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Jackson, Religion and politics

Politics and religion

by Eric Jackson

The great Mahatma Gandhi was both a political and a religious figure, but a gadfly and outsider in each instance. He didn't hold a position in the Congress party, but that organization, which led India to independence and has headed the Indian government for most of the time since then, was obliged to pay careful attention to what he said. He continually flouted Hindu strictures, as the son of a prominent family in Gujarat sailing away to study in London despite strident public objections to such "impurity," as a member of an upper caste who campaigned against untouchability, as a Hindu who preached toleration of Muslims. He was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic because of his political and religious attitudes and activities.

Gandhi said that those who advocate the strict separation of politics and religion know little about religion, and history has shown him right about that.

Myself, I'm for secular government, for democracy and for freedom of thought, expression and association. But I also realize that these values are distinct entities and that they sometimes come into conflict.

In the United States we just had an off-year election in which the party pretending to represent religious values, and which had the support of most fundamentalist Protestants and Orthodox Jews, was convincingly defeated. The Republicans only came close to holding onto the US Senate by putting ballot proposals to ban gay marriage before the voters of several states and thus appealing to prejudices most strongly held among those with strong conservative religious beliefs.

In Panama we just had a referendum that became the instance for a deepening of the long-standing struggle between the Catholic hierarchy and the Liberation Theology advocates, and in which Evangelicals owned some of the few mass communications media that didn't go along with the state-sponsored news blackout of the "no" campaign. In retaliation, somebody cut the power to Hosanna TV when Reverend Alvarez began to speak about the conflicting outside business interests that the directors and managers of the Panama Canal Authority have and how that affects the Torrijos - Alemán Zubieta Plan to expand the waterway.

How can I reconcile my conflicting values in light of situations like these?

First, it can be done by ditching the attitude --- so fashionable among those with secular points of view --- that public discussion of and debate about religious doctrines impermissibly mixes matters of private faith and pubilc policy. When religious zealots put a ballot proposal before the voters, it's not an effective response to argue that it amounts to an intrusion of religion into politics. The proposal needs to be addressed on its specific merits, and part of that will inevitably be the beliefs of those who proposed it. It's not unfair, nor should it be considered rude, to criticize the theological foundations of a political movement. The freedoms of belief and expression that are necessary to any meaningful democracy have to be exercised about religious subjects when people enter the arena of public affairs impelled by religious motives.

Second, it can be done by seeking common ground among people with disparate religious or secular attitudes about certain moral values. The American conservatives have been doing it for years, but this year they lost on the morality issues. Thou shalt not covet thy neighboring country's oil fields. It was immoral to torture Jesus Christ by trying to beat a confession or recantation out of him, by pressing a crown of thorns onto his head, by forcing him to carry the cross up to Calvary Hill and by subjecting him to agonizing death by crucifixion --- just as the Bush administration's use of torture at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and secret CIA prisons scattered around the planet is immoral. Political and economic policies designed to condemn huge numbers of people to hunger for the benefit of a small class of wealthy individuals are repugnant to both God and to any healthy secular concept of common human decency.

Finally, it can't be done by slavishly following the crowd in what turns out to be a mockery rather than a validation of democracy. While being fair and humble enough to change their minds, people on the losing end of a vote ought to be proud and independent enough to hold their heads high. True leaders of minorities in democratic societies should be consistent and assertive in their opposition roles.

The problem with the American religious right is that they're vicious and mean-spirited to the point that they make a mockery out of many of the most important values advanced in the scriptures they say they hold dear. The problem with the Catholic hierarchy in this country is that it constantly puts its imprimateur of moral legitimacy upon an amoral and predatory political class.

Martin Luther King, Jr., a Protestant profoundly influenced by the teachings of Gandhi, was right to insert his religious faith into public affairs. Those religious conservatives who support a holy war against Islam and the use of torture in the course of this struggle have their right to push these ideas in a democratic discourse, but what they advocate is criminal under international law, morally wrong and the product of perverse beliefs. Democrats should not shy away from a public examination of the theological roots of this perversion.

The Liberation Theologists are right to advocate for the poor in the political realm. The Catholic hierarchy has the right to uphold its doctrines and run its church, but in a democracy the social teachings and political machinations of a clergy headed by a former Hitler Youth should not be immune to public examination and criticism.

The US religious right will not go away after its recent defeat, nor, really, should it. Nor should the folks, secular and religious, who opposed the Panamanian government's canal expansion project. New days will come, and new challenges will arise. And let us all face the changes with the best in ourselves, and with all of our cards showing.

Bernal, Generalized crime
Leis, Mourning is the pain of all pains
Sirias, Reading John Irving
Birns, Ecuador's election result
Madriz Fornos, The Caribbean Rum Dialogue
Bond, US passport policy a disaster for Caribbean tourism
Wilson, Congress should reopen the libraries
Sánchez, Keeping the Uruguayan military in check

Gutman, A new low for US bureaucratic jargon

Jackson, Religion and politics