The West Needs a Spiritual Surge

The spell of the Enlightenment so profoundly distracts many Western opinion makers that the worldwide rise of religion is either ignored or it is viewed as major threat rather than an important source for the re-moralization of society. True, many observers have noted, especially after September 11, that the rise of a religiously ferocious Islam is not limited to the Arab world, but is very much in evidence in all Muslim nations from Indonesia to Turkey. But few have paid mind to the importance of the crowded churches in former communist countries in Eastern Europe and Russia; to the many scores of millions who are finding religion in China; and to the rapidly growing followings of a variety of religious denominations, cults and sects all over the world. 

The global significance of these developments is highlighted in what otherwise would be an almost trivial development: the U.S. Agency for International Development is revising the textbooks used in Afghan and Iraqi schools. Its staff has been tearing out of these texts the passages that extol the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, but they have been stymied in finding what other values to instill, deciding instead to focus on teaching math, science and English. However, such secular teachings do not address profound issues that religions do speak to: What is a virtuous life? What are our obligations to our family members, friends and other community members? Is death a threatening end we all must fear or merely a passing to a better place?  Are we truly better off as we command ever more goods? And can those of us who do not “make it” in the marketplace—still find deep sources of self-respect?

Western secularism largely avoids these issues. Its consumer hedonism has an appeal of its own, but more and more people find that they cannot keep up with the Joneses. Hence the growing alienation in the countryside and among urban migrants—among the majority of the people—in developing nations such as India and China. The West does well when it extols the dignity of the individual, the value of autonomy and human rights. However these are basically ideologies that serve as compelling antidotes to excessive governmental intrusions and celebrate self-government. They do not address the questions that a person faces once he is free to choose, free to set his own course of destiny and purpose.

The lack of responses to these transcendental questions is the main reason the West will continue to fall behind in the global clash of belief systems. Theoretically the West can evolve a much richer set of values by drawing on secular humanism, as long as it accords much more weight to the affirmative moral categories of Immanuel Kant and John Rawls’ conception of social justice, rather than focusing on libertarian notions of free choice. However, the religious revival sweeping all the world—except Western Europe—strongly suggests that the West will also have to draw on religious sources in seeking to speak to the profound questions that gnaw at people, especially once they have secured their basic creature comforts.

Rather than treating religion, as so many enlightened people do, as a relic of the past, long on passion and short on reason, the enemy of progress and freedom, the West will best learn to differentiate between moderate, civil religious interpretations and violence-prone, fundamentalist ones. The first kind address key transcendental questions that concern our obligations to one another and our cosmic destiny, while seeking to persuade people rather than to coerce them to abide by the religious tenets. Among Christians there are indeed those who believe that their religion “comes not to bring peace, but a sword,” but many more who would rather “turn the other cheek”; some Jews also believe that God bequeathed to them the West Bank, but most believe that they ought to trade land for peace. Similarly there are Muslims who view jihad as a call to holy war, but there are others who follow the widely held interpretation of jihad as a spiritual journey of self-improvement, and who favor consultation with the community as the arbiter of religious norms (shura) over a mullah-led theocracy.

The West may well have to draw on both enriched secular humanism and on moderate religious beliefs, if it is not to lose the struggle over the hearts and minds of the majority of the people of the world. It needs a spiritual rather a military surge.

(Also posted at the National Interest Online)

Comments

[fletcher]

Perhaps you might apply this to yourself. You specify Islam and Xianity, but relegate Judaism to the lower paragraphs. As an intelligent person and judging solely by your non-alias, a Jew, where do you think the secular humanist moderates got their ideas from? Actually, it's not solely from your name; after all, it's Israeli rather than religiously Jewish. Shlomo Carlebach said he could pick out the Jews in the groups of students he met. The Protestants and Catholics would identify themselves as such. The one who said,"I'm just a human being." was the Jew. It sounds comic, but there's more to being a human being than a secular humanist could invent, and you saw it first in the Tenach. B'hatzlacha.

[Carl Bostek]

Religions have been around for some time and have changed over time as well. But while religions function as repositories of values I am not willing to conceed that they were developed for that purpose. But then, I don't believe that God handed the Ten Commandments to Moses.

I think it far more likely that religion developed as a way to answer the fundamental questions that face all people for all time, "Why am I here? What is the meaning of life? What awaits me after death?" Religion provides comfort that the alternative of living in an existential vacuum cannot provide. The primary values instilled by religion are those that help people to live together harmoniously -- the "golden rule" and variations thereon. Providing those rules with divine authority helps ensure accceptance and compliance, especially when disobedience imperils your resurrection and immortality.

I'll accept any religion as socially beneficial if it doesn't try to shove its beliefs down my throat or threaten to kill me if I don't convert.

Finally, I don't believe that Western secularism must necessarily be hedonistic. I agree that there's plenty of hedonism in American culture and suspect it will be our undoing. But I don't believe that secularism is necessarily hedonistic. That comes from overemphasizing individual "rights" and ignoring individual responsibilities.

As a culture, we need to revisit rights and responsibilities and clearly define individual rights and start insisting that they come with clearly defined responsibilities.

Cheers,

Carl

[Tony]

I agree with Carl. Interestingly, it's not just secular-humanists who think that morality and religion can be separated; many scholars who take religious ideas very seriously (such as Huston Smith, a member of the Traditionalist school of thought) believe that metaphysics, or grace/salvation, comes first, and then, and only then, does true vision/values/perspective on earthly issues become injected into religion. IOW, the religious "wisdom" about worldly concerns, according to these pious philosophers, does not itself come from a worldly source at all! Nor do they think it can, as the earth is the "lowest" realm in the "great chain of being." Therefore, the faithful must rely on "other-worldly" thinking in order to "save" the world.

I do not necessarily agree with that last sentiment, but I won't go into my own personal theological beliefs here.

I'm very wary of those who want to erode the wall between religion and politics. I opposed Bush's "faith-based" iniative, and I had thought Etzioni would have also, considering his more secular take on Communitarianism, but apparently not.

He cites social research that supposedly proves that religion is de facto a force for good. I'm highly skeptical, as it contradicts what I've read on the subject (though I'm no expert in this field).

I think this blog is worth considering: http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/10/11/better-off-without-him/

[Jonathan]

I was interested to read Carl's remark (10.53PM):

QUOTE "I agree that there's plenty of hedonism in American culture and suspect it will be our undoing. But I don't believe that secularism is necessarily hedonistic." UNQUOTE

This was almost exactly what I and some friends recently agreed on at a garden barbeque. Although we felt it didn't have to be that way, we felt that secular hedonism would, in the end, destroy European culture and civilization. We were quite serious about this. And then we had another beer and hamburger.

How odd that so many of us in the west are concluding the same thing, even admitting that it does not have to be this way, and yet doing nothing about it. We're knowingly rolling downhill towards the edge of a cliff.