Is religion dangerous?

The Rector responds to attacks from atheist writers

Religion is dangerous and bad for us” or so the pundits and cultured despisers of belief tell us. Apparently Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” is a best seller, and hard on its heels comes Christopher Hitchens’ “God is not Great”, subtitled “the case against Religion”. Sadly, one does not hear so much about the well-argued intellectual replies to this brand of militant atheism, but such things do not interest the bookseller or the newspaper editor needing to make a sale. It is enough to major on the big name denunciations of the evils of belief, and the sad record of atrocity, violence and sheer viciousness carried out by those who profess a religious belief.

There is a relatively easy riposte to such denunciations, and that is to say that so much of the evil done in the name of religion has been more to do with culture and politics than belief. The divisions in the Balkans ten years ago, or indeed sixty years ago, were political and national, but corresponded to religious adherence, supposedly Christian and Muslim, or within the Christian Faith, Catholic and Orthodox; we can surely think of examples closer to home. The question has to be asked as to how many of those who claim a religious allegiance in a conflict are believers in anything more than a cultural sense.

All this is true, but it is not enough, and seriously fails to understand how religious belief and practice can be harnessed to deep and destructive forces, not only in society but also within ourselves. Religious themes and language can engage with very deep emotions and fears, and can be used, often subconsciously, to defend and protect ourselves and our group, against those who are different or “other”. Religious belief and practice becomes a stick (sometimes literally) to beat those who are different and perceived as a threat. The “other” is dehumanised and religion is used to do it. A memorable poem by Edwin Muir (“The Incarnate One”) talks of how living faith in God can be “impaled and bent into an ideological instrument” - the Christian present as well as Christian history is evidence of that.

We see that in the various sorts of fundamentalisms around us, but also in more mainstream religious belief and practice – the politicking and stridency of many within the debates in the Anglican Communion is surely a good example. Perhaps sometimes, in a moment of honesty, we can find and identify such things within ourselves, or at least the fears that lead to arrogance, to rejection and exclusion, and the “envy, malice and all uncharitableness” from which the Prayer Book Litany prays we might be delivered.

In such honesty we might actually find a better and deeper answer to the critics of religion, who themselves, it might be said, seem to display a certain passionate intensity which often makes them unable to see another picture or argument. Jesus speaks in the Sermon on the Mount of the need for a deep self-knowledge, an awareness of our inner motives and desires (see, for example, Matthew 5:21-22), and the need to acknowledge our own failing and falling before we attempt to address such things in another (see Matthew 7:3-5) At the heart of Christian spirituality, both western and eastern, is a concern for the conversion of the heart, and its softening and transforming by the power of God. What else is Paul’s great hymn to “Love” (I Corinthians 13 in context) about if not the need to be engaged with God at that deep, transforming level in Christian life and ministry ?

Anglican Christians have prayed the Collect for Purity at the beginning of the Eucharist, for 450 years or more, it remains a constant in the many revisions of the liturgy, and it is a normal part of our eucharistic practice in this parish. Over the years as I have prayed it, I have come to appreciate its depth and profundity. Not only is there a recognition that the God known in Jesus Christ knows all our desires, and from him there are no secrets (and that he loves, forgives and accepts us there), but also there is that powerful prayer for the cleansing of the heart by the work of the Spirit, a work not complete by any means, but definitely in progress and exciting and attractive.

It is not that Christians are to be vague, “wishy-washy” or lukewarm, far from it – if at the depths we are open the Living God we cannot be so, for he has taken hold of us and called us into fullness of life in Jesus – but our proclamation of him who is the Truth will be done in love and charity, and those we disagree, even fundamentally, with we will not dehumanise whether outwardly in our words or actions, or inwardly in our minds. At the heart we are to acknowledge that God is not our possession to be used and manipulated for our ends and the ends of our group, but rather we are his possession, to be transformed and brought into fullness of humanity.

Religion can be dangerous – we can’t deny that – it can be misused and abused and turned into a means of oppression, but as Christians we ought to represent something very different, a spirituality which is life-enhancing, healing and transforming. God grant us to know ourselves and to know the grace, presence and love of God, for then our word and witness will be heard by many in this place, and the Lord we love be truly received and known.

Roger Clarke

October 2007