre on that nature of authentic religious practice informed by three ascetical practices: humility, openness for dialogue, and generosity.

19.2 Political Extremism and Fundamentalism I understand ‘political extremism’ as the exaggerated expression of an ideology considered by its adherents as unquestionable and, for some who take a quasi-theological position on secular matters, of semi-divine status. Extremism…aims at ‘monism’ and ‘monocracy’ in the sense of the enforcement of a bundled claim to power which – if at all possible – eliminates any competition, does not tolerate variety and opposition, seeks to render it harmless at the very least, stops political change, obstructs

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and suppresses the autonomous commitment of groups and individuals, at least when this stands in the way of the ambitions of the rulers. (Backes 2007: 249)

This ideology has social consequences. Extremist views can lead to violence and death, as the ideologue seeks to impose their point of view upon others they consider heretical, corrupting or immoral. In the many examples of the violent, death-dealing acts that we are so aware of and, for some of us, painfully experienced by those close to us, we distinguish between acts perpetrated by committed ideological advocates and criminals enacting social protest seeking to inflict pain under the banner of an ideology, often religious. For a person who holds extremist views that leads to actions that result in the deaths of innocent people, the ability to entertain difference and engage in dialogue is limited, if not absent. For such a person, their epistemological belief system rests upon a simple, Manichaean, black and white, right or wrong interpretation of reality. Partial truth claims do not exist. There is only one, non-negotiable truth, which the adherent possesses. Simplicity trumps complexity, ‘common sense’ trumps intellect, untrammelled zeal trumps reason and wisdom. Fundamentalism, a particular interpretation of reality and truth claims, especially religious truth, buttresses the ideologue’s epistemological frame of reference. Fundamentalism emerged from a nineteenth century North American evangelical Protestant context which affirmed the literal interpretation of the Bible as the foundation of Christian faith and the unchangeable word of God.2 It emerged in reaction to liberal-critical approaches to biblical interpretation which recognised the historical-cultural conditioning of biblical texts. Those who hold this fundamentalist perspective are, usually, Christocentric (in the sense that without Jesus there is only hell3 ), against feminism, gay relationships, are economically conservative and politically obsessed with order, discipline and security (Boff 2006: 6). A Christian context is the origin of this classical notion of fundamentalism. However, the term ‘fundamentalism’ has been applied beyond Christians to adherents of other religious and institutional systems. In its usual application, fundamentalism identifies those who hold absolutist views that represent or define for them irrefutable truth. It is not difficult to see how such an epistemological position leads to violent acts committed under the banner of religion or nation. The South American Catholic theologian, Leonardo Boff, reflects on the implications when a person holds absolute truth claims: 2 Although, as pointed out to me by a colleague of Indian descent, ‘Such fundamentalism goes back

much further, probably about 5,000 BC in Hinduism and the evolution of the caste system as a way of the religious elite to control the common person’. 3 The 2017 response by a popular Australian rugby player to a question about God’s attitude to gays demonstrated the Jesus-Hell dichotomy that operates with some religious fundamentalists. Israel Folau was asked, ‘What was gods [sic] plan for gay people?’ His response was ‘HELL…unless they repent of their sins and turn to God’ (https://www.rt.com/sport/423183-israel-folau-gays-goto-hell/). The public discourse played out around Folau’s comment, his eventual dismissal from his rugby team with his multi-million-dollar contract terminated indicates a cultural and national inability to engage Folau’s position that brings a balanced conversation around the issues that surface from his comments. This further suggests a society that operates from a fundamentalist perspective and unable to engage in meaningful religious or theological dialogue.

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One who sees himself or herself as the holder of an absolute truth cannot tolerate another kind of truth, and this is destined to intolerance. And intolerance causes contempt for the other, and contempt engenders aggression, and aggression brings wars to combat and exterminate those who have erred. Religious conflicts emerge everywhere, with an incalculable number of victims. (Boff 2006: 15)

We know in more recent decades of how non-critical, extremist attitudes when melded with religious doctrines take on a style of violence considered as divinely endorsed. We are in, and not for the first time in history, an epistemological and social crisis. We desire cultural meaning and social stability at a time when many of the world’s leaders seem to back away from sane, measured political engagement and social encounter. We desire social and political systems that will protect, enhance human dignity and bring justice, especially to those who are impoverished or victims of tragedy.4 One Catholic theologian, Anthony Carroll, identifies the impoverishment that people feel at times of vulnerability and the inadequacy of solutions proposed to deal with these situations: The secular horizon of modern societies is often poorly equipped to deal with the tragic aspects of human life such as illness, suffering, and death. Short of resources of existential meaning, purely secular programs in advanced modernity often turn to chemical [or economic] solutions to extinguish the pain and existential angst that face us at such time. These solutions, whilst having an important contribution to make, do not provide adequate support in these moments of human life. (Carroll 2012: 64; Gaillardetz 2015: 142)

Carroll identifies how we struggle to respond adequately and comprehensively to people’s pain, struggles and fears. We know the inadequacy of pharmaceutical solutions to suffering and deep need. We also know that no amount of available funding and welfare, though helpful, addresses the real cause of impoverishment and social isolation. The human malaise is deeper than what seems on the surface. Within this setting of impoverished and destabilised societies, it is easy to see how religion can be promoted as the panacea. Further, people in these situations can also feel a sense of social exclusion and meaninglessness brought on by unanticipated change from modernity that they identify with globalisation and westernization. In this situation, religion, interpreted and promoted from a basic or fundamentalist perspective, offers identity, protection and security. It can provide people with an interpretative key for understanding their situation and responding to it. This in turn can lead to opposition, even extreme and violent opposition, that allows them to reassert their identity and address their experience of social exclusion. 4I

want to add a comment here offered by a colleague, Dr. Ron Hoenig: ‘There is also, of course, a secular economic issue here—that wages are more or less frozen at a time when capital is rampant. As well as that, people who belong to dominant cultures—even if they are not part of the elites—are seeing their “cultural aristocracy” threatened. So white working class men are, in many parts of the world being challenged by women, by people of colour, by ethnic, religious, sexual “minorities” for the unquestioned cultural power they possessed—even if they belonged to the more oppressed working classes. The battle for cultural hegemony is being won by cosmopolitan knowledge elites and whether or not the elites themselves are diverse, there is no doubt that there is more of a battle going on between the former culturally secure and the forces of cultural, secular, ethnic, etc. diversity.’

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19.3 Western Neo-liberalism A contributing factor to the perceived global rise in religious fundamentalism and violent extremism that we call ‘terrorism’ is the neo-liberal western obsession with ownership and consumption (Babie and Trainor 2018).5 The preoccupation with wealth and property reduces the world into haves and have-nots, pits cultures against one another and produces an environment of unrest and social disease. For peoples victimised by a global wealth imbalance and conscious of a penchant for greed, sometimes expressed by leaders who seek to address a ‘trade imbalance’, violence, formed within religious contexts, become the means perceived by some to redress this social and economic imbalance. Terrorism thus becomes a form of defence of the weak against the powerful and economic elite. We have seen the results of this more recently, not only in the increased acts of terrorism in places and cities we once thought ‘safe’, but by the forced displacement of people from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans. These have sought asylum in Europe. According to the 2017 report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 68.5 million people had been forcibly displaced (UNHCR 2019). We are now aware of the most significant displacement of human beings on this planet since WWII.6 We know well the response to this crisis, as 44,000 people, half of them children, seek refuge each day (UNHCR 2019). One social commentator even interprets the UK decision to leave the European Union as a response to this refugee crisis and the social anger that came from this. Anger stirred up a winning turnout in the depressed, down-at-heel cities of England…Anger at immigration, globalisation, social liberalism and even feminism, polling shows, translated into a vote to reject the EU. As if victory were a licence to spread hatred, anger has since lashed Britain’s streets with an outburst of racist abuse. (The Economist 2016)

If this observation is even partly correct, then the UK response to leave the EU emerged from a Western xenophobic reaction to neo-liberal ‘values’ that were perceived as being undermined by these people from ‘other’ countries. The reaction emerged out of poorer sectors of the UK population.

19.4 A Christian-Jewish Response Anger, symbolised in the Brexit vote, is one tangible reaction to social change accompanied by a rise in political fundamentalism leading to expressions of extremism evidenced in the spread of hatred and racial abuse in the UK. This scenario is familiar in other parts of the globe. This begs the question: How do we respond? How might 5 It

needs to be said that, unfortunately, such obsession is not an exclusive western phenomenon.

6 For a further analysis of the neo-liberal penchant for property and possessions and its critique from

a Christian-biblical-theological perspective, see Babie and Trainor (2018).

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we draw on our respective traditions to create an environment that might address the issues that lead some to hold fundamentalist opinions and act out their extremist views? I suggest that there is a richness within all religious traditions that can offer insight here. The global change and move towards fundamentalism and political extremism invites us to reconsider and renew the awareness and value of religion in general and the particularity of religious traditions. The Catholic theologian, Ron Rolheiser, believes that we are at a new historical moment. Addressing Christians, he understands that we are standing on ‘new borders’ with the imperative to relate to other religions. If we do not do this, avers Rolheiser, we are ‘dangerously asleep’: I believe that this is where we are standing today as Christians, on new borders in terms of relating to other religions, not least to our Islamic brothers and sisters. The single most important agenda item for our churches for the next fifty years will be the issue of relating to other religions, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Indigenous Religions in the Americas and Africa, and various forms, old and new, of Paganism and New Age. Simply stated, if all the violence stemming from religious extremism hasn’t woken us yet then we are dangerously asleep. We have no choice. The world has become one village, one community, one family, and unless we begin to understand and accept each other more deeply we will never be a world at peace. (Rolheiser 2018)

Rolheiser believes that this imperative, as Christians, to be in conversation with other religious traditions is not simply a way of diffusing the threat of violence perceived to come from other religions. He sees a deeper reason. This has to do with the presence of a living God, the Ultimate Being of compassion, who invites us to look upon all as brothers and sisters. Those who are in communion with such a God live out of a spirit of compassion through ethical action, the antithesis of violence. This insight coheres with the contribution of the Jewish theologian, Fred Morgan. Morgan suggests that we need to dig deeper to discover the real causes of human action. He sees an integral relationship between religion and culture. All authentic religious practitioners, says Morgan, motivated with good will and kindness towards others, find direction, ethical action and motivation for the future, what he calls ‘the pursuit of heaven’: Though non-Christian religions may appear very differently from Christianity, as cultures they nevertheless encompass everything that Christianity encompasses: they tell their adherents who they are in this world, they provide a map by which their followers can plot out their existence, they set out rules for proper living, and they also offer images of what the cosmic end-game might look like. (Morgan 2017)

As he explores the role of religion in society, Morgan considers that the above common factors unite religious people, Christian and non-Christians. They help to break the perceived nexus between religion and violence. For Morgan, ‘violence is not a product of religion. It is, rather, a product of culture.’ (Morgan 2017). Religions, on the other hand, can offer a pathway towards transcendence through various ascetical practices. These can lead to communal harmony and social identity enhanced by this ‘pursuit of heaven’ which is, at the same time, ‘the pursuit of peace.’ (Morgan 2018).

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19.5 Ascetical Practices There are four practices which can cultivate authentic religious living and ethical conduct (Morgan 2018: 90–91). They can enhance social harmony and offer an alternative to the penchant towards violence and fundamentalism in a world fuelled by simple, naïve political discourse and action.

19.5.1 Humility At the heart of our belief in a living God lives a spirit of fundamentalism as we embrace what we believe are the core or fundamental elements of our faith traditions. These define our lives and religious practice. These beliefs are ‘radical’. They reflect what is at the root (Lat. radix) of our lives and offer existential meaning in a world that we experience as difficult, awkward, conflicted and confused. From this perspective, all of us are fundamentalists. This recognition, if we acknowledge it, enhances our desire for humility, and affirms who we truly are. We are no different from anyone else, even those we consider fundamentalists. Leonardo Boff writes, The term fundamentalism has become a word used to accuse the other. ‘Fundamentalist’ is always the other. When one refers to oneself, be it referring to one’s religious, political or economic views, one always prefers to use the term ‘radical’. By using the term radical, we mean that we seek the roots of the problem in order to understand it, and after understanding the roots of the problem, we seek to undermine them, which is a very positive thing to do. (Boff 2006: x)

Boff offers a helpful insight. In the ‘us-them’ binary, dichotomous, accusatory manner in which we speak of the ‘fundamentalist’ we need the humility to see that, at our core, we too are fundamentalists. We prefer, though, to see ourselves as radical in our desire to distinguish ourselves from the ‘other’. But this humble recognition opens a space in us that allows for a communion of being and compassion with those who think and act in a manner with which we do not agree. Cultivating the virtue of humility may not lead to social change or alter the view of those who hold fundamentalist attitudes. It probably will not stop the occurrence of violent acts. It will offer us, though, with a resource that links us to a God who invites us to understand and recognise that we are capable of ‘terrorist dementia’, that is, violence against others and environmental devastation.

19.5.2 Openness for Dialogue This recognition of what I hold as sacred (my ‘radical’ stance) and what another seeks to defend (as a ‘fundamentalist’) contains within it the seed for critical analysis of the

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various expressions of fundamentalism and its link to extremism.7 Boff’s analysis above—that understanding the roots of what is important and problematic can lead to ‘undermining’ (Boff’s expression) the causes—means to ‘address’ the issues, to reflect on or mine under what is happening. It alerts us to the value of retaining a spirit of humble openness to the situations we encounter, deep reflection on their causes and the issues related to them, and seek ways of dialogue, if possible, with those who disturb us. This means engaging in unpopular, even controversial conversations with interlocutors with those whose views or opinions I disagree. Such an approach moves us from postures of power and aggression toward laying the foundation for non-aggressive peace-making and peace building. To return to Boff, Along with our aggressive constitution we also have a capacity for affection, for compassion, solidarity, and love. It is now urgent for us to draw out these forces from inside us so that we can direct history towards a more benevolent path. Any kind of delay in doing this is foolish…We have at our disposal resources to re-work violence through the social development of contention of violence and the use of rationality. (Boff 2006: 63)

Gleaning the wisdom of our respective theological traditions is an imperative at a time of social unrest and spiritual chaos. Insights from the Jewish-Christian traditions can bring a wisdom that offers insight into the social contexts in which we live. As we engage with political and civic bodies, this wisdom offers an alternative vision that focuses on compassion for the poor and the importance of social inclusion of those disenfranchised because of their social status, religious background or cultural origins.

19.5.3 Generosity An analysis of the causes of extreme violent fundamentalism highlights the power which holders of wealth and possessions have over those who are powerless. A counter-balance and moderating disposition in a Western world obsessed with possessions and ownership can come from gleaning the theological traditions about wealth. From a Christian point of view shaped by the gospels, Jesus calls his followers to dispossess themselves of their possessions. This freedom from material possessiveness and spirit of generosity allows his followers to focus on the neediest and respond in ways that unites them with those who experience social ostracism. A similar wisdom emerges from the Hebrew Bible’s prophetic tradition (Morgan 91). The prophets criticised the wealthy for the unjust exploitation of the poor in their midst and for their abuse of their religious tradition, especially the Torah. They urge their addressees to restore the social imbalance and act with generosity. This biblical conviction of the centrality of generosity offers a counterbalancing voice in a world preoccupied by wealth accumulation and inspired by the tactics of greed. Living with 7 One

might call this a ‘fugue’. In other words, it is a blending of multiple positions, breaking the binary or dichotomous view of religious discourse and theological engagement (see Soja 1996).

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a generous spirit creates an environment that addresses one of the serious causes of global fundamentalism and religious extremism.

19.6 Conclusion In this chapter, I have explored the relationship between fundamentalism and political extremism. I have suggested that the popular world political leaders foster a social environment of exclusion, simplicity, and nationalism that dismisses any form of opposition and closes off any signs of critique, especially from traditional media and social communication sources. The political environment that results offers a potential seed-bed for fundamentalism, critical of integrative reflection and appreciative of simple binary analysis. I have suggested that there is a link between fundamentalism and political extremism, especially in those situations where such analysis goes uncontested. This link is bolstered in social contexts of upheaval, poverty, and political chaos. The kinds of leaders that I have been thinking of are perhaps not religious fundamentalists themselves, but draw on fundamentalist expressions of nationalist ideologies to bolster their political and economic agenda. Finally, I have suggested that practitioners of genuine religious wisdom can create an atmosphere of respectful dialogue and mutual support. They can contribute towards building a social environment and political atmosphere that is humble, open to dialogue for peace, and critical of a political economic agenda obsessed with material gain, greed, and wealth.

References Babie P, Trainor M (2018) Neo-liberalism and the biblical voice: owning and consuming. Routledge, New York and London Backes U (2007) Meaning and forms of political extremism in past and present. Cent Eur Polit Stud Rev 9(4):242–262 Boff L (2006) Fundamentalism, terrorism and the future of humanity. SPCK, London Carroll A (2012) A Catholic program for advanced modernity. In: Hellemans Staf, Wissink Josef (eds) Towards a new Catholic Church in advanced modernity: transformations, visions, tensions. Tilburg Theological Studies/Tilburger Theologische Studien, Reihe Gaillardetz RS (2015) An unfinished council: Vatican II, Pope Francis and the renewal of Catholicism. The Liturgical Press, Collegville, Minn Morgan F (2017) Religion, violence and the pursuit of heaven. The Sr Shirley Sedawie Oration. http://ccjvic.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/2017-CCJ-Sr-Sedawie-Oration-by-RabbiFred-Morgan-AM.pdf. Accessed 23 Aug 2017 Morgan F (2018) Religion speaks to politics: a Jewish view. Gesher: Off J Counc Christ Jews 5(4):90–91 Rolheiser R (2018) Standing on new borders [Blog]. http://ronrolheiser.com/standing-on-newborders/#.XTB_yRMzbwc. Accessed 18 July 2019 Smith AD (2001) Nationalism: theory, ideology, history. Polity Press, Cambridge Soja E (1996) Thirdspace: journeys to Los Angeles and other real-and-imagined places. Basil Blackwell, Oxford

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The Economist (2016, 2 July) The politics of anger. The Economist. http://www.economist.com/ news/leaders/21701478-triumph-brexit-campaign-warning-liberal-international-order-politics? cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/20160630n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/n/. Accessed 18 July 2019 UNHCR (2019) Figures at a glance: statistical yearbooks. https://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-aglance.html. Accessed 18 July 2019

Chapter 20

Contemporary Theology as Dialogue: The Evolution of Modern Theology Matthew J. Frizzell

Abstract Our modern world does not know what to do with theology. In academics, theology is categorized as a subdiscipline within the study of religion. Theologians in living religious traditions practise theology within historical religious communities. For many outside these religious communities, theological language and ideas can seem strange, narrow, or little more than foundationless ‘God-talk.’ But, this is not the case. In fact, contemporary theology continues to be a site of extensive and growing religious dialogue, which concerns the human predicament in late modernity, and the nature of our ultimate concerns in light of diverse human perspectives, experiences, and cultures. Indeed, contemporary theology continues as a dialogue of diverse theologies that centers on hope. This chapter offers some thoughts on theology, history, and hope.

20.1 Introduction, or Is Theology Still a Thing? Our modern world does not know what to do with theology. In academics, theology is categorized as a subdiscipline within the study of religion. Theologians in living religious traditions practise theology within historical religious communities. For many outside these religious communities, theological language and ideas can seem strange, narrow, or little more than foundationless ‘God-talk.’ Secular intellectuals like New Atheists Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens argue that theology is not even a legitimate pursuit of knowledge. To them it is little more than ignorance (Harris 2005: 173).1 These thinkers consistently treat theology 1 “The problem of vindicating an omnipotent and omniscient God in the face of evil (this is traditionally called the problem of theodicy) is insurmountable. Those who claim to have surmounted it, by recourse to notions of free will and other incoherences, have merely heaped bad philosophy onto bad ethics. Surely there must come a time when we will acknowledge the obvious: theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings.”.

M. J. Frizzell (B) Community of Christ, Independence, MO, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Babie and R. Sarre (eds.), Religion Matters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_20

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as narrowly confined to religion. It concerns primarily supernatural realities and is disinterested in critical dialogue with real history or evidentiary science (Dawkins 2008: 57).2 While this description of theology reflects some dominant voices and attitudes within religion, it erases countless other voices and misrepresents theology as a historical intellectual tradition. As I hope to show in this chapter, this caricature of theology as narrow navel-gazing, and disinterested in critical dialogue, misrepresents contemporary theology. Historically, theology did not have such a narrow and diminished place in Western thought. Christian humanist Erasmus described theology as “queen of the sciences” (Zakai 2007: 126). Many great medieval thinkers like Thomas Aquinas shared this view. From its beginning, Christian theology was in critical and mutually influential dialogue with great intellectual traditions in philosophy.3 For centuries before the Enlightenment, theology strived to be an holistic and universal explanatory field of study like science strives to be today.4 With the rise of science in the 16th and 17th centuries, astronomers Nicholaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo Galilei argued that observation and evidentiary science were superior to theology and revelation as authorities for understanding the nature of our world. Influenced by the Renaissance and Reformation, the Enlightenment period was underway. From the Enlightenment on, theology remained the authority on significant human questions like the nature of God, reality, transcendence, and salvation.5 A great many Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thinkers believe the natural world is not all there is. This debate continues today. Arguments between atheists, theologians, agnostics and religionists perpetuate dialogue on faith, reason, truth, and meaning. The debate stirred by Hitchens and Harris is just one example. Science now commands our knowledge of the natural world. Many thought religion and theology would fade from history in modernity—they have not. We still have not solved the problems of human history like war and genocide, violence and suffering, universal justice, and sustainable life. In fact, science and technology have introduced new global phenomena and problems: the Holocaust, sex slavery and human trafficking, the possibility of nuclear annihilation, and a seemingly unstoppable environmental crisis. Many of us—theologians, atheists, and the religious and 2 Richard Dawkins provides an example in his book The God Delusion, in which he aligns religion, God, and supernaturalism against science. He writes, “I decry supernaturalism in all its forms. …I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented.”. 3 The synthesis of Hellenistic and Jewish thought in early Christianity is a prime example. The influence of Neoplatonism in Saint Augustine’s theology is another. 4 This is not to say that Christian theology has always been a benevolent discourse. It certainly has not. After Constantine, theology became the religion of empire. The theological tradition is complicit in historical evils such as the Inquisition, racism, colonialism, and imperial war. This is exactly why a chapter that demonstrates a more complete picture of the many voices shaping theology and its tradition is important. 5 It is important to note that there is no consensus on the meaning of salvation in theology. Salvation is understood as deliverance from suffering, from death and damnation, as well as liberation and reconciliation.

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nonreligious—are ignoring old rivalries and disciplinary boundaries, searching for insights and answers. Today, theologians grapple with an array of relevant and contemporary issues. We dialogue with science on medical ethics, sustainability, and the environment. We dialogue with philosophers about the nature of reality, language, and truth. We dialogue with psychologists and neuroscientists about human nature, spirituality, and why we make certain choices. Theologians dialogue with social activists about how to achieve social justice and practical wisdom for life together. Even in the bluster of religion and politics, contemporary theologians dialogue across international, interreligious, and disciplinary boundaries to understand the nature of the state, jurisprudence, and the meaning of sovereignty (Schmitt 1985; Agamben 1998). Contemporary theology is this rich and diverse dialogue. In this chapter, I want to show how contemporary theology is defined as dialogue.6 Contemporary theology is a dialogue within human history for the sake of history. By history, I mean modern history, i.e. history of human-making. What sets modern history apart is the way we human beings shape our history. We shape our world, its culture(s), societies, and our direction. By history, therefore, I mean the broad scope of human activity, predicaments, and experiences. Contemporary theology is a dialogue with human history. Like other disciplines, theology woke up from post-Enlightenment idealism to the real problems of human history that emerged in the 20th century. This time period marked a turning point for Western thought and civilization. Optimism in science, technology, and human progress hit a crisis. Colonialism, its inherent racism and militarism culminated in unprecedented violence and destruction. Modern civilization, founded on liberty and rationalism, entered two world wars, engineered the Holocaust, and, with nuclear weaponry, developed the unprecedented capacity for indiscriminate human destruction. Speculative questions on the nature of being, supernatural forces, and other abstractions gave rise to more pressing questions about the future of human history. Those questions continue to shape our world today. I will close this chapter with some thoughts on theology, history, and hope.

20.2 From Idealism to Crisis, or Faith and Reason’s Rude Awakening It is dangerous to make generalizations. Yet, zooming out from the details to gain a broader view of the historical forces shaping religious thought can be helpful. This perspective shows us the ideas and movements that shape contemporary theology. 6I

am deeply indebted to the work of Catholic theologian David Tracy for imagining theology as dialogue, religious discourse, and conversation. Tracy’s attention to theological methodology and language is foundational for this way of thinking about theology as a discourse in the three realms of society, academy, and church. His most systematic approach to theology as dialogue and conversation is in his text, The Analogical Imagination (Tracy 1981; Tracy and Cobb 1983).

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20.2.1 Idealism Protestant and Catholic theology in the 18th and 19th century was shaped by Enlightenment idealism. Enlightenment idealism had roots in Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes (1596–1650). This book made an influential distinction between mind and body. For Descartes, the mind and body were interrelated, but their nature and essence were distinct. The mind was the active agent discerning knowledge, while the body was essentially passive. The body was passive because it was matter, and matter was essentially accidental (Descartes 1986). This mind/body distinction created a dualistic Cartesian philosophy that shaped Enlightenment idealism. The rational mind and its capacity to think held authority over the body and matter because the mind was the means of essential knowledge. The Enlightenment’s philosophy of mind and philosophy of knowledge followed from Descartes’ dualistic philosophy. Moreover, Decartes’ philosophy of mind and philosophy of knowledge was compatible with the emerging methods of evidential science. The ascendency of this philosophy of mind and philosophy of knowledge drove discoveries of science as well as formed an idealistic philosophy that shaped the pursuit of human knowledge in and through the Enlightenment. Cartesian philosophy also formed a new debate over the relationship of faith and reason on matters of knowledge and truth. In the 17th century, Descartes held that knowledge of God and revelation was the true test of a rational mind. Of course, this assumption was examined and rejected by many as the Enlightenment developed. This debate over faith and reason developed well into 18th and the 19th centuries. The formal assumptions of Enlightenment idealism held this dialogue together. Idealism assumes that knowledge and truth are rational and universal. The knowledge and truth of idealism are available to the human mind by abstract reasoning in the form of timeless truths. Theology and philosophy, the representative discourses of faith and reason, both claim this knowledge and truth. What was at stake in this dialogue for theology was the autonomy of human reason from the knowledge of God and revelation.7 An critical question was, could the truths of human reason stand independently of knowledge of God, revelation, and faith? Through the Enlightenment, reason developed as an autonomous or independent foundation for truth and knowledge apart from, if not superior to, faith. This debate characterizes post-Enlightenment dialogue. Liberal theology arose from this Enlightenment debate. In the 19th and 20th centuries, liberal theologians incorporated idealist assumptions into theology to shape a distinctly modern theology: liberal theology. Instead of rivaling one another, faith and reason mutually, yet critically, could inform one another in their grasp for God, divine knowledge, and truth. Autonomous human reason and God’s revelation did not have to conflict irreconcilably but might enhance one another. The universal

7 The critical dialogue between faith and reason continues in contemporary culture through religion

and science, as well as theology and philosophy. The writings of Harris, Hitchens, and Dawkins are popular examples.

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and timeless character of ideal truths and knowledge created common ground. Liberal theology, like Enlightenment idealism, accepted an optimistic view of human autonomy, human nature, and their possibilities.

20.2.2 Liberal Theology Protestant theologians Albrecht Ritschl (1822–1889) and Adolf von Harnack (1851– 1930) were important early figures in the development of liberal theology. Idealist philosophers Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel influenced Ritschl’s and Harnack’s work.8 The critical spirit and autonomous authority of human reason essential to Kant and Hegel’s philosophy also influenced Ritschl’s and Harnack’s theology. Both were incorporated in liberal theology. Ritschl and Harnack believed that autonomous human reason and experience had inherent authority (Von Harnack 1957; Ritschl 1900). This authority was superior to dogma and external religious authority. Gary Dorrien describes how liberal theology navigates a way between religious dogma and secular disbelief, which polarized faith and reason post-Enlightenment and characterized debate between theology and philosophy in the 18th and 19th centuries (Dorrien 2015: 4). Shaped by idealism and romanticism, liberal theologians recognized that human experience, like faith and reason, had rational and emotional dimensions. Rationality and feeling were essential to liberal theology and superior to dogma or external authority. Reliance on the autonomy of human reason and experience set liberal theologians apart from traditional theologians. Catholic theologian John Henry Newman (1801–1890) disagreed with liberal theologians on this approach. Newman argued that liberal theologians like Ritschl and Harnack went too far (Merrigan 2005). Influenced by philosopher David Hume (1711–1776), Newman acknowledged the authority of human experience and rationality for theological knowledge. Newman, however, also argued that human experience could not grasp sacred knowledge and truth. Reason alone could not lead to the superior knowledge of faith. Newman asserted that the church and tradition remained essential for forming human intellect and experience. Without the church and tradition, human rationality could not ascend to the truth about the world and knowledge of sacred things on its own. The experience of faith through the church and its tradition was essential for rational thought. For traditional theologians like Newman, the theology of Ritschl and Harnack surrendered too much to autonomy. Autonomous human reason was not equal or superior to the truth and knowledge of faith. Idealism also shaped the debate. Whether by powers of the mind or external religious authority, faith and reason assumed the formal authority of timeless and universal truth. 8 Gary

Dorrien explains the intellectual roots of 19th and 20th century liberal theology in Kantian idealism (Dorrien 2012, 2015).

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Trust in abstract reasoning in the pursuit of universal and timeless truths remained important in Western thought until the early 20th century when some aspects of this idealism faced a rude awakening.

20.2.3 Two World Wars and the Theology of Crisis Another characteristic of Enlightenment idealism was the faith it had in the progress of human autonomy, human nature, and their possibilities. At the turn of the 20th century, liberal theology shared this elevated optimism. Then two world wars revealed modern civilization’s new-found capacities for horror and destruction. New threats to human existence that did not exist before the modern era emerged. Artillery warfare, chemical warfare, rationalized mass genocide, and the advent of nuclear weaponry shook the idealism of Western thought and civilization. More concerning was the fact that these wars (and the Holocaust) were the fruit of the Enlightenment’s great human advancements—science and technology, rational social organization, the secular state, and industrial efficiency. Together they created machines and schemes of death on a scale never seen before.9 Autonomous reason, scientific rationality, and liberal idealism culminated in testaments to new human capacities for self-destruction and evil. Moreover, it appeared people of faith and modern theology, itself, were complicit in these advancements. They did little to stand in their way. Crisis theologians, also known as neo-orthodox theologians, emerged in this time as a critical voice in response to this historical crisis. They targeted the foundations of idealism, liberalism, and liberal theology. Crisis theologians questioned the ascendency of human faculties, autonomy and achievement. The work of those theologians was more than a protest—it was a prophetic criticism of the foundations of modern society. Karl Barth10 was a Swiss theologian trained in German liberal theology. Barth was educated in the legacies of Ritschl, Harnack, and philosophical idealism. From 1911 to 1921, he served as pastor of a Reformed working-class congregation in Safenwil, Switzerland. Barth would become one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century. He was the primary author of the Barman Declaration, a document of the Confessing Church, a group of German Christians who, in 1934, opposed Hitler and the Third Reich on grounds of their interpretation of the Christian faith. Barth was reported to have sent Hitler a personal copy of the declaration. The critical spirit of the Barman Declaration reflected the spirit of crisis theology in general, and Barth’s theology in particular. As a pastor, Barth saw the intellectual and ethical weakness of liberal theology and its idealism. In the years leading up to the Great War, Barth witnessed his theology 9 Zygmunt

Bauman provides a chilling account of the Holocaust’s dependency on modern rationalism and efficiency to achieve its scale of ethical blindness and destruction (Bauman 2000). 10 Pronounced ‘Bart’.

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professors’ unquestionable support for the rise of racialized nationalism, and Germany’s imperial war. The students of Barth’s professors, who also were taught liberal theology’s premise that God’s divine nature permeated the highest expressions and moral ideals of human culture, enlisted in the cause. For Barth and theologians of crisis, this willful support of German nationalism was more than disillusionment. For them, liberal theology proved too weak to resist gross human arrogance, Nazism’s ideology of blood and soil, and premeditations for war. The alchemy of liberal theology and philosophical idealism not only failed to name and resist human evil—it was indeed complicit. Barth voiced the crisis in his first edition of the Epistle to the Romans in 1918. We suppose that we know what we are saying when we say ‘God’. We assign [God] the highest place in our world: and in so doing we place [God] fundamentally on one line with ourselves and with things. … Secretly we are ourselves the masters in this relationship. … And so, when we set God upon the throne of the world, we mean by God ourselves. In ‘believing’ on [God], we justify, enjoy, and adore ourselves. (Barth 1933: 44)

Barth’s quote names the extent to which human rationality, freedom, and achievement ascended. They had been deified in modern thought and society. Humanity, itself, in all its autonomy and high idealism, had become “God.” If theology concerns the language and logic of God, Barth clarified the theological crisis of his time. Namely, God was no longer God. Modern human beings had confused themselves with God to perverse and morally tragic ends. For Barth and other crisis theologians, the history unfolding around them was evidence. If God was no longer God in modernity, theologians had to respond by clarifying the problem. They were dissident voices in this crisis. Christian nations had lost all accountability to God. Christian religion lost its power to reveal the truth of the human condition to modernity. Humanity was in revolt against God, turning against God and neighbour in its hubris and independence (Brunner 1953).11 Crisis theologians like Barth re-sounded this judgment, not in political rants but with profound clarity and precision. For German theologian Heinz Zahrnt, this made Barth a prophet of biblical proportions (Zahrnt 1969: 23).12 Prophets do not teach abstract truths, however. Israel’s prophets were fundamentally concerned with the political life of Israel and its people. For a biblical prophet, the welfare of nation and neighbour was bound up in the people’s collective covenant with God. The biblical God of the prophets was a God of this world. Barth and crisis theologians like Emil Brunner were prophetic voices in the modern world. They were not mouthpieces of Platonic ideals or anthropomorphized deities. Prophets spoke for the one invisible God of human history. They were later called neo-orthodox theologians (Brunner 1931, 1953). Taken in context, the purpose and achievement of these crisis theologies were to be a prophetic voice in modernity. Neo-orthodoxy was considered a major intellectual movement well into the 20th century. It was called 11 Brunner

is among the most prominent voices of crisis theology. must be regarded not as a systemic theologian but as a prophet. The effect of his Epistle to the Romans was that of a violent explosion.”

12 “Barth

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neo-orthodox because many, especially in the United States, interpreted Barth’s theology as a return to the past. It was read as a defence of Christianity’s pre-modern faith and its foundations. Barth rejected this label (Barth 1960a: xii). Our focus on theology as dialogue helps us see why this is important. Barth’s theology was not pre-modern. Crisis theology was not returning to the past. Crisis theology was in dialogue with the foundations of modern society. Crisis theology did not take refuge in medieval theological categories or sources of knowledge. Rather, crisis theologians clarified the categories of modern theology, which liberal idealism had blurred. Barth’s theology was in critical dialogue with the modern world. Like other theologians and philosophies of the time, Barth’s theology was dialectical, a complex form of logic used by idealists like Kant and Hegel, as well as liberal theologians. Dialectical logic shaped both modern and ancient philosophy. In each case, dialectic followed a kind of rationalism used in different ways. Barth and the crisis theologians used dialectical logic to detangle theological understandings of God, Jesus Christ, human beings, and history from modern liberal distortions. Dialectical logic put the foundations of crisis theology and liberal theology in dialogue. Barth’s understanding of God, Jesus Christ, human beings and history was logically conceived in dialogue with modern theology and philosophy. However, Barth conceived of God, Jesus Christ, human beings, and history in such a way that they never lost their qualitative difference from liberal, secular, or natural understandings. What liberal theologians co-conceived in idealism, Barth’s thinking dialectically and theologically disentangled. Unlike philosophical idealism, which related concepts of God and the world in abstract universals that became indistinguishable, Barth’s theology maintained their infinite and qualitative difference. Divine revelation stood in contrast to human reason. God’s revelation of true humanity in Jesus Christ stood in contrast to “natural man” (Barth 1960b). Barth’s dialectical theology maintained the difference between God and the world for the sake of restoring their right relationship. In interminable dialogue, Barth’s theology dialectically maintained a relationship and distinction between faith and reason. His theology upheld the absolute difference between faith and reason for the sake of God and human history.

20.2.4 Existentialism and Theology Barth and the crisis theologians rightly diagnosed the modern situation. Enlightenment idealism had rationalized away, in universal abstractions and timeless truths, any categorical differences between God and the world. In this vacuum, the achievements of autonomous reason and scientific rationality produced the Holocaust and left the West under the threat of nuclear war. Moreover, modern religion did little to oppose these developments. Liberal religion, in fact, seemed complicit in them.

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Liberal theology, however, was not finished or exhausted. In the wake of its crises, liberal theology and philosophy in the mid-20th century shifted focus under the influence of existentialism. Existentialism, itself, was a dialogue of theological and philosophical voices that included religious—and atheist—intellectuals like JeanPaul Sartre, Martin Heidegger, Albert Camus, and Martin Buber. Existentialism also had roots in the seemingly disparate voices of Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche—the first who espoused Christianity and the second who relentlessly criticized it. Existentialism cut across the divide of religion and philosophy as well as atheism and theology. The dialogue of existentialism and theology inverted idealism’s priority on abstract and timeless truths in favour of the truth of particular and concrete historical human existence. Existentialism put the irrationality and problems of human existence, not rational abstractions, at the centre of its concern. Existentialism was about the cold anxious fact that human beings simply exist. We exist in the experience of time, space, historical circumstance and limitations. Then, we die. Existentialism was universal and human in scope because existence was a specific historical and individual human problem. Kierkegaard’s concepts of subjectivity and absurdity helped existentialists articulate and define the human predicament (Kierkegaard 2006, 2009). Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity and morality named the failures and possibilities of being human (Nietzsche 1996, 2016).

20.2.4.1

Paul Tillich’s Existential Theology

Along with Karl Barth, Paul Tillich’s theology was arguably the most important modern theology in the 20th century. In important ways, Tillich’s work functioned as a bridge from the idealism of modern theology to where Christian theology is today. Tillich was prolific, brilliant, and an equally good philosopher and theologian. His theology reformulated liberal theology in existential rather than idealistic terms. It served as an alternative to the neo-orthodox language of the crisis theologians. Barth and Tillich’s fundamental disagreements were legendary. Their disagreements on the nature of theology, God’s revelation in the world, and the human situation are insightful and illuminating. Tillich’s theology paved the way for diverse theologies in the late 20th century, which simultaneously deepened and broadened contemporary theology’s dialogue with the human predicament. It is impossible to talk about religion, philosophy, and theology in the 21st century without talking about Paul Tillich. The German Lutheran theologian was born in 1886 in—Starzeddel, Brandenburg, Germany. He served as a chaplain in World War I. Tillich was not a stranger to the horrors of trench warfare and carnage of modern artillery. He, too, realized the Great War was a crisis for the idealism, humanism, and optimism of modernity. Like Barth and the crisis theologians, it is nearly impossible to summarize Tillich’s work. But, three things stand out as the most important ideas to understand in his

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contribution to contemporary theology. Tillich’s formulation of the religious situation, his theological method of correlation, and his concept of being are critical for understanding contemporary theology. Each concept is integral to his way of putting human existence and theology in dialogue.

The Religious Situation By the end of World War II, Tillich already was reformulating his understanding of theology. Like the crisis theologians, Tillich had to re-frame the modern situation that theology speaks to. Tillich, like Barth, recognized the crisis. This situation was one in which religion had failed to confront the human capacity for hubris and self-destruction. Yet religion had to speak, because religion remained a language of meaning, depth of experience, and hope for a new way of being in the world. Tillich recognized that modern theology was less a monologue with itself than a dialogue with the world. As an academic discipline and spiritual practice, theology had to be in vital conversation with the human condition. He wrote, “Theology moves back and forth between two poles, the eternal truth of its foundation and the temporal situation in which the eternal truth must be received” (Tillich 1951: 3). Eternal truths were foundational to theology, but not its end point. Revelation and truths of religion were a necessary point in theological discussion that always took place within human experience and historical reality. Therefore, the other point for theology to reach for was our historical situation and particular existence. For Tillich, our “temporal situation” was existentially defined by particular time and space. Revelation arose from within the human predicament in its historical reality and spoke to it. Theology, therefore, had to dialogue with the human predicament in which it found itself. Tillich recognized liberal theology had failed this critical dialogue between God and the world. In 1951, Tillich also identified orthodox theology in Europe and Christian fundamentalist theology in the United States as failures at dialogue with the modern world (Tillich 1951: 3–4). Both orthodox and fundamentalist theology were so deeply concerned with preserving the authority of eternal truths and tradition, they confused “eternal truth with a temporal expression of eternal truth” (Tillich 1951: 3–4). In other words, orthodox and fundamentalist theologies assert a particular historical form or expression of truth as eternal and universal without qualification. For Tillich, this way of doing theology confused the unconditional and conditional aspects of truth. To confuse the conditional and unconditional, or finite and infinite, aspects of language and truth is, he maintained, simply wrongheaded.

Correlation For Tillich, our religious situation required a dialectical conversation. Like Barth, the logic of Tillich’s theology was dialectical. However, the dialectical logic of Tillich’s theology was different. Instead of logically moving between categories to distinguish

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and differentiate them as Barth’s theology generally does, Tillich’s dialectical theology moved in a different dialogue. Tillich’s thought moved between two poles or points of understanding in a way that correlated them. Tillich correlated theological categories with existential realities or “situations” without conflating or confusing them. ‘Situation,’ as one pole of all theological work, does not refer to the psychological or sociological state in which individuals and groups live. It refers to the scientific and artistic, the economic, political, and ethical forms in which they express their interpretation and existence. …The ‘situation’ to which theology must respond is the totality of [humanity’s] creative self-interpretation [of these factors] in a special period. (Tillich 1957: 3–4)

This complex quote tells us that Tillich’s theology put eternal truth and our existential historical situation in dialogue. This was his theological method of “correlation,” which “correlates questions and answers, situation and message, human existence and divine manifestation” (Tillich 1951: 8). Using this method, the eternal truths that theology attempted to voice are not independent of their historical situation, but are correlated and expressed within them. This method stands in sharp distinction to orthodox or fundamental theologies that resist this dialogue out of fear of cross-contamination. For Tillich, theological reason had to dialogue with the historical situation through categories and structures of human experience, not apart from them.

Power of Being For Tillich, God was not a being (Tillich 1951: 235–41). Rather, God is being. Put more precisely, God is the ground of all being and beings in the world. God is being, itself. Being, for Tillich, was the ground or source from which all things—including you and me and the world—exist. This rather abstract statement is actually Tillich’s practical way of correlating God and concrete existence. To be was to participate in the power of God, the essence of existence and the power to exist. To be and to exist was to participate in the power of God in and through the world. Therefore, all that has being has its being in God, the one God of all being. With these terms, Tillich shaped a Christian theology in which faith correlated with the courage to be and find new being in a world defined and structured with forces of nonbeing (Tillich 1952). The powers of nonbeing were the powers of sin, separation (estrangement), self-aggrandizement (hubris), guilt, suffering, despair, meaninglessness, destruction, and condemnation. The powers of being correlated with the powers of life, courage, self-affirmation, individualization, acceptance, and reconciliation. While Tillich’s theology was structured with existential categories of thought, he was nevertheless a Lutheran theologian. Christ and the cross are central symbols of life and transformation. Jesus Christ was the symbol and source of humanity’s new being in the world (Tillich 1957: 118–137, 165–180). Tillich interpreted the proclamation and meaning

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of Jesus Christ in historical and existential terms. If humanity’s ultimate concern was to be, and to exist, Christ was God’s revelation of the power of our whole (reconciled) and new humanity. This was not some abstract ideal humanity, but the power of our whole and reconciled new humanity in history. This was what was unique about Christian revelation. God was a God of history, not simply above or beyond history. The new being in Christ was not simply absolute and ideal, but actual, personal, and manifest. Therefore, Christian salvation was the symbol and source of understanding our new being individually and collective humanity in history. If faith was understood in such existential terms, not narrow ideal or religious terms, then faith concerned the courage to be and participate in new being in the world. This was Tillich’s answer to modernity’s crisis. The faith needed for salvation correlates with the courage to participate in this new way of being in the world as it correlates to human experience and each historical situation. In each historical predicament, each human form, and each cultural expression, Christ’s new way of being was expressed in different forms of new life. Tillich’s theology was a bridge from idealism to contemporary theology because his work identified universal categories of the human predicament and put them into dialogue with their historical situation, cultural particularity, and concrete experience. In this dialogue, history and human experience irrupted into theology in new ways and new expressions. The dialogue of contemporary theology was born.

20.3 Contemporary Theology as Dialogue, or Theology? Try Theologies In the last half of the 20th century, history and human experience irrupted into Protestant and Catholic theologies with force. Tillich did not influence all emerging theologies in the late 20th century, but it is hard to imagine contemporary theology with all its voices without Tillich. For Tillich, religion symbolized and expressed depth and truth. Religious dialogue was a critical dialogue about our human predicament rising out of the depth of our human experience. This resonated. For Tillich, biblical religion revealed a universal search for new human reality in the world (Tillich 1955). Democratic and cultural revolutions were unfolding throughout the colonized world in the 20th century. New ways of thinking about religion, humanity, and God—not in heaven or supernatural categories or ideal abstractions, but concrete and particular situations—already were underway. The crises of the 20th century unfolded in new religious dialogues across cultures about the meaning of God and religion in our nuclear age, emerging ecological crisis, new globalization, and liberation of the oppressed. Tillich’s thought allowed religion in the West to dialogue about its future. New voices emerged in this awakening. The legacies of liberalism—autonomous reason, human experience, and freedom—allowed those voices to define and remake contemporary Christian theology.

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20.3.1 Feminist Theologies Mary Daly’s radical feminist theology is a prime example of this redefinition. Mary Daly (1928–2010) was a brilliant feminist philosopher and theologian. Her brilliant insights into the nature of God, language, and patriarchy were critically important to second- and third-wave feminism. Daly had earned two doctorates. As a professor at Boston College, she was disciplined for prohibiting men from attending some of her courses. Daly’s thinking was influenced by, yet critical of, Tillich’s work (Schneider 1992). Early in 1972, Daly recognized a parallel between the women’s movement and the biblical exodus, something clear in her thinking. Women, she wrote, must liberate and leave patriarchal religion. Theology which is overtly and explicitly oppressive to women is by no means a thing of the past. Exclusively masculine symbolism for God, for the notion of divine ‘incarnation’ in human nature, and for the human relationship to God reinforces sexual hierarchy. Tremendous damage is done, particularly in ethics, which theologians construct one-dimensional arguments that fail to take women’s experience into account. …To summarize the situation: The entire conceptual apparatus of theology, developing under the conditions of patriarchy, has been the product of males and serves the interests of sexist society (Daly 1977: 267).

Following Tillich’s own religious thinking, Daly identified the religious situation of women in patriarchy. In response, Daly called for a new sisterhood to emerge among women. She argues that the “so-called ‘sisterhoods’ of patriarchy were and are in fact ‘mini-brotherhoods,’ serving male interests and ideas” (Daly 1977: 268). She was referring to women’s auxiliaries, religious orders, and sororities. In contrast, Daly identified an ethic among women emerging in the women’s movement, which is different. …The ethic that is emerging in the women’s movement is not one of prudence but one whose dominant theme is existential courage. This is the courage to see and to be in the face of the nameless anxieties that surface when a woman begins to see through the masks of sexist society and to confront the horrifying fact of her own alienation from her authentic self. …The very word [“sisterhood”] says liberation and revolution. (Daly 1977: 268)

The influence of Tillich’s ideas was clear in Daly’s language. Early, Daly identifies women’s courage to be in light of their historical situation as the centre of her philosophy and theology. For Tillich and Daly, “being” was a category of transcendence. It is a category that pointed to, and referenced, new ways of being and existing in human history. Sisterhood, for Daly, denoted the courage of women to be women as women. In patriarchal society, women’s full being is suppressed and denied. Sisterhood is women being women as women, not in the sense of being as a noun but as a verb. Daly’s idea of ‘being’ as a verb, not a noun, was a philosophical critique and innovation on Tillich’s thought. Daly took Tillich’s idea of God as being-itself and made it active and a process. She expressed this vision in her book Gyn/Ecology (Daly 1978).

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Feminist theologies emerged with other voices. Catholic feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether and her books Sexism and God-talk as well as Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology were two influential examples of feminist theology (Ruether 1983, 1994). While Daly eventually identified as post-Christian, Ruether’s work followed a different feminist path. Like Catholic feminist theologians Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Elizabeth Johnson, Ruether sought to recover the feminist impulses already influential but suppressed in Christian history and tradition (Johnson 1992; Fiorenza 1994). These theologians elevated and explicated the feminine imagery and nature of mystery already at work in the Christian tradition.

20.3.2 Liberation Theologies Other liberation theologies emerged in the 1960s and developed through contemporary dialogue through to today. Liberation theologies emerged out of particular human experiences. They constructed new understandings of the nature and movement of God, humanity, and liberation in dialogue with particular human predicaments. In other words, each liberation theology emerged self-conscious of the specific human experience and historical situation that shaped it. Liberation theologies represent many voices. Latin American liberation theology emerged after centuries of European colonialization. This theology gave voice and preference to the experience of the poor in Latin America. Latina liberation theologies continue to grow in critical dialogue with Latin American Liberation theology representing voices of women among Latin America’s poor. Black liberation theology emerged in the wake of the US civil rights movement. Influenced by philosophies of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, black theology grew from the intersecting influences of America’s history of slavery, white supremacy, and the black experience. Tillich’s theology influenced black theology as it emerged in the United States. ‘Womanist’ theology developed in response to black theology in the 1980s and 1990s. Each represents a voice in contemporary theology.

20.3.2.1

Latin American Liberation Theology

In 1968, the second conference of Catholic Latin American bishops met in Medellin, Colombia. Called El Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano (CELAM II), this group met in response to the reforms of Vatican II (1962–1965). Vatican II, still controversial, reformed Catholic tradition and aimed to modernize the Church. The papacies of Pope Benedict XVI (born 1927; Pope 2005–2013) and Pope Francis (born 1936; ordained Pope 2013) reflect different reactions to the influence of Latin American liberation theology in Catholicism.13 13 Pope Benedict XVI, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, served as Prefect of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a council responsible for defending the doctrine and faith of the

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The Second Council in Medellin set the foundation of Latin American liberation theology. Influential voices at the Council identified clear relationships between Christianity and the historical conditions of the poor and colonized in Latin America. First, sin was not simply a matter of personal choice or a condition of human nature. The biblical concept of sin persists in human history as a social structure. The nature of sin can be seen in the central narratives of scripture: the enslavement of the Hebrews in Exodus and the reality of Jesus’ cross. For Latin American liberation theology, sin names the essential structure of social and economic oppression. Poverty and its oppression manifest the structure of sin in real life of the poor. Poverty is a form of institutionalized violence of the few against the poor and oppressed. In the poor’s struggle for life against oppression, the God of the Exodus and Christ’s resurrection is on the side of the poor. Salvation is the liberation of the poor to become fully human and thrive. Latin American Liberation theology is focused on this world and this life. Creating controversy, CELAM II called the Catholic Church to be on the side of the poor in the poor’s struggle for liberation in Latin America. The political nature of this call was evident in the civil unrest and liberation struggles taking place in Columbia, Cuba, and Peru. Liberation theologians saw the biblical Exodus as its foundation for God being on the side of the poor and God’s liberating acts in history. Christ the Liberator was born among the poor, and his message was the Kingdom of God on Earth. Christ’s message of liberation was not for heaven alone, but for this life. Liberation theology made it clear that the agent of liberation and new life in this world was the poor and those in solidarity with the poor, not communism or capitalism. The works of Peruvian Bishop Gustavo Gutierrez, Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff, and philosopher Enrique Dussel were foundational for Latin American Liberation theology (Gutierrez 1973; Boff 1978; Dussel 1976).

20.3.2.2

Black Theology

Like Latin American theology, black theology had roots in historical forces and human struggle. James Cone (1938–2018) has been called the father of black theology. An African Methodist Episcopal minister, Cone was finalizing two influential books that introduced black theology about the time CELAM II met in Medellin,

Church. He signed “Instruction On Certain Aspects Of The ‘Theology of Liberation,’” a document from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith given August 6, 1984. The letter criticized Latin American theology for Marxist influences and upheld the primacy of principles of Catholic social teaching. (Available at http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19840806_theology-liberation_en.html) Pope Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina. His frequent public messages concerning the welfare of the poor also reflect the influence of Latin American Liberation theology on Catholicism postVatican II. An example is Pope Francis’ message “Second World Day of the Poor” given November 18, 2018. (Available at http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/poveri/documents/ papa-francesco_20180613_messaggio-ii-giornatamondiale-poveri-2018.html).

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Colombia—Black Theology and Black Power (Cone 1969, 1997) and A Black Theology of Liberation (Cone 1970). Cone’s groundbreaking work in black theology was influenced by Tillich. In Black Theology and Black Power, Cone stated the meaning of black power can be understood within Paul Tillich’s analysis of the courage to be. Quoting Tillich, Cone explains black power is “a humanizing force because it is the black man’s attempt to affirm his being” (Cone 1997: 7) Cone later acknowledged his sexist language (Cone 1997: x). The point of Black Theology and Black Power was to explain how racism, its historical and psychological forces, dehumanized black people. The structure of white society attempts to make ‘black being’ into ‘nonbeing’ or ‘nothingness.’ In existential philosophy, nonbeing is usually identified as that which threatens being; it is that ever-present possibility of the inability to affirm one’s existence. The courage to be, then, is the courage to affirm one’s being by striking at the dehumanizing forces which threaten being. (Cone 1997: 7)

Cone’s aim is inclusive. His synthesis of black theology and black power aims at affirming black experience of women and men in light of over 300 years of US slavery, segregation and white supremacy. Tillich’s work was a catalyst. Black theologians demonstrated how black power and liberation had its roots in African-American history and figures and writers such as Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, and Frederick Douglass. Its sources were the Bible, Christian tradition, as well as the blues, jazz, and especially black Christianity and the black church (Cone 1991). Black theology is a deep religious dialogue of religion and culture. Black theology, like feminist theology and Latin American theology, arose with a particular historical situation and consciousness. The structure of gender and particular experience of women, however, continued to expand liberation theology’s understanding of its historical situation and how it shaped human experience.

20.3.3 Womanist Theology Womanist theology emerged in the wake of black theology as a sympathetic, yet critical voice in response to black theology.14 Theologians Delores Williams, Jacquelyn Grant, and Katie Cannon were foundational for womanist voices (Williams 1993; Grant 1989; Cannon 1995). Conscious of their specific perspectives as black women, these theologians identified the historical predicament of African-American women in the black community under the oppressive structures of racism, sexism, and classism. These forces not only shaped the experience of black women in black communities, but also the black church. Jacquelyn Grant explained: Black women must do theology out of their tri-dimensional experience of racism/sexism/classism. To ignore any aspect of this experience is to deny the wholistic 14 “Womanist”

comes from writer Alice Walker (Walker 1983).

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and integrated reality of Black womanhood. When Black women say that God is on the side of the oppressed, we mean that God is in solidarity with the struggles of those on the underside of humanity, those whose lives are bent and broken from the many levels of assault perpetuated against them. (Grant 1993: 274)

Womanist vision for the world was, therefore, formed out of the experience of gender oppression, poverty, and racism. Womanist thought is critical of black theology and feminist theology for whom they exclude. Womanists critique black theology for its omission of careful attention to black women’s experience, sexist language, and the essential role of black women in the black church. Womanists also are critical of feminist theology for reflecting only white women’s experience. Black theology and feminist theology, say womanists, both miss the essential intersection of sex and gender, race and class, and how these shape the realities of sin, solidarity, and black women’s experience. In response, womanist theology holds itself out as dynamic, holistic and evolving around a deep understanding of God’s identity with suffering, with an uncompromising sense of justice, and trumpeting a proclamation of indomitable hope.

20.3.4 Latina Feminist Theology The experience and voices of women also critically influence and shape Latin American liberation theology through Latina feminist thought. Ada Maria Isasi Diaz and María Pilar Aquino are prominent voices of Latina feminist theologies (Isasi-Dias 1996). Similar to womanist theology, Latina feminist theology is critical of other liberation theologies for omitting careful attention of gender, sexism, and sexuality in its historical analysis of oppression. However, it is written in solidarity with feminist and liberation theologies. Latina feminist theologians widen the dialogue of Latin American theology and its vision for liberation. Maria Pilar Aquino states that the assumption that feminism represents primarily a common culture of European and American women’s experience is a myth. While Latinas/Chicanas have been denied intellectual influence in feminist thought and Latino/a culture, the everyday life and experiences of Latina/Chicana women is an essential source for theological reason, knowledge, and social justice. Their human predicament is unique and a source for theological knowledge and vision. This is because Latina/Chicana women live and survive everyday amidst the historical forces of globalization, colonization, and oppression (Aquino et al. 2002). Latina feminist theologians …[k]now what it means to be seen as intruder and alien on our own land; we know what life is like as a daily cultural, social, and racial ‘border crosser.’ It is this national/international reality that is unique and important to the Latina feminist. …As a result of our shared history of conquest and colonization, Latina feminists use their theological reflection to move in new and liberating directions in which justice is also interpreted as a Christian vision of a new humanity in a new social order. (Aquino et al. 2002: xvi)

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Of course, the hope for liberation, a new humanity, and social justice is not unique to Latina feminist theologians. But history shapes the human predicament of Latina/Chicana experience in a particular way.

20.3.5 Asian and Queer Theologies We can rejoice in the knowledge that the dialogue between God and the real world grows. Theologians C. S. Song, Kwok Pui Lan, Chung Hyun Kyung, and Rita Nakashima Brock are major contributors to the growing body of Asian liberation and feminist theologies (Song 1986, 1990; Pui-lan 2000, 2005; Chung 1990; Brock and Thistlethwaite 1996; Brock and Parker 2001). Asian theologians illuminate our understanding of the history of colonialism, the meaning of suffering in Eastern cultures, and Christianity’s dialogue with Eastern religions. Queer theologians John J. McNeil, Marcella Althaus-Reid, and Patrick Chang deepen the dialogue between queer theory, theology, and the LGTBIQA+ community (McNeil 1993, 1996; Althaus-Reid 2000, 2003; Cheng 2011, 2012). They expand theology’s understanding of the world, our human predicaments, and the diverse voices of contemporary theology.

20.4 Conclusion, or Is There Any Hope for Theology? Will this evolving dialogue lead to God’s future? That is the hope. Hope is what drives contemporary theology’s dialogue with the human predicament. That hope is an inclusive and diverse hope. Hope is essential for the world today. Jürgen Moltmann’s theology of hope explains why this thread of hope is so central. Moltmann experienced the crisis of humanity in violent global conflict. He is a contemporary theologian who served in World War II and spent three years as a prisoner of war. His influential book, Theology of Hope, is central to his systematic theology. Moltmann explains how contemporary theology can think about God and hope together. [F]or Christian theology ‘history’ cannot mean that it has again to proclaim the truth of God in combination with the old experiences of fate and chance, but that it has to give this world itself a place in the process that begins with the promise and is kept going by hope. (Moltmann 1967: 93)

For Moltmann, the aim of theology’s dialogue with the human predicament is to open history, itself, to a future given to hope. Hope lies in the vision contemporary theologians have for a future that is shared by countless others. The hope for liberation, a new humanity, and new social order is a biblical vision. It is a theological

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vision womanists, feminists, Latin American theologians, black theologians, queer theologians, and other contemporary religious voices share. This hope for God’s future is where the particular perspectives and voices of human history intersect with universal hope. Hope is not abstract, but is present in every act of inclusion, dialogue, and collaboration of contemporary theologians with others seeking liberation, a new humanity, and a new world. Hope in this future is essential to understanding the global religious dialogue today, including contemporary theology. Contemporary theologians carry on their tradition of dialogue about God for the sake of God and the world. They continue their discipline because God, for contemporary theologians, is a living God. God permeates this world and is for the sake of this world. Our God of the past is present in our historical circumstances. When God finds us or we find God, God calls us to hope. Hope is always for now and the future. Religions have always been concerned with more than the past and preserving the past. Religious people and living religious communities are each a unique blend of particular beliefs and practices, stories and teachings, authoritative texts, traditions of interpretation and present circumstances. Theologians, therefore, concern themselves with more than universal abstractions and timeless truths. They dialogue about how their traditions of belief, practice, stories and teachings inform present life in community with others, and bring hope for the future. For any religion to be a living religious tradition, that’s what religious dialogue needs to be about.

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