Harmonizing Core Religious Values: Towards a Paradigm of Peace and Social Justice - Essay Example

Harmonizing Core Religious Values: Towards a Paradigm of Peace and Social Justice One of the major intellection ironies of modern times is found inthe notion of religion. The irony is that, as stated by Alger, "Most religions ... have two distinctly contrasting cultures: the 'holy war' and the 'peaceable kingdom'" (2002: 94). The significance is that there are themes and moral frameworks attached to all religions which make them fertile grounds from which to construct new global paradigms of peace and justice. Indeed, recognizing this irony as existing along a continuum of "Eden to Armageddon", Gopin notes optimistically that there are a series of "indicators from our current experience that suggest that religion will lay a critical role in constructing a global community of shared moral commitments and vision (2000: 4). This essay will argue, given the aforementioned irony, that the study of World Religions is an absolute prerequisite towards establishing peace and social justice in the twenty-first century. As a preliminary matter, it is necessary to discuss peace education and how it has been linked to a more comprehensive study of World Religions. Peace education, as noted by Harris and Morrison, involves the identification of a definition of peace and justice, the identification of variables which often hinder or prevent peace and justice from prevailing, alternatives to violence when interests or ideologies conflict, and mechanisms by which to implement these peace building measures locally, nationally, and globally (2003). An important connection between religion and peace education is that all religions, in varying expressions, have treated peace as an essential and honored aspect of the larger religious doctrine. This is, therefore, an area in which a tremendous variety of religions have common ground upon which to construct a more durable and harmonious paradigm for peace and social justice. Harris and Morrison present it thusly: "All of the great religions of the world-Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism, and Islam-have considered peace an important part of their mission. In nurturing the spiritual aspects of human beings, these traditional religions have established peace as necessary, but not sufficient, for the procurement of the divine kingdom on earth" (2003: 39). Global peace and social justice for all, rather than for the few, may very well be a unifying divine kingdom here on earth. Having established that all of the major religions deem peace a prerequisite to divinity, one of the leading religious scholars in the world, Armstrong, goes further by asserting that an individualized notion of doctrinal peace is inadequate to avoid violence and war; more particularly, she argues that "if religion is to bring light to our broken world, we need, as Mencius suggested, to go in search of the lost heart, the spirit of compassion that lies at the core of all our traditions" (2006: 399). Taken together, these authors are proposing an extraction of the core values which have led religions to place peace on a pedestal and to then elevate these core beliefs and values in such as way as to treat religious values harmoniously rather than existing in a state of perpetual conflict. Such an effort is both desirable and increasingly possible; it is desirable because war damages everyone, and it is possible because a great deal of recent scholarship has made an analysis of different religions both credible and useful. In a recent study, both ambitious and objective in its scope, Boyle and Sheen compiled an extraordinarily comprehensive and detailed World Report detailing religious beliefs, religious freedoms, and conflicts and wars throughout the world (1997). This type of data compilation is necessary if the study of World Religions is to yield any tangible benefits; it is necessary, because as Boyle and Sheen state, "questions of religion, ideology, or belief are among the most sensitive matters in international relations and in international human rights exchanges within the United Nations and regional bodies" (1997: 1). This type of data must be made readily available to scholars and policy makers. From this data, core values may be extracted, synthesized to establish common belief systems stressing peace and social justice, and then disseminated to the public in terms of both information and policies to implemented in furtherance of these belief systems. The study of World Religions, as it pertains to peace on the ground and to social justice at the grassroots level, is also of special relevance. At the same time that scholars and policy makers are digesting the data and engaging in diplomatic efforts to promote peace and social justice, conflict and inequality remains pervasive and constant. As Pickard states, noting that peace and justice are global issues, the people whom suffer do so locally; more particularly, citing Islam as an example, he notes that "Traditional Islamputs society above the individual, while still counting 'justice' as a core value. Human rights ideals, on the contrary, presume that individual's worth. This difference well underscores these ideals' theological particularism" (1999: 9) The difficulty, then, is that core values may be subscribed to generally-such as the core value of justice-while the means by which justice is deemed to occur may contrast deeply and fundamentally. These more particular differences, manifest at the grassroots level, must be reconciled if core values are to be extracted from World Religions in such a way as to promote peace and social justice. Such reconciliation is the essence of any attempt to subsequently synthesize core values and to harmonize the different World Religions. Despite the difficulties, attempts are being made today to connect these core religious values with issues of global and local significance. In a recent symposium co-sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Divinity Program at Harvard University, papers were presented in an effort to link the core values of World Religions to global ecological issues. As stated by Grim and Tucker, This issue of Daedalus brings together for the first time diverse perspectives from the world's religious traditions regarding attitudes toward nature with reflections from the fields of science, public policy, and ethics. The scholars of religion in this volume identify symbolic, scriptural, and ethical dimensions within particular religions in their relations with the natural world. They examine these dimensions both historically and in response to contemporary environmental problems (2003:1). In the final analysis, the study of World Religions is so compelling because there is a verifiable set of core values which can be extracted, discussed, defined, and used as a basis upon which to address problems ranging from ecology to peace to social justice. The problem is not that these core values do not exist, for they most certainly do, but that how these core values are interpreted by different religions often differs. It is here, by attempting to reconcile these conflicting interpretations of core values, that progress needs to be made if notions of peace and social justice are to prevail globally. The question, to be sure, is whether conflicting intellectual orientations can be harmonized; for instance, can the human rights advocates forge an alliance with religions which place the core value of justice in the province of the collective group rather than within the province of the individual Can free market advocates forge an alliance with religious traditions which view the core value of peace as existing within an essentially non-competitive environment Whether the Bill Gates of the world can find common ground with Buddhist monks in Thailand, whom view the pursuit of money as the cause of much mortal suffering, is a very real dilemma. In sum, despite all of the naysayers, the study of World Religions is perhaps the best way in which to pursue a more globalized paradigm for defining and institutionalizing those core values which can be extracted from all of the major religions. It might be very well impossible to find a person who designates peace as undesirable and yet it remains an elusive goal. The answer, as demonstrated above, can be found in the study of World Religions; the ultimate task, however, is reconciling the core values of those World Religions into a larger set of global belief systems which might be used to pursue more durable notions of peace and more equitable systems of social justice. References Alger, G. "Religion as a Peace Tool." The Global Review of Ethnopolitics, Vol. 1 no.4 June 2002, 94-109. Armstrong, K. The Great Transformation: The World in the Time of Buddha, Socrates, Confucius, and Jeremiah. Atlantic Books: London (2006). Boyle, K. and Sheen, J. Freedom of Religion and Belief: A World Report. Routledge Press: London (1997). Gopin, M. Between Eden and Armageddon: The Future of World Religions, Violence, and Peacemaking. Oxford University Press: United States (2000). Grim, J. and Tucker, M. "Introduction: The Emerging Alliance of World Religions and Ecology." Daedalus Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Harris, I. and Morrison, M. Peace Education, 2nd Edition. McFarland and Company: San Francisco (2003). Pickard, J. "Human Rights, Religious Conflict, and Globalization-Ultimate Values in a New World Order." International Journal on Multicultural Societies, Vol. 1 No. 1, 1999: 3-20. Read More