Europe's Fear of Religion

[Lady Macbeth]

Secularism on the Test-Bed
The sociologist José Casanova confronts the paradigm that secularisation is a prerequisite for open and tolerant societies. In Europas Angst vor der Religion (Europe's Fear of Religion) he calls for an end to the strict division between faith and politics. A review by Lewis Gropp


Contrary to popular belief, Europe's religious wars in the 17th century by no means prompted a process of secularisation. - Jacques Callot: "The Siege of Breda", engraving series (1627-1629)

"Europe's Fear of Religion" – the English title of José Casanova's book is a catchy and provocative formula for his ideas. The renowned Spanish scholar in the sociology of religion has lived and taught in the USA for many years, experiencing at first hand how religion can adopt a longstanding and central role in a modern society – unlike in Europe, where the majority of the population considers religion "intolerant", as Casanova cites various studies.

Proving this thesis is rather superfluous, one might say. No one would seriously dispute the fact that the churches in Europe have had a dwindling political and social influence over the past few decades. This development has a long and complex background, which José Casanova cleverly details in a brief sardonic summary.

"Once upon a time in medieval Europe, there was a fusion of religion and politics, as is typical of pre-modern societies. However, under the new conditions of religious diversity, extremist sectarianism and a conflict prompted by the Protestant Reformation, this fusion led to the most terrible, brutal and long-lasting religious wars of the early modern age, reducing European societies to rubble. The secularisation of the state was the successful answer to this catastrophic experience, which has apparently left a lasting impression on the collective memory of European societies."

Europe's godlessness and totalitarianism

The ironic tone reveals the author's disapproval of this interpretation of history. In fact, Casanova's aim is to disprove this very paradigm, according to which secularisation is a prerequisite for open and tolerant societies and automatically leads to democracy.
Casanova does indeed formulate one or two accurate observations – for example explaining that the religious wars and the Thirty Years' War by no means prompted a process of secularisation, instead leading to a territorialisation of religious denominations and the modern absolutist feudal state. However, the arguments Casanova raises against secularisation and against the division of state and religion are neither new nor well compiled.

To quote one example, Casanova issues the exhortation that Europe's godlessness eventually led to totalitarianism and reached its pinnacle in the brutal twentieth-century wars of destruction. "All these terrible conflicts," writes Casanova, "were [...] the product of modern secular ideologies."

Another of Casanova's arguments for the anti-democratic potential of secularism is the Soviet Union's anti-religious policies. As indisputable and correct as this may be, his mingling of disparate concepts under the mantel of science is verging on the obscene.

There is no arguing with the fact that the twentieth century was plunged into the most devastating wars of destruction in human history by 'godless ideologies'. Yet putting these crimes against humanity down to the principle of division of religion and politics is nothing more than a primitive deduction process, a more serious mistake than any academic carelessness. Hitler and Stalin have hardly gone down in history as champions of secularism.

Religious parties and European democratisation
Yet by underpinning his argumentation in this unsystematic and selective manner, the author suggests a link between the ideas of the Enlightenment and the atrocities of fascism and Stalinism. To top it all, Casanova even posits the claim that it was effectively the churches and religious political parties that led Europe to the path of democracy.

"Very often, it was in fact religious groups and religious policy that – sometimes in a paradox manner and unintentionally – contributed to democratisation and secularisation of politics in many European states. [...] Even those political parties that originally developed as anti-liberal and at least in the ideological sense as anti-democratic [...] ultimately played a very important role for the democratisation of their societies."

Casanova's clumsy and contradictory formulations reduce his own argumentation to absurdity.

The achievements of ideological neutrality
Indisputably, Europe does have a problem with the at times exaggerated rejection of religion, and faith can actually play a more constructive role in culture and society. The problematic aspect of Casanova's book, however, is that he questions and discredits the achievements of the enlightened and ideologically neutral state, which guarantees its citizens freedom of religion as is currently the case in Germany, for example – and yet does not even begin to explain in concrete terms what role faith ought to play.

It would be easy enough to disprove Casanova's thesis that religion and politics should not be separated. There are countless countries where the role of religion in politics has proved an explosive mix: Pakistan, Iran, Nigeria, Malaysia, Palestine, to name but a few.

And even in the USA, a country that Casanova cites as a positive counter-example to the European model, the influence of faith over politics is of rather doubtful merit. One need only think of the Bush administration's partly Christian-motivated justification for the Iraq War.

Qantara.de - Secularism on the Test-Bed

[Lady Macbeth]

Faith as a Moral Instance


Plea for a constructive role of religion in politics: Wolfgang Schäuble's "Braucht unsere Gesellschaft Religion?''

Germany's interior minister Wolfgang Schäuble has written a short book describing how faith, correctly understood, protects us from totalitarianism and abuse of power. He also addresses how best to integrate Islam in Germany. A review by Lewis Gropp

Wolfgang Schäuble has an image as a tough law and order politician. For many of his critics, particularly those left of centre, he has a reputation for fostering an authoritarian surveillance state through his strict security measures. Yet anyone who reads Wolfgang Schäuble's new book will soon see that this is only half the truth – or even less than that.

The book, Braucht unsere Gesellschaft Religion? (Does Our Society Need Religion?), is part of a series of speeches on religious policy published by Berlin University Press since 2008. Other titles include Udo Di Fabio's Gewissen, Glaube, Religion (Conscience, Belief, Religion), criticising Europe's rigid rejection of faith, and José Casanova's Europas Angst vor der Religion (Europe's Fear of Religion) on a similar subject. The series editor Rolf Schieder has also published his own volume with the title Sind Religionen gefährlich (Are Religions Dangerous?), aiming to rehabilitate faith and religion.

Regressive "back to the roots" approach

And now Wolfgang Schäuble, a doctor of law, has set out to define the value of faith for politics. This is an interesting and brave attempt, for more than one reason. Firstly because religion has been absolutely sidelined for years within his party, the CDU – despite its name of Christian Democratic Union. And secondly because many renowned academics before him have made downright fools of themselves with their answers on the same topic.

Either their ideas remain so vague and imprecise that they lose all meaning, or they adopt a defiantly regressive "back to the roots" approach, condemning all traces of enlightenment and rationalism. Germany's interior minister, however, blithely clears these two hurdles with seemingly effortless intellectual command of his subject matter.

Referring back to the likes of Niccolò Machiavelli, Pope Alexander VI and Friedrich the Great, Schäuble precisely stakes out the boundaries of his subject matter, never claiming any more than he can prove convincingly. A trained dialectic thinker, he also takes possible counter-arguments into account – making his own argumentation all the more sound and convincing.

Knowledge of an entity beyond our control

Schäuble starts out by posing a key question: how can we unite people through religion and yet at the same time avoid new rifts opening up on the basis of differing religious faiths?

Schäuble writes that the relationship to God central to all monotheist religions could play a major role in this respect. In essence, it is a question of people knowing that their own lives and actions are responsible to an authority not appointed by them themselves.

Religions, he writes, bestow people with the certainty "that there is something greater than themselves. That there is something which is not made by them but must be respected by them. (…) This alone has far-reaching consequences for political and social behaviour. Knowledge of an entity beyond our control is a precaution against totalitarianism and abuse of power."

Tightrope act

One could of course point out that belief in God can be wrongly understood and does not automatically bestow people with humility; it has also been known to transform them into hot-headed fanatics. Yet one must first realise what a tightrope act it is to define the role of religion in an enlightened and pluralist society.

Schäuble masters this tightrope act, putting his definition into precisely chosen words. The resulting ideas may not look like much; but they are more than most authors have come up with on the subject.

Wolfgang Schäuble's book also looks at Islam in Germany. But neither does he conjure up the phantom of a "parallel society" so popular with many of his conservative colleagues, nor does he resort to hysterical alarmism. Quite the opposite, in fact: he points out that it took several centuries to regulate Christianity's relationship to the state. With this in mind, he comments, we must not expect the problems between the state and Islam in Europe to be solved overnight or without conflict. Schäuble contends that a great deal has already been achieved in a very short time.

And there is no alternative to integrating Islam in Germany, he adds. It is not only undesirable for Islam to exist merely alongside European society, Schäuble writes; it is de facto no longer possible.

Unease among Germany's majorities

"Which is why we must ensure that above all Muslims who have come to us as immigrants or live here in the second, third or perhaps even fourth generation feel safe and at home here. Muslims will never want to integrate into a Europe where they do not feel at home or even feel excluded."

Yet Schäuble shares none of the uncertainty that makes the debate on Islam so difficult, the unease among Germany's majorities in particular. He makes it perfectly clear that certain basic values are not up for negotiation from his point of view.

"Integration is not a one-way street, it is a bilateral process," writes Schäuble. "It requires that immigrants want to make this country their home. Anyone who does not want that, for example does not want their children – and particularly their daughters – to grow up in an open western society because they disapprove of various aspects, is making the wrong decision to settle permanently in Central Europe. One has to accept the conditions of one's new home (…) as we are not prepared to put the rules of tolerance, diversity and pluralism up for discussion."

Integration – the golden mean

This is what makes the book such a valuable piece of writing: it shows that Germany and Europe are not faced with the alternative of either being overrun by an alien, "foreign" culture, or subjugating all those who come here to a chauvinist national culture dictated by the majority.

Quite the opposite: Schäuble shows that the ideal solution does not look to the extremes but rather finds the golden mean. "Integrating people, helping them to feel part of society, is (…) something that has helped our continent to grow together," he writes, reminding us that precisely this growth – despite all its vagaries and difficulties – has brought us one of the longest periods of peace in European history.

It may be a slim volume, but Wolfgang Schäuble's book contains a wealth of ideas. In a time of uncertainty and unease, he points out the stuff of true European values, how strong these values are and what future they have.

Qantara.de - Faith as a Moral Instance