Sensible Religion

Christopher Lewis, Dan Cohn-Sherbok

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317057215
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Essays

Around the globe religion is under attack. Humanists, secularists and atheists depict believers as deluded and dangerous. The aim of this book is to challenge this perception. Sensible Religion defends the validity and emphasises the excitement of the religious quest across the faiths. It demonstrates that the practice of sensible religion is often a courageous path pitted against religious extremism and secularism. Written by committed believers from the major world's faiths, the book endorses the term 'sensible' as expressing religious reasonableness as well as sensitivity to criticism and new insights. Followers of the different traditions live ordinary lives in the mainstream of the world. This volume therefore addresses beliefs and the manner in which these convictions relate to social, political and ethical action. Countering the argument that religion is at root extremist and irrational, Sensible Religion brings together thoughtful and critical reflections by leading thinkers about humanity's spiritual quest.

1 The Religious Quest

Christopher Lewis

DOI: 10.4324/9781315608372-1

Sensible religion might be seen as dull and revisionist. This book demonstrates that the opposite is true. The courageous and original are, for example, the Muslim woman who works for women's rights, the Jew who campaigns for justice for Palestinians, the Hindu who reckons that ‘karma’ does not justify a caste system, the Buddhist who opposes violence in Burma. Religion today is often reduced to mere personal experience; sensible religion addresses all that is for it involves both belief and morality.

Religions matter. They matter to the millions of people everywhere who believe in a transcendent realm which reaches out to us and which we can approach in hope and love. Religions also impinge on those who are not believers, for here is a phenomenon, present in every community, that is not going to vanish away. Indeed, as Peter Berger (1999) has pointed out, those who once thought that religions would gradually be swept aside by a tide of secularization have had to revise their views in the face of evidence to the contrary. Some religions have indeed disappeared without much trace (whatever happened to the great organizations set up around worship of Baal and Osiris?), but new ones appear and develop. How and why religions persist is a matter of debate (Hinde, 1999; Newberg et al., 2001), to which should be added an investigation into the reasons behind the phenomenon of secularism. If anything, the spiritual quest seems to have become more pervasive while at the same time being more diverse and eclectic; some societies appear to have become less secular, others more so; all have changed.

This book is not, however, primarily concerned with rise or decline. Instead, its focus is on some of the principal world religions as believed in and practised. It is written by people who are committed believers within particular religions and who also apply critical judgment to traditions to which they belong. This is an age, in the West but also elsewhere in the world, when religious belief and practice are sometimes viewed as at least eccentric or irrational and perhaps as worse than that. The contention in this book is that to follow the religious path is a sensible response to the fact of life in our world, and that the vast majority of religious people are leading ordinary loving lives. The concerns addressed here are therefore related to the philosophical question of whether religious belief, or at least religious belief in some of its forms, is intellectually acceptable: reasonable, justifiable and therefore what Alvin Plantinga (2000), after lengthy and thorough examination, calls ‘warranted’.

‘Sensible’ has a number of connotations. The most common refers to reasonableness in people and beliefs: having beliefs and practices which are both consistent with what is considered to be true and which also correspond to what is seen as reality. Yet there is another meaning, not unrelated to the first, which refers to sensitivity, awareness, being mindful of the views of others and responsive to the world around us, both individually and collectively. It follows, of course, that some beliefs and practices are excluded, but the bracket is wide and contains people who see themselves as radicals and traditionalists, liberals and conservatives. So the aim of this project is to examine the religious quest in some of its principal forms, in order to demonstrate two main features. First that each tradition takes into account the insights both of theology and of other disciplines, together with criticisms made of the particular tradition itself; in other words, that it is a viable, self-critical body of belief and practice, rather than being a self-justifying closed world. Secondly, that the religions can be, and are, followed by rounded and loving people in the modern world, indeed that the traditions enable people to be altruistic as well as fulfilled.

All the authors are well aware that there are aberrations in religious belief and practice as there are in all human activity; in other words, that that there is ‘Good and Bad Religion’, the title of a book by Peter Vardy (2010). A question worth considering is whether the religious are more prone than others to destructive and deviant behaviour. In favour of that view is the manner in which beliefs and actions gain legitimation and strength by being, as it were, attached to and blessed by supernatural powers. If it is believed that God wills a particular action or conviction, it takes on a new significance, whether it be for good or ill. Religions are ashamed of the evil things which have been done in the name of God.

Evidence against the view that the religious are more prone to destructive behaviour are the wonderful consequences which have flowed from religious belief: compassionate and original people and organizations, art, culture, initiatives for peace. Also, that many of the acts for which religion gets the blame are in fact primarily political and economic with a thin cover of religious justification. Yet nothing can excuse the Crusades or other violence perpetrated in the name of religion.

Aspects of Religion

This book claims that the religious quest, as manifested in different religions, is a reasonable path, as embarked on by millions of people all over the world. Yet when speaking of religion, we are not referring to a uniform system, but to something with a number of dimensions, some more prominent than others, but all shared to a lesser or greater degree by different religions. Ninian Smart (1969) starts his seminal work The Religious Experience of Mankind with an examination of the dimensions or aspects of religion. Not surprisingly, religion is hard to define. For example, Buddhism shares in the various aspects and is treated as a religion, yet most strands of Buddhism do not speak of God.

Moreover, people have speculated as to whether communism is a religion, or indeed whether football is. Communism certainly shares some of the features of a religion, for example in having its systems of belief in which people put their faith, its manifestoes, and its founding and heroic figures. Football has its heroes, its rituals involving chants and other singing, and its local clubs. Neither, however, has as its aim communication from and to the divine. Such secular organizations, being rooted in the same world, are bound to share some of the same characteristics as religions.

Basic to religion is an experience or awareness of the divine. If a ‘sense of God’ (experiences that point to a transcendent realm) did not occur in every society and throughout recorded history, then there would be no religion. Of course, experience may mislead; people claiming to have been abducted by aliens are generally not believed. Yet experience of the divine may call for supporting evidence, for example the corroborating witness of other people (Bowker, 2002: 20–21) and so the transcendent, even when believed to be beyond knowing, may become part of shared understanding.

Beyond experience, what are the main features of religion? The first is prayer, something which many people practise: some perhaps only in desperate straits, but others as a central part of religious observance both alone and together with fellow believers.

Loose me from sin as from a bond that binds me … Let not my thread, while I weave song, be severed, nor my work's sum before the time be shattered. Far from me Varuna, remove all danger: accept me graciously, thou holy sovereign … O mighty Varuna, now and hereafter, even as of old, will we speak forth our worship. (Eliade: 1977. Rig Veda II, 28)

That is a prayer from Hindu writings, showing a mystical longing to reach out to the transcendent and, in this case, for Varuna to forgive and to care for the believer. Mysticism and prayer are natural and universal dimensions of human life; to the believer, the practice of prayer gives assurance of communication with the divine.

A related dimension is ritual and worship in all its different forms. If God is the creator, infinite, loving and perfect, then the hearts of believers go out to God in worship. Prayer and praise go together with music, chant and actions; they are central to the manner in which the religious may experience the transcendent. Indeed it is worship and prayer which define and identify religions, and also which offer something which different religions can do together. Gandhi said that ‘More than all, people of all religions should learn to worship together’ (Parrinder, 1977: 86).

A consequence of the centrality of worship and prayer are places set apart: temples, synagogues, churches, mosques. The buildings themselves are an important aspect of a religion, expressing the part played by beauty and place in understanding and approaching the divine. Great love and expense are poured into religious buildings although there is, of course, a variety of ways to provide a context in which people may come near to God and at the same time express something of God's nature in the building itself: great soaring temples on the one hand and meeting rooms in converted shops on the other.

More diverse and less open to agreement are the beliefs of the different religions about the nature of the divine and its dealings with human beings and with the world. Religious language is language of a particular kind, trying to express systematically what may be seen as almost impossible to put into words. Religions use myth, stories and narratives, yet also shape beliefs into doctrinal systems. If there are scriptures, then they may be seen as immune to historical and literary criticism on the grounds that they are revealed and therefore sacred. The understanding of scriptures can, however, alter without any change in the authority of those scriptures, so doctrines develop. This doctrinal area is the most problematic both between and within religions, for whereas experience, prayer, worship and ethics may have their similarities, doctrines and the methods by which they are arrived at, often diverge and appear intractable.

A further dimension is that of human behaviour or ethics. I have mentioned violence, but not that evil deeds done in the name of God imply a particular understanding of the divine: only a vicious God could justify many of the things done in God's name. Human behaviour is challenged by an understanding of gods and of the transcendent as essentially benevolent and loving. People running to God to justify their actions collide with love. Religions could be more energetic in disowning some of the actions done and words spoken and written in their name. Having said that, one of the best pieces of evidence in support of the religious quest is the wonderful and self-sacrificial work done, often-unnoticed, by religious people. People are known by their actions, and judgment as to whether a religion is sensible must look with care at actual deeds.

The last, and perhaps the least, of the dimensions or aspects of religion are the representative people, the leaders, the preachers, the administration. A degree of institutional expression of religion is necessary in order for there to be continuity and some sense of order, but there is naturally debate as to quite what significance to give to that expression. Some religious bodies seem to spend an inordinate amount of time and effort on their internal structures, while the rest of the world looks on with a mixture of fascination and horror. Such arrangements are certainly secondary to the essential core of religions, namely the mystical quest, the prayer, the worship, the experience of the infinite and the consequential loving lives.

Aberrations

Sweeping evaluations of a particular religion are always faulty. That is because within each religion, as believed and practised, there is good and bad. So it is necessary with Peter Vardy (2010) to try to spell out the criteria for telling bad from good. Some of the criteria will be ethical such as care for the poor, attitudes to women or the practice of justice. Good religion respects the value and dignity of each human being and has the hope that each person will flourish, becoming transformed, loving and truthful.

Yet religion stretches beyond the individual; the pursuit of peace and justice is an example. Good religion seeks peace and considers that the times when religious people have taken up arms in the name of religion to be betrayals. Of course, like all such matters, to say that is to oversimplify and it is a feature of true religions that they must live among politics and pay what has been called ‘the price of existence in the world’ (Parrinder, 1977: 63). Books are written on the need, on occasion, to engage in the defense of civilians and of what is seen to be right and true. Suffice it to say that over against the views of some religious extremists, the mainstream of true religion is peace-loving and bent on peace-building, at each level from personal relationships to the world scale. Religions have their violent wings, justified by selective material from their traditions and a sense of grievance and injustice, to the horror of most believers.

A related matter, much discussed in this book, is that of politics in general and nationalism in particular. A religion which grows up endorsing a particular nation against all others may eventually develop and gain maturity, but if it remains nationalistic to the core, then it will not be able to perform a main function of any religion, namely to give meaning and direction to the whole of life both for individuals and for groups. Again, this is a vast subject, but there is a distinction between reasonable national pride on the one hand and aggressive nationalism on the other. In Christian circles there is an essay question which is sometimes set in seminaries: ‘Was the conversion of the emperor Constantine of benefit to Christianity?’ It is a deliberately challenging question to answer, but at least religions need to be conscious of the arguments which can be marshaled on each side. Those arguing for Constantine's adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire would cite the added influence and opportunities which may come from an understanding of (and involvement in) the ways of politics; the chance to spread a beneficial religious message in a way which would otherwise be impossible; the support gained for glorious art, music, literature and buildings, all of which may have transcendent value; the belief that religions have to make do with life in the ‘real world’ and that escape is unrealistic.

Those who argue against a Constantinian religion would say that although religions should indeed engage with the world as it is, they should have enough distance to be able to be critical; that the interests of the poor are central to religions and that the world of politics is too much bound up with the rich and powerful; that the temptations of power are too great and should be avoided by those who wish to follow a religious path; that the lessons of history – from Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Sikhism (to name but six!) – lead to the conclusion that direct rule in the name of religion rarely brings justice and good government. The appropriate conclusion is one of balance in the relationship between religion and politics: religion is in the world, but not so bound up with it that it cannot maintain a critical distance.

That raises a question about the religious diaspora. Is a religion likely to be less compromised by powerful political involvement, for example by nationalism, when it is in a minority position in a country other than the one in which it originated? As with many generalizations of this kind, it is hard to come to a clear conclusion. What can be said is that religious groups transposed into an entirely new cultural context and which are not merely vehicles for looking back to the homeland, can and do find new ways of expressing their faith. The debate within Islam about what it means to be a Muslim in a country not ruled by Muslims is an example. Some Jews argue that you can be more truly (and sensibly) a Jew in the diaspora.

Discussion of politics and nationalism leads on to the next factor, which is that good religion lives in the world and, to some degree, affirms it. If a religious group gains its energy and identity from railing against society and living separately from it with a closed membership, it is unlikely to be healthy. To say that may seem to exclude the monastic life, but the evidence does not support such a view. Buddhist monasticism, for example, usually has close contact with its social context through education and prayer; the concerns of the society in which the monasteries are set are known and often energetically expressed. The point here is one which can be put in the language of the sociology of knowledge. Religion exists in a particular social and psychological context. If that context is one of minimum social contact with ideas which challenge those of the group, or indeed of little dialogue with people who do not belong to it, then the group will maintain a view of reality which is generated within it. Study of millenarian and other sects has shown that in a closed world, whether secular or religious, a distinctive and often destructive world-view can be constr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Foreword by Peter Vardy
• Preface by Dan Cohn-Sherbok and Christopher Lewis
• Acknowledgements
• 1 The Religious Quest
• 2 A Sensible Judaism of Love
• 3 Judaism’s Critique of Idolatry and the Beginning of Liberative Religion
• 4 Islam
• 5 Retrieving the Equilibrium and Restoring Justice: Using Islam’s Egalitarian Teachings to Reclaim Women’s Rights
• 6 Reclaiming Jihad
• 7 The Reasonableness of Christianity
• 8 Christianity and Sensible Religion: A Feminist Approach
• 9 The Ecosystem of Religions: A Hindu Perspective
• 10 Hinduism: True (Satyam), Good (Shivam) and Beautiful (Sundaram)
• 11 Is Buddhism Sensible?
• 12 Buddhism: Sense and Sensibility
• 13 Sikhi(sm) and the Twenty-First Century Sikh Diaspora
• 14 African Traditional Religion
• 15 Conclusion: Sensible Religion Matters
• Index