The likelihood of a post-religious world

Jesus visits Russia

The eradication and subsequent rebirth of Russian Orthodoxy, first at the hands of Stalin’s cronies and then at the hands of their children, provides some insight into the nature of religion. It is often said that religion cannot possibly not be; that whenever it is destroyed it returns, and that whensoever it fades away, it finds new ways to adapt to the climate. For over half a century, Russian Orthodoxy was officially finished. Those who felt strong ties to it were unable to practice, church attendance was impossible because churches were wastefully destroyed or reappropriated, and one could not pass on the tradition to one’s children for fear of placing the lives of loved ones in immense danger. Could anyone predict its astonishing post-1991 resurgence? If Communism had outlasted Solidarność and perestroika, if it had pushed on a half millennium into the future then collapsed, would Orthodoxy return then? Or might another religion have taken its place? Would Orthodoxy have been replaced by Communism in the religious mind?

Orthodoxy’s revival may have been surprising, but it was not impossible to predict. Seventy years is a long time to suffer collectivism and dictatorship, but it is minutes in historical time: not nearly enough to erase the cultural memory. This leaves us with a fascinating question: is it possible that religion will ever end, and if so, what circumstances would precipitate it?

Religious followers often appear unconvertible. On the one extreme there are the fanatics: these will take deep offense at the suggestion of the invalidity of their views, and possibly become violent. The other extreme is milder, and would only suggest that maybe it is hard to defend their views, but that they will go on believing them nonetheless, if that’s okay with you. However, this may only be a thin veneer of immutability. History is filled with cases of whole societies converting en masse to a new religion when it is perceived to be in their interest. Many of the pagans who converted to Christianity were exactly like this. Perhaps this has something to do with the individual religion? Their pagan faiths may not have been so conducive to really strong belief, where the opposite may be true of the monotheistic faiths. But the Protestant Reformation, along with other reformations of its kind, suggests a possible kink in the armour of this view. Large swathes of Europe abandoned Catholicism comparatively quickly, and found in the ideas of Luther, Calvin and Zwingli something closer to their disposition. Of course, it is not true to say they were converted. They remained Christians; as they saw it, they were even truer Christians. But such a paradigm shift must have seemed close to impossible at the time—Zwingli only ate a sausage at Lent, and that was tantamount to heresy. And in understanding the origin of the Reformation, it is impossible to ignore the “pre-existing conditions”—a growing distrust of the Catholic church, exacerbated by the growing plague of simonies. If there was perfect trust and respect for the bishop of Rome and his subordinates, Christians would not have converted so quickly unless at the point of a sword. But the fact that these conditions existed in the first place shows that the conditions for change can always exist, and that a religious monopoly can be overturned no matter how insurmountable the odds may seem.

Zwingli: ate sausages

The United States has always been a Protestant country, but one with such a great and eclectic variety of beliefs that it can hardly be called homogenous. If there is a unity among all these congregations, it is that of American culture and not of Christianity per se. Since the United States was never in a position in which one Christian denomination dominated, at least in an official capacity, religious society has developed into something rather like a free market. In this market, even though one may feel a strong connection with the church of one’s parents, one is unlikely to have quite as strong a tie as with a church that the greater part of the nation follows. Evangelism or Seventh-day Adventism will never command the sort of allegiance that, say, the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches enjoy.

Moreover, these denominations are not likely ever to gain as strong a following. This is because the only way in which one church has ever gained ascendancy over others is by violent or legal force. The separation of church and state, enshrined in the First Amendment, as well as worship of that secular god, the Invisible Hand, precludes the possibility of one denomination achieving effective monopoly by anything other than selling its product better than its rivals. This is a rather impossible business proposition in the sphere of religion, because there is no way to patent a religious interpretation or practice. Any advantage one church might have over another is only temporary—all religious ideas are in the public domain. Further, it is unlikely that any claims to divine authority over other churches will be taken seriously by anyone other than the most fanatical: the very fact that such multifarious religions dwell alongside one another may be one of the precipitators of the modern liberal view that we should all respect each other’s faiths—it would be very difficult to live in a modern society otherwise.

Given that the strength of attachment to most Protestant denominations is comparatively weak, and that no one denomination pervades society as widely as Catholicism, intermarriage is thus much more likely. Marriage between two people who ostensibly share quite different views on Christianity will surely cause the man and wife and their children to see the truth: that denomination hardly matters at all in view of the fact that it is Christianity itself that is most important. It is this tendency to be indifferent between denominations that may be the death of religion.

Why is this so? Because historically, and almost by definition, it is the organised part of religion that orchestrates its survival. When put under existential threat of one kind or another, religions tend to fret for their own survival, and sometimes this fretting is at the expense of their values. Recently, prominent members of the Anglican clergy have suggested that Britain not let in as many Muslims into the country as it currently does, for fear of losing the British sense of identity, morality and values that, they argue, are fundamentally Anglican. Perhaps British values are fundamentally Anglican. (Though this is not an unproblematic position; Anglicanism was strongly shaped by the cultural habits and norms that preceded it.) What, then, of the Christian values of extending one’s hand to less fortunate neighbours? These values, such as they are, tend to be forgotten when the religion’s survival is in question: religions are defended in the name of nothing at all. But without any real organisation, it is difficult to see what forces would undertake to defend Christianity as a whole, and why more than a few devoted believers would follow.

But not all religions are the same. And what is true of Christianity may not be true of Hinduism or Buddhism. Maybe it is possible to argue that Christianity is at bottom a rather mild religion, and whenever it has strayed into fanaticism it has been due to some combination of misinterpretation and xenophobia, and whenever it has become oppressive to the individual it has been due to the work of theologians in the mould of St Augustine—and so if the free-marketisation of Christianity will be the prelude to its death, perhaps this is not true of less mild religions? It is harder to argue the case with Islam, which is not racked with hundreds of denominations, yet still maintains a very strong identity even when spread over great distances. Indeed, about 85% of Muslims are Sunni, and the distinction between Sunni and Shi’a is not nearly so great as that between the denominations of Christianity. The Qur’an itself, in sura 30 verse 32, forbids any sectarian division of Islam. It is fair to say that Muslims, perhaps as a consequence, are much more closely wedded to their scripture than followers of almost any other religion. Although on the face of it the political structure of Islam seems utterly opposed to that of Christianity, in that it has far fewer truly official organisations to guide the faithful, yet this is only an illusion. The flock is often guided by political figures (the obvious case being Iran), and less forcibly by respected mullahs and imams. The latter may not have the same “divinely decreed” authority in their religion as bishops and popes do in theirs, yet they are considered authoritative in the same way as doctors are in matters of medicine. Muslims are thus made to trust authority even if no “church” of Islam exists. In this way, perhaps due to the foresight and design of the prophet Mohammed, there can’t be such thing as a free market in Islam, and thus it is fortified against the possible damage that might come to it if there could.

Islam is generally thought to be the most conservative of religions. But this is a fallacy; in the Islamic golden age, it was far from conservative. The question of how this enlightenment was lost is an interesting sociological one, but it does not change the fact that if Islam could reach the heights that it did between the 8th and 13th centuries, then there is no reason it cannot do so again. Interestingly, one of the by-products of this renaissance was a more liberal attitude to religion in general, and even a shifting towards agnosticism or atheism, or at least a position very far from ultra-literal belief.

The next stage in the evolution of Islam might be something akin to the Reformation, and this may not be so distant. There is an important tide in Islamic scholarship, as represented by the likes of Tariq Ramadan, that not only believes such a shift in attitude would be a good thing, but is actively pushing for it. If a new school of Islamic thought were to properly establish itself, perhaps even becoming a denomination in its own right, it would then face competition from its more established brethren, and perhaps something like a free market would form itself. Of course, it would still not be entirely free, because the social forces enticing one to stay are so strong that they cannot simply be brushed aside. But just as the Enlightenment spread despite strong religious conservative opposition, so this new school of Islamic thought may do too. Once this more liberal strain has weathered several generations, Islamic culture will be far less unaccustomed to agnosticism and atheism, and a more mature debate can be had.

It may not be so difficult to picture a world where religion is not so strong a presence as it is now and has always been, but to say that this world would be utterly and everywhere devoid of religion is much harder to imagine. It is clear that the conditions which are likeliest to precipitate the end of religion are more universal education, the breeding of freer thinkers, and the alleviation of poverty. However, since there are many people who are well educated, free thinking, and very rich who are also highly religious, it is clear that these conditions are not sufficient to eradicate religion entirely.

But even the most ardent anti-theist shouldn’t take too much issue with that state of affairs. Where religion is a societal problem is in its political and social power, almost always utterly incommensurate with any of its virtues. The survival of religion, in this socially diminished form, may well create believers who are more mature in their approach to scripture, more accepting of the human origins of their religion, and more liberal about the truth value of it all. A Christian, in this brave new world, will not confine himself to Catholicism or Orthodoxy, but will rather read the Old and New Testaments with the same kind of aesthetic intensity that a secular reader would Shakespeare: knowing that it is fiction, but taking suspension of disbelief, rather than faith, as the guiding force.

When the pervasion of religion has greatly diminished, as seems possible but distant, new religions are unlikely to come about. It is perhaps unfair (and just downright rude) to argue, as Christopher Hitchens does, that religion belongs to the infancy of our species, because there are many sophisticated manifestations of it that could not have arisen prior to the Bronze Age. But religion probably originates either from a desire to grasp the ungraspable and control the uncontrollable or to gain political power, or some combination of both. In a post-religious world the appealing myths of religion will seem only that: appealing, and nothing more. We might gain from these myths, but they would have no literal truth or explanatory power; and we would more easily see past the naked efforts of the power-hungry. Thus we would not take to religion with the fervour we once did, and thus it will have breathed its last.