Religious Beliefs and Practices

Transcription

1 William ECKHARDT Religious Beliefs and Practices in Relation to Peace and Justice Sur la base des écrits sacrés des grandes religions, on pourrait s attendre à voir les comportements religieux associés à des attitudes favorables à la paix, l égalité, la liberté, l amour et d autres valeurs semblables. Cependant, les résultats études réalisées depuis quarante ans, ne confirment pas cette hypothèse. Au contraire, ces études suggèrent de façon vigoureuse que les adeptes les plus «orhodoxes» de ces religions font preuve de soumission et de conformisme plutôt que de compassion. Les changements d attitudes au sein du christianisme à l égard de la guerre au cours de ce siècle suggèrent que la relation entre religiosité et militarisme est fonction du type de relation qui existe entre les Eglises et l Etat. Ceci résulterait surtout du fait que les Eglises stimulent avant tout la conformité de leurs membres. Puisque la conformité ecclésiale contribue tout à la fois aux comportements violents et à la violence structurelle, il serait nécessaire que les Eglises favorisent le non conformisme et la non violence si elles veulent contribuer effectivement à l avènement de la paix et de la justice dans le monde. Compassion has probably been the central concept in most of the world s great religions at least since about 800 B.C., when the concept of one God emerged to move humanity from polytheism to monotheism. This monotheistic concept seemed to reflect the experience of some people who saw themselves in others and others in themselves, so that all human beings seemed to be one. In Hinduism, for example, the one God (Brahma) was the one Self (Atman) distributed among all human beings. Consequently, the self separated from others (Ego) was considered to be the source of all evil in human affairs. Morality existed in promoting the welfare of others, at least not injuring others, even at the expense of oneself ( Ferm, 1956, pp ). The Hindu scriptures made the value of compassion quite explicit: The good show compassion towards all living beings... The world itself is but one family (Ballou, 1950, p. 79). Buddha reiterated this oneness of humanity as the essence of compassion : To him in whom love dwells, the whole world is but one family... Let a man overcome des 463

2 anger by love, let him overcome evil by good ; let him overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth (Ibid, pp. 106, 109). Later in the Hindu traditions, Krishna defined the religious person as He who beareth no ill will to any being, friendly and compassionate, without attachment and egoism, balanced in pleasure and pain, and forgiving (Ibid, p. 67). On the other hand, according to Krishna, Hypocrisy, arrogance and deceit, wrath and also harshness and unwisdom are his who is born with demoniacal properties... Given over to egoism, power, insolence, lust and wrath, these malicious ones hate me in the bodies of others and in their own (Ibid, p. 68). In China, Confucius expressed the oneness of humanity in his principle of reciprocity : What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others (Ibid, p. 489), while Lao Tze emphasized the relief of human suffering and the return of love for great hatred ( Ibid, p. 551 ). The Hebrew prophets, Zarathustra, Christ, and Mohammed all made similar statements, so that the great religions seem to be generally agreed concerning their teachings about compassion, the golden rule, and the oneness of humanity. Religious Attitudes Today On the basis of the sacred scriptures of the great religions, one might expect to find religious attitudes with favorable attitudes toward peace, equality, freedom, love and other such values. However, the results of attitude studies conducted during the last 40 years do not confirm this hypothesis, at least so far as conventional religious beliefs are concerned. and at least so far as university students and other adults in the Western part of the world are concerned, including some Communist countries. In these studies, relgiosity has been operationalized by a set of statements such as I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. School teachers should believe in God, and The restraints imposed by strong religious institutions are essential to curb man s natural instincts. Religiosity scales have been validated by their correlations with orthodox church membership and frequency of church attendance. Religiosity, as operationally defined by these scales, has been found to be correlated with militarism ( and test nuclear weapons ), nationalism ( My country should strive 464 Our country should continue to develop for power in the world ), authoritarianism ( Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn ). ethnocentrism ( Negroes have their rights, but it is best to keep them in their own districts and schools and to prevent too much contact with whites ), conservatism ( The institution of private property is a sound basis on which to build a society which fulfills the needs of its members ), punitiveness ( The death penalty is required to maintain law and order ), ( I like to follow rules and regulations closely ), and misanthropy ( If you don t watch out for yourself, people will take advantage of you ). These and many other similar findings have been

3 reviewed in Eckhardt & Lentz (1967), Eckhardt ( 1968, 1972a), and Russell (1971), all of which include numerous references to primary sources. Some of the correlations between some of these variables and religiosity are shown in Table 1. TABLE 1 : Some Correlates of Religiosity All the correlation coefficients in this table are significant at the.05 level of confidence at least. * Reference 1. COMREY & NEWMEYER, 1965 (See references at end of this paper). 2. ECKHARDT, ECKHARDT, ECKHARDT, MANNING, MORGAN, SUBOTNIK F~ TINKER, ECKHARDT F~ IVEWCOMBE, ECKHARDT, SLOAN 6 AZAR, GREGORY, LEVINSON, MANNING, MEHLER, QLIARTERMAIN, RAMSAY & WOLINS, Eckhardt ( 1971 ) analyzed relgiosity in a multi-national student survey and replicated most of the findings from previous studies in nine Western nations, three miscellaneous nations, three African nations, and three Asian nations. However, in this study, militarism was relatively independent of religiosity in Afro-Asian nations, with a slight tendency toward favoring disarmament ( My country should start to disarm ), and religious nationalism in these same nations was tempered with some internationalism ( The International Court of Justice is an important instrument for promoting peace ). In spite of these notable exceptions, the more religious students in the East as well as in the West were more conformist, conservative, nationalist, racialist, and resistant to social change. 465

4 In case the reader might be forming the impression that this article is a scientific attack upon religion, it should be noted that the author has also criticized conventional science for its complicity in serving the status quo against social change (Eckhardt, 1972b). It should be noted here that, as in the case of religiosity scales, other scales used in these studies were validated by the known groups method. For example, conservatism scales were validated by their ability to discriminate between members of capitalist parties and members of socialist parties, and militarism scales were validated by their ability to discriminate between those who were reserve officers or ROTC students, on the one hand, and those who were members of peace churches or peace groups on the other. Whatever Happened to Compassion in Religion? However compassionate the great religions may have been in their origin, these attitude studies conducted during the last 40 years suggest strongly that the more orthodox followers of these religions today are more compulsive and conformist than they are compassionate. There are outstanding exceptions, of course, since attitude studies result only in general rules and never in universal laws. The Berrigan brothers, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Tolstoy immediately come to mind as individual exceptions (and there are many others, of course). The historical peace churches in the Christian tradition (Brethren, Friends, and Mennonites), the Baha i, Jews, Unitarians, and pacifist wings in all churches immediately come to mind as group exceptions (and there are many others). However, these exceptions are in the minority. They may even constitute a fairly large minority in some places at some times, but the general rule remains that religious attitudes today among clergy and laity alike (Russell, 1971, pp ) are generally opposed to peace, equality, freedom, love, and other such compassionate values. Whatever happened to religious compassion in the historical process of civilization? Russell (1971, p. 48) has argued that nothing whatever happened so far as Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism are concerned, since their basic beliefs as recorded in the Old Testament were originally authoritarian, militaristic, and punitive, leading them to engage in military crusades. This argument might apply to Christians and Muslims over the last millennium, but contradicts some of the evidence presented by Russell ( 1971, p. 21 ) to the effect that modern Jews in the Western world are about as pacifist as agnostics and Quakers are. As a result of his review of previous studies and his own content analysis of the New Testament, Russell (1971) concluded : The God of Jesus is, like the Old Testament God, authoritarian and severely punitive. His love, while fully forgiving, is conditional, in as much as those who will not accept God s will are condemned to suffer God s full anger, as was depicted in the Old Testament (p. 60). However, this argument fails to explain why the early church was pacifist, according 466

5 to Bainton (1960), until it became the state church of the Holy Roman Empire in 383 A.D. Another analysis of the values expressed in the synoptic gospels suggested that religious values were primarily characterized by love, peace, and truth (Eckhardt, 1966), so that there is room for disagreement concerning the interpretation of sacred scriptures among scientists, as well as among clergy and laity in the Church. Since the Old and New Testaments guided the early Christian pacifists, they can hardly be cited as the original cause of the latter-day Christian militarists. The difference must lie in the personal and group interpretations of these testaments rather than in the words of the testaments themselves. According to Bainton ( 1960), the early church was pacifist ; then for several centuries after Constantine the church accepted the righteousness of a just war ; finally, during the high Middle Ages it adopted the Crusade. The historical differences in Christian attitudes toward war can hardly be explained by the same cause : a constant concept of God as recorded in the Bible, regardless of whether this concept is of a loving God or a punitive God, concerning which there may be differences of interpretation. If these arguments are sound, then we must look outside of the Bible itself to explain the difference between the pacifism of the early Christian and the militarism of the modern Christian. The history of the church itself, as briefly described by Bainton in the previous paragraph, would suggest that the change from pacifism to militarism was directly correlated with the change in the relations between the church and the state. When the church became a part of the state, it moved from a pacifist position toward the justification of war ; when it became virtually identified with the state it moved toward a crusading attitude toward war. In short. it would seem that the more the church chose to conform to the state, or to identify with the agressor, the more militaristic became the attitudes of its clergy and laity. This factor of confirmity would seem to provide a more meaningful explanation of the relation between militarism and religiosity than any factor of aggressive motivation as such. Although the attitude studies do show that conventionally religious persons are more aggressive and punitive than average, in the sense of favoring military deterrence and capital punishment, it has been shown that aggressive behavior may be a function of conformity as well as frustration (Eckhardt, 1974). In this study, militarism was shown to be related to the frustrationaggression (nor was religiosity), but confirmity, religious affiliation, and religious attitudes were significantly correlated with one another in the East as well as in the West. This religious confirmity complex was also related to bureaucratic attitudes ( Some equality in marriage may be a good thing, but by and large the husband should be the final authority in family matters ), conservatism ( The nationalization, or government ownership, of the great industries is likely to lead to inefficiency, bureacracy, and stagnation ), conventional morality ( When slavery was legal it was wrong to help slaves to escape ). lower family income. and lower GNP per capita of the person s nation. 467

6 Confirmity in the East, however, was no more related to militarism than religiosity was. It would seem from these results that Western religion contributes to war, not by way of the frustration-aggression hypothesis (which makes its own contribution independent of religion), but by way of fostering bureaucratic, conformist, and conservative attitudes, and by contributing toward conventional moral development with its emphasis on law and order. The independence of aggressive motives, as such, from religious attitudes finds further support from other research results which show that Western religious attitudes were opposed to civil disobedience (Eckhardt, 1971 ) and to revolutionary changes (Eckhardt & Haven, 1973). In other words, religious aggression (especially in the West) is highly selective in lending itself to military, police, and counterrevolutionary violence, but withholding its support from revolutionary violence and even from civil disobedience against the status quo. In short, this is hardly aggression in general, but aggression in the service of special interests. Western religion, that is, Christianity in its more orthodox forms, would seem to have a very vested interest in the status quo of the world today, not to mention the last ten or fifteen hundred years. The Christian Churches own a great deal of land in the world, from which they derive speculative profits, in addition to which they have made large investments in the modern military-industrial complex, from which they receive many dividends. Historically, Catholicism has been associated with feudalism, and to this day the greatest inequality in land distribution exists in Catholic countries. Historically, Protestantism has been associated with capitalism, and to this day the Protestant churches have many of their investments in the military-industrial complex. These inequalities in land and income contribute to civil conflict around the world today, especially in the Third World where the world market and world prices established by the richer Christian countries operate to the great disadvantage of the peoples in the poorer countries, including Christian countries in the Third World. Efforts to move in the direction of equality, whether communist or socialist in nature, are violently resisted by the forces of the status quo, including the Christian church. Consequently, Christianity contributes to civil as well as international conflicts around the world because of its vested interest in the status quo, which works to the advantage of the wealthier Christian notions. The evidence for some of the statements in this paragraph has been obtained from civil conflict studies now in process at the Canadian Peace Research Institute, but these studies will not be ready for publication before What Can Be Done?. Should religion return to its authentic task of creating the oneness of all humanity, which implies equality, and give up its accumulation of material goods which works to the advantage of some at the expense 468

7 of others? This latter state of affairs surely violates the golden rule of all of the world s great religions. Religion has served to pacify people so far as violence against the status quo is concerned, but so far as religion has encouraged conformity to an unjust status quo it has contributed to structural violence in the form of differential infant mortality rates, life expectancies, educational opportunities, communicational opportunities, and other cultural opportunities for the free and equal development of all human beings. In addition, so far as religion has contributed to counter-revolutionary violence to maintain structural violence, it has compounded this sin. The concept of structural violence has been developed by Galtung (1969) and his colleagues at the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo. Religion has lost its way in the process of civilization by identifying with the aggressors that promote injustice and war. Should religion separate itself from these powers, not in the legal sense of separation of church and state (which is nothing but a formal screen behind which the church effectively serves the state), but in the existential sense of speaking the truth about the justice of equality to the power of inequality? In speaking this truth to power, the church may save itself from its own perversion if it acts upon this truth by ceasing to speculate in land and natural resources to the advantage of some at the expense of others, and speculate instead in the development of all human beings by distributing its land and natural resources equitably among all peoples and by calling upon all nations to do likewise. In addition. the church might want to take its investments out of the militaryindustrial complexes and invest them instead in the equitable distribution of health, education, and welfare around the world, and call upon all nations to do likewise. Should religion conform to the structural violence of an unjust status quo, or should it rather be setting an exemple of non-conformity for all of its adherents to follow? By embracing non-conformity as well as non-violence, the church can provide its people with an opportunity of developing their moral judgments beyond the conventional level of law and order. Moral development will reduce authoritarianism, making equalitarian and participatory democracy more feasible as social structures, which should help to reduce structural violence. Non-conformity to structural violence and to an unjust status quo would go a long way toward producing a more peaceful world. In addition, the church can take full advantage of the vast amount of clinical, experimental, and statistical evidence which has been accumulated during the 20th Century to support the frustration-agression hypothesis. The full import of this evidence goes well beyond sexual frustration. but the church has been particularly guilty of promoting this particular kind of frustration. Of course, what we need are more satisfying human relations all around, including sexual relations. These more satisfying human relations will upset the status quo of property rights prevailing over human rights, which is required to facilitate the movement from inequality, so that structural violence and behavioral violence will both 469

8 be reduced in this moral process of promoting human rights security. Since behavioral violence is over national war and structural violence is injustice, the reduction of these two forms of violence (and both forms must be reduced if anything is to be accomplished) satisfies the values of both peace and justice. A New Religion Clearly, the religion that takes these steps will come out of this process a far different religion from the orthodox religion of today with its puritanical restrictions upon the joy of life and its conformity to injustice. The question is whether it makes any sense to all to expect the church to make such radical changes 470 in itself. Like the rest of us, wants to change the world, the church will have to change itself if it but we all prefer to think that it is possible to change the world without changing ourselves. Why should we think it feasible that the church might even be willing to contemplate these radical changes in its own functions and structures? Why should a reactionary institution lend itself to the cause of revolution? There is, of course, no reason at all why the church or any other institution or any person, for that matter, should change at all. However, we are not concerned with reasons here, but values. The church is contradicting its own basic values, its origin in the religious insight that all human beings are one, and that even the whole wide world and all that is in it is one. We are all virtual part of one another, according to this insight, so that harm to any part cannot leave the the other parts whole. Wholeness (or holiness) cannot exist except in and through all of us developing together. Any crack or flaw in this whole hurts or detracts from the development of every part of the whole. The church will change only so far as its chooses to be true to itself, to its own religious values of love, peace, and truth. The church will change only when it chooses to be what it set out to be before it became a servant of the state. The awareness of the self-contradiction between religious reality and religious values seems to be growing among religious groups. This cognitive dissonance could result in change. Unfortunately, dissonance, as such may result in a change of religious values rather than in a change of religious reality, which may account for the present state of affairs revealed by the results of attitude studies. It will take more than cognitive dissonance to ensure that the direction of change is to change religious reality in accordance with religious values rather than the other way around. Hopefully, the church, like the rest of us, will realize its complicity in the violent world we have created for ourselves. Either we shall put an end to this violence (structural as well as behavioral) all together, or we will put an end to ourselves all together. If we do not choose to de-escalate structural violence (injustice), we may destroy ourselves with behavioral violence (war). The de-escalation of behavioral violence

9 alone, revolutionary or counter-revolutionary, may prove to be quite impossible. The awareness of inequality and its injustice has set in motion a historical process of revolution which is willing to be non-violent if possible, but ready to turn to violence if non-violent appeals are ignored. Justice will be done. We can only hope that non-violent non-confirmity will succeed in doing it. The church can make a great and moral contribution toward the next step in human evolution toward equality by abandoning its subsurvenience to the prevailing power of inequality. In so doing, it will be true to itself, squaring itself with its own values, and creating a new religion in the process of changing the world for the better. Like the rest of us, the church will have to concern itself with the health, education, and welfare of all humanity, rather than with the. benefit of some at the expense of others. The Christian Church is not the only church responsible for the state of the world today. Nor are all the churches in the world today the only institutions responsible for the problems we have created for ourselves. Nor are all the institutions in the world today entirely responsible for what all the individuals in the world are doing to create or maintain these problems. Beyond the church, every one of us and all of our institutions have to examine ourselves and make some radical changes if peace and justice are to be done on this earth. References BAINTON, R.H. Christian Attitudes toward War and Peace. New York : Abingdon, BALLOU, R.O. (Ed.) World Bible. New York: Viking, COMREY, A.L. & NEWMEYER, J.A. Measurement of radicalism-conservatism. Journal of Social Psychology, 1965, 67, ECKHARDT, W. Analysis of Religious Values. Journal of Human Relations, ECKHARDT, W. Ideology and personality in social attitudes. Peace Research Reviews, 1969, 3 (2), whole issue. ECKHARDT, W. Eastern and Western religiosity. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 1971, 2, ECKHARDT, W. Compassion : Toward a science of value. Oakville, Ontario : Canadian Peace Research Institute Press, 1972a. ECKHARDT, W. Research and education as approaches to peace and justice. Peace Research Reviews, 1972b, 4 (4), ECKHARDT, W. A conformity theory of aggression. Journal of Peace Research, 1974, 11 (1), ECKHARDT, W. & HAVEN, M. Revolutionary attitudes across cultures. Journal of Contemporary Revolutions, 1973, 5 (1), ECKHARDT, W. & LENTZ, T.F. Factors of war/peace attitudes. Peace Research Reviews, 1967, 1 (5), whole issue. ECKHARDT, W., MANNING, M., MORGAN, C., SUBOTNIK, L. & TINKER, L.J. Militarism in our culture today. Journal of Human Relations, 1967, 15, ECKHARDT, W. & NEWCOMBE, A.G. Militarism, personality, and other social attitudes. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1969,

10 ECKHARDT, W., SLOAN, T. & AZAR, E. The measurement of compassion. Review of Peace Science, 1973, 1, FERM, V. (Ed.) Encyclopedia of morals. New York : Philosophical Library, GALTUNG, J. Violence, peace, and peace research. journal of Peace Research. 1969, 6, GREGORY, W.E. The orthodoxy of the authoritarian personality. Journal of Social Psychology, 1957, 45, LEVINSON, D.J. Authoritarian personality and foreign policy. journal of Conflict Resolution, 1957, 1, MANNING, M. Militarism as prejudice. Paper presenter at the Student Peace Research Workshop, Pingree Park, Colorado, August, MEHLER, D.E., QUARTERMAIN, A., RAMSAY, J. & WOLINS, L. Peace Union study links devout to anti-russians. Iowa State Daily, March 20, RUSSELL, E.W. Christianity and militarism. Peace Research Reviews, 1971, 4 (3), whole issue. 472