Religion and the Good of the World

I daresay it is not how most of us act. And history is replete with the scars of religion’s failure to embrace such a neighbor-loving standard as our collective way of life.

From the inside, this leads me to a conclusion that I know insiders aren’t going to like very much. That is this:

Religion is good for the flourishing of the world if it meets standards of practice and belief that not everyone who is religious will agree with.

Put somewhat differently: humanistic Christianity and humanistic Judaism and humanistic Islam are good for a globalized world. There is a humanistic standard of judgment that can be cultivated from within each of these (“love your neighbor as yourself;” “love your enemy;” “consider others as more important than yourself”), but it’s not so inherent to any of them that people striving to follow each faith haven’t left such human-benefiting expressions behind.

Too often our religious tribalism becomes virulent and violent. Or just plain selfish and self-aggrandizing.

So is religion good for the world?

Yes… If. If it’s practiced with neighbor love as a key judge; if it cultivates patterns of belief and practice that are, in fact, good for the world.

Religion as such is not sufficient to contribute to the flourishing of a globalized world.

But Is It Necessary?

As I was thinking about the beautiful, insider’s picture of Christianity that Volf was painting, I thought that there were strong objections from two sides: on the one hand there is non-humanist religion, but on the other there is non-religious humanism. As the goals of leading people to a selfless life on a non-exploited planet were laid out it was quite clear to me that, based on these standards, there are a lot of non-religious people who were living up to them quite nicely.

A lot.

In other words, not only is religion not a sufficient condition for human flourishing in the globalized world, it’s not a necessary condition.

Non-religious people are capable of acting ethically. Non-religious people are capable of acting on behalf of humanity and the planet. Non-religious people are capable of creating a society that seeks the good the many even at some cost to themselves.

Here is one of the hallmark challenges of the globalized world: to recognize that even people who may not share what I consider to be my deepest guiding convictions are nonetheless on a similar path, and often the same path, as I am. The humanism by which I judge my own religious kindred and find them either faithful or wanting often shows me that people beyond the religious (much less Christian) pale are doing exactly what I would hope someone would do who wanted to put on display the life of Jesus which is the reflection of the God who gives each of us life and breath and all things.

The Beauty and the Danger

Religion is not inherently good. Nor is it inherently evil. It is a powerful force for drawing people together and for engaging in action in the world. That power can be spent for good or ill.

I would not encourage asking the question, “Is religion good for the world?” I don’t see that there’s much good that can come from it, and a I see a lot of downsides.

However, I see a lot of good in asking this: Is my religion good for the world? And the only way to get at an honest answer to that question is to ask the world: Would my non-religious neighbor think that my way of being religious is good for the world?

I think it’s only when we ask that question that we’re starting to measure ourselves by Jesus’s standard: Let your light so shine before people that they will see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven.

Image: © Torquay Palms | flickr | CC 2.0