Reader Mark called my attention to an article in Monday’s Washington Post: “In light of the Paris attacks, is it time to eradicate religion?” According to Ben Goren’s Rule, any question posed in a newspaper article is invariably answered in the negative, and indeed, it is here. That’s expected, of course, when the author is, as in this case, a Protestant theologian. But his answer is unsatisfying and, surprisingly, the article is poorly written—even more surprising given that the author is Miroslav Volf, identified thusly by the Post:
Miroslav Volf teaches theology at Yale University and directs Yale Center for Faith and Culture. His most recent book is “Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World” (Yale University Press, 2016).
In fact, Wikipedia, in a very long article, says that Volf is “one of the most celebrated theologians of our day.” Clearly Volf is a Sophisticated Theologian™, so we can expect him to give us the very best arguments for retaining religion. But he fails.
Here is my summary of Volf’s main points (his words are indented):
Religion is here to stay, and in fact is growing.
First, if the hope for the world depends on eradication of religion, we should all despair. Religions are in fact growing in absolute and relative terms. In 1970, there were 0.71 billion unaffiliated or non-religious people, while in 2050, there will be 1.2 billion. That’s impressive growth, until you compare it with the projected growth of religions.
Between 1970 and 2050, the number of Hindus is projected to grow from 0.43 to nearly 1.4 billion, the number of Muslims from 0.55 billion to 2.7 billion and the number of Christians from 1.25 billion to 2.9 billion. And due to the immense popularity of the democratic ideal, religious adherents are becoming increasingly politically assertive.
Religions may be growing in absolute numbers, but that’s because the world population is growing. What’s important is whether religion are growing in “relative terms”, that is, is the proportion of believers increasing? And here Volf’s claim that this is also true is just wrong. A Pew survey this year shows that, among all religions, only Islam is growing in relative terms, while the others are holding steady or shrinking. The estimated projections over the next 35 years, when there will be a 35% increase in the world population:
Well, be that as it may, Volf goes on:
Religion will be with us forever.
The sooner that humanity either eradicates or quarantines off religion, the better our world will be. This conclusion would be too hasty, however.
. . . It is impossible to eradicate or quarantine religion. Any attempt to do so would result in far more bloodshed than religious people have perpetrated throughout their long histories.
Note the tropes of pest control: “eradication” and “quarantine.” Apparently he sees opponents of religion as an Orkin-like movement bent on annihilation. In fact, antitheists envision a peaceful process of secularization based on changing people’s minds and fixing the social conditions that give rise to faith.
And as for the “impossibility” of that happening, it is in fact precisely what is happening in the U.S. and Europe. Northern Europe in particular was once quite religious but is now largely atheistic. The inhabitants of countries like France and Sweden have given up their childish things—perhaps because social conditions have improved. And even the U.S., where Volf lives, is becoming more secular.
So why else should we want religion to remain with us. Volf gives mor reasons:
Most world religions (including the Abrahamic ones) promote a message of peace and tolerance.
For most religions, the distinctions between true and false religion, justice and injustice, and good and evil are central. Each religion insists on the goodness of the way of life it promotes, rejecting other ways of life as imperfect, misguided or even wicked.
Also, most world religions are based either on positive revelation (Moses, Jesus or Muhammad) or on spiritual enlightenment (Buddha or Confucius) granted to foundational figures.
Note Volf’s distinction in the first paragraph between “true” and “false” religion. As we all know, that’s bogus. All religions are false in terms of their factual assertions. If by “true” or “false” he means the degree of adherence to scripture, well, Old + New Testament Christianity is not a paradigm of goodness, but it’s still “true” if you take Old Testament assertions literally. And we all know that extreme Islamism is no more “false” than is its more moderate relatives: read the Qur’an, which according to the vast majority of Muslims must be taken literally. And if you do read the Qur’an, which after all is the basis of the religion that spawned Volf’s essay, you would have to interpret it pretty tortuously to see it as a “positive religion.” Finally, it is the divisiveness of faith, the very fact that each religion sees others as “imperfect, misguided, or even wicked,” that is largely responsible for what happened in Paris.
Of course all religions insist on the “goodness of the way of life” they promote: how could they do otherwise? Seriously, “we are promoting a bad way of life”? But this is circumlocution: the question is whether the ways of life they promote are really good. And this is where Volf comes a cropper, for he doesn’t distinguish between “good” behavior that he thinks can be tortured out of scripture, and the ways that religion really makes people behave:
Second, freedom of religion. World religions can and many do embrace full freedom of religion, which includes freedom to adopt and change religion as well as freedom to propagate religion.
“Many do” is the operative term here. One might as well say, “Many don’t.” There is no freedom of religion in many Muslim lands, and, in fact, many countries outlaw blasphemy or have state religions. Here are three figures from Wikipedia showing where blasphemy is a crime, where apostasy is a crime, and where there is state religion. Note that the overlap is almost entirely in Muslim countries:
Blasphemy laws:
Apostasy laws (all in Islamic countries):
State religions:
“Full freedom of religion” my tuchus!
Volf continues to peer through his rose-colored spectacles:
Third, separation of religion and rule. Just because world religions have what Nietzsche called “two worlds” account of reality, transcendent and mundane, and give primacy to the transcendent realm, they contain a clear impulse to construe “religion” and “politics” as two distinct, though intersecting, cultural territories.
Volf never gets to Fundamental Value Number Four, and although I may have missed it, I think it’s a mistake. And perhaps his conclusion contains a mistake as well:
For the sake of the identity and reputation of the religions themselves and for the sake of justice and peace in the world, religions need permanent reformation.
At the heart of reformation must lie the conviction that, as the Apostle Peter put it in the first public sermon he preached, that “we must obey God rather than any human authority” (Acts 5:29), asserting that “religion” and “state” are two distinct cultural systems. Such reformation of religions will not stop the blood and tears from flowing, but religions will no longer be implicated in the carnage.
I think he screwed up here, for Peter’s statement is the precise basis for religious malfeasance. I suspect a typo or poor editing. But at any rate, to expect Muslims who favor sharia law to accept a distinction between the political and the religous is to expect a miracle.
In the end, I think that Volf’s love of liberal Christianity has blinded him to what many religions really preach, and what many of the faithful really believe. He appears to think that, if properly interpreted, all religions are as tolerant and benign as his own. But that’s the rub, for “properly interpreted” is tautological, which to Volf seems to mean “religions that see the world the way mine does.” The fact is that religions don’t and can’t, for the conflicting moral codes of religion cannot be harmonized, based as they are on incompatible beliefs about gods and what they want.
Volf’s essay is, I suspect, based largely on fear: a fear that many religions—particularly the one whose adherents struck in Paris—aren’t really as benign as his own, and will continue to inspire murder, suffering, and oppression. Perhaps he also fears the increasing level of nonbelief in his own land. To quell these fears, Volf spends an entire article telling us that “true” religion doesn’t do these things. But of course it does, and Volf’s apologetics, which call for even more religion after a religiously-inspired mass murder, are ironic, lame, and pathetic.
By all means let us have “true” religion: religion that is tolerant, not divisive, and having a genuinely universal and beneficent moral code. That “true religion”, by the way, is called “humanism”.
