Article Added On: January 07, 2006 - over 2 years ago
Title: Faith groups still enrich collective life
Author: Stephen Scharper
Publication: Toronto Star
Publication Date: January 01, 2006 - over 2 years ago
Faith Groups: Other
Themes: Religion and society

Abstract: The fact that religious fanatics grab bigger headlines than members of the World Council of Churches does not diminish the importance of the latter's work, writes Stephen Scharper, who teaches world religions and ecology at the University of Toronto.

Jan. 7, 2006. 01:00 AM

As a new year commences, and personal resolutions merge with larger familial and societal concerns, questions surface regarding the role and place of religion in attaining salutary individual and global goals.

Sadly, since 9/11, the framing of this question has been a tad on the immoderate side. On one end of this spectrum are fundamentalist extremists, who see religion as a motivating tool of theocratic barbarity. On the other are militant secularists who view organized religion as the world's most pernicious purveyor of violent intolerance.

Such a typology is as unnuanced as it is unhelpful.

While these poles do exist, such a framing is unrepresentative of the lived religious reality of the majority of religious adherents. The question is not simply whether religion is "good" or "bad" for the human family, especially given that for 85 per cent of the world's population, religion forms the prism through which they read their world. Thus the central question is how can and does religion contribute to the shaping and implementation of values pertaining to the global commonwealth?

In democratic societies, religion has played and continues to contribute a complex and multi-faceted role in civic life, one that can be simultaneously "conservative" and "liberal," depending on the religious community or the issue involved.

Writing in 1835 after a tour of the U.S. penal system, Alexis de Tocqueville was among the first to comment on the role of religion in the democratic culture emerging in North America. Unlike other heirs of the French Revolution, Tocqueville, as recorded in his celebrated work Democracy in America, saw religion offering a constructive function in U.S. political culture, providing a bulwark against despotism and a sense of moral limitations to the radical revolutionary spirit of the people.

For Tocqueville, an important peril of a democratic, egalitarian milieu is the power it invests in public opinion. Tocqueville noted that democratic societies tended to suggest that if something is "popular," it is therefore "good."

Tocqueville maintained that religion at times liberates people from commonly held biases; it thus can contribute to maintaining freedom by uniting democratic citizens to wise traditions that can represent a counterbalance to the "tyranny of the majority." Religions at times hold up a different and deeper sense of purpose, one that could be used to resist unhealthy fads and trends of populist democracies. Thus, rather than an oppressive force for an intolerant theocracy, religion for Tocqueville could be a force for maintaining liberal democratic ideals.

Examples of such religious energies can be found in the role of Quakers in the abolition of slavery, the role of the black church movement under the leadership of Baptist minister Dr. Martin Luther King in civil rights gains, and the part played by Christians and Jews in opposing the Vietnam War.

Today, in Canada, from the role of the Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiative (KAIROS) in pushing for debt cancellation for impoverished African nations, to the campaign of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace in resisting the commoditization of water, this liberative democratic role of religion Tocqueville addressed can be discerned.

Such a religious role was also evident at the recently concluded United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Montreal. There, the World Council of Churches sponsored a two-hour ceremony at St. Joseph's Oratory, including prayers, dance, and testimonies concerning climate change from the world's major religions. About 2,000 people filled the oratory, and signed a Spiritual Declaration on Climate Change which was then submitted to the UN conference through Canadian Environment Minister Stéphane Dion.

The celebration was followed by a dialogue among parliamentarians and representatives of different faith communities, focusing on ethics and climate change. The panel, which drew about 100 attendees, was presided over by Dr. David Hallman of the United Church of Canada, who serves as climate change programme co-ordinator for the World Council of Churches.

The fact that religious fanatics grab bigger headlines than members of KAIROS and the World Council of Churches does not diminish the importance of the latter's work. They represent a wide and important mainline swath of the international faith community who seek to work democratically and civilly to enrich, rather than raze, our collective life on this planet, and remain emissaries of religious hope for the New Year.