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Future Challenge of Faith-based Governance- / - Introduction IntroductionWestern civilization emerged into the 20th century following the neutralization of the religious conflicts between Catholics and Protestants characteristic of previous centuries. A degree of separation of church and state was assured -- even in countries with state religions. This trend has been dramatically reversed through the uniquely Christian inspiration of the Coalition of the Willing under the leadership of the USA -- in what has been perceived as a "crusade" against the Islamic faith in particular and against dissidence in general. The unique characteristic of organized religion in a complex world is a freedom from public doubt -- whatever private doubts may be matters of personal conscience. This degree of righteous conviction achieves its most emphatic and unconstrained expression in the leadership of the Coalition of the Willing. For it is indeed the case that George Bush (USA), Tony Blair (UK) and John Howard (Australia) are men of deep Christian faith, whether or not they are born-again Christians as in the case of Bush and Howard. Secondary members of the Coalition included the traditionally Catholic countries of Italy and Spain. The world has had to struggle over centuries with the erroneous convictions of the Catholic Church regarding many insights of science -- as exemplified by the delay of four centuries with respect to the discoveries of Galileo [more]. These convictions were reinforced by an infallible papacy. This struggle now continues with the increasing conflict between creationism and evolution biology in the USA -- over which George Bush has claimed to be neutral -- and an emphasis on faith-based programmes both by Bush and Blair. A particular focus was provided in 2003 in the debate over the future European Constitution and the implications of including or excluding any mention of God [more | more]. The paper is in two parts. The concern here in Part A is to identify areas in which, through this righteous sense of knowing the truth beyond any reasonable challenge, Christianity is now directly complicit in aggravating world disorder -- in addition to the challenges presented by the many other problems of the world, including terrorism (see online Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential). This is not to deny complicity of other faiths (notably Judaism and Islam) but that has been frequently analyzed in relation to the crisis in the Middle East. The question is whether Christian leadership of the "free world" is now perverting the highest values of Christianity beyond recognition. There is however also a case for recognizing the degree to which science -- in contrasting its perspective with that of religion -- also constitutes a belief system that has some of the characteristics of other faith-based initiatives. Such questions have some merit in a period in which the emergent American global strategy for the 21st century seeks to impose an American order worldwide -- an order based on American principles, and the privileged American relation to God, that many in other countries may be challenged to understand. Other members of the Coalition of the Willing believe, as articulated by Tony Blair, that it is futile to protest this hegemonic strategy and its benefits for the world. This hegemony is now being extended by the Bush Administration in the form of military control of what it terms "near space," thereby laying claim to the area of the Solar System that lies between the Earth and the Moon's orbit. "A key objective is not only to ensure U.S. ability to exploit space for military purposes, but also as required to deny an adversary's ability to do so," is how the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review (2001) explained the strategy (see Joel Bleifuss. Rods from God. 2003) However, if it is to be accepted, any such faith-based approach to global governance calls for a proactive exploration of the flaws apparent in previous faith-based approaches to governance -- on which historical perspective has been slow to emerge. Attention to the lessons of history is vital if world civilization is to avoid the traps of the past. Pointers in this direction are outlined in Part B. Any reflection on faith-based "religious" approaches to governance, should also consider the nature of the "faith" placed by other sectors of society in their own preferred approaches to governance, including:
As remarked by John Ralston Saul:
Attention should also be given to the new degree of "faith" which the leadership in faith-based governance now expects the electorate to have in its judgement and capacity -- as with Tony Blair's appeals to "trust me" in a time of democratic deficit and voter apathy. There is considerable danger that "faith-based governance" will come to mean just that -- an unreasonable dependence on the part of those who govern in the electorate's "faith" in them, irrespective of strong indications suggestive of the need for a change of regime. This expectation is a characteristic of many non-democratic societies. Part A: Patterns of the Past -- Christian Complicity in World DisorderPart B: Towards Fruitful Patterns of Faith-based GovernanceReferencesAzizah al-Hibri, Jean Elshtain, and Charles Haynes. Faith Matters: Religion and Public Life in America. New York, W.W. Norton, 2001. Babette E. Babich (Ed). Hermeneutic Philosophy of Science, Van Gogh's Eyes, and God Essays in Honor of Patrick A. 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Exceptions That Prove the Rule—Using a Theory of Motivated Social Cognition to Account for Ideological Incongruities and Political Anomalies: Reply to Greenberg and Jona (2003). Psychological Bulletin (American Psychological Association), 2003, Vol. 129, No. 3, 383-393. (text) Anthony Judge. Terminal Empowerment: socio-political implications of radical mutual assistance amongst the terminally ill. 2003 (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs00s/terminal.php) Anthony Judge. Navigating Alternative Conceptual Realities: clues to the dynamics of enacting new paradigms through movement. 2003 (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/detach.php) Anthony Judge. Destructive Weapons of Mass Distraction vs Distractive Weapons of Mass Destruction. 2003 (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/musings/wepmade.php) Anthony Judge. The "Dark Riders" of Social Change: a challenge for any Fellowship of the Ring. 2002 (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/musings/riders.php) Anthony Judge. Groupthink: the Search for Archaeoraptor as a Metaphoric Tale. 2002 (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/musings/raptor.php) Anthony Judge. Transforming the Encounter with Terrorism. 2002 (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/terror.php) Anthony Judge. Coherent Patterns of Schism Formation, Bifurcation and Disagreement. 2001 (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/schism.php) Anthony Judge. Web resources: Critical thinking vs. Specious arguments. 2001 (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/links/webcrit.php) Anthony Judge. Missiles, Missives, Missions and Memetic Warfare: Navigation of strategic interfaces in multidimensional knowledge space. 2001 (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/missile.php) Anthony Judge. Enhancing the Quality of Knowing through Integration of East-West metaphors. 2000 (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/knowqual.php) Anthony Judge. Evaluating Synthesis Initiatives and their Sustaining Dialogues. 2000 (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/synthdia.php) Anthony Judge. Enhancing Sustainable Development Strategies through Avoidance of Military Metaphors. 1998 (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/targets.php) Anthony Judge. Aesthetic Challenge of Interfaith Dialogue as Exemplified by Meditation. 1997 (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/aesthet.php) Anthony Judge. Reframing interfaith Relationships. 1997 (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/conftran/xoxfor97.php) Anthony Judge. Reframing Relationships as a Mathematical Challenge: Jerusalem as a Parody of Current Interfaith Dialogue. 1997 (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/jerus97.php) Anthony Judge. Conference towards Spiritual Concord as a Metaphor of Spiritual Concord. 1994 (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs90s/94spirco.php) Anthony Judge. Possible Traps Towards Spiritual Concord. 1993 (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/conftran/xsptrap2.php) Anthony Judge. Towards a Language of Spiritual Concord. 1993 (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/conftran/xsplang.php) Anthony Judge. Learnings for the Future of interfaith Dialogue
Anthony Judge. Towards Spiritual Concord: First World Congress towards Spiritual Concord (Alma Ata, 1992) (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/cnfalma.php) Anthony Judge. Higher Orders of Inter-sectoral "Consensus": Clarification of formal possibilities. 1991 (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs90s/ifchigh.php) Michael Kinsley. God Bless You And God Bless America. Slate Magazine, 25 January 2001. (text) Bruce M. Knauft. 9/11 and the U.S. Production of Global Crisis (The Eighteenth Brumaire of George W. Bush). Paper for the Session “9/11 and Hegemonic Response: Global Emergency or Alarming Excuse?” of the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association (New Orleans, 21 November 2002) (text) Andrew Kohut, John C. Green, Scott Keeter, and Robert C. Toth. The Diminishing Divide: Religion’s Changing Role in American Politics. Washington, D.C., The Brookings Institution, 2000. (contents) Glenn Loury. ‘God Talk’ and Public Policy: a Considered Opinion. The Brookings Review, vol. 17, 1999, no. 2 (spring). (text) Marc Luyckx. Religions Confronted with Science and Technology: churches and ethics after Prometheus. Brussels, Commission of the European Communities, FAST (Forecasting and Assessment in Science and Technology), 1992 Magoroh Maruyama. Mindscapes, social patterns and future development of scientific theory types. Cybernetica, 1980, 23, 1, pp 5-25 (text) E G McClain. The Myth of Invariance. Boulder, Shambhala, 1976 Mary Midgley. Myths We Live By. Routledge, 2003 (review) Kinhide Mushakoji. Global Issues and Interparadigmatic Dialogue. Torino, Albert Meynier, 1988 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Lift Every Voice: Report on Religion In American Public Life, 2002. (text) Pontifical Council for Culture / Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. Jesus Christ: the Bearer of the Water of Life -- A Christian reflection on the “New Age”. (Provisional report) 2003 (text) Darrell A. Posey (Editor). Cultural and Spiritual Values of Biodiversity: a complementary contribution to Global Biodiversity Assessment, Intermediate Technology, 1999 (for the United Nations Environment Programme) John Ralston Saul. Voltaire's Bastards: the dictatorship of reason in the West. New York, The Free Press, 1992 (review) Richard Sennett. They mean well: the American flight from foreign politics into faith. Times Literary Supplement, 7 June 2002, pp 6-8 Wayne Teasdale. Interreligious Dialogue Since Vatican II -- The Monastic Contemplative Dimension. Spirituality Today, Summer 1991, Vol.43 No. 2, pp. 119-133 (text) Ronald F. Thiemann. Religion in Public Life: A Dilemma for Democracy. Washington, D.C., Georgetown University Press, 1996 Union of International Associations. Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential. 1994-5 Sarah Voss. Zero: Reflections about Nothing by Sarah Voss. North Bend, Indiana: CrossCultural Publications, 1998 Sarah Voss. What Number Is God? Metaphors, Metaphysics, Metamathematics, and the Nature of Things. State University of New York Press, 1995 Jason Webster. Duende: A Journey in Search of Flamenco. Doubleday, 2002 (review) Garry Wills. With God on His Side. New York Time, 30 March 2003 (text) Garry Wills. Under God: Religion and America Politics. New York, Simon & Schuster, 1990 Martin Woollacott. Don't Blame Religion for the Killings Done in God's Name. Guardian, 11/29/2002 (text)
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