ISTANBUL \u2014 When it comes to religion and politics, many skeptics are convinced that strong faith leads to judgmentalism, which leads to intolerance, which leads to oppression and, ultimately, theocracy.<\/p>\n\n
Many people disagree, saying that it\u2019s impossible to defend basic human rights without a religious or at philosophical commitment to moral absolutes.<\/p>\n\n
It\u2019s easy to tell who is who when they speak out.<\/p>\n\n
Consider this voice: \u201cFreedom on the one hand is for the sake of truth and on the other hand it cannot be perfected except by means of truth. \u2026 There is no freedom without truth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
That was the young Polish bishop who would become Pope John Paul II, arguing for a tight connection between truth and freedom at Vatican II.<\/p>\n\n
Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins disagrees, to put it mildly: \u201cTo fill a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded guns. Don\u2019t be surprised if they are used.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
While it\u2019s easy to find examples of religion being used to justify great evils, Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson finds it hard to grasp how Dawkins and company can study history and say things like that. It\u2019s no surprise that Gerson feels this way, since he is best known as the White House scribe who wove faith-based images into so many speeches for President George W. Bush.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThis anti-religious viewpoint claims too much. Do its advocates really intend to lump the Grand Inquisitor with the Amish? To say there is no difference between radical Salafists and Sufis?\u201d, asked Gerson, speaking at a global conference entitled \u201cFact vs. Rumor: Journalism in the 21st Century.\u201d This gathering in Istanbul was organized by my colleagues at the Oxford Centre for Religion and Public Life.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cSurely the content of religion makes some difference,\u201d added Gerson. \u201cBut the central problem with this anti-religious attitude is this: It would remove the main source of reform \u2014 the main source of passion for justice and change \u2014 in American history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
If it\u2019s hard to maintain a demilitarized zone between religion and politics in America, it\u2019s even harder to do so in a land like Turkey, where many politicians insist that they have created a \u201csecular Muslim state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Many other Turks have severe doubts about the success of that project, especially those in the nation\u2019s shrinking Orthodox, Protestant, Catholic and Jewish minorities. Ask the Armenians if trying to separate \u201ctruth\u201d from \u201crumor\u201d raises tolerance issues in modern Turkey.<\/p>\n\n
While Gerson discussed a wide range of issues in an off-the-record dialogue session, including the Iraq war, his keynote address focused on the big picture \u2014 his conviction that in \u201cevery culture, standing for truth against lies and conspiracy theories is essential to tolerance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
At the very least, he stressed, tolerance requires a belief in at least one absolute truth, a belief in human dignity. And without some kind of doctrine of human equality \u2014 that, for example, all men are created equal and in God\u2019s image \u2014 it is hard to defend universal standards of human rights and social justice.<\/p>\n\n
In American history, said Gerson, the source of that moral truth has often been found in the prophetic voices of religious believers.<\/p>\n\n
Thus, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote these words in his \u201cLetter from the Birmingham Jail.\u201d A truly \u201cjust law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Moral relativism, on the other hand, forces leaders to root their decisions in power and power alone, said Gerson. The result is \u201cthe rule of the strong \u2014 the rule of those who can seek their wants and impose their will most effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Thus, as a contrast to King, consider this voice from the bloody 20th Century.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cEverything I have said and done in these last years is relativism by intuition \u2014 if relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and men who claim to be bearers of an objective, immortal truth. \u2026 From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The speaker? That would be Italian fascist Benito Mussolini.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISTANBUL \u2014 When it comes to religion and politics, many skeptics are convinced that strong faith leads to judgmentalism, which leads to intolerance, which leads to oppression and, ultimately, theocracy. Many people disagree, saying that it\u2019s impossible to defend basic human rights without a religious or at philosophical commitment to moral absolutes. It\u2019s easy to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[204,1537,465,556,627,1544,881],"class_list":["post-1442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christianity","tag-islam","tag-istanbul","tag-mike-gerson","tag-orthodoxy","tag-politics","tag-turkey"],"yoast_head":"\n