Abstract
In this chapter I reflect on the relationship between religion and violence. I come to this as a Catholic-Christian involved in inter-religious dialogue, particularly Jewish-Christian. Specifically, I seek (1) to explore how insights drawn from inter-religious dialogue might help us understand the link which some make between religion and violence and (2) suggest how such genuine dialogue might contribute a balancing voice in a time of introverted nationalism, religious—sometimes violent—fundamentalism and political extremism.
This chapter is an adaptation of a key-note presentation at the June 2018 Budapest conference of the International Council of Christians and Jews, which was later published as Michael Trainor, ‘Fundamentalism and Political Extremism’ (2018) 5(4) Gesher: The Official Journal of the Council of Christians and Jews, Victoria, Inc. 46–50. Sincere thanks to the publishers for permission to reproduce it here in this revised and updated form.
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Notes
- 1.
Journalist Shekhar Gupta in a June 2017 address at a conference in India (https://www.ibtimes.co.in/alpha-males-modi-putin-trump-erdogan-xi-jinping-dominate-our-world-shekhar-gupta-7317000).
- 2.
Although, as pointed out to me by a colleague of Indian descent, ‘Such fundamentalism goes back much further, probably about 5,000 BC in Hinduism and the evolution of the caste system as a way of the religious elite to control the common person’.
- 3.
The 2017 response by a popular Australian rugby player to a question about God’s attitude to gays demonstrated the Jesus-Hell dichotomy that operates with some religious fundamentalists. Israel Folau was asked, ‘What was gods [sic] plan for gay people?’ His response was ‘HELL…unless they repent of their sins and turn to God’ (https://www.rt.com/sport/423183-israel-folau-gays-go-to-hell/). The public discourse played out around Folau’s comment, his eventual dismissal from his rugby team with his multi-million-dollar contract terminated indicates a cultural and national inability to engage Folau’s position that brings a balanced conversation around the issues that surface from his comments. This further suggests a society that operates from a fundamentalist perspective and unable to engage in meaningful religious or theological dialogue.
- 4.
I want to add a comment here offered by a colleague, Dr. Ron Hoenig: ‘There is also, of course, a secular economic issue here—that wages are more or less frozen at a time when capital is rampant. As well as that, people who belong to dominant cultures—even if they are not part of the elites—are seeing their “cultural aristocracy” threatened. So white working class men are, in many parts of the world being challenged by women, by people of colour, by ethnic, religious, sexual “minorities” for the unquestioned cultural power they possessed—even if they belonged to the more oppressed working classes. The battle for cultural hegemony is being won by cosmopolitan knowledge elites and whether or not the elites themselves are diverse, there is no doubt that there is more of a battle going on between the former culturally secure and the forces of cultural, secular, ethnic, etc. diversity.’
- 5.
It needs to be said that, unfortunately, such obsession is not an exclusive western phenomenon.
- 6.
For a further analysis of the neo-liberal penchant for property and possessions and its critique from a Christian-biblical-theological perspective, see Babie and Trainor (2018).
- 7.
One might call this a ‘fugue’. In other words, it is a blending of multiple positions, breaking the binary or dichotomous view of religious discourse and theological engagement (see Soja 1996).
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Trainor, M. (2020). Life or Death? A Politico-philosophical Reflection on Religious Fundamentalism and Political Extremism. In: Babie, P., Sarre, R. (eds) Religion Matters. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_19
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