By
Rudy Barnes, Jr.
Religion
is the primary source of the moral standards of legitimacy that shape our politics—for
good or bad. Christianity and Islam are the
world’s two largest religions, and both are exclusivist. Each claims to be the one true faith and
asserts the inerrancy of its ancient scriptures—fundamentalist beliefs that produce
conflicting concepts of political legitimacy.
The
best way to reconcile religious differences is through dialogue, but dialogue cannot
reconcile exclusivists who believe that they must try to convert those of other
faiths. Such proselytizing denies
respect for other religions; and fundamentalist beliefs in the inerrancy of
ancient scripture as God’s truth oppose freedom, democracy and the secular rule
of law.
Religious
exclusivism and fundamentalism are intrafaith
issues within each religion as well as interfaith
issues. Fundamentalists within each religion
have supported radical-right politicians who oppose equal justice under law, and
they include evangelical Christians in the U.S. and fundamentalist Islamists in
the Middle East and Africa.
Christian
and Muslim fundamentalists resist progress and modernity with belief in their
ancient scriptures as God’s unchanging moral and legal standards of legitimacy. Christians go a step further and subordinate the
teachings of Jesus to man-made church doctrine that asserts that God sent Jesus
as a blood sacrifice of His one and only Son to atone for the sins of all
believers.
More
progressive Christians and Muslims interpret the dictates of their scripture
based on reason and advances in knowledge.
While Muslims reject the divinity of Jesus, they consider him a prophet like
Muhammad, so that his teachings are considered the word of God. This gives the teachings of Jesus the moral authority
to resolve both intrafaith and interfaith issues.
Jesus
was a Jew who never promoted his or any other religion. His teachings are summarized in the greatest commandment to love God and
to love our neighbors—including our neighbors of other races and religions—as we
love ourselves. That altruistic and
universalist love command is a common
word of faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike.
While
there are many similarities in the teachings of Jesus and Muhammad, there are
also many differences that can be attributed to their contrasting contexts: Jesus
lived under Roman rule, but he never engaged in secular politics. Muhammad was more like Moses and Joshua. They
lived in hostile environments that required religious leaders to assume political
and military leadership roles to provide law and order and protect their people
from violence.
Moses
and Muhammad emphasized obedience to holy law while Jesus emphasized love over law. There is no place in a libertarian democracy
for coercive religious law, and religious moral standards must be compatible
with the love command to enable Jews, Christians and Muslims to be good
stewards of democracy and promote a politics of reconciliation.
The
most contentious political issues today relate to social and economic justice and
involve a volatile mix of religion and race.
The church is the best place to initiate interfaith dialogue on morality
in religion and politics since religion is the primary source of the standards
of legitimacy that shape our politics, and since over 70% of Americans claim to
be Christians.
Neither
Jesus nor Muhammad considered issues of democracy, human rights and the secular
rule of law since those topics were not relevant to their ancient time and
place. The challenge for interfaith
dialogue is to relate the ancient teachings of Jesus and Muhammad to
contemporary political issues, balancing individual rights with providing for
the common good.
Once
altruistic and universalist principles grounded in the greatest commandment take precedence over exclusivist religious
doctrines, then reason and advances in knowledge can overcome fundamentalist
beliefs that consider ancient scriptures to be perfect and immutable. Only then can interfaith dialogue reconcile
difficult issues of morality in religion and politics.
Notes:
Evangelical Christian leaders who
have supported Donald Trump and radical-right Republicans illustrate the moral
ambiguity of Christian morality in politics—that is, if the teachings of Jesus as
summarized in the greatest commandment are considered the Christian standard of
morality. But in the wake of Trump’s
“s***hole” remarks on immigration policy, some evangelicals are acknowledging
their hypocrisy. See http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/01/13/evangelical-rift-intensifies-over-trump-immigration-remarks.html.
Mustafa Akyol affirmed the
relevance of the teachings of Jesus to Islam, noting that Jesus “called on his
fellow Jews to focus on their religion’s moral principles rather than obsessing
with the minute details of religious law.
…He also taught that outward expressions of piety can nurture a culture
of hypocrisy. Jesus even defined
humanism as a higher value than legalism, famously declaring, ‘The Sabbath was
made for man, not man for the Sabbath’” See https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/13/opinion/what-jesus-can-teach-todays-muslims.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2FMustafa%20Akyol&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=Collection®ion=Marginalia&src=me&version=column&pgtype=article.
Mustafa Akyol asked, Does religion make people moral?, and then
pointed out that religious conservatives [Islamists] in Turkey have “come to
dominate virtually all institutions of the state, as well as the media and even
much of the business sector. In short,
they have become the new ruling elite. …The religious conservatives have
morally failed because they ended up doing everything they once condemned as
unjust and cruel.” They “have become
corrupted by power. But power corrupts
more easily when you have neither principles nor integrity.” See https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/28/opinion/does-religion-make-people-moral.html.
Carl Krieg has advocated that
Christians “replace the word God with the word love in the context of
humanist/Christian dialogue”, citing 1 John 4:16: God is love. Whoever lives in
love lives in God, and God in him. He then makes reference to the greatest
commandment and the story of the good Samaritan in which Jesus answers the
question, Who is my neighbor? (Luke 10:25-37). See https://progressivechristianity.org/resources/tillichs-challenge-the-search-for-new-vocabulary/.
Paul Chafee has cited a practical
extension of interfaith dialogue and relationships conducted by St. Philip’s
Centre in Leicester England that has “goals and strategies that are carefully
considered and crafted in an environment that treasures listening, embraces
differences, and thrives on inclusivity.”
The interfaith project is described in Learning to Live Well Together
by Tom Wilson and Riaz Ravat. See http://www.theinterfaithobserver.org/journal-articles/2017/12/12/review-learning-to-live-well-together-wilson-and-ravat.
Edward
Simmons describes Jesus as Critic of
Hypocrisy, Then and Now. He notes
that Jesus taught that you can tell legitimate spokesmen for God from the false
by their actions: You will know them by
their fruits. (Matthew 7:16; Luke 6:44).
Simmons cites the standard of the greatest commandment and the story of
the good Samaritan as the message and example taught by Jesus for our time and
all time: Go and do likewise. (Luke
10:37). See https://progressivechristianity.org/resources/jesus-as-critic-of-hypocrisy-then-and-now/.
Related
Commentary:
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(1/11/15): The Greatest Commandment: A Common Word of Faith
(1/18/15): Love over Law: A Principle at the Heart of Legitimacy
(2/8/15): Promoting Religion Through Evangelism: Bringing Light or Darkness?
(2/15/15): Is Religion Good or Evil?
(3/8/15): Wealth, Politics, Religion and Economic Justice
(4/12/15): Faith as a Source of Morality and Law: The Heart of Legitimacy
(5/3/15): A Fundamental Problem with Religion
(7/12/15): Reconciliation in Race and Religion: The Need for Compatibility, not
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(1/23/16): Who Is My Neighbor?
(1/30/16): The Politics of Loving Our Neighbors as Ourselves
(2/27/16): Conflicting Concepts of Legitimacy in Faith, Freedom and Politics
(3/26/16): Religion, Democracy, Diversity and Demagoguery
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(4/30/16): The Relevance of Religion to Politics
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(9/17/16): A Moral Revival to Restore Legitimacy to Our Politics
(11/19/16): Religion and a Politics of Reconciliation Based on Shared Values
http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2016/11/religion-and-politics-of-reconciliation_19.html
(12/17/16): Discipleship in a Democracy: A Test of Faith, Legitimacy and Politics
(2/25/17): The Need for a Revolution in Religion and Politics
(3/11/17): Accountability and the Stewardship of Democracy
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(4/22/17): The Relevance of Jesus and the Irrelevance of the Church in Today’s
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(5/27/17): Intrafaith Reconciliation as a Prerequisite for Interfaith
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(6/10/17): Religious Exclusivity and Discrimination in Politics http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/06/religious-exclusivity-and.html
(6/17/17): Religious Exclusivity: Does It Matter? http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/06/religious-exclusivity-does-it-matter.html.
(7/1/17): Religion, Moral Authority and Conflicting Concepts of Legitimacy
(7/15/17) Religion and Progressive Politics
(8/5/17): Does Religion Seek to Reconcile and Redeem or to Divide and Conquer?
(8/12/17): The Universalist Teachings of Jesus as a Remedy for Religious
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(9/9/17): The Evolution of the American Civil Religion and Habits of the Heart
http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/09/the-evolution-of-american-civil.html.
(9/23/17): Tribalism and the American Civil Religion
(11/11/17): A Politics of Reconciliation that Should Begin in the Church
(11/18/17): Radical Religion and the Demise of Democracy
(12/2/17): How Religious Standards of Legitimacy Shape Politics, for Good or Bad
(12/16/17): Can Democracy Survive the Trump Era?
(12/23/17): If Democracy Survives the Trump Era, Can the Church Survive Democracy? http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/12/if-democracy-survives-trump-era-can.html.
(1/6/18): The Musings of a Maverick Methodist on Diversity in Democracy
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