Religion and society
New Labour’s promotion of ‘faith schools’,
disputes over public display of religious symbols and clothing, the ‘war
on terror’ and political Islam, the Buddhist monks’ ‘saffron revolution’
in Burma… religion and religious-related issues are regularly in the
news headlines. As The Economist magazine recently remarked, "These days
religion is an inescapable part of politics". NIALL MULHOLLAND writes.
DURING THE 19th and 20th centuries, much of
organised religion in the west faced declining influence and power.
Society became modernised, urbanised and more secular. The organised
labour and workers’ movement became a serious challenge to the ruling
class, including the main ‘established’, pro-capitalist church
hierarchies.
Today, the situation is complex and contradictory.
In Britain, an estimated 36% of people (17 million adults) are "humanist
in their basic outlook" (British Humanist Association). A 2004 survey
found 44% of people in Britain believed in god and 35% "denied his
existence". Yet, the 2001 British census showed seven out of ten people
ticked the ‘Christian’ box to indicate their beliefs. Books arguing for
atheism, like The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, are international
bestsellers. Yet, on any one Sunday, more than a million people still
attend Church of England services in Britain. Super-exploited immigrants
from poor countries also add to church attendances.
While there are at least 500 million ‘declared
non-believers’ across the globe, the main ‘world religions’ include 2.1
billion Christians, 1.5 billion Muslims, 900 million Hindus, 376 million
Buddhists and 23 million Sikhs, as well as millions of other people who
follow other religions and beliefs. The proportion of people attached to
the world’s four biggest religions rose from 67% in 1900 to 73% in 2005
and are estimated to rise to 80% by 2050, on present trends.
While organised, ‘traditional’ churches are often in
decline in many countries, other churches and religions are growing
fast. The Catholic church is wracked by sex abuse scandals and losing
support in formerly strong Catholic countries, like Spain, Italy and
Ireland, where attendances at weekly mass have fallen below 20%. The
Church of England and worldwide Anglican church is divided over the
ordination of gay and lesbian clergy and same sex unions. Thirty-five US
Episcopalian churches have defected to Nigeria’s Bishop Akinola, who is
against gay marriages.
Protestant Evangelical churches, meanwhile, are
winning many new converts in Africa, Latin America, western Europe, and
in parts of Asia. Evangelicals, charismatics and Pentecostals made up 8%
of Europe’s population in 2000, nearly double the 1970 levels.
Pentecostalism spreads fast in the favelas of Brazil. Pentacostalism in
South Korea grows by 3,000 new members a month; one in 20 people in
Seoul is a member.
Islam is also growing rapidly, especially in the
Middle East, Asia, in sub-Saharan Africa, and among minority communities
in the west. A planned ‘megamosque’ in east London will hold 12,000
people, five times as many as St Paul’s cathedral.
Around half to two thirds of Russians consider
themselves Russian Orthodox, a big increase since the collapse of the
Soviet Union in 1991. "On present trends, China will become the world’s
biggest Christian country – and perhaps its biggest Muslim one too",
comments The Economist (3 November 2007).
The numbers of Christians in India are also growing,
partly as a result of conversions by formerly oppressed Hindus, the
so-called ‘untouchables’. In response, some Indian states have passed
‘anti-conversion’ laws.
Religious ideas maintain a powerful hold, including
in the US, the most advanced capitalist country. Though the number of
Americans citing 'no religious preference' sits at 14% (20% among young
people), an estimated 40% of Americans go to church each week. Around
half of the population in the US think their country is especially
‘blessed by god’ and 48% of Americans believe "god created human beings
in their present form" in the past 10,000 years.
As well as this, many parts of the world are
blighted by religious or religious-related divisions and conflicts.
"From Nigeria to Sri Lanka, from Chechnya to Baghdad, people have been
slain in God's name" (The Economist). Sectarian divisions between Shia
and Sunni Muslims in Iraq have exploded since the US-led occupation,
causing huge bloodshed.
Why do people hold religious views?
SOME SECULARIST COMMENTATORS find it inexplicable
that people can hold religious views, particularly fundamentalist,
creationist ideas, given the wonders of modern science and our increased
understanding of the natural world. However, there are many factors
relating to people’s religious beliefs including society, class,
history, ‘tradition and culture’, identity and politics.
Over 100 years ago Karl Marx brilliantly went to the
heart of the matter when he described religion as the "sigh of the
oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, the spirit of
unspiritual conditions".
In today’s materialistic, dog-eat-dog capitalist
society – in a world of wars, hunger, poverty, illiteracy and economic
instability – religion still offers refuge to many people. The Sunday
service or Friday prayers provide communal consolation in contrast to
rampant capitalist individualism. In run-down inner cities and towns,
churches often provide some form of practical social welfare for
hard-pressed families, particularly after decades of social cuts.
The ‘certainty’ offered by evangelical Christian
religions in a volatile world help explain their rapid growth. For
Muslims in the west, facing daily bigotry, discrimination, repression
and super-exploitation, religion offers a sense of community and
identity. Young Muslim women in the west often wear headscarves which
were rejected by their immigrant parents. In majority Muslim countries,
Islam is seen as a refuge against the spread of western imperialist
power and culture.
The growth of religions, as well as cults and
superstitious beliefs, is partly a reflection and consequence of the
decline of the organised working class and socialist movements over the
last decades, particularly following the collapse of Stalinism. When the
socialist and workers’ movement goes forward, it provides the working
class and poor with a viable alternative to the blind, anarchic forces
of capitalism and the profit system’s social, cultural and ideological
dead-end.
New religions and mystical ideas, like ‘new age
spirituality’, sprout up in the west, indicating the deep sense of
alienation from modern capitalism among sections of the middle class and
working class, and a search for an alternative to the profit system.
Even in supposedly ‘communist’ China, cults have also taken root, such
as the Falun Gong. The cult strikes a cord with millions of Chinese who
have fared badly in a society where ‘socialist ideology’ is jettisoned
by the former Stalinist regime on its road to capitalist restoration.
The growth of political Islam is, at root, due to
the terrible social and economic conditions faced by millions of
Muslims. Mass workers’ organisations, like the communist parties, failed
to carry through the socialist revolution in the Middle East and Asia.
Political Islam, which in many cases was encouraged and fostered by
western powers during the cold war, and by the Saudi petrodollars
promoting Wahhabi interpretations of Islam, partially fills the space
created by the failure of the left and Arab nationalism. It is an
oppositionist channel for Muslims angered and humiliated by the poverty
and oppression they face under dictatorial rule and imperialism.
What are the origins of religion?
IN THE EARLIEST human societies (hunter and gatherer
economies) ‘magic-religious’ beliefs reflected an attempt to explain
phenomena that had a profound influence on people’s lives, like fires,
changing seasons, astronomical events, natural disasters, and the
migration of herding animals.
As these early societies developed into class
societies, a privileged layer of priests and magicians came into
existence. Special institutions and new ideas and morals developed to
justify the new social and economic order. Religion became the
ideological justification for the enslavement of the majority of people,
who were promised life after death as a reward for the misery on earth.
However, Marx pointed out that religion is both an
escape from the misery of the world and a protest against its
wretchedness. Early Christianity began as a mass revolutionary movement
against priestly exploiters and the Roman empire. But purged of its
class anger, Christianity was eventually made the state religion and
used to make the lower orders accept their situation.
The Protestant reformation reflected the rise of the
new capitalist class against decaying feudalism, one of whose main
pillars was the powerful church. However, the new European capitalist
powers left the churches with some powers and influence, as a way of
keeping the working masses ‘in their place’. During the rise of
imperialism, Christian ideology was used to help subjugate the colonial
masses.
To defend their power and privileges, the tops of
the churches openly sided with the exploiters and big business. The
Catholic church supported Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany.
Evangelical Protestant churches supported various right-wing
dictatorships in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s.
However, socialists recognise there is a world of
difference between the religion of the poor, such as the majority of
poor Muslims in the Middle East, and the ‘faith’ of the ruling classes,
like the dictatorial Arab regimes. For the ruling class, religion is
useful to divide and rule working people, and to try to pacify the
masses.
Religion and the state
THE REPRESENTATIVES OF the ruling class today, like
George Bush and Gordon Brown, openly identify Christianity with ‘free
market’ capitalism. The established Church of England has even been
referred to as ‘the Tory party at prayer’. Bush cited god as one of his
reasons for invading Iraq.
Despite the fact that the United States ‘Founding
Fathers’ sought to codify the separation of the state and church in the
constitution of the US, Bush tries to bolster his support under the
banner of right-wing Christian ideology.
Bush supported a constitutional amendment banning
gay marriage in the US. Under his presidency, funding to right-wing
Christian organisations has grown massively, including the backing of
‘faith-based’ programmes in US schools and ‘intelligent design’ which
promotes biblical Creationism. Last June, Bush vetoed a bill that would
expand federal spending on stem cell research, citing his Christian
‘ethical’ concerns. Yet embryonic stem cell research offers the
possibility of potentially vital scientific breakthroughs that can end
some diseases and illnesses. The powerful US Christian ‘religious right’
is now mirrored in other countries, such as South Korea’s 200,000-strong
New Right movement, which backs a right-wing candidate for the country’s
presidency.
Socialists oppose the state granting privilege to
any religion, such as the current allocation of 26 seats to Church of
England bishops in the unelected House of Lords. We call for the full
separation of the church and the state and the repeal of all legislation
which, like the blasphemy laws, penalises people on religious grounds.
Since 9/11, pro-big business parties in the west
stir up anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant sentiments, as a way to scapegoat
minorities for the social and economic problems in capitalist society.
Socialists oppose all discrimination, whether on the grounds of
religion, sex, race, or nationality, etc. Everyone should have the right
to practice their religion or to practice none at all. The starting
point for socialists is the struggle for workers’ unity and socialism.
To change society requires the unity of the working class, including
religious-minded workers, around a socialist programme.
At the same time, socialists oppose the reactionary
views of religious leaders and groups, particularly attacks on the
rights of women and youth. The Roman Catholic church is led by a very
conservative pope, who opposes contraception, divorce, abortion, and gay
and lesbian rights. While the Russian Orthodox patriarch, Alexy II,
describes homosexuality as "a sin and illness", physical attacks on gays
and lesbians in Russia are increasing. Women in ‘Islamist states’ like
Saudi Arabia are extremely oppressed.
Religion and the struggles of the oppressed
RELIGION HAS SOCIAL roots and, in turn, reacts upon
the class struggle. The class struggle can affect organised religion,
especially in the neo-colonial world. In Latin America, the Theology of
Liberation shows how the lower ranks of the Catholic church are
responsive to the poor and oppressed – four priests were in the
Nicaraguan Sandinista government in the 1980s. For this stand, they
often face attacks from regimes and from the pro-establishment Vatican
hierarchy. Today, "Leftish American evangelicals" are "more bothered
about globalisation", comments The Economist, and "Evangelicals backed
left-wingers in some of the poorer parts of Brazil".
Young Buddhist monks in Burma, mostly drawn from the
poor, were to the fore in protesting against the brutal Burmese regime
in September, while the military junta had co-opted sections of the
Buddhist hierarchy into the regime, "angering and alienating the younger
monks". (International Herald Tribune, 1 October 2007)
But Liberation Theology and other religious-based
ideologies did not liberate working people from social and economic
oppression. Moreover, the last decades have seen previously radical
Christian organisations "increasingly moving away from opposing
capitalism per se to restraining its excesses". (The Economist, 3
November) While many people are genuinely motivated to support
Christian-based ‘fair trade’ and ‘workers’ rights’ movements, this
sticking plaster approach cannot end all the ills of capitalism. This
requires building powerful independent parties of the working class and
poor, with a socialist programme, that draw together workers from all
backgrounds to resist capitalism.
Millions of Muslims look to political Islam as a
solution to poverty and oppression. This involves a very wide spectrum,
from Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) in Gaza, and Hezbollah (Party
of God) in Lebanon, to the pro-big business, ‘post-Islamist’, Justice
and Development Party (AKP) government in Turkey. A section of extremely
alienated Muslim youth, including in the west, even look to the
terrorism of reactionary groups like al-Qaida. Islamist schools in
Pakistan, the madrassas, which are blamed by the west for creating new
generations of ‘jihad fighters’, are often the only real opportunity for
education for children from poor families.
But all forms of political or ‘radical’ Islam will
prove to be a severe disappointment for the masses, as they do not
represent a break with the profit system and class exploitation. The
masses made a revolution in Iran in the late 1970s, which overthrew the
hated Shah regime, only to see it end up in the cul-de-sac of the rule
of the mullahs. The horrors of life under the Taliban in Afghanistan
show that fundamentalist Islam holds no solution. At the other end of
the spectrum, the ‘soft Islamist’ AKP government in Turkey are zealous
advocates of anti-poor, neo-liberal policies.
Religion and socialism
NINETY YEARS AGO, the Russian revolution saw the
creation of the first workers’ state. This was only made possible by the
Bolsheviks winning over the mass of workers and peasants oppressed under
tsarism, including different nationalities and the millions of
religious-minded peasants and workers.
Prior to the revolution, Lenin developed a
principled and sensitive approach to religion. In 1905 he wrote: "The
state must not concern itself with religion; religious societies must
not be bound to the state. Everyone must be absolutely free to profess
whatever religion he likes, or to profess no religion". He also
condemned the "pseudo-revolutionary notion that religion would be
prohibited in socialist society". Such an approach would be a diversion
from the political struggle and would only strengthen religion.
While Lenin pointed out that Marxism defends its
materialistic philosophy, the Bolsheviks did not deny admission to their
party to religious believers. The concrete demands of the class struggle
took precedence. This all-rounded approach of Lenin and the Bolsheviks
meant the 1917 October revolution awakened the religious-minded and
superstitious peasant masses. An estimated 15% of party members in
central Asia adhered to Islamic beliefs.
The obscene riches of the Russian Orthodox church,
(whose leaders linked up with vicious capitalist counter-revolution),
were taken into state hands for the benefit of all people. The young
Soviet Union’s decree of 1918 on ‘freedom of conscience and religious
societies’ abolished the huge subsidies the tsarist regime gave to the
Orthodox church and all other privileges from the state. The Orthodox
church was given the status of a voluntary society, which could accept
contributions from their members to engage in their activity. The decree
also gave previously persecuted religious sects greater freedom. The
Bolsheviks also carried out educational campaigns promoting progressive
ideas, and culture and science. But Lenin and Trotsky were always very
sensitive to the religious feelings of the poor and oppressed.
A socialist society would transform people’s lives
and would see the huge development of science and technique under a
democratically planned economy. Religion, Karl Marx said, was made
necessary by people’s "unhappy condition" in class society. Marx
believed such ideas would lose ground as the social conditions that give
rise to them are eliminated. Under a socialist society, Marx predicted,
religion will decline primarily due to the advance of "social
development, in which education must play a great role".
Under Stalinist counter-revolution in Russia,
however, a monstrous, bureaucratic state apparatus developed, and
repressive measures were taken against the Orthodox church and
believers, as well as against genuine socialists. No free exchange of
ideas was tolerated, including religious ideas.
During the second world war, however, an alliance
was made between the regime and tops of the Orthodox church. Stalin
promoted crude Russian chauvinism and the Russian Orthodox church. In
the post-war years, the Stalinist regime largely maintained this
alliance with the Orthodox hierarchy, enhancing the authority of the
church while carrying out repression of religious oppositionists.
Capitalist restoration in the former Soviet Union in
the 1990s saw the return of the power and influence of the Orthodox
church hierarchy. President Putin leans on the church to bolster his
rule. The church now attempts to impose its religious teachings in
schools, stirring up divisions in multi-religious Russia.
The history of the international workers’ movement
shows that in the struggle to end capitalism, socialists must do
everything possible to involve all workers, especially in countries
where religion has mass influence. Socialists can work with religious
believers for common political aims.
Today, while standing against religious
discrimination and injustice, socialists appeal to workers on the basis
of their class interests and in the fight for socialism.
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