The Bishop of London
I am very conscious of the honour done to me by this invitation to address Chatham House and I am grateful to the Council for their encouragement to me to explore this particular topic. The Chairman suggested that this was a rare subject for a Chatham House talk. This was obviously true for the past but I wonder whether this is not a theme whose time has come. Just to give one example - earlier this month a most interesting symposium was held at the University of Westminster under the title "Diplomacy and Divinity: Religion in International Relations."
Does Religion Cause War?
O men behold we have created you all out of a male and a female, and have made you into nations and tribes so that you might come to know one another.The Koran Surah 49
This is the second time I have appeared under the genial aegis of Lord Wright. Earlier this year he organised a general debate in the House of Lords about Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. Almost as soon as I had sent in my name as a speaker, I regretted my decision. There were more than 30 speakers including no less than three were former foreign secretaries and many of the others were professional diplomats. Perhaps, I worried, my speech about the potential of faith communities in conflict resolution and peace building would seem like a witch doctor addressing a conference of the BMA.
In the event a number of participants stressed the potential of the faith communities for mayhem and underlined the need to find pathways into a dialogue which traditional state to state diplomacy found it difficult to enter.
Alarm about the contribution of faith communities to conflict is shared at varying levels of sophistication. From fairly extensive personal research it is the orthodoxy of the lounge bar of the Pig and Whistle that the "most terrible wars in history have been wars of religion". I have heard that phrase over and again. It is difficult to understand why it is so widely repeated after our experience of the conflict initiated by the imitators of the "homicidal philanthropy" which characterised the French Revolution; even less why it still holds the field after the millions of deaths attributable in this century to secular messianic states, where the State itself has been deified, unless Communism and Nazism are also to be classed as religious movements.
At a different level, you will all be familiar with Samuel Huntingdon's book published in 1996, "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order". Professor Huntingdon's thesis is that the post- Cold War world is being reconfigured along cultural lines. The hot spots in world politics are now, he argues, on the fault lines between civilisations and he cites Bosnia, the Sudan, Middle East and many other examples.
A large ingredient in these confrontations is an on-going pattern of conflict between Muslims and Christians and Huntingdon asserts that the causes of the conflict lie not in "transitory phenomena" but "they flow from the nature of the two religions and the civilisations based on them". In the past this conflict "was on the one hand a product of difference, particularly the Muslim concept of Islam as a way of life transcending and uniting religion and politics versus the Western Christian concept of the separate realms of God and Caesar. [I believe that this analysis is particularly simplistic and misleading] The conflict also stemmed however from their similarities. Both are mono-theistic religions which .. cannot easily assimilate additional deities and which see the world in dualistic us-and -them terms. Both are universalistic, claiming to be the one true faith to which all human beings can adhere. " [pp2 10-2 l I ] He goes on to amplify the conflictual potential of "the nature of the two religions" and although there is much to argue about in his analysis, his apprehensions have proved influential.
Now it is clearly true that much modern conflict is rooted in questions of identity and is misunderstood if analysed in merely Marxist terms. We only have to look the other side of the Irish Sea to acknowledge the truth of this proposition Religion both in history and still in many parts of the world is crucial to social cohesion and therefore religion is likely to be co-opted in any struggle which is about the identity of a particular group or people. Popular wisdom understands how the best ideals are bent to the most malign purposes. As Dean Swift said, how is it that we have just enough religion to hate one another but not enough to love one another. There is of course another view given pithy expression in David Martin's stimulating new book "Does Christianity Cause War" "that religion is the singular virus which more than anything else undermines the red corpuscles of reason and persuades us to evil courses: too many offspring, burning books in Bradford, patriarchy, fundamentalist insurgency in Algeria, sexual repression. N It this view which Professor Martin sets out to refute.
As a believer, I can very easily see the perils of religion. I can see the sense of the position adopted by Bishop Warburton which is anathema to fundamentalists of all kinds. Warburton was said to occupy a tiny corner of reasonableness within the Ark "as much disgusted by the stink within as by the tempest without". But the trouble is that if we do not worship in a worthy tradition then we seem to attach ourselves to an unworthy object of worship. Who could fail to see the spilt and deformed religion in the atheism of the Soviet Union or the ersatz liturgies of the Nazi State?
Resources in the Faith Communities for Peace-building
Could we look at the question from another angle? Might there not be some positive resources within the traditions and institutions of the world's faith communities capable of making a contribution to peace-building and conflict resolution? There are many people who have aspired to conduct an ethical foreign policy but have found it very difficult partly at least for the reason which Jung suggested when he said that "Mere appeals to ethical fraternity cannot evoke in man one trace of that age old power which drives the migrating bird across the ocean. " Is it possible that, as a book published in 1994 by the American Centre for Strategic and International Studies suggests in its title, that Religion is a Missing Dimension of Statecraft? Obviously in what follows I am very definitely referring to a dimension not a substitute for other approaches.
There is of course great resistance to this notion in the Anglo- American world. Some people are still in retreat in compulsory school chapel; others are incredulous that something which means very little to them can mean anything to anyone else. Religion has often been edited out of grown up Anglo-American discourse and relegated like churches in seaside resort brochures to the leisure and entertainments section. Who after all needs religion even as an opiate when the people have real opium products. This attitude can have serious consequences. It seems obvious that US monitoring of Iranian politics should always have included their religious dimension but as the Professor of Strategy at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies has revealed "the one recorded attempt to do just that within the CIA, before the revolution, was vetoed on the grounds that it would amount to mere sociology, a term used in intelligence circles to mean the time wasting study of factors deemed politically irrelevant".
The proposition that the role of religion in society would inevitably decline in the process of third-world modernization just as it had in 18th and 19th century Europe has proved to be wrong. In contemporary world politics the modernization process often makes the public role of religion a more necessary part of the business of community and state building or even revolutionary transformation. This is not only a third world phenomenon. When I was an adolescent only Dostoevsky really understood me and I began to be a lover of Russian culture as I am today. I vividly remember a dream in the seventies in which I was taking part in the liturgy in St Basil's Cathedral. In course of time I did just that but I did not even dream that the Russian Patriarch would be standing on the podium as the President was sworn in nor did I even dream the extraordinary reversal of history represented by the re-building of the Church of Christ the Saviour dynamited by Stalin in his attempt to expunge the symbolic presence of religion from his new social order.
At the same time the achievements of Mahatma Ghandi; Martin Luther King and Desmond Tutu suggest that there is potential in the fields of effecting peaceful change and conflict resolution in personal spiritual motivation often allied with the authority of religious institutions. If you want some fascinating case studies of this potential, there are a number assembled in the book "Religion, the Missing Dimension of Statecraft" edited by Douglas Johnston and Cynthia Sampson. You will find analyses of the Quaker role in the Nigerian Civil War; the contribution of the Catholic Church in the Philippines in ensuring a peaceful end to the Marcos dictatorship; the free space offered by Evangelical Churches in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall; the significance of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa first in providing a theological justification for Apartheid and then in preparing the Afrikaner Community for change and many other essays illustrating the scope and the importance of the topic we are addressing.
On one occasion, John Foster Dulles invited an Israeli and Syrian, a Jew and a Muslim to meet him in a private heart to heart about the tensions in the Middle East. He began by shaking them warmly by the hand and then asked "Why can't we all sit down together and work this thing out like Christian gentlemen?" The anecdote may illustrate a certain cultural myopia but commentators on the negotiations between President Sadat and Mr Begin which led up to the Camp David agreements admit the role play by the genuine religious convictions held by both men which let a little more space into the debate about competing national interests and gave the debate another frame of reference which was conducive to movement and risk taking such as Sadat's celebrated visit to Jerusalem.
Many questions arise at this point. How are we to find pathways into the faith communities which are playing such a significant role in the world today? How are we to build bridges between them? How are we to distil out the Golden Mean, the commitment to "do as you would be done by" which is honoured in all great religious traditions? How are we to drain destructive myths and the demonising of the other side of their power while nourishing the integrative character of high spiritual culture? What new institutions need to be developed to facilitate communication between faith communities in the global information age? How are we going to assist our contemporaries to explore the essential personal and spiritual dimension to the making of a peace which is rather more than the mere absence of war, a fullness of peace of the kind which is conveyed by the Hebrew word "Shalom"? St Seraphim of Sarov said that one person with peace in the heart can convert the countryside for miles around? How are we helped to grow into this reality.
Nobody as far as I am aware is clamouring for the call up of platoons of clerics to shuttle between capitals like ersatz diplomats but we must try to be practical. One of the besetting sins of much Christian talk about peace and reconciliation is what David Martin has called "hyper-moralism" which "first of all establishes a moral viewpoint sufficiently elevated above all the concrete choices to be made in proximate situations in which it never has to pay the costs of given policies.. At the point where the rapid and limited deployment of violence can avert future conflict say in the Rhineland in 1936, it refuses to act because it is paralysed by generalized guilt". Hyper-moralism lacks practical wisdom. It is always vital to hold in tension a clear vision of the holy city founded on blood willingly sacrificed for others with a practical wisdom about the needs of the earthly city which is built both on blood given and taken. Hyper-moralism and the complacency which confuses being realistic with being a captive to the passing moment are both to be avoided like the plague.
St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace
With all this in mind, I was contemplating the sad rubble of St Ethelburga's Church in Bishopsgate. St Ethelburga may not be familiar to you. She was the sister of the twentieth Bishop of London St Erconwald who actually built the Bishop's Gate in the 7th century.
Her church survived the great fire of London and the blitz but not the effects of the IRA bomb in 1993. In the explosion Edward Henty the Journalist was killed and 51 people were injured. It is a place which bears the scars of conflict which is why Cardinal Hume, Janet Sowerbutts, the Thames North Moderator of the United Reformed Church and I decided to rebuild it in partnership as a Centre for Reconciliation and Peace. I ought to stress immediately that although this initial venture for historical reasons is rightly itself an example of bridge building and co-operation in the Christian community, the intention is that the work of the Centre will involve a creative dialogue with members of other faith communities and indeed people who acknowledge the spiritual dimension in the business of peace building but who would not wish to associate themselves with any particular religious institutions.
The Centre will seek to explore the religious and spiritual dimension to reconciliation and peace and it will be a place of prayer for peace with a carefully planned garden as an oasis of reflection just off one of the busiest arteries of the City of London. There will also be an intellectual and research commitment at St Ethelburga's to a greater understanding of the history of religious conflict and the place of religion in international affairs.
Obviously the partners are aware that a great deal of work is being done on these themes in other parts of the world. We have no wish to duplicate work already undertaken but it is clearly important to establish strong links with the international network which is developing. We want to play our part in this significant hub of communications to build up relations not only with Christian partners like the St Egidio community in Rome but also with potential allies in other world faiths.
I hope that the Centre will come to be used as a resource for those working in conflict resolution. It will have a specially designed peace-building room and with furnishing in mind I have been in discussion with my brother Bishop of Lebombo in Mozambique who runs a Peace Centre in Maputo which specialises in making furniture from the cast offs of the recently concluded civil war. A new twist on the prophetic adage about swords and ploughshares. There is also a need for a place where best practice can be analysed and fresh initiatives discussed. The new St Ethelburga's has been planned with exhibitions and colloquia on the themes of reconciliation and peace in mind.
As well as receiving advice from existing practitioners in the field of conflict resolution, the partners have listened to some of those who have been the victims of conflict notably two former Beirut hostages, Terry Waite and John McCarthy and they have suggested ways in which the centre can assist the relatives and loved ones of those caught up in conflict.
In view of the location of the Centre in the very heart of the City of London there is also the possibility of exploring the further potential of business intelligence systems and networks to provide early warnings of conflict and to contribute to preventive diplomacy.
My own commitment to this enterprise comes, let me not deceive you, from Jesus Christ who said "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you". But I believe and hope and pray that it is possible for alliances to be formed between people with very different starting points and that we shall grow together as we face a common challenge. St Ethelburga's represents a modest response to the analysis which I have attempted to develop in the first section of this talk; it is an acknowledgement of the urgency of making full use of spiritual resources in the field of conflict resolution.
King Ashoka said that righteous living had a common source - "modesty of speech. One must not exalt one's creed by discrediting others… Concord is good only insofar as all listen to each other's creeds and love to listen to them". We may be at a moment of transition so great that even those who are confident that religion is in the words of the poet David Jones at "its sagging end and chapter's close", even they may be prepared to listen.