Religion must be reclaimed from oppression as a force for good

Published on Friday 16 January 2009 20:32

WERNER G JEANROND, Professor of Divinity, University of Glasgow

WHEN Barack Obama is sworn in as president, prayers will be said. When Britain remembers servicemen killed or wounded, priests and bishops and religious rituals are very much in the picture. When people look for orientation in life, they often turn to religion. It is intertwined with our personal, political, social, military, and cultural life.

This has always been so, though more recently the presence of religion in our lives has received more public attention. Some even speak of "the return of religion" as if it had been absent for a while. While some welcome this new awareness of the power of faith, others vividly deplore it.

Religion's forms, manifestations, expressions and claims have always been changing. Last century a number of scientists and political thinkers had (wrongly) predicted the disappearance of religion in our western countries in tune with both increasing enlightenment and the victory of a scientific world view.

The religious landscape of Europe has dramatically changed: mass migration (as a result of wars, colonialism, oppression, hunger and unemployment) has led to a pluralisation and globalisation in our religious fabric. In every corner of Europe people have neighbours belonging to other religious traditions. Moreover, Enlightenment thinking has led to radical changes within the religions themselves: Christian faith, for example, today more than ever recognises the plurality of traditions, beliefs, and spiritual developments. Christian church leaders find it therefore increasingly difficult to impose authoritarian and clericalist ideologies on their communities. A new sense of respect for the religious maturity of the faithful is emerging.

While some people still favour a black and white attitude to religion many religious people embrace a critical and constructive attitude toward their own faith tradition as well as to the different traditions of their neighbours. Hence, as a result of improving education in religious matters, both adherents and adversaries of the different faiths have developed new ways of understanding the complexities of religion.

The purpose of religion is not to fill the gaps left by insufficient thinking or bad science. It is not the opposite of reason. Rather religion and reason need each other. Religion concerns the way we organise our lives personally and communally. It concerns all of our human relations: to God, to other human beings, to the universe, and to our own fragile and emerging selves. Like love, religion does not obey strategies, planning and prediction, but is able to surprise us. Its dynamics can transform persons and entire cultures.

Religious faiths and developments can and must be examined, observed, described and analysed. Their particular dynamics, forms and expressions must be studied. Religious rites, rituals, mystical experiences, prophetic visions, challenging narratives, ethical reflections, and powerful symbols together offer a wealth of insight into the potential of human relationships, personal and communal orientation, and their transcendence. Religions can be significant sources of wisdom and orientation in our cultures and in our present crisis when trust in agents of our financial system has evaporated and orientations for a meaningful life beyond market ideologies are needed.

However, religious faith, like any other aspect of human life, needs reason. It requires assessment, education and critique. Religions have been used by tyrannical and fundamentalist regimes and systems. Religious movements have allowed themselves to become forces of oppression. The best safeguard against such manipulation and deviation is an informed public and critical discussion of the potential of religions for good and evil in our societies.