Viewpoint Authoritarian impulse tarnishes Abrahamic
creeds
By ANN PETTIFER
Jonathan Glover, an English moral
philosopher (his book, Humanity: a Moral History of the 20th Century,
has just been published) thinks communities that resist committing atrocities
or falling prey to dictatorships nurture the benign rebel in their
children.
He continues: If you look at the people who sheltered Jews
under the Nazis, you find a number of things about them. They tended to be
brought up in a non-authoritarian way, brought up to have sympathy for other
people and to discuss things rather than just do what they were told.
Those of us who claim an affiliation with one of the Abrahamic
religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, should be made uneasy by what
Glover has to say. One doesnt have to be especially perspicacious to
observe that all three religions of the Book have a propensity for the
authoritarian posture; youthful rebellion is discouraged, and dogmatism, under
the rubric of orthodoxy or fundamentalism, forecloses the possibility of
sympathetic discussion with folk who think differently.
John Cornwalls recent book Hitlers Pope is a reminder
of how compatible Roman Catholicism and fascism were. (Sadly, Catholic reviews
of the book have been reluctant to acknowledge this fact.) Fascism, which took
root in the anti-Semitic soil of Catholic, Christian Europe, bore more than a
passing resemblance to the prevailing anti-modernist Vatican ideology: It, too,
was authoritarian, patriarchal and absolutist. So, in no way was it a stretch
for a Roman pontiff to accommodate a führer, a duce or a caudillo -- or
for German, Italian and Spanish Catholics to give assent to the degenerate,
reactionary politics that overtook their countries.
Islams record for violence this century, particularly during
the second half, has been considerable. The monstrous Taliban in Afghanistan is
making life for women intolerable. In the Sudan, Arab Muslims, in their effort
to dominate the largely non-Islamic South, have terrorized the region and in
some areas reinvented slavery. Saudi Arabia publicly beheads malefactors, and
Iran issues fatwas. All this suggests a religion incapable of peace on anything
but its own harsh terms.
In 1996, I spent the summer in Birmingham, England, where I was
born. The city has become a model of multiculturalism -- mosques and synagogues
dot the landscape. However, while I was traveling on a main road, I noticed a
prominent mosque was flying a banner that proclaimed there was only one God --
Allah. At first I dismissed this as mere bad taste, but after passing it
several times a week, the banner began to appear more menacing.
It betokened a gratuitous, militant declaration of religious
intransigence perhaps deliberately designed to provoke the non-Muslim
population. Inside the mosque its OK for Muslims to insist on
Allahs uniqueness, just as the pope is free inside St. Peters to
regard Jesus Christ as the savior of all humanity. But these are politically
incendiary claims when made in the public square where they can only inflame
and incite.
The original Abrahamic religion, Judaism, seemed to have had an
exemplary track record this century, up until the creation of the state of
Israel. Then it showed itself to be no better than Christianity or Islam at
encouraging the virtues of magnanimity and inclusivity in its adherents.
The idea of chosen-ness, so central to Judaism, has become overtly
problematic. The notion that God played favorites from the beginning is
guaranteed to create tension, particularly when it inevitably gives rise to the
colonial or settler mentality. The corollary of chosen-ness is otherness, which
is what we ascribe to people before we dehumanize them. It was no accident that
the Afrikaners in South Africa appropriated the Hebraic idea of chosen-ness to
distinguish the Volk from the African population. Thus was apartheid born.
I am agnostic at best when it comes to any expectation that
Abrahamic religion is going to get its act together anytime soon. My spouse is
more optimistic and tries to cheer us up with reminders of the prophetic,
justice-seeking golden thread present in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
But until we confront what psychoanalyst Adam Phillips in his book
Terrors and Experts calls the whole project of wanting authorities,
it is hard to see how a prophetic vitality can be recovered.
Serendipity, however, should not be ruled out. After the rigid,
authoritarian Pius XII died, the papal mantle passed to John XXIII, who had
also been a Vatican career diplomat. The crucial difference was that communism
did not frighten Pope John (as it had Pius XII). Pope John knew there were ways
of dealing with it other than accommodating fascism. Although an old man, John
XXIII was determined to have a council that would purge the church of its fear
of the world and give it confidence to encounter secularism in all its
manifestations. The relatively short but transformative period of the Second
Vatican Council began to liberate Catholics from the need for authorities.
Should the opportunity come again, Catholics wont be starting from
scratch.
Ann Pettifer is an alumna of Notre Dame and writes from South
Bend, Ind.
National Catholic Reporter, February 25,
2000
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