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**The pope or the inquisitor?
**By Rabbi Moshe Reiss
The “modern” world is often called “secular”, as if “religion” is inconsistent with a modern world. These three words in quotations require understanding before we can discuss “fundamentalism”.
Modernity is a process developed from the Industrial Revolution. Alvin Toffler noted the way the process “shocked” the world (Future Shock). Modernity was required for the 20th century to become the most developed - in terms of health, education and reduced poverty - as well as the most murderous.
Secularism, an ideology, was introduced by the French Revolution, also a very bloody affair. Secularism came out of the enlightenment based on reason. In its origin, secularism was anti-religion; as Voltaire stated, “If God did not exist we would have to invent him.” It was long considered that religion and reason conflicted; the two can and do, in modernity, co-exist. Secularism as an ideology is similar in principle to capitalism, communism or democracy.
Secularism assumes a world that is neutral, detached, objective and sometimes rational. For a religious person, the world may operate that way and God still will be above it all. A religious person may, on the other hand, assume God is responsible for what happens to him, good or bad. Job assumed that; but for him, God had become devilish. Indeed, he was right - God did allow Satan to torment him (see the Book of Job Chapter 1).
Peter Berger, one of the outstanding sociologists of religion, once claimed the irreversibility of secularism (The Social Reality of Religion). He has more recently reversed himself, stating he had been wrong: the world “is as furiously religious as it ever was” (The Desecularization of the World). Harvey Cox, in his famous The Secular City, considers that “secularization is the liberation of man from religious and metaphysical tutelage, the turning of his attention away from other worlds and towards this one”.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel noted that while “it is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the collapse of religion in the modern society, it would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive and insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past, when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with a voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless” (God in Search of Man).
Pope John Paul II opposed US President George W Bush’s war in Iraq. (It is interesting, although perhaps irrelevant, that George Bush’s close brother Jeb, the governor of the state of Florida, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s wife are both Catholics.) Despite the pope’s position, he agreed to help the president retain the “key to his kingdom”. On Bush’s visit to Pope John Paul last June, he explained the importance of his right-wing Christian-oriented administration to Vatican officials. They agreed that despite the pope’s opposition to the war they would help Bush’s re-election campaign. Bush complained that not all the American bishops were with him. A week later Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger sent a letter to US Catholic bishops with a subtle but clear reference to John Kerry, the presidential candidate opposing Bush. It said that those Catholics who were pro-choice on abortion were committing a “grave sin” and must be denied communion. He pointedly mentioned “the case of a Catholic politician consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws”. It was obvious he was referring to Kerry, a Roman Catholic. If such a Catholic politician sought communion, Ratzinger wrote, priests must be ordered to “refuse” him. Any Catholic who voted for this “Catholic politician”, he continued, “would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil and so unworthy himself for Holy Communion” (National Catholic Reporter and Salon magazine).
**By Rabbi Moshe Reiss
The “modern” world is often called “secular”, as if “religion” is inconsistent with a modern world. These three words in quotations require understanding before we can discuss “fundamentalism”.
Modernity is a process developed from the Industrial Revolution. Alvin Toffler noted the way the process “shocked” the world (Future Shock). Modernity was required for the 20th century to become the most developed - in terms of health, education and reduced poverty - as well as the most murderous.
Secularism, an ideology, was introduced by the French Revolution, also a very bloody affair. Secularism came out of the enlightenment based on reason. In its origin, secularism was anti-religion; as Voltaire stated, “If God did not exist we would have to invent him.” It was long considered that religion and reason conflicted; the two can and do, in modernity, co-exist. Secularism as an ideology is similar in principle to capitalism, communism or democracy.
Secularism assumes a world that is neutral, detached, objective and sometimes rational. For a religious person, the world may operate that way and God still will be above it all. A religious person may, on the other hand, assume God is responsible for what happens to him, good or bad. Job assumed that; but for him, God had become devilish. Indeed, he was right - God did allow Satan to torment him (see the Book of Job Chapter 1).
Peter Berger, one of the outstanding sociologists of religion, once claimed the irreversibility of secularism (The Social Reality of Religion). He has more recently reversed himself, stating he had been wrong: the world “is as furiously religious as it ever was” (The Desecularization of the World). Harvey Cox, in his famous The Secular City, considers that “secularization is the liberation of man from religious and metaphysical tutelage, the turning of his attention away from other worlds and towards this one”.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel noted that while “it is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the collapse of religion in the modern society, it would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive and insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past, when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with a voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless” (God in Search of Man).
Pope John Paul II opposed US President George W Bush’s war in Iraq. (It is interesting, although perhaps irrelevant, that George Bush’s close brother Jeb, the governor of the state of Florida, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s wife are both Catholics.) Despite the pope’s position, he agreed to help the president retain the “key to his kingdom”. On Bush’s visit to Pope John Paul last June, he explained the importance of his right-wing Christian-oriented administration to Vatican officials. They agreed that despite the pope’s opposition to the war they would help Bush’s re-election campaign. Bush complained that not all the American bishops were with him. A week later Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger sent a letter to US Catholic bishops with a subtle but clear reference to John Kerry, the presidential candidate opposing Bush. It said that those Catholics who were pro-choice on abortion were committing a “grave sin” and must be denied communion. He pointedly mentioned “the case of a Catholic politician consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws”. It was obvious he was referring to Kerry, a Roman Catholic. If such a Catholic politician sought communion, Ratzinger wrote, priests must be ordered to “refuse” him. Any Catholic who voted for this “Catholic politician”, he continued, “would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil and so unworthy himself for Holy Communion” (National Catholic Reporter and Salon magazine).
