The Myth of Religious Violence and Ft. Hood

Sorry I haven't posted a substantial post in several months. I've been keeping busy with research and haven't felt compelled to write, but in light of the tragic shootings that occurred in Ft. Hood last week and the response to it, I feel like I should write something.

I finished reading William T. Cavanaugh's newest book, The Myth of Religious Violence, last week and feel that its thesis can be clearly demonstrated as true by the reactions of certain people to the Ft. Hood shootings.

Cavanaugh's thesis asserts that after the divide between "religious" (read: sacred) and "secular," the narrative of the nation-state claimed that religion leans toward violence; thus, the nation-state's violence became an acceptable means of quelling the unacceptable violence of religion. Cavanaugh correctly identifies the double-standard that Western society has bought into -- violence on behalf of the state is acceptable while violence carried out in the name of religion is unacceptable. Obviously, for the Christian, no violence should be acceptable.

For those interested, I will post my brief summary of the book (feel free to skip it if you want):

Cavanaugh seeks to show that “the myth of religious violence” is a creation of modernity that allows some violence to be critiqued, while other violence (such as that done in the name of the nation-state) is legitimated. Cavanaugh begins his book by examining nine different authors, whom Cavanaugh argued made one of three claims about religion. These categories were: religion is absolutist; religion is divisive; and religion is not rational. Cavanaugh convincingly refuted each of these assumptions by showing how these arguments collapse on themselves—most often because the division between what is “religion” and what is “secular” is arbitrary and made to fit the conviction of the particular author making the point.

The second chapter of the book deals with the invention of the idea of religion in the modern mind. Cavanaugh examines several medieval authors and the ways that they used the word religio, and Cavanaugh concludes that the way they used the term religio is not the way that the myth of religious violence uses religion. Cavanaugh says that the way modernity uses religion is through the lens of world religions—a sort of transhistorical and transcultural condition of human thought. Cavanaugh says that that sort of assumption is a creation of the West and that where religion has come to mean similar things in the non-West, it is because of Western colonization that the term has come into existence there as well.

In chapter three, Cavanaugh addresses the issue of the European Wars of Religion. He gives four criteria that he says must be met for these wars to in fact actually be religious, and then he shows how none of the for apply completely to these wars. Thus, historiography must take into account other issues as well—for example, political, economic, etc. To say, then, that the wars of religion were not exclusively about religion casts further doubt on the myth of religious violence. Cavanaugh claims that the myth of religious violence began to be used so as to marginalize wars over “religion” and to legitimize violence done on behalf of the peacemaking nation-state.

The final chapter of the book deals with the separation of church and state in the United States—both in regard to domestic policies as well as foreign policies. Cavanaugh examines several Supreme Court rulings and shows how the Court uses the myth of religious violence to further the case of America while marginalizing those who it would call religious. Thus in domestic affairs, reason is allowed to rule over religion, and, through utilizing the myth, mindless religion is done away with in place of uniting secularism. Likewise is the case in foreign affairs: because the myth is used in dealing with the foreign other—for example, Muslims—Americans believe that the irrational religious other has to be done away with. So for America, according to the myth, the job is to spread the liberating, uniting narrative of secularism. Cavanaugh concludes his book by giving five advantages of abandoning the myth of religious violence, and he says that after it is abandoned, the division between us and them may also be abandoned. Thus by leaving the myth behind, all violence can be scrutinized and the other can be listened to more patiently.

I was shocked when I heard about an article by Ralph Peters in the New York Post that blamed the attacks on an "Islamist terrorist" before any information to support that conclusion was discovered. (In fact it has since been "tentatively concluded" that the attack was in no way connected to international terror.) People should take care not to "jump to conclusions." But what is interesting is that Peters, and those like him, condemn Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's violence because it was carried out against the American military (and in their minds, for religious reasons) while supporting -- even applauding -- the violence in Iraq, which is led by the American military and which has killed as many as 102,424 civilians since the 2003 invasion (as of November 8, 2009). Also applauded is "the Ft. Hood hero," police officer Sgt. Kimberly Munley, who shot and disabled Hasan.

To me, this proves the validity of Cavanaugh's conclusions precisely. You see, Maj. Hasan is the villain of this story because he acted out in a way that has been interpreted by many as religious violence (the outcry has been all the louder because it was violence acted out against the U.S. Army). Sgt. Munley is celebrated because she (violently) brought about a peace, ending the religious violence.

For the Christian, all violence has to be condemned as opposing the gospel of Christ. The Christian should affirm that hero worship is idolatry -- as is worship of/trust in the state and its use of violence (see, for example, Obadiah). I do not want to be understood as denying the tragic nature of what happened at Fort Hood; deaths are always tragic, especially when they are the result of such rebellion against the new world inaugurated by the gospel. I write this in order to point out how the Christian community is in danger of idolizing the state in its support for "secular" violence. Violence is violence. The Christian community should concern itself with witnessing the nonviolent way of the Kingdom of God in the midst of continuing rebellion.

This was written somewhat in haste; critiques are welcomed and encouraged...