One thing is clear: identity has become problematic in the modern world. The sociologist Peter Berger defined modernity as a state of permanent identity crisis. Many of the secular alternatives to religious identity proved terrifying in their consequences. National identity led to nationalism and two world wars. Ethnicity led to racism and the Holocaust. The “cause” led, among other things, to communism and Stalinist Russia. Even football, more harmless than most, can lead to violence. As for those who deny identity, it’s quite hard to be everyone in general without being anyone in particular. Even cosmopolitans tend to be comfortable in the company of other cosmopolitans, and feel threatened in the presence of other, stronger identities.
This is one reason why religion has returned, centre stage, in the 21st century, because of the waning of secular alternatives. Most of us need identity as our way of being at home in the world. It helps to be able to say: this is my story, this is who I am. It’s within our particular identities that we learn to live, love, create communities and cultivate responsibilities. The best identities speak to the better angels of our nature, especially when they include saintly role models, high ideals, and the imperative to love the stranger.
But there is a great danger, and those of us who are religious must be honest about it. Far too often in the past religious identities have been a source of strife.
I think this article correctly identifies one of the major divides between those of us who claim to be religious and those who claim to be atheists. In replying to Lord Sachs, Robert Gibson says:
[blockquote]”Religion is also about identity.” Mr. Sachs, seems to be telling us that our identity is formed by unverifiable speculation. Personally I do not believe that idle speculation plays a defining role in my life. Recent scientific studies of the brain have pointed the way to defining consciousness and who I am. God has always been a ready answer to idle speculation since there is no physical effort involved. It does not involve the careful weighing of evidence or any prolonged series of measurements. It just is![/blockquote]
Identity is not just about who we are, or whence we came. It is also about how we choose to behave. Science cannot of itself provide any basis for moral behavior. It never has, and there seems little reason to believe it ever will. Thus an atheist is left with the belief that his “superior” intellect will somehow provide him with this wisdom. History has not dealt kindly with this arrogance. Of course, as religious people, we are often equally guilty of the same thing, but, hopefully, our wisdom is the understanding that that we are in fact wrong.