David TaintorEditor’s note: Burns was requested to write a column to better understand how religion affects politics
For most of the 20th century, the trend in Western political and academic circles was to downplay or ignore the impact of religious beliefs on socio-political events. Secularization and technological advancements were thought to have made religion irrelevant to all but a minority of diehard conservatives. The expectation was that, due to the impact of globalization, even this supposedly small portion of humanity would soon leave religious claims behind. This belief was so strong that prior to 9/11 most political ‘think tank,’ academic and psychological analysis of terrorism either completely ignored religion or treated it as a minor factor. This was so in spite of the fact that since 1980, the majority of terrorist attacks have been committed by groups claiming to act on the basis of religious motivation.
After 9/11, the interest in religion as a motivating factor in violence and national conflict exploded, and the trend shifted 180 degrees. It rapidly became commonplace to blame religious teachings for every wrong in human existence. “Religion” has become the source of all evil; some now proclaim that religion has been the primary cause of all violence in human history (e.g. Hector Avalos, 2005). In their zeal to bring religion to the fore, some analysts have gone so far as to claim that secular ideologies have never fueled violence as directly as have religious beliefs. How curious it is that these writers apparently have forgotten the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, Pol Pot’s regime in Cambodia, the Vietnam War, World Wars I and II, the Communist Revolutions of Russia and China, the American Civil War, the American and French Revolutions, etc.!
The truth, as it so often seems to be, lies somewhere between these extremes. “Religion” is neither irrelevant to, nor the sole cause of violence among human groups. The causes of violence in any form are complex, and that which we commit in the name of our gods is especially so. Jonathan Fox, an Israeli political scientist, has analyzed empirical data on political instability and conflict since 1945. In a 2004 book on the subject, Fox shows that although religion is often a contributing factor in such conflicts, the primary cause since 1945 has been separatist forms of nationalism. In spite of the trend to vilify religion, religious beliefs have little or no impact in ethic conflicts unless those beliefs are combined with demands for self-determination or territory.
Once conflict over territory or self-determination begins, religious claims are often deployed as powerful motivational tools to maintain commitment to the cause. When we attribute religious meaning to territorial and nationalistic conflict, we ‘kick it up a notch’ by adding a cosmic dimension.
In other words, religion doesn’t start the fire, but once the fire is burning, it can provide potent fuel to keep the fires burning. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict demonstrates this quite clearly. Space limitations do not allow for an in-depth examination of this on-going conflict, but perhaps a broad overview of the relationship between Judaism and violence will serve to underscore this interpretation.
First, it is important to remember that Jews disagree among themselves on the religious significance of warfare in the Middle East. According to Zionist interpreters of the Jewish scriptures, the covenant between God and Abraham (Genesis 12:1-2 “I will make of you [Abraham] a great nation.”) included the Holy Land to which Moses later led the Jews when they fled Egypt. Non-Zionist Jews insist that the original covenant promises nothing regarding ownership of specific territory.
Conflict over possession of the land we now call Israel and Palestine has been ongoing for thousands of years. According to traditional interpretation of Jewish history, the Jews conquered the territory long ago at God’s behest, so it is theirs by ‘divine right.’ Not long after the Jews claimed the Promised Land, invasion and conquest by foreign groups began. Foreign occupation and wars for freedom were frequent over the centuries. The Jews were finally expelled from the region after a second major revolt against Roman occupation failed in 135 CE. This failure marked the beginning of a period of more than 1,800 years during which the Jews would have no Jewish nation to defend.
A most fascinating aspect of the 1,800 years between expulsion from Palestine and establishment of Israel as a nation in 1948 is this: During these 18 centuries, Jews rarely initiated significant acts of organized violence. In these centuries, violence involving the Jewish people was almost always committed by other groups against Jews.
When Israel’s independence was declared in May 1948, war broke out almost immediately. The first violation of peace, according to the U.N., was an attack by neighboring nations from whom the territory had been conquered by the British in earlier conflicts. Since 1948, conflict has been on-going, broken by only intermittent and brief periods of tenuous peace.
A clear pattern is discernable in this broad-brush look at Jewish history: violence in the name of their God has been common when the Jewish people have had a nation to defend, and rare when national boundaries were not at stake.
Today, as in times past, religious rhetoric is deployed in an ad hoc manner, to fuel or explain particular acts of violence. The same patterns are discernable in the history of Israel’s Arab neighbors.
Whatever one may believe about the origins of religious teachings, these claims powerfully shape the worldviews of believers. Political ideologies function in the same way. It is this fact that accounts for the all-too-often explosive situations that result when political ideologies are joined with religious ones.
I am not claiming that religious violence is nothing more than political violence in disguise.
The causes of violence are complex, but my own research in the psychology of religion has led me to believe that individual commitments are central. Religious and political commitments are among the most powerful allegiances we humans make. This is so because religious systems and political ideologies provide us with potent narrative frameworks for life.
Learning how and why we make or break these commitments may provide the key to watering down the fuel that feeds such conflict.
Burns is an associate professor of religious studies and guest columnist for The Spectator.
