What value does religious history have for a secular society? I want to reflect on that question briefly, first by talking generally about the value of religious history in Australia and then by giving one example from my own research. I should say that while I am discussing religious history generally, most of my illustrations come from the history of Christianity, as that is the tradition with which I’m most familiar.
The census statistics suggest that, in spite of recent anxieties over the growing power of religion in Australia, most Australians are personally indifferent to institutional religion. While 80% of Australians identify as having a religious affiliation, just over 60% believe in God (other than occasionally!) and only 25% attend a religious service monthly or more often. If most Australians are not particularly excited about religion, however, this is not representative of much of the rest of the world. In the 60s, Western scholars were busy predicting that secularisation and decolonisation would mean the end of religion, but fifty years on the number of people being born into religious traditions and joining them is booming. Whether one looks at Al Qaeda or the American Christian Right, the political significance of religion in the twenty-first century is obvious.
Concern over these developments has not, however, produced much thoughtful public discussion of religious history. Rather, most public discussion about religion in Australia seems to centre on debates about ‘true’ religion. For example, is ‘true’ Islam expressed in the actions of Palestinian suicide bombers? Is ‘true’ Christianity expressed in the voting patterns of self-identified ‘born again’ Republicans who support George W.? I think here of a recent opinion piece in The Age, which set itself up as an analysis of American churches, but was in fact a lengthy lament over the failure of American Christians to pay attention to the Sermon on the Mount. I don’t want to discount the concerns reflected in such debates. They reflect pressing concerns for a multicultural society trying to live in harmony and wondering whether this is possible if religion inevitably produces violence and intolerance. They reflect the frustrations of those who think that religion is the poison of the masses and want to highlight its dangers. They reflect the concerns of religious communities distressed at being associated with values or actions they detest. But this focus on ‘true’ religion does, I think, distract from important questions about how contemporary manifestations of religious belief and practice have developed historically.
In arguments about ‘true’ religion, history is usually appealed to in the form of examples that act as prooftexts for a particular line of argument. For example, a debate over whether Christianity inevitably produces the kind of aggressive nationalism demonstrated in the US at present. The person arguing that Christianity encourages state violence mentions the Crusades, the German churches during the Third Reich and the Spanish Inquisition. The person arguing that these are not examples of true Christianity points to Francis of Assisi, the anti-slavery reformers and the Catholic church in Chile, resisting Pinochet. And so on, and so on. If you read the letters page of the Age, you will be familiar with this pattern of argument.
This is a limited approach to studying religion, not only because it ignores the historical context of particular expressions of religious conviction, but also because it tends to analyse these developments in terms of categories that have particular modern significance. Categories such as left-wing and right-wing, moderate and fundamentalist or even progressive and conservative. These categories often cut across and distort the internal dynamics of particular religious cultures. If you interpret religion simply in terms of current conceptions of ‘left’ and ‘right-wing’, for example, you may struggle to explain why a Roman Catholic liberation theologian, who supports socialist economic policies, also opposes contraception and abortion. If you interpret religion simply in terms of ‘conservative’ and ‘progressive’, you may struggle to explain why evangelical leaders helped spearhead the campaign to decriminalise homosexuality in New Zealand. And while it would be difficult to describe Christians who practice the pacifist and doctrinally loose Quaker tradition as ‘fundamentalist’, when they follow their convictions, as some do, to the point that they are crushed under the wheels of an Israeli tank while defending Palestinian homes, it seems equally inappropriate to describe them as ‘moderate’.
The census statistics suggest that, in spite of recent anxieties over the growing power of religion in Australia, most Australians are personally indifferent to institutional religion. While 80% of Australians identify as having a religious affiliation, just over 60% believe in God (other than occasionally!) and only 25% attend a religious service monthly or more often. If most Australians are not particularly excited about religion, however, this is not representative of much of the rest of the world. In the 60s, Western scholars were busy predicting that secularisation and decolonisation would mean the end of religion, but fifty years on the number of people being born into religious traditions and joining them is booming. Whether one looks at Al Qaeda or the American Christian Right, the political significance of religion in the twenty-first century is obvious.
Concern over these developments has not, however, produced much thoughtful public discussion of religious history. Rather, most public discussion about religion in Australia seems to centre on debates about ‘true’ religion. For example, is ‘true’ Islam expressed in the actions of Palestinian suicide bombers? Is ‘true’ Christianity expressed in the voting patterns of self-identified ‘born again’ Republicans who support George W.? I think here of a recent opinion piece in The Age, which set itself up as an analysis of American churches, but was in fact a lengthy lament over the failure of American Christians to pay attention to the Sermon on the Mount. I don’t want to discount the concerns reflected in such debates. They reflect pressing concerns for a multicultural society trying to live in harmony and wondering whether this is possible if religion inevitably produces violence and intolerance. They reflect the frustrations of those who think that religion is the poison of the masses and want to highlight its dangers. They reflect the concerns of religious communities distressed at being associated with values or actions they detest. But this focus on ‘true’ religion does, I think, distract from important questions about how contemporary manifestations of religious belief and practice have developed historically.
In arguments about ‘true’ religion, history is usually appealed to in the form of examples that act as prooftexts for a particular line of argument. For example, a debate over whether Christianity inevitably produces the kind of aggressive nationalism demonstrated in the US at present. The person arguing that Christianity encourages state violence mentions the Crusades, the German churches during the Third Reich and the Spanish Inquisition. The person arguing that these are not examples of true Christianity points to Francis of Assisi, the anti-slavery reformers and the Catholic church in Chile, resisting Pinochet. And so on, and so on. If you read the letters page of the Age, you will be familiar with this pattern of argument.
This is a limited approach to studying religion, not only because it ignores the historical context of particular expressions of religious conviction, but also because it tends to analyse these developments in terms of categories that have particular modern significance. Categories such as left-wing and right-wing, moderate and fundamentalist or even progressive and conservative. These categories often cut across and distort the internal dynamics of particular religious cultures. If you interpret religion simply in terms of current conceptions of ‘left’ and ‘right-wing’, for example, you may struggle to explain why a Roman Catholic liberation theologian, who supports socialist economic policies, also opposes contraception and abortion. If you interpret religion simply in terms of ‘conservative’ and ‘progressive’, you may struggle to explain why evangelical leaders helped spearhead the campaign to decriminalise homosexuality in New Zealand. And while it would be difficult to describe Christians who practice the pacifist and doctrinally loose Quaker tradition as ‘fundamentalist’, when they follow their convictions, as some do, to the point that they are crushed under the wheels of an Israeli tank while defending Palestinian homes, it seems equally inappropriate to describe them as ‘moderate’.
