Sacralization of Political Power as an Obstacle to Global Peace

References (59)

1. Ibid, 4.
2. Andrew M. Greeley, Unsecular Man: The Persistence of Religion. (New York: Schocken Books, 1972).
3. Ernst Cassirer, The Myth of The State (London: Oxford University Press, 1946).
4. Andrew Vincent, Theories of the State (Blackwell, Oxford 1987).
5. I have dealt with this issue elsewhere: Ali Çaksu, "Causality in History: Ibn Khaldun's and Hegel's Transformation of Aristotelian Causes" (unpublished doctoral dissertation, ISTAC 1999, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). For a study on internalization of God, see Emil L. Fackenheim, The God Within: Kant, Schelling, and Historicity (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996).
6. Philip Abrams, "Notes on the Difficulty of Studying the State", Jo- urnal of Historical Society vol. 1 no. 1 (March 1988).
7. Michael Taussig, The Nervous System (London: Routledge 1991).
8. Carlton J. H. Hayes, Nationalism: A Religion (New York: Macmi- llan, 1960). He was among the first to elaborate nationalism as a form of "secular religion."
9. Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism and Modernism: A Critical Survey of Recent Theories of Nations and Nationalism, (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), 98.
10. Malcolm Humble, "The Unknown Soldier and the Return of the Fa- llen: The Political Dimension of Mourning in German Texts from the First World War to the Present", The Modern Language Review, Vol. 93, No. 4 (Oct., 1998), 1034. This article which deals with the notion of "unknown soldier" in German literary and political texts also includes its relation to the passion of the Christ as well as Hitler's portrayal as the "unknown soldier" or "nameless soldier."
11. George Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 99.
12. George L. Mosse, "National Cemeteries and National Revival: The Cult of the Fallen Soldiers in Germany", Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Jan., 1979), 2.
13. Ibid. 7. Pois argues that in Mein Kampf Hitler "deified nature, and identified God (or Providence) with it". Robert A. Pois, "Man in the Natural World: Some Implications of the Nationalist-Socialist Reli- gion", Political symbolism in Modern Europe: Essays in Honor of George L. Mosse, Seymour Drescher, David Sabean and Allan Shar- lin (eds) (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Books, 1982), 259.
14. Michael Ignatieff, "Soviet War Memorials", History Workshop, No. 17 (Spring, 1984), 158.
15. Michael Ignatieff, "Soviet War Memorials", 160. Ignatieff points out another interesting function of war memorials. For him, the di- version of resources from domestic to military purposes requires constant justification. It cannot be justified with public argument. "In the absence of legitimation by public debate, the Soviet military build-up is justified with symbols. War memorials are the churches of the Soviet military build-up." Ibid., 161.
16. Malcolm Humble, "The Unknown Soldier and the Return of the Fa- llen", 1037.
17. Sean A. Forner, "War Commemoration and the Republic in Crisis: Weimar Germany and the Neue Wache", Central European History, Vol. 35, No. 4 (2002), 548.
18. James M. Mayo, "War Memorials as Political Memory", Geogra- phical Review, Vol. 78, No. 1 (Jan., 1988), 67.
19. In fact the relationship is reciprocal. For the transformation of three sacred cities by nationalism in the modern world, see Khaldoun Samman, Cities of God and Nationalism: Mecca, Jerusalem, and Rome as Contested World Cities (Boulder and London: Paradigm Publishers, 2007).
20. Smith, "The 'Sacred' Dimension of Nationalism", 810-11.
21. Commenting on the new political religion of Hitler Germany which adapted much of the traditional Christian liturgy and also went back into pagan times for some of its associations, Mosse states that "the new politics can be regarded as one successful way in which this sacred space was filled: with parades, marches, gymnastic exercises, and dances, as well as ritual speeches." George L. Mosse, The Na- tionalisation of the Masses (New York: Howard Fertig, 1975), 208.
22. Paul Tillich calls nationalism as a secular religion or quasi-religion in his Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1963), Chapter 1.
23. See Arthur Koestler's discussion of "communism as a religion" in Richard Crossman (ed.), The God That Failed. (New York, Harper and Brothers. 1950), 15-75.
24. 88 Thomas Luckmann, The Invisible Religion: The Problem of Reli- gion in Modern Society (New York: Macmillan, 1967). The original is Das Problem der Religion in der Modernen Gesellschaft (Frei- burg: Rombach, 1963).
25. Edward Bailey (ed.), The Secular Quest for Meaning in Life: Denton Papers in Implicit Religion (Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2002)
26. 90 For quasi-religious movements, see Charles Y. Glock and Robert N. Bellah (eds.), The New Religious Consciousness (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: Univer sity of California Press, 1976).
27. See for instance, Ronald Beiner, "Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Rous- seau on Civil Religion", The Review of Politics, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Au- tumn, 1993);
28. and Diane Fourny, "Rousseau's Civil Religion Recon- sidered", The French Review, Vol. 60, No. 4 (Mar., 1987).
29. The phrase "civil religion" comes from Rousseau. In Chapter 8, Book 4, of The Social Contract, he outlines the simple dogmas of the civil religion. Rousseau's argument was intended as a challenge to the Platonic idea of a "civic religion" which was based on strict state control and explicit dogma. Rousseau preferred a purely civil religious faith that would support the social order.
30. For instance, Emile Durkheim (1961) and W. Lloyd Warner (1962) discussed the concept of civil religion in society.
31. Robert N. Bellah, "Civil Religion in America", Daedalus, Vol. 96, No. 1, Religion in America (Winter, 1967).
32. For an early evaluation of that literature, see James A. Mathisen, "Twenty Years after Bellah: Whatever Happened to American Civil Religion?", Sociological Analysis, Vol. 50, No. 2, Thematic Issue: A Durkheimian Miscellany (Summer, 1989).
33. "Detailed sociological research has tended to confirm Bellah's in- sight that civil religion is a distinct cultural component within Ame- rican society that is not captured either by party politics or by deno- minational religiosity. Americans do, indeed, affirm civil religious beliefs, even though most of them would not recognize the label." Michael Angrosino, "Civil Religion Redux", Anthropological Quar- terly, Vol. 75, No. 2 (Spring, 2002), 259.
34. For Thomas and Flippen "a well-defined thesis of civil religion may be more the creation (and fantasy) of the liberal political intellectual
35. Michael Novak, "The Influence of Judaism and Christianity on the American Founding", Religion and the New Republic: Faith in the Founding of America, ed. James H. Hutson (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield 2000), 165.
36. Angrosino, "Civil Religion Redux", 248-9.
37. David Chidester, Patterns of Power: Religion and Politics in Ameri- can Culture, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall 1988, 83.
38. Angrosino, "Civil Religion Redux", 255-6.
39. Chidester, Patterns of Power, 96.
40. Bob Dylan's Vietnam-era protest song, "With God on Our Side," is perhaps the most famous pop cultural critique of the attitude that the institutions of the state were not, in fact, expansive systems of symbols but actually embodiments of a divine will that could not be challenged: "The reason for fighting / I never got straight / But I learned to ac- cept it / Accept it with pride / For you don't count the dead / When God's on your side / ... And you never ask questions / When God's on your side." http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/with-god-on-our- side (last visited on 27 February 2012).
41. See John M. Murphy, ""Our Mission and Our Moment": George W. Bush and September 11th", Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Vol. 6, No. 4, 2003. Lincoln's observation about the religious nature of Bush's po- licies is very interesting and provides a good case for civil religion: "Although he fosters the impression that his policies are grounded in deep religious conviction, the reality is often the reverse. Vague notions and attractive terms such as compassion, history, and free- dom are given rhetorical, sometimes even intellectual, coherence by his staff. Bush may resonate to some of the ideas and some of the language they prepare for him, but for the most part he uses the- se to justify policies that have already been decided on quite other grounds. Preemptive wars, abridgments of civil liberty, cuts in social service, subsidies to churches, and other like initiatives are not just wrapped in the flag; together with the flag, they are swathed in the holy." Bruce Lincoln, 'Bush's God Talk", Political Theologies: Public Re- ligions in a Post-Secular World, eds. Hent de Vries and Lawrence E. Sullivan (NY: Frodham University Press, 2006), 276.
42. In fact, Bellah drew in 1967 our attention to the dangers of distortion of civil religion at home and abroad. For instance, with respect to America's role in the world: "Those nations that are for the moment "on our side" become "the free world."… It is then part of the role of America as the New Jerusalem and "the last hope of earth" to defend such governments with treasure and eventually with blood. When our soldiers are actually dying, it becomes possible to consecrate the struggle further by invoking the great theme of sacrifice." Bellah, "Civil Religion in America", 111-12.
43. 118 For an argument that the United States relied on military prowess for national development, see Geoffrey Perret, A Country Made by War: From the Revolution to Vietnam -the Story of America's Rise to Power (New York: Random House, 1990). The author states that he "placed the nation's nine major wars and other armed conflicts in their truest context, the evolution of American life" (p. X).
44. See below footnotes 124 and 125.
45. Carolyn Marvin and David W. Ingle, "Blood Sacrifice and the Na- tion: Revisiting Civil Religion", 774.
46. Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 32.
47. Kathryn A. Manzo, Creating Boundaries: The Politics of Race and Nation (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1996), 42.
48. Alan Davies, The Crucified Nation: A Motif in Modern Nationalism (Brighton and Portland: Sussex Academic Press, 2008).
49. Note that Franklin H. Littell, a Christian historian, entitled his book on the holocaust The Crucifixion of the Jews (New York: Harper and Row, 1975).
50. Only few dwell on the civil religion in Muslim lands. This consti- tutes an interesting topic, as its premises are expected to be quite different from those countries with Christian background. In fact, the present author has a research in progress which deals with the recent transformation of Turkish civil religion. Prophet of Islam (Karachi: Begum Aisha Bawany Waqf, 1981).
51. For instance, see The World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace: http://www.imamsetrabbins.org (last visited on 27 February 2012).
52. Daniel L. Smith-Christopher (ed.), Subverting Hatred: The Cha- llenge of Nonviolence in Religious Traditions (Cambridge: Bos- ton Research Center for the 21 st Century, 1998);
53. David R. Smock, Perspectives on Pacifism: Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Views on Nonviolence and International Conflict (Washington, D.C.: Unites States Institute of Peace Press, 1995); and J. Patout Burns, War and Its Discontents: Pacifism and Quietism in the Abrahamic Traditions (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1996).
54. R. Scott Appleby, The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Vio- lence, and Reconciliation (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publis- hers, 2000).
55. J. William Frost, A History of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim Perspectives on War and Peace, vol. I: The Bible to 1914, vol II: A Century of Wars (Lewiston, N.Y.: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2004).
56. Terry Nardin, The Ethics of War and Peace: Religious and Secular Perspectives (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).
57. To cite just three recent works, see Jacob Neusner, Religious Foun- dations of Western Civilization: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005);
58. Richard W. Bulliet, The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004); and Theodore M. Ludwig, The Sacred Paths of the West (NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006) which includes Islam as one of the three religious traditions that have shaped the Western world.
59. R. Scott Appleby, The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Vio- lence, and Reconciliation (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publis- hers, 2000), 232.