Religion is as long as a piece of string; true faith lies in the heart of the believer and is rarely susceptible to argument. Clearly, for lots of Muslims Islam is not a doctrine of gentleness, tolerance, sexual equality, forgiveness, democracy and all the rest. For countless others it clearly is.
What follows inescapably from this is that religious people and their views should not be officially recognised in groups. Religion should not be allowed a public space or public representation. This is hard for those of us who used to love the muddled Anglican compromise; it means the disestablishment of our national church ”“ if it doesn’t self-destruct first.
The challenge of other, fiercer and more divisive convictions has forced the issue; multiculturalism has been subversive. There must be no more religious schools ”“ personally I would leave those that exist alone. There must be no public recognition of religious associations as representatives of anything or anybody: not on campuses, not in student unions, not in government consultations or in parliament.
So-called religious community leaders, or umbrella groups of religious bodies, must of course be free to associate as they like in private, in a free country, but publicly they must be ignored. Publicly they must not teach or promote illegal prejudices. Forced into the private sphere, denied the oxygen of publicity, power and influence, highly politicised religious groups will wither on the vine. Perhaps, in that wonderful phrase of Yeats, they might even wither into truth.
Well, at least she’s original, in that she makes her case using Islam instead of Christianity. However, at the end, she is simply another secularist who wants her own religion to be the state religion, completely ignoring the psychological and social meanings of “religion”, while focusing on an institutional definition.
And good examples of secularism in operation are found in the French Revelution and in the Soviet Union.
“What follows inescapably from this is that religious people and their views should not be officially recognised in groups. Religion should not be allowed a public space or public representation.”
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Actually, the historical roots of her thinking lie in socialism, progressivism, Fabianism, promoters of eugenics, etc.
Her ideas were put into action in the sphere of state-sanctioned activities by Lenin-Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler aka Schickelgruber, Mao Tse Tung, Castro, Ho Chi Minh and Pol Pot.
Amazingly, there are those who still ‘rally to’ such extemist statements, regardless of the lessons of history.
Will people ever learn?
Robinson’s is a distortion and pollution of orthodoxy. His reading of Scripture is blasphemously tainted by the lense of his sexual disorientated perceptions. He denies the Cross which is mandatory for all. He denies the necessity for becoming new creatures. He blasphemes the Name of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. He is dangerous…should not be heard, celebrated, but compassionately dealt with by mature authentic bishops that are in very grave danger of extinction in TEC. I pray for the conversion and redemption of his soul.
correction – ‘sexually disoriented deceptions’
You gotta love the logic. To beat extremism we must become really extremist. (Of course extremism is always what other people believe, isn’t it).
Yes, if there were no religious groups, there would (ipso facto) be no religious extremist groups. But as long as there is one dangerous religious idea out there, embodied in a group or not, our best mutual defense against it is a healthful and salvific religious idea.
If all peaceable people gave up on their religious communities, they would effectively be abandoning the strength of religious communities to non-peaceable religions. This would be like the police choosing to give up their guns because they see that extremists use guns to hurt people. The error in both cases is assuming that religious groups (or guns) are only dangerous and never helpful for defending people from greater dangers.
I wonder why it never occurs to the new anti-religionists to apply their silly logic elsewhere. E.g.: “some science can be used by extremists (bomb-making, for instance); therefore, we should stop teaching science.” Rather, we need to have both good science (to counter bad science) and an intentional ethic guiding our science and embodied in communities.
This is totally backwards thinking, both spiritually and politically. Groups are formed, not as some pre-existing notion of publicism, but out of shared values and ideals joined en-masse that represent a significant percentage of the electorate. The groups are recognised, because of their prominence, not their obscurity, if the number of adherents were insignificant then their political authority would not represent a political will. If the will of these not insignificant groups is ignored or shied away from, then a representative form of government can not exist, and revolution or anarchy will envelop the society.(see the middle east and the controversies exhibited there) The ramifications of the logic this writer expresses would be manifestly worse than the current experience.
Anglican first – you are mostly right.
Her view is gaining some credibility in the west, because it is anti-religion mixed in with anti-Islam. What may happen is that secularists will join with conservative Christians to create laws that ban religious activity. And then Christians will have a harder time as well once they are seen as a threat. In fact, she is clearly would hate Rowan’s attempt at accommodation, who understood the dangers of radical secularism that you mention.