Sacks is well placed to muse on this theme as the former Chief Rabbi of Britain and a prolific author on religious conflict. In fact, he has carved out a niche for himself as the man who gave theological coherence to the Samuel Huntingdon \u201cclash of civilisations\u201d\u009d thesis while also critiquing it. Sacks\u2019 2004 book, The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilisations, remains one of the wisest texts for negotiating religious pluralism in the modern world.<\/p>\n
Sacks has no time for the politician\u2019s mantra that violence committed by religious extremists like ISIL has nothing to do with Islam. Yes, the vast majority of the conflicts in the world today are nothing to do with religion, but \u201cwhen terrorist or military groups invoke holy war, define their battle as a struggle against Satan, condemn unbelievers to death and commit murder while declaring \u201d\u02dcGod is great,\u2019 to deny that they are acting on religious motives is absurd\u201d\u009d (p.11). Harder work needs to be done to glimpse the twisted logic and primitive psychology of these groups, he says, otherwise the proffered solutions will never create a compelling enough counter-narrative that weans believers from hate to love, and to value weakness rather than power.<\/p>\n
Religious violence is rooted in the same source as all violence \u201d\u201c identity wars, and Sacks worries that the West, which secularized so merrily, has created societies and institutions that cannot provide enough identity because it has forgotten humans are meaning -seeking creatures; \u201cThe result is that the twenty-first century has left us with a maximum of choice and a minimum of meaning\u201d\u009d (p.13). Having thought religion was finished, now the West has seen it roar back – partly because of the vacuum secularisation created and, tragically, the religion that has returned is not gentle or ecumenical, but adversarial and aggressive. Make no mistake he warns \u201cthe greatest threat to freedom in the post-modern world is radical, politicised religion\u201d\u009d (14). So if you don\u2019t realise you are dealing with religion \u201d\u201c however twisted \u201d\u201c you are not going to find any meaningful responses.<\/p>\n