William T. Cavanaugh

Religion’ is one of those conversation topics that seems to be hard to avoid, and even harder to deal with. ‘Not surprising’ says Cavanaugh, in not so many words, as he searches the globe for adequate definitions for the term, but fails to find them. In short it seems that ‘religion is what secularism is not’. The boundaries between the two are drawn by secularism in its own interests. Defining the boundaries of ‘religion’ is an important role of contemporary political power brokers. (Many ‘religions’, like Shinto of Japan, can waver between being a ‘religion’ or not a religion depending on the interests of the powers that be in control at the time.)

Cavanaugh’s text is a carefully researched and wide-ranging exploration of the these-days apparently presupposed thesis that ‘religion is the source of violence’. This, though, is a tautology, Cavanaugh informs us; if that which causes violence is religion, then it must follow that religion is the source of violence. Now of course that seems to be not entirely true. But it seems to become true. Jehovah’s Witnesses’ refusal to salute the American flag in 1940 demonstrates the violence of religion, according to the media at the time. This is just one example given by Cavanaugh’s of just how distorted people’s thinking on this issue has become. (Cavanaugh names 1940 as the date from which much of the West, at least the USA, has in legal and other circles been presupposing a co-identity between religion and violence.)

Religion is not a trans-historical constant. Instead, Cavanaugh points out, religion was ‘invented’ between the 15th and 18th Centuries in Western Europe. The contemporary understanding of religion firmed up around 1700. This ‘invention’ of religion began about 1400. The process began when powerful figures in Europe sought means of increasing their supremacy in the face of a very hegemonic church. The reformation that resulted from fissures in the church caused, it seems, by the above power-hungry princes’ endeavours at self-aggrandizement, was the division that came to be exploited for secular ends in the subsequent ‘wars of religion’. Thus, according to Cavanaugh, the major cause of the ‘wars of religion’ began before the reformation, and was political reform. (Of course, in the days before we had religion, we did not have politics either, because anything like ‘politics’ was at the time was inseparable from ‘religion’!)

Even legal cases in the USA have since 1940 been based on an assumption that the terrible bloodshed of 16th and 17th Century Europe was caused by disputes over doctrinal differences. ‘That’s nonsense’ Cavanaugh tells us! Enlightenment scholars, such as John Locke, were overjoyed to find a scapegoat for the destruction rendered. Historians however cannot agree with the thesis that ‘religion caused the wars of religion’. For a start, there was no religion then (religion is the twin of secularism, so before there was secularism there could be no religion). Historians tell us that Catholics and Protestants often changed​
sides; sometimes Catholics would fight Protestants, and sometimes Catholics would fight Catholics, etc. The ingenious genius of 17th and subsequent Centuries was secularism to define itself as ‘not a religion’. Thus it saw itself as immune from idolatry and innocent in charges of
​the ​war-mongering that it accused others of engaging​. I​t defined everyone else as ‘religion’. (Whereas religions are involved in endless disputes on doctrine, secularists suppose that they simply respond to reason.)

What a travesty, Cavanaugh explains. Secular states can kill and pillage as much as they like, that’s OK. But should a war be named as rooted in religion it is damned. It is always worth it for secularists to fight religion by any means available, according to a scholar quoted by Cavanaugh. For secularists to create global peace, some seem to believe, ‘religions’ must be fought at all costs, including intentional bloodshed and massacres.

Between 1500 and 1700, the ‘holy’ migrated from the church to the State, Cavanaugh explains. That’s fascinating. The structures, justifications, even rituals, conscience, bureaucracies, and foundations of the nation state are all, it appears, borrowed (or is it, forcefully wrenched) from the church. If you want to know about Western models of government – look at the history of the church, at the bible, at Christian theologies! No wonder some Westerners can have so high a regard for secularism, if it has usurped the role of God himself.

Part of Cavanaugh’s condemnation of the assumption that ‘religion = violence’ arises from the way that this formula can render actual sources of violence invisible. Contemporary violence that seeks to contain Islam needs little justification if we all know that religion is innately violent. Doctrines and people who hold them are, it seems, the source of bloodshed. (For Cavanaugh of course, Islam is not actually a ‘religion’, exactly because it does not recognise the jurisdiction of secularism.) For centuries and centuries and centuries the church has been the source of peace for millions around the globe. That role has become invisible to contemporary global politics and scholarship. When sources of peace are belittled, we’re in a dangerous place.

“The myth of religious violence is false” concludes Cavanaugh (p226). It needs to be retired away. I can’t help but say that I agree with him. The need to do this ​is urgent.… (meer)