50 – 2001: A Faith Odyssey

Editorial

Religion has been in the dock since September 11.

Richard Dawkins was first to emerge as prosecutorin-chief, arguing that only religion had the power to attract young men to kill themselves as well as the enemies of their faith in terrorist atrocities such as those in New York and Washington. In particular, the promise of everlasting life after death (allegedly including, in the case of Islamic extremists, the promise of unlimited supplies of young virgins for exclusive use in paradise) was a powerful incentive The Sea of Faith view that religious faith, in all its forms, is a wholly human creation, is surely needed more than ever before. We should be shouting it from the rooftops to martyrdom, as was the conviction that God was on your side and that God's enemies were yours to dispose of, to His greater glory. If a just and merciful God had decreed that the souls of infidels must burn in hell, what could be wrong with first incinerating their bodies in the World Trade Centre? That, said Dawkins, is where religion gets you.

At the opposite extreme we have been assured that the activities of fanatical terrorists have nothing in the dock whatever to do with religion. Religion is merely a cloak for a depraved form of politics: the Osama bin Ladens of this world, even when they bear an uncanny resemblance to Sunday-school pictures of Jesus, are power-hungry cynics manipulating the ignorant and credulous. They have Allah on their lips, but hate in their hearts. It's nothing to do with religion...

But let's not kid ourselves. Dawkins is surely right to identify a specifically religious impulse, and specific religious doctrines, as the mechanisms which drive a tiny but deadly minority of alienated young men to take what they believe to be the short road to paradise. Read the prayer allegedly found in the highjacker Mohamed Atta's luggage: "Oh God, open all doors for me. Oh God, who answers prayers and answers those who ask you, | am asking you for your help. I am asking you for forgiveness. I am asking you to lighten my way... God, I trust in you.

God, I lay myself in your hands. I ask with the light of your faith that has lit the whole world and lightened all darkness on this earth, to guide me...

We are of God, and to God we return". Is this not the prayer of a man steeped in religion? You might hear the same words in any Anglican church or Quaker meeting. a 3 SOF 50 / November 2001 editorial Hobsons Farm, Dent, Cumbria LA10 5RF SOF .50/ November 2001 But if Dawkins is right to cite religious motivation, he is surely on much less sure ground in drawing his familiar conclusion that, ergo, all religion is a big, bad mistake.

Take the analogy of politics. A Hitler or a Stalin or a Pol Pot is clearly politically motivated, but I doubt that Dawkins would argue that, ergo, our task is to eliminate politics. Or take his own field, science. Because science has produced weapons of mass destruction and technologies that have devastated our fragile earth, that doesn't mean that science is to be despised as a refuge for the ignorant and irresponsible.

Religion, like politics and science, is wholly human.

Just as there is science which builds, as well as science which destroys, and just as there is a politics of peacemaking, reconciliation, the elimination of poverty and the empowerment of all, as well as a politics of fascism, racism, militarism, tyranny and revenge, so too there is religion which expresses mercy, pity, peace, love and human responsibilty, as well as the religion of bigotry, hatred, revenge and submission to supernatural powers. And there is naturalist religion which inspires action to make a paradise on earth, as well as supernaturalist religion which postpones paradise to another life in another world. David Paterson spoke at Conference about this dual nature of religion: its capacity to bring out the best and the worst in us (see page 12).

Today the Sea of Faith view that religious faith, in all its forms, is a wholly human creation, is surely needed more than ever before. We should be shouting it from the rooftops, telling it in our churches, meetinghouses, mosques and temples. Christianity, Judaism, Islam - they are all human creations, a rich diversity of cultural responses to different historical and social conditions.

None has an exclusive claim to authority, or its own hot line to the Almighty. All are a very human mix of the sublime and the ridiculous. But because we made them, we can remake them. And it is our responsibility, not God's, to discern the good from the bad, the wise from the foolish, the light from the dark.

It makes no sense to demonise religion in general, or any one religion in particular. But it makes a great deal of sense to acknowledge that all the values and aspirations which have found expression in a huge diversity of religious practice are, in the end, human values and aspirations. We need to look to a time when it becomes possible to promote this understanding not only in London and Wellington and Sydney but also in America's dark-age bible-belt, in Belfast and Derry, in Rome and Jerusalem - and not least in those Muslim countries where it is possible to speak and write freely without suffering the fate of a Younus Shaikh. Now there's a mission for Sea of Faith!

Nothing will undermine all the ugly fundamentalisms - Christian, Jewish and Islamic - more comprehensively than a growing recognition that our various scriptures, religious traditions and institutions, and our concepts of God or No-God, are all products of the human creative imagination. That same creative imagination is also the only tool we have to begin to heal the divisions and - dissolve away the hatreds which our own religious, political and personal agendas created in the first place.

Are any of us up to it? Of such is the republic of heaven.

The The military response to the appalling events of September 11 provoked a flurry of activity on the SoF email discussion group. As one would expect in a network of individuals (and individualists), all shades of opinion were represented, from unreserved support for the Bush-Blair response to outright opposition.

Some argued that it was precisely at critical times like this that the human, moral or religious values we profess are put to the practical test. Others argued that values are not absolute and must be applied pragmatically. Some suggested that we should "put values on the backburner". The call in mid-October by the principal humanitarian agencies for a pause in the bombing to allow food aid through stimulated further discussion and resulted in the following resolution being put by the editor to the meeting of the SoF UK steering committee on October 20: "This steering committee of the Sea of Faith Network (UK) urges the British Government, and those responsible for military action in Afghanistan against terrorism, to give the most careful and urgent consideration to the calls by humanitarian agencies and Christian and Muslim leaders for a pause in the bombing to facilitate the process of getting food aid to the tens of thousands of women, men and children who are about to enter a winter without adequate food, clothing or shelter." The motion was lost by five votes to three with two abstentions. Some of those who opposed the resolution or abstained did so because they disagreed with its substance, arguing that a pause in the bombing might only prolong the suffering. But a majority took the view that it was inappropriate for Sea of Faith to adopt any line or make any statement on behalf of the membership.

After further discussion, the following resolution was moved from the chair and adopted, with two abstentions: "The steering committee urges the membership to write to the Government expressing their concern about the bombing and the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan’.

If you have a view on the war, or on the appropriateness or otherwise of Sea of Faith exploring whether there is anything we can say together, the Letters Editor would like to hear from you.

Meanwhile, if you are concerned about the military response to September 11, or about the humanitarian catastrophe that now faces that region, do add your voice to those who have already written to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street, London. And, please, give what you can to the agencies whose workers are risking their own lives in their determination to get the aid to those who most desperately need it. keeping afloat future subscriptions At its recent residential meeting the SoF Steering Committee decided that there was no alternative to a rise in subscription rates for 2002. We also realised that you would expect an explanation so our attempt at this follows. Please read it bearing in mind that the magazine is of very high quality in form and content, developed particularly under its present editorship, and we plan to maintain and even develop this in the future.