CHAPTER 13
THE SPACE-IN-BETWEEN
Previous chapters have demonstrated that the manifest dangers of religious ideas are not limited to extremist violence. Concepts at the heart of faith contribute to a catalogue of human woes. The same convictions that inspire compassion, commitment, and inclusivity can justify brutality, apathy, and intolerance. So at some point in the “Dangerous Religious Ideas” course, I find myself saying to students, “If you never wake up in the middle of the night with a deep dread, thinking that the world might be a better place without religion, you are not paying close enough attention.” But the fire that is religion is elemental—it cannot be “disappeared”—and it has to power to do wondrous things as well. Vivekananda was right.
The particular themes addressed in this volume represent only a few examples of the ways that religion is deeply embedded in human nature and society. Scripture supports the will to meaning in its fundamental structure, whether it is received as divine instruction or as human efforts to discern a path through the universe. Its power is palpable in the course of human history, whether it is invoked as a container of eternal truths with binding authority or a fount of inspiration with an inexhaustible store of teachings to be discovered. Scripture supports the construction of community in its crafting of a sacred story, and in shared rituals for recitation and re-experience, triggering emotions that strengthen bonds and catalyze collective action. It transmits values that can both shape and challenge cultural norms. Through narrative, command, and reflection, the texts transmit critical information for individuals to sort the infinite data set of existence, and they provide a model of community with rules for its mutual flourishing. Even spiritual traditions without a written canon that is considered sacred frequently have stories and sayings that fulfill many of these functions.
Concepts of chosenness and election, salvation and supersession, reward and punishment present a similar array of foundational human needs and capacities. It suggests why these cultural memes have been so successful in copying themselves and adapting through the generations. The Enlightenment led many people to believe that religion would fall by the wayside of human history, replaced by reason as our lodestar. But religion has proven to be resilient, repeatedly reforming and re-forming itself, including a continuing negotiation with reason that has been going on since antiquity. This gift for adaptation prompts certain critics to issue dire warnings about religion as an infection. Richard Dawkins, for example, described “faith as one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.”1
It is tempting to tweak the metaphor and argue that religion is instead more like bacteria: important for healthy human functioning with astounding curative powers (think penicillin), even though it can also run amok. But I am grateful for the critique. We need to be far more rigorous in investigating the cellular structure of our religious ideas. Although there are plenty of humanist voices that engage religion more constructively than Dawkins, I require my “Dangerous Religious Ideas” students to read his book or one of the other “new atheists.” Sikivu Hutchinson and Hector Avalos are generally more nuanced than the usual collection of white men—e.g., Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens—but they all create comparable struggles for my students, who are aghast that the arguments do not generally distinguish between liberal and fundamentalist expressions of religion. As David Hollinger catalogued this objection, “Can these writers not distinguish between Methodists and morons?”2
Apparently not. The entirety of religion is considered, at best, superstitious nonsense. More trenchantly, progressive religious voices are characterized as some of the many heads sustaining a murderous Hydra that spits venom into the human psyche and body politic, multiplying repression and inequity. I instruct my students not to deny or disprove the critique, but rather to utilize its strongest arguments to improve the religious project. I ask them to take seriously the accusation that our ideal of religious tolerance leads toward uncritical protection of rotten ideas and that moderates perpetuating even refined notions of scripture, election, or religion itself also enable those who wield them as weapons. And I tell them to dig out the dangers lurking in their own closets, because they are there. As discussed in the introduction to this book, the purest states of metals and ideas are not found in nature; they are always mixed with other substances. What makes religion a powerful force for good is to a large extent that which makes it potentially dangerous as well.
The detailed thematic treatments in parts II and III illustrate the traditions’ multivocality and dynamism and reveal their capacity for incisive self-critique. The discussions are not designed as an exercise in apologetics, however. They do not simply argue that scripture can be holy without being hateful, or that election can be imagined in ways that do not denigrate or damn vast swaths of humanity. Each section begins by elucidating the particular threats entrenched within a foundational religious concept because all religious ideas are potentially dangerous and we cannot refine our ideas unless we see that. As with fire, it requires vigilance to prevent accidental harm and deliberate abuse. The deep roots of self-critical faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam present both a gift and an obligation.
Our own religious teaching should consistently be processed through the crucible of rigorous self-examination. We need to recognize how our texts, teachings, and practices have implications for others, in themselves and as echoes of historical interpretations. Examples abound: Are tithing expectations economically just? Do teachings of forgiveness put a dangerous burden on abused partners? How does our fundamental conception of religion continue to disadvantage indigenous traditions so they do not enjoy the same protections?
We should also be willing to subject other people’s religious ideas to the same kind of critical scrutiny. The First Amendment protects people from government establishment and government interference in the free exercise of religion.3 It does not require that we smile politely as people deploy their faiths in ways we consider harmful. Undermining science, marginalizing women and LGBTQ+ individuals, justifying legal discrimination—these interpretations cannot take shelter in freedom of religion or our commitment to tolerance. Instead, we must call out the peril and fight harder to establish meanings we see as liberative. “You will know them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:16, from a passage with a contested history of its own), by the real impact they have in the world. Critical reflection does not guarantee, of course, that the resulting perspective upholds an objective standard. Rather, it represents a subjective voice in the ongoing construction of religious meaning. But the power of religion is too great merely to hope it is channeled to do good.
The idea of managing religious diversity primarily through silence may seem logical, but it promotes religious ignorance and ignorance ultimately breeds suspicion. Civil debates in public theology advance deeper understanding of texts, beliefs, and praxis. Alongside interreligious engagement of all sorts, they can develop literacy in and appreciation for diverse lifestances, and cultivate fruitful relationships between people who orient around religion differently. They reveal shared struggles across traditions, and help to clarify commitments as we work together for the common good. They illuminate the broad intrafaith diversity that exists, with the most important arguments unfolding, not between secularists and believers nor between different traditions battling for dominance but between adherents of the same faith contesting for the soul of their religion.
Encouraging debate about religious ideas certainly carries dangers of its own, but to ask tough questions is not to belittle. It is not an invitation to demonstrate religious bigotry or reengage in medieval battles between claimants of the “true faith.” Pointing out the critical distinction between condemn and contemn, Cathleen Kaveny urged a public discourse that is not afraid to express strong disapproval, without characterizing opponents as despicable.4
It can be perplexing to determine how to respond when we encounter a dangerous religious idea in real time. Diana Eck offered a strategy that recognizes the diverse registers of our “voice.” Commenting on a prayer guide published by Southern Baptists that described Hindus as lost in total darkness, she wrote:
As a scholar of Hinduism, I must say you have seriously misrepresented the Hindu tradition . . . and I would be happy to speak with you about where I think your portrayal is misleading. As an American and fellow citizen, however, I will defend your right to believe and practice Christianity as you do, to believe the worst about our Hindu neighbors, to believe they are all going to hell, and to say so, both privately and publicly. But as a Christian, let me challenge you here, for I believe that your views of our neighbors are not well grounded in the Gospel of Christ, as I understand it.5
She did not disparage the Southern Baptists, but she challenged them, asserting her scholarly expertise and moral conviction. She did not claim to speak for all of Christianity, but she staked her ground. Careful deployment of our multiple voices can help navigate the difficult terrain, affirming freedom of religion without silently tolerating intolerance. Vigorous religious argument has been a vital part of the intellectual and political history of the West for centuries, and it continues to play a role in academic and theological discussions. As religion is increasingly inserted into the public square, however, it seems necessary to broaden this tradition.
Why does the history of interpretation matter in this work? As a scholar of scriptural exegesis, I appreciate the historical conversation for its own sake, delighting in recovering voices from the past and exploring ways they may still shine a light on our present. More importantly, the dynamism and multiplicity of interpretations expand the space between dismissing religious ideas as hopelessly problematic or embracing them uncritically. Peter Ochs spoke of giving religious texts “both the benefit of the doubt and the benefit of doubt.” With the former, he attached value to scriptural meaning as transmitted by believing communities. With the latter, he sifted this inheritance through application of philosophical, historical, and textual/rhetorical criticism.6 Collectively, the interpretations mediate between past and present. Gadamer explained that the distance between us and a text from centuries ago “is not a yawning abyss, but is filled with the continuity of custom and tradition, in the light of which everything handed down presents itself to us.”7 We are inescapably effected by sacred text and the ways it has been understood; our religious ideas of today are shaped by our spiritual genealogy. In reconstructing parts of this family tree, we acquire an essential tool in the work of critique, inwardly and outwardly directed. In exploring the “surplus of meaning”8 embedded in scripture and tradition, expanding our understanding of the past, we also open new possibilities for the future.
People do not easily let go of expectations, however. Faulkner’s insight that “the past is never dead. It’s not even past” is particularly true when it comes to religion. In many synagogues, there is a Hebrew phrase carved above the ark that translates, “Know before Whom you stand.” One of the professors in my rabbinical school, working to reimagine the synagogue for the twenty-first century, used to joke that people often behave as if it says, “But we’ve always done it this way.” He was urging congregations to design a different future, to swim in the stream of tradition but carve out new directions that renegotiate its boundaries. This, too, expands the space between discarding religion as irrelevant and resisting necessary change.
The space-in-between investigates the irreducible interconnectedness of religious ideas with the story of humanity, contending with those secularists who are still hoping for the Enlightenment to finish the job and do away with religion. The space-in-between acknowledges how the powers of religious ideas for good and ill are bound together, reckoning unafraid with dangers at the heart of faith. It excavates ones we might not readily see, challenging the facile notion sometimes held in progressive quarters that the necessary work of refinement is already complete. The space-in-between embraces ambiguity and confronts those who want to wield scripture’s authority as their own. It refutes people who assume a text or a theological concept must inevitably mean what they imagine it means. Religious ideas have never “always” meant anything; they have been fluid, multiple, and contested.
The space-in-between highlights the traditions’ long history of self-critique, disputing those who assert that their beliefs cannot be questioned. Change is not heresy and criticism is not blasphemy. The seeds for penetrating and ongoing assessment of religious ideas were planted long ago, integral to the blossoming of faith. This is the litmus that properly distinguishes contemporary camps, not religious identity or degree of orthodoxy but the willingness to grapple substantively with the potential harm their ideas may inflict. Dislodging assumptions about meaning and constructing a conduit for critical inquiry, the history of interpretation resists the binary reductionism of the digital age that allows people to decide that religion is all good or all bad. Traditionally rooted and radically engaged, the collection of religious voices certainly substantiates the dangers of religious ideas. Yet it also initiates a complementary discourse that brings religious wisdom and insight to enhance public discussion in pursuit of the common good.