This week I had opportunity to talk with students about the causes of war. A number of students came up with the answer: "Religion is the number one cause of war." One said, “Religion has caused more wars and deaths than any other human phenomenon.” His view is a fairly commonly held view. It is easy to create a long list of religious wars and wars that began or continued with a religious legitimation. Though that is true, I think it is an exaggeration, which through repetition has gained the power of truth. Recently, I reviewed a book for the Journal of Peace and Justice Studies, Villanova Univerity, The New Atheists: The Twilight of Reason and the War on Religion. Tina Baettie. Maryknoll: Orbis, 2008.[1] The book is well worth a read. Among other things, Beattie challenges the assertion that religion has caused the most wars.
Nonetheless, I have great sympathy with my students. Religion may not have caused more wars than non-religious ideologies, but it has caused sufficient numbers for us all to be appalled at its track record . And not merely wars; religion has a bad record in human rights abuses, in intolerance, in bigotry, in ethnic cleansing and racism.
For those reasons many thinking people want to distance themselves from religion. At the same time, we human beings cannot get away from the essential spiritual nature we carry with us. We grapple with the sense of transcendence (Freud called it the “oceanic feeling”) and experience wonder, awe, and sometimes fear. “The idea of the holy” will not go away. On more than one occasion colleagues have said to me, “I am not religious, but I am spiritual.” I have taken it to mean that they want to distance themselves from the dark side of religion and yet hold on to the essential spirituality of being human and our connection with transcendent reality.
I have great sympathy with those colleagues. At times, I have been ashamed to admit that I am a deeply religious person—or is that deeply spiritual? The problem is that though the desire to separate religion from spirituality is a strong one, sociologically, psychologically and philosophically it is impossible to do so. Unless we make a stipulative definition of the kind, “By spirituality I mean something like religion but without all the garbage that religion often has!” Of course, if folk want to make that move, that is fine too. But, it does seem the components of spirituality are clearly religious and religion is rooted in spirituality.
When I try to help future high school teachers think through what religion means (for future social studies classes) I suggest, “Religion is the human attempt to make sense of the experience of transcendence.” As we try to make sense we create the structures of religion. They can be for good or ill. Besides being the cause of much strife, religion is also the cause of much good. Daily countless millions of folk do good and kind things rooted in their religious/spiritual understanding and practice.
At times I find is psychologically painful to live with the tension of the good and the bad in our spiritual practice. My way forward is to try, with integrity, to live deeply in my spiritual practice, with kindness to all.
[1] The review is in volume 19:1. http://www.villanova.edu/artsci/peaceandjustice/journal/