The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong - Book Report/Review Example

?Introduction Religious fundamentalism is a worldwide phenomenon, and is seen in all the major religions. Jews have fundamentalist sects which rely upon a strict reading of their sacred book, the Torah. Muslims have fundamentalist sects which abhor modernity and see that the merging of church and state is the only proper way to govern society – this is known as governance by Shariah law. Protestant fundamentalists are marked by anti-intellectualism and a lack of rationalism. What all these fundamentalists sects have in common are that they are in opposition to modern thought. Modernity began in the 15th Century with the advent of scientific progress and the elevation of rational thought. It was during this time that man started to realize that they are not the literal center of the universe, and that they are not necessarily special. Meanwhile, modernity breeds a degree of uncertainty. Fundamentalism is a way to buttress the modern world, while providing the true believers with the certainty which they crave. This paper explains the roots and genesis of the fundamentalist movements in the Jewish, Christian and Muslim religions, which is the subject of Karen Armstrong's book The Battle for God. Judaism According to Armstrong, Jewish fundamentalism has its genesis in 1492 in Europe. Among the events that occurred that year, in addition to Christopher Columbus sailing from Spain to find a new trade route to India, is that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella had to unite kingdoms under their rule. It was therefore important that the different factions which were to unite had a commonality, and this commonality was religion. This was important to them, because the world was modernizing at this time. This was a time of scientific discoveries and freedoms, and Western rationalism was gaining a foothold in Europe during this time. The royal subjects therefore had the means for academic and intellectual freedom. However, for a state which was trying to unite, such as Spain was during this time, such intellectual and academic freedoms could be dangerous to this nascent effort. Therefore, religion had to be imposed on the subjects, and the religion which was imposed was a common one – Christianity. Therefore, there could not be room for a state such as Iberia – where Christians, Jews and Muslims had previously lived in peace – to continue to exist in such a state. Too many religions at the time of modernizing would mean that there would not be a unified state, so the Spanish Inquisition began. According to Armstrong, the Inquisition was not a way to reinforce bygone beliefs, but, rather, was a way to unify the country during the modernizing process. The Jews were the frequent targets on the Spanish reconquista in Iberia. They were forced to convert to Christianity, on the pain of death. Some Jews sought to avoid persecution by voluntarily converting. This resulted, for the “New Christians” in the converted Jews attaining exalted positions in society. As Armstrong states, these Jews often “became wealthy and successful. Some became high-ranking priests, others married into the best families, and many achieved spectacular success in commerce” (Armstrong, 2001, p. 7). This made the “Old Christians” jealous and suspicious of the converted Jews. Riots resulted, as the converted Jews were driven from their homes and saw their property destroyed. This led Ferdinand and Isabella to become alarmed at the fact that, instead of uniting the country, the country was becoming more divisive. Moreover, some of the converted were actually still practicing Jews in private, and were encouraging other of the converted to return to Judaism. The Inquisition rooted out these closet Jews, subjected them torture and imprisoned them and killed some of them – 13,000 of the converted were killed during the Inquisition. This made the converted Jews bitter. Eventually, the situation had gotten out of hand, and Ferdinand and Isabella ended up expelling the Jews from the country. This led to expelled Jews, over a period of centuries, to a period of adaptation. This eventually led the Jews to the practice of Kabballa and the following of Isaac Luria (1534-1572), a proclaimed Jewish prophet and mystic. These Jews thus started following a program of myths and mysticism, and this “enabled them to make contact with the unconscious sources of their pain, loss, and desire, and anchored their lives in a vision that brought them comfort” (Armstrong, 2001, p. 14). Since mythological thinking looks backward, not forward, this was the Jewish way to get back to the past and the fundamentals of their religion. Around 1700, Armstrong states that the Jews reverted to fundamentalism, which, for them, was represented by the Hasidic sect. The following section regarding Christianity describes a sect of Christianity known as the “New Lights,” who were, in a nutshell, a sect of Christianity which was devoid of reason. Armstrong states that the Hasidic sect in Judaism served much the same role as the Christian New Lights. Just a the New Lights sought to serve the spiritual needs of the populace, the Hasidic sect was also concerned with the spiritual needs of the people. Like the New Lights, the Hasidic sect was in direct conflict and opposition with the religious establishment. The main difference between the New Lights and the Hasidic sect was that that New Lights was actually a modernization of spirituality, in that the leaders of this movement encouraged their followers to interpret scripture in a new way. The Hasidics, on the other hand, was a conservative reform movement. It relied, as the earlier mystical Jewish movements, upon the teachings of Luria, and turned these earlier teachings into the cornerstone of a faith which also relied upon “a positive appreciation of the omnipresence of God” (Armstrong, 2001, p. 100). While the New Light sect of Christianity relied upon new interpretations of scripture, the Hasidic sect looked to the past for their truths. The Hasidic sect also had something in common with radical Islam, described below. Just as radical Islam saw that church and state could not be separate, and that the state should be ruled by the teachings of the church, so did the Hasidic Jews. They believe, like radical Islam, that the state and religion were really one, and “adopted a holistic vision that saw holiness everywhere” (Armstrong, 2001, p. 101). And, although the Hasidic sect was ostensibly for the people, the people could achieve a direct union with God. Rather, they had to go through their Zaddik, who was a righteous man. The Zaddik had to have mastered the devekut, which was a mystical connection with God. Thus, according to Armstrong, the Hasidic movement was in direct opposition to the Enlightenment, which was democratic at its core. Because the Hasidic movement did not have this kind of democratic ethos, Hasids rejected the Enlightenment when it spread through Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, another sect of Jewish fundamentalism was gaining power in Europe. This sect was known as the Orthodox sect. They differed from the Hasidic sect, in that, unlike the Hasidic sect, they relied upon the Torah as a cornerstone of their faith. Armstrong argues that this Orthodox sect gained a foothold partially as a reaction against the Hasidic sect, in that the Hasidic sect was seen by the Orthodox sect as being too secular. This, argues, Armstrong, is what most fundamentalism is based upon, whether the religion is Judaism, Muslim or Christian - fundamentalism arises not because of the pressures of external forces, although external forces are always in the foreground, but, rather, because of the pressure of internal forces. The fundamentalists see the secular world as encroaching upon faith, and their co-religionists as allowing this to happen. Therefore, the fundamentalists will not only turn their backs on the modern world, but also the dominant strains of their own faith, if these dominant strains are not seen as a sufficient buffer against the modern world. The Orthodox sect was just this type of fundamentalist sect which retreated into its own self-contained community, safe from the secularists, the rationalists and the religious sects which are seen as not enough of barrier against the secular and rational forces. Islam Whereas, in the Western World, Armstrong argues that the rise of fundamentalism may be traced to Ferdinand and Isabella's efforts to unite disparate kingdoms into one, and the unifying feature of the new world order envisioned by this king and queen would be a common religion. However, people cannot be forced to accept another's belief, and this caused a great deal of turmoil. In the East, however, the rise of fundamentalism has a different root. This root, argues Armstrong, is not a reaction to modernization but a reaction against it. Armstrong begins the Islam history of fundamentalism also to 1492, and emphasizes that the Western world was modernizing during this period of time. As noted above, scientific inquiry and rationalism was spreading in the West. While the West accepted this, the Islamic East did not. Their reaction to the modernizing of the West was not religious coercion which was essentially designed to welcome the modernizing process, but, rather, was by adopting conservative ideology which puts an emphasis on mythology and the past. Armstrong traces the advent of the modern ethos of the Muslim fundamentalism to this time. She states that the Islamic world today abhors secularism and the separation of church and state. The modern-day Islamic fundamentalists like to see Muslim countries governed by Shariah law, which is the sacred law of Islam. The modern world sees this kind of thinking as a barrier to progress. This mentality is based also in 1492, when the world was modernizing. The Ottoman empire was legitimized because it was true to Shariah law. The conservative societies around this period looked for inspiration not to the future, but to the distant past – specifically they looked at the “Golden Age,” which was the age of the prophet Muhammed (c. 570-632 c.e.) and the four rashidun caliphs who came after him. From this point on, Muslim societies were governed by Shariah law. To be governed by this law, which would bring all Muslims closer to God, politics and divinity must become one - “for a devout Muslim, politics is what Christians would call a sacrament. It is an activity that must be sacralized so that it becomes a channel of the divine” (Armstrong,2001, p. 37). The fact that the Ottoman empire was governed by Shariah law, and the Ottomans experienced spectacular success in the 16th Century, was proof to the Islamic people that Shariah law was the correct law to govern Muslim societies. Around 1700 is when Armstrong states that the Muslim religion experienced the first pangs of modernity. Modernity was a Western phenomenon, as many of the purveyors of modernity – Corpernicus, Galileo, Newton and the like – were Western scientists. One also has to note that, during this time, the Muslim countries were being dominated and colonized by the countries who were at the foundation of modernization. Therefore, the Muslims had a reason to push back against modernity even harder – for modernity came to be seen as integrated with oppression and domination. Christianity Armstrong also traces the origins of Christian fundamentalism to 1492. As noted before, this was a period of turmoil and change – in addition to the fact that the Western world was modernizing, there was also the factor that Europe was recently ravaged by plague and war during this time. Specifically, the Black Death had ravaged the country and England and France was engaged in the Hundred Years War. This was in the midst of modernization of the country. Agriculture, science and medicine were all experiencing advances. Innovations were occurring at a rapid pace. This was a period of rationalization, as stated above. Armstrong argues that, just as the Muslims looked to the period of modernization by retreating to the past, so did the Christians during this period. This led to the Christian reformers, such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, who tried to deal with the changes that were occurring in the world by seeking to return the Christian faith to “the pure Christianity of the Bible and the Fathers of the Church” (Armstrong, 2001, p. 64). Rationality began to take hold more than ever during the 16th and 17th Centuries. was the discoveries by Copernicus and Galileo that earth is not the center of the universe, and that the earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around. In the 18th Century, Isaac Newton discovered the theory of gravity. This encouraged fundamentalism as well, because this knowledge made people doubt their perceptions and old mythology was being replaced by new, radical ideas such as this. As with the Muslims, who looked to the past in an attempt to stave off rationalism, secularism and modernism, and the Jews who looked to the past in an attempt to find roots after being forced from their homes, Christians during this time had to create new ways of thinking about God and spirituality. Rationality forced individuals to realize the possibility, for the first time, that life was meaningless. Mythology was becoming a thing of the past. Armstrong (2001) stated that fundamentalism asserted itself as a buttress against rationality. At the same time, Christianity was forced into two camps which persecuted one another for years – the Reformers verses the Catholic Church. Another marked division was between the Christians who sought to introduce reason into religion, and the Christians who sought to purge reason from religion. These factions were increasingly fractious on both sides of the Atlantic. For instance, in the American colonies, the early settlers, according to Armstrong, had been “indifferent to religion” (Armstrong, 2001, p. 77). However, by the beginning of the 18th Century, religious fervor rooted in the American colonies, and this fervor was devoid of rationality. Quakers “were so called because, in the early days, they would express their religious transports so vehemently: they wre known to tremble, howl, and yell, making – an observer noted – the dogs bark, the cattle run madly about, and the pigs scream” (Armstrong, 2001, p. 78). This kind of emotional excess in the American colonies was heightened in the First Great Awakening in 1734. This First Great Awakening was a reaction to the death of two young people, who died suddenly. This plunged the town of Northampton, Connecticut, into a religious fervor. Just as this fervor was dying out, George Whitefield (1714-1770) visited the colonies and sparked another wave of fervor. This fervor was marked by wailing, hysterical laughter, incessant weeping, cries and groans. The American colonies, like the country of Europe, was also split between churches who integrated rationality and those which did not. The more rational churches were governed by men known as the “Old Lights” - men who were appalled by the hysterical nature of the revivals and did not agree with the anti-intellectualism of these faiths. These Old Lights were some of the more prosperous citizens, while the revivalists tended to be lower class. Known as the “New Lights,” the revivalists also became separatists from the main religions, and Armstrong argues that the New Lights, with their separate identities and break from the main theologies, became the mainstay of the fundamentalist movement which took place in the late 19th Century. The New Lights entertained some radical ideas. For instance, one of these ideas was that the world was in end times, and the Pope was the Antichrist. Therefore, such struggles as the Seven Years War between Protestant Britain and Catholic France was seen as a way to bring Christ back to earth by weakening the Antichrist Pope. The New Lights saw the destruction of the Pope as the key to their salvation. The American Revolution occurred during this time, led by men of rational faith. The New Light Christians, however, did not entirely trust these leaders, and saw deism, which was practiced by Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Franklin, as the work of the devil. To the New Lights, the word “liberty” was not secular, but, rather, denoted a time when they could experience the Kingdom of God. They saw Jesus was coming soon to establish a glorious Kingdom in America. King George III, like the Pope, was branded an Antichrist. Stamps were seen as the mark of the beast. The Revolutionary War was seen by the New Lights not as a secular war of independence against the British, but, rather, as a kind of Holy War – the New Lights, and even some education men, such as the Presidents of Harvard and Yale, thought that America was at war with Satanic forces in the Revolutionary War. In this case, Britain represented the Satanic forces. These New Lights formed the genesis of fundamentalism in America. The war against the British, and the subsequent victory over the British, was seen as nothing less than the defeat of Satan. The progeny of the New Lights, which are the fundamentalists of today, see secular humanism, which, to the New Lights, was exemplified by the British, to also be the work of Satan himself. At the same time, the fact that America could defeat the British gave hope to the New Light – they saw that, just as America was empowered by defeating the British, so they could also be empowered. Meanwhile, the people in the frontiers felt that the new government under John Adams, who was the second president of the United States, was just as tyrannical as the British – they were taxed just as harshly as under the British, and the ruling elite was taking their lands. Since the religious fervor that was brought about by the Second Awakening and the resultant New Lights was never really extinguished, these new hardships made the frontier people more susceptible to preachers who visited these folks. These preachers preached a gospel which was based upon the hope of transforming society and religion, and was radically different from the kind of society that was envision by the rational Founders. What made these new preachers even more attractive to the masses is that they were, essentially, one of them. These new preachers were not a member of the educated elite, such as the New Light Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, who had both studied at Yale and Oxford. On the contrast, these preachers, like the frontier masses, were unschooled and uneducated. As such, they spoke the language of the frontier men and women. They spoke in ordinary ways. Their preaching was rowdy and emotional. Like the earlier individuals struck by religious fervor in the First Great Awakening, the individuals in the Second Great Awakening laughed and wept hysterically, and shouted for joy. The leaders of this movement also relied upon dreams and signs. They also got the people on their side, because, just as the people distrusted the ruling elite, so did the preachers. After all, Jesus and the Apostles were not educated men – therefore, according to these preachers, the uneducated were really God's chosen. Armstrong traces the current anti-intellectualism and populism, which undergirds much of the fundamentalist religions, to this period of time. The Second Great Awakening was a direct rebuke against intellectualism and schooling, and, especially, against the oppressive ruling class. The people who followed the teachings of the preachers during this time saw that, just as America could defeat the tyranny of the British, so could they defeat the tyranny of the ruling class and become their own individuals in the process. At the same time, these frontier individuals were feeling disenfranchised from society, partially because of the actions of the ruling elite, who did not represent them, and they also felt exploited. The Second Great Awakening gave them a sense of belongingness. The Second Great Awakening also empowered the people, in that the movement gave them, essentially, permission to interpret scripture in their own way. They chose, in contrast to the rational Christians in the ruling elite, to interpret scripture literally and reductively. Armstrong also emphasized that this Second Great Awakening was, as with radical Islam, a pushback against modernity. Rationality and scientific inquiry was the prevailing ethos during this nascent modernity. This cool rationality was the hallmark of the hated ruling class, which gave the frontier people another reason to despise it. Moreover, this was an uneducated class, which means that they were not exposed to the ideas of Descartes, Newton and Locke, all of whom were religious and rational. All of this means that the people during this time were susceptible to religious fervor such as that offered by the uneducated, emotional preachers of the Second Great Awakening. America experienced more waves of fundamentalism during the Civil War and the subsequent Industrial Revolution. As with the Enlightenment before it, and the Industrial Revolution after it, the Civil War was seen as a way to bring about a new, better society. Like the other two movements, however, the results were anti-climactic. Cities were destroyed, families were torn apart and there was a white southern backlash. The Northern states, who envisioned Utopia out of the ashes of the Civil War, found, instead, that their states were being transformed, painfully, from agrarian to industrialization. Immigrants poured into the country, and capitalists made huge fortunes on the backs of their workers. As with the earlier incarnations of religious fundamentalism, the time was ripe during the industrial revolution in America for a new wave of fundamentalism to sweep the land. Secular movements, such as the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution, failed to fulfill any real purpose in the people and brought, for many of them, nothing but further problems. This led many to start once again dreaming of a future war between God and Satan, which would bring down the evil society represented by the capitalists and the industrialists. It was during this period, the industrial revolution, that a new fervor swept America - premillenialism. This was a sect of Christianity who believed that Christ would return to earth before his 1,000 year reign of peace. The premillenials believed that Christ would return to earth and wage war with the Antichrist, before ruling for 1,000 years. They were in contrast with the postmillenials, who believed that the Holy War would be fought by humans, and Christ would return to earth after the 1,000 years of peace. They were also in contrast to the Europeans who believed that all the people on earth would endure the ordeal of the next great war. The way that they contrasted with the postmillenials is apparent – Christ would return before the millennium. The way that they differed from the Europeans who believed in Christ's return to earth is that the premillenials in America, led by John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), would experience a rapture in which they are taken up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air (Armstrong, 2001, p. 139). Meanwhile, the people left behind will have to suffer unimaginably and be damned to hell after their time on earth. Armstrong states that this was a kind of revenge fantasy on the part of the premillenials – others had laughed at them, jeered their beliefs, marginalized them and ignored them. These others would suffer while the righteous would be seated with the Lord in heaven, left to ponder their error and the fact that the premillenials were right all along. Armstrong argues that these premillenials, just as with the earlier sects of fundamentalists, were in opposition to modern society and were also motivated by the desire for certainty. Modern society is anything but certain – economic booms are followed by economic depressions, and societies are controlled by mysterious market forces. Meanwhile, modern psychology spoke of hidden thoughts and feelings and Higher Critics stated that the Bible was not all that it claimed to be. During this period of time, however, the premillenial Protestants could take comfort in their faith, which was simple, plain and understandable. To them, truth was not subjective, but,rather, objective, and obvious to anybody with common sense. Conclusion Armstrong argues that fundamentalism in all of the religions covered in her book – Islam, Christianity and Judaism – are a direct result of modernity. Modernity, with its emphasis on the rational and on science, essentially takes away many individuals' sense of purpose in the world. People have to feel that their lives have meaning, argues Armstrong, and modernity takes away this sense. Before modernity, people could feel that they had some kind of sacred significance, and myths and rituals helped fill the void that might be present. Modernity and scientific rationalism discredits the foundations upon which these people felt that they were somehow special. Meanwhile, different secular movements, such as the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, which gave people hope for a better world, fell flat because of the problems that they brought. The Enlightenment, with its emphasis on science and rationality, brought problems in that individuals no longer felt that they were special. The industrial revolution brought injustice and exploitation. Industrialized society brought with it crowded cities and poor working conditions, and many of the people wanted to take themselves back to a simpler time. People want to believe that they are special and their lives mean something. Therefore, to a certain group of people, fundamentalism has a great deal of appeal. Besides the appeal to man's inherent need to feel important, fundamentalism also has the appeal of certainty. In an uncertain world, which is constantly in flux, some people need to grasp some sense of certainty. Fundamentalism provides this sense of certainty to many. Also, to the Jews, fundamentalism is a pushback against modernism as well as providing a way for Jews to hang on to the past when they were forced out of their homes. To Islam, fundamentalism is in opposition to modernism and also in opposition to any kind of Western thought. After all, the Islamic people were, for many years, victims of colonization and the brutal practices which come with it. Since Western thought, and its emphasis on rationality and modernity, was associated with brutal practices, this gave radical Islam even more reason to ignore modernity and cling to conservative ideologies. In short, modernity breeds fundamentalism, as the changing world makes people of all religious stripes feel insecure and unimportant. Thus, modernity and rationality are, in a nutshell, directly or indirectly responsible for fundamentalism around the world. Source Used Armstrong, K. (2001) The Battle for God. New York: Random House. Read More