Absolute religious certainty is dangerous -- at home and abroad
Robert Jensen
School of Journalism
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712
work: (512) 471-1990
fax: (512) 471-7979
rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu
copyright Robert Jensen 2003
Philadelphia Inquirer, October 21, 2003; and Dallas Morning News, October 22, 2003, p. A-19.
by
Robert Jensen
“I am
not anti-Islam or any other religion.”
“I
support the free exercise of all religions.”
“For
those who have been offended by my statements, I offer a sincere apology.”
Those
were Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin’s responses to criticisms of his recent
fundamentalist theological commentary. The latter two seem honest; there’s no
reason to doubt that he believes in religious freedom or doubt that he is sorry
for the offense his remarks caused.
But based on Boykin’s public statements, there are many reasons to doubt that the first statement is genuine. It seems pretty clear that Boykin is anti-Islam and anti-any-religion-other-than-Christianity, just as are many evangelical Christians who claim a “literalist” view of the Bible. Such folks agree that everyone should be free to practice any religion, but they also believe those religions are nothing more than cults. That’s what Boykin meant when he said of the Muslim warlord in Somalia he was fighting, “I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol.”
Idols are false gods, not real ones. To such Christians, who sometimes refer to themselves as “biblical Christians,” there is only one religion -- Christianity, which is truth. All others are cults. The general can believe in freedom of religion and feel bad when he offends a person with another religion, yet still be convinced that all those other religions are, in fact, false.
Check out the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association web site and you’ll see it spelled out: “A cult is any group which teaches doctrines or beliefs that deviate from the biblical message of the Christian faith.”
Or, read Franklin Graham, president of the international relief organization Samaritan’s Purse
and CEO of that association named after his father: “[W]hile I respect the
rights of all people to adopt their own beliefs, I would respectfully disagree
with any religion that teaches people to put their faith in other gods.”
There’s no
ambiguity there. If you believe in Christ, your faith will save you. If you
believe anything else, you are in a cult -- and you’re in trouble when it
comes to eternity.
Graham and Boykin,
of course, are free to believe what they like. In Graham’s case, one might say
it’s in his job description. Boykin’s situation is trickier, given that his
new job as the Pentagon’s deputy
undersecretary for intelligence requires him to deal with a number of
predominantly Muslim countries.
But this is
important beyond the question of Boykin’s fitness to serve in a high-level
position. It points out that the crucial gap in the culture over faith is not
between those who are religious and those who aren’t, but between those who
are 100-percent convinced their religion is the only way to salvation and those
who are willing to live with a little less certainty.
On the
question of which religion is “true,” I don’t have a dog in that fight.
I’ve been a secular person for as long as I can remember and have never felt
the need for a faith-based belief system. I find all religions about equally
interesting, and baffling
But I do
have a stake in the question of certainty: I think absolute certainty is
dangerous. I have moral and political convictions and respect others who do, but
I think people should be open to the possibility that their belief system could
be just a bit off -- or maybe all wrong. That’s something that philosophers
and scientists (at least the good ones) agree on.
I know many religious people who
don’t shrink from their own convictions, yet take seriously the limits we
humans face in trying to understand the complexity of the world. Even though we
have different theological views, I can talk -- and have talked -- across those
differences with such folks, often working with them in movements for social
justice. I think everyone benefits from that kind of discussion and interaction.
Conversations with people like Franklin
Graham and Lt. Gen. Boykin are more difficult -- not because I don’t want to
talk but because often there isn’t anyone really listening on the other end.
Whatever one’s religious convictions, that’s bad for public discourse in a
pluralist democracy.
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Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and a founding member of the Nowar Collective, www.nowarcollective.com. He is the author of the forthcoming Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (City Lights Books). He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.