Bulletin

Issue: June 2006

Research in Action

Non-fundamentalists a key to peace

Religious non-fundamentalists must play a key role in solving the problem of ever increasing violence, according to La Trobe University's Shepparton campus PhD candidate, Dr Frank Purcell.

Fear of sameness, not our differences,
leads to violence.

'Extreme fundamentalism within Christianity and Islam threatens peaceful co-existence in a globalised world. To overcome this threat, non-fundamentalist religious leaders must take back the initiative from violent fundamentalists. Dr Purcell expressed these views at a recent seminar, Religion, Violence, Peacemaking, at the Shepparton campus, based on research for his second PhD - into the role of religion in violence and its potential role in peacemaking.

Aged 75, Dr Purcell is a former priest who already has a doctorate in theology.

Dr Purcell said that the religious element in many current conflicts was obvious, citing examples of sectarian war in Northern Ireland between Catholics and Protestants, the war between Serbian Orthodox, Croatian Catholics and Albanian Muslims, Jews versus Muslims in Palestine-Israel and Shia and Sunni Muslims fighting one another and the invaders from the 'Christian West' in Iraq.

'The movements of people which are a feature of the globalisation of the modern world, and the pluralism of modern democracies, make it inevitable that peoples of different religious and secular beliefs, and the cultural traditions arising from those beliefs, must find ways of living together.

'Ensuring that there is minimal friction between these religions and traditions is a major challenge, even in Australia,' he said.

Dr Purcell said that religion was ambivalent towards violence but was not inevitably linked to it. At the same time, while religion was manipulated for political and imperial purposes, it had also played an important historical role in minimising violence.

He said that rejection of religion was not a solution - and rejection was not happening anyway. Evidence was becoming clearer by the day, even in Australia, that religion was not going away.

The 'secularisation theory', that religion would become marginalised and decline, has not happened. Instead the secularisation which has occurred has strengthened and purified religion. 'Lenin's utopian dream that peace would be found in the removal of all religious, cultural and material distinctions has become one of the principal elements fuelling fundamentalist reaction and aggression.

'Fear of sameness and fear of loss of identity, not our differences, lead to violence. Consequently, there has been an extraordinary growth of fundamentalist religious movements within all religions across the world.

'Although religion is a phenomenon often culturally derided in post-modern Australia, politicians are more than happy to keep forming symbiotic relationships with religious groups.

'The West has privatised religion by separating Church and State, but the reality is that religion's influence is still quite strong. Most of the world, including the West, lives in systems in which religion sets many standards of daily life including food, clothing, sexual relationships and calendars.

'In pluralist, secular societies, there are other stories from which people draw meaning -family life, the struggle to win respect for the environment, stories of science and struggles to build democratic societies.

'Yet, even many of these seem to acknowledge that such stories are not quite enough. They admit that there is a spiritual dimension to life as well - a religious dimension in some sense.

'Because mainstream Christian churches acknowledge they cannot exercise direct political power for the good of society, their role is now to call on rulers and communities to address issues which are a violation of basic human dignity - denial of human rights and freedoms.

'Religions face a serious challenge and the outcome is not assured. Fundamentalist interpretations within both religion and politics are appealing in times of insecurity and threat.

'Non-fundamentalist religious leaders should reduce the ability of politicians to manipulate religion for political, nationalistic or imperial purposes. But, much will depend on the quality of the religious leadership in a given society.'