In God’s name A special report on religion and public life l November 3rd 2007

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In God’s name Also in this section

O come all ye faithful God is denitely not dead, but He now comes in many more varieties. Page 4

The power of private prayer A heretical thought about religion in Europe. Page 6

The new wars of religion An old menace has returned, but in very dierent forms. Page 8

Holy depressing Religious politics at its worst. Page 10

Bridging the divide The world’s most religious country is still battling with its demons. Page 11 Religion will play a big role in this century’s politics. John Micklethwait asks how we should deal with it

Back to the Ottomans HE four-hour journey through the whose signs promising immediate re- Why Turkey matters so much to Islam. Page 12 Tbush from Kano to Jos in northern Ni- demption dominate the roadside. By the geria features many of the staples of Afri- time you reach Jos and see a poster pro- can life: checkpoints with greedy soldiers, claiming the ABC of nourishment, you Stop in the name huge potholes, scrawny children in foot- are surprised to discover it is for chocolate. Religion and modernity have a love-hate ball shirts drying rice on the road. But it is Recently Christians have been return- relationship. Page 15 also a journey along a front-line. ing to Kano, partly because sharia law Nigeria, evenly split between Chris- (which in any case applies only to Mus- The lesson from America tians and Muslims, is a country where peo- lims) has been introduced sympatheti- ple identify themselves by their religion cally. None of the bloodier sentences has The superpower has mastered the politics of rst and as Nigerians second (see chart 1, been carried out. Indeed, the election in religion at home, but not abroad. next page). Around 20,000 have been April was settled in a reassuringly secular Page 17 killed in God’s name since 1990, estimates waywith the local political barons swap- Shehu Sani, a local chronicler of religious ping cash and ballot papers in the bunga- violence. Kano, the centre of the Islamic low of the Prince Hotel. north, introduced sharia law seven years Yet it would not take much for things to Acknowledgments In addition to the people named in this report, the author ago. Many of the Christians who ed boil over again. The Muslim north resents would like to thank the following for their help: Mustafa ended up in Jos, the capital of Plateau state, the Christian south’s hogging of Nigeria’s Akyol, Ali Carkoglu, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Murl Manohar where the Christian south begins. The oil money. When earlier this year the shad- Joshi, Acharya Giriraj Kishore, Rajnath Singh, Arun Jait- ley, Shiv Shankar Menon, Karan Singh, Jairam Ramesh, road between the two towns is dotted owy Black Taliban struck a police station Salman Khurshid, M.J. Akbar, Father Cedric Prakash, Sir with competing churches and mosques. in Kano, around 20 militants were killed. Evelyn de Rothschild, Catherine Lee, Ahn Jaewoong, Yu This is one of many religious battle- In September Muslim youths set shops on Jaegun, You Seungmin, Lee Junghoon, Audu Grema, Sheik Umar Sunifagge, Mohammed Zubairu, Bala A. Muhammad, elds in this part of Africa. Evangelical re after rumours that a Christian teacher Elizabeth Dickinson, Peter Nanle, Randall Balmer, Paul Christians, backed by American collec- in the area had drawn a cartoon of the Pro- Kennedy, Charles Hill, Andrew Walsh, Michael Novak, Mi- tion-plate money, are surging northwards, phet Muhammad. And the missionaries chael Cromartie, Robert Royal, Efraim Halevy, Yedidia Stern, Nicholas Pelham, Erel Margalit, Aharon Barak, El- clashing with Islamic fundamentalists, are still pushing provocatively north. Sa- isheva Barak, Gidi Grinstein, Nuha Musleh, Aliza Olmert, backed by Saudi petrodollars, surging lihu Garba, a prominent Muslim convert to Meir Shalev, Diana Buttu, Noga Tarnopolsky, Iyad Bargh- southwards. And the Christian-Muslim Christianity (who has survived various outi, Salam Fayyad, Shlomo Ben-Ami, Shulamit Aloni, Da- vid Landau and Yoram Turbowicz. split is only one form of religious compe- assassination attempts), claims that the tition in northern Nigeria. Events in Iraq Evangelical Church of West Africa now A list of sources is at have set Sunnis, who make up most of Ni- has 157 churches in Kano statedouble the www.economist.com/specialreports geria’s Muslims, against the better-organ- number ve years ago. ised Shias; about 50 people have died in in- The journey from Kano to Jos may tra-Muslim violence, reckons Mr Sani. On seem a trip back in time. In fact, religious An audio interview with the author is at the Christian side, Catholics are in a more front-lines criss-cross the globe. www.economist.com/audio peaceful battle with Protestant evangelists, Most obviously, Americans and Brit-1 2 A special report on religion and public life The Economist November 3rd 2007

2 ons would not be dying in Iraq and Af- an eternal subject has become fashion- ghanistan had 19 young Muslims not at- Faith conquers all 1 able. Father Richard John Neuhaus points tacked the United States in the name of Nigerians’ views by religion, % of total out that when he founded his Centre for Allah. The West’s previous great military Muslims Christians Religion and Society in 1984, there were interventions were to protect Muslims in only four centres of religion and public life % saying their religion, nationality or their Bosnia and Kosovo from Orthodox Serbs continent is most important to them in America; now, he thinks, there are more and Catholic Croatians. America’s next than 200. Religious people are getting war could be against the Islamic Republic 0 20406080100 more vocal in all sorts of elds, including of Iran. Other conicts have acquired a Religion business. Religion is also cropping up in new religious edge. In the poisonous war economics. Niall Ferguson, a Scottish his- over Palestine, ever more people are claim- Nationality torian, re-examined Max Weber’s theory ing God on their side (with some of the of the Protestant work ethic to explain most zealous sorts living miles away from Continent why Europeans work less than Americans. the conict). In Myanmar (Burma) Bud- dhist monks nearly brought down an evil Opinion of the US The garden of Eden regime, but in Sri Lanka they have pro- 0 20 40 60 80 100 Philip Jenkins, one of America’s best longed a bloody conict with Muslims. If scholars of religion, claims that when his- Favourable India has an election, a bridge to Sri Lanka torians look back at this century, they will supposedly built by the god Ram (and a Unfavourable probably see religion as the prime ani- team of monkeys) may matter as much as mating and destructive force in human af- a nuclear deal with America. US fight against terrorism fairs, guiding attitudes to political liberty Formerly communist countries are also 0 20 40 60 80 100 and obligation, concepts of nationhood getting hooked again on the opium of the In favour and, of course, conicts and wars. If the people. Russia’s secret police, the KGB, rst seven years are anything to go by, Mr hounded religion: its successor, the FSB, Oppose Jenkins may well turn out to be right. has its own Orthodox church opposite its Sympathise more with Israel or Palestinians What has changed? The main protago- headquarters. In the Polish parliament the 0 20 40 60 80 100 nists are oddly unhelpful in providing ex- speaker crosses himself before taking his planations. Believers usually produce Israel seat. Some of China’s technocrats think some version of you can’t repress the that Confucianism, which Mao con- Palestinians truth for ever. Sociologists point out that

demned as feudal, is useful social glue in Sources: “Spirit and Power: A 10-country survey of Pentecostals” outside western Europe most people have their fast-changing country. But they bru- Pew Global Attitudes project poll, Pew Forum on Religion always been religious. Peter Berger, the tally repressed a Buddhist sect, the Falun and Public Life, October 2006 dean of the subject, chides journalists for Gong, and they are worried that Christian investigating the religious rule, not the sec- churchgoers may already outnumber thought since the Enlightenment that mo- ular exception: Rather than studying Communist Party members. dernitythat heady combination of sci- American evangelicals and Islamic mul- In Western politics, too, religion has ence, learning and democracywould kill lahs, you should look at Swedes and New forced itself back into the public square. religion. Plainly, this has not happened. England college professors. The American president begins each day Numbers about religious observance are Yet even if underlying piety has not on his knees and each cabinet meeting notoriously untrustworthy, but most of changed that much, religion’s role in pub- with a prayer. The easiest way to tell a Re- them seem to indicate that any drift to- lic life plainly has. Only ten years ago, most publican from a Democrat is to ask how of- wards secularism has been halted, and academics and politicians would have dis- ten he or she goes to church. And although some show religion to be on the increase. missed Mr Jenkins’s claim about religion European liberals sneer about American The proportion of people attached to the being central to politics as weird. theocracy, American conservatives claim world’s four biggest religionsChristian- After all, for much of the 20th century that secular, childless Europe is turning ity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduismrose religion was banished from politics. For into Eurabia. from 67% in 1900 to 73% in 2005 and may most elites, God had been undone by Dar- Many secular intellectuals think that reach 80% by 2050 (see chart 2, next page). win, dismissed by Marx, deconstructed by the real clash of civilisations is not be- Moreover, from a secularist point of Freud. Stalin forcibly ejected Him, but in tween dierent religions but between su- view, the wrong sorts of religion are our- much of western Europe there was no perstition and modernity. A succession of ishing, and in the wrong places. In general, need for force: religion had been on the bestselling books have torn into religion it is the tougher versions of religion that slide for centuries. In Britain the long Sam Harris’s The End of Faith, Richard are doing bestthe sort that claim Adam withdrawing roar of Anglicanism that Dawkins’s The God Delusion and Chris- and Eve met 6,003 years ago. Some of the Matthew Arnold lamented faded to a dis- topher Hitchens’s God is not GreatHow new converts are from the ranks of the un- tant echo in the 20th century. Religion Poisons Everything. This coun- derprivileged (Pentecostalism has spread In America the number of churchgoers terattack already shows a religious inten- rapidly in the favelas of Brazil), but many stayed high, but evangelical Christians re- sity. Mr Dawkins has set up an organisa- are not. American evangelicals tend to be treated from politics, embarrassed by the tion to help atheists around the world. well-educated and well-o. In India and failure of prohibition and the Scopes Mon- Part of that secular fury, especially in Turkey religious parties have been driven key trial (in which creationists were Europe, comes from exasperation. After by the up-and-coming bourgeoisie. mocked). In 1960 Jack Kennedy assured all, it has been a canon of progressive With modernity now religion’s friend, the country that his Catholicism would1 The Economist November 3rd 2007 A special report on religion and public life 3

2 not pollute his politics. In 1966 Time maga- Marxism, and capitalism had also hit condent of the Almighty’s demise that zine famously ran a cover asking Is God some buers (the oil shocks, hyperina- we published His obituary in our millen- dead?; three years later man reached the tion). More generally, politicians’ ability to nium issue. Madeleine Albright recalls a moon, metaphorically conquering the solve problems such as crime or unem- meeting at the State Department about heavens. ployment was questioned: faith in govern- Northern Ireland in the late 1990s when a For modernising post-colonial leaders ment tumbled just about everywhere in diplomat asked despairingly: Who in the developing world, secularism and the 1970sand has stayed low since. would believe that we would be dealing progress were indivisible. The fez, said But why has religion’s power seemed with a religious conict near the end of the Kemal Ataturk, sat upon our heads as a to keep on increasing? The rst reason is a 20th century? sign of ignorance and fanaticism. In India series of reactions and counter-reactions. September 11th has changed that. A de- Jawaharlal Nehru wished to make a clean Fundamentalist Islam, for instance, has cade ago, a proposal by the CIA to study re- sweep of organised religion: almost al- helped spur radical Judaism and Hindu- ligion was vetoed as mere sociology; ways it seems to stand for blind belief and ism, which in turn have reinforced the that would not happen now. But mistakes reaction, dogma and bigotry, superstition mullahs’ fervour. Hamas owes much to Is- are still made. When America went into and exploitation and the preservation of rael’s settlers. Without Falwell, Messrs Iraq, people worried about George Bush’s vested interests. In Egypt Gamal Abdel Hitchens and Dawkins would have God-directed foreign policy; in fact it Nasser, the champion of Arab national- smaller royalties. would have helped if Donald Rumsfeld et ism, clamped down on the Muslim Broth- Second, the latest form of modernity al had understood more about religion erhood. Africa’s new rulers nationalised globalisationhas propelled religion for- especially the dierence between Shias the Christian mission schools that had ward. For traditionalists, faith has acted as and Sunnis. Everywhere we look, we taught them. Even the Jewish state a barrier against change. For prosperous have religious problems, admits one deemed religion a distraction: after Israel’s suburbanites, faith has become something (born-again) member of the Bush team. founding in 1948 the secular David Ben- of a lifestyle coach. It is no accident that And it is not just Islam. There are the Or- Gurion agreed that rabbinical law would America’s bestselling religious book is thodox in Russia, Hindu nationalism in In- prevail in matters such as marriage and di- called The Purpose Driven Life. dia, Christians in Chinathe list is long. vorce partly because he assumed the Or- The other group struggling to deal with thodox would melt away. A hitch for the Hitch religion’s role in public life are liberals. In retrospect, the turning point came Whatever the exact cause, two groups of When religious belief is plainly unreason- long before Osama bin Laden declared his people in particular have struggled to ablefor instance, when schools teach cre- jihad on Jews and Crusaders. For Timothy come to terms with this new world. The ationismit is easy to ght. But in many Shah, a scholar at the Council on Foreign rst is politicians, especially practitioners disputes there are liberal answers on both Relations in New York who is writing a of foreign policy. Realpolitik does not eas- sides. Those who are embracing religion book on secularism, the symbolic turning ily cope with the irrational. For instance, nowadays are doing so out of choice. Is it point was the six-day war of 1967. It religion does not appear in the index of liberal to stop a British Airways worker marked a crushing defeat for secular pan- Diplomacy, Henry Kissinger’s 900-page from wearing a crucix? Whose rights are Arabism; meanwhile Israel’s miraculous masterpiece on statesmanship (a mistake, being infringed when a majority of people triumph gave God a stronger voice in its admits the former secretary of state, who on a Turkish bus ask the driver to stop so politics, emboldening the settler move- now sees some depressing similarities they can pray? ment. In the same year a Hindu nationalist with 17th-century Europe). A schism in Western liberalism that party won 9.4% of the vote in India. Mr Kissinger is not alone. Before Sep- dates back to its two founding revolutions By the end of the 1970s this counter- tember 11th 2001, most big books (with seems to have reopened. In France, where revolution was in full swing. America had the exception of Samuel Huntington’s the Catholic church was the sole faith, the elected its rst proudly born-again Chris- Clash of Civilisations) predicted a secu- revolutionnaires detested God as a crucial tian, Jimmy Carter; Jerry Falwell had lar end to history. The Economist was so part of the ancien régime: politics, they de- founded the Moral Majority; Iran had re- clared, henceforth would be protected placed the worldly shah with Ayatollah from this evil. By contrast, America’s Khomeini; Zia ul Haq was busy Islamising What the world believes 2 Founding Fathers, used to many compet- Pakistan; Buddhism had been formally Population by religion, bn % of total ing faiths, took a more benign view. They granted the foremost place in Sri Lanka’s population, 2005 divided church from state not least to pro- constitution; and an anti-communist Pole 4 tect the former from the latter. had become head of the Catholic church. Christians FORECAST This special report is an attempt to tease What caused this shift? Believers inev- Muslims 33 out these conicts. It comes with three 3 itably see a populist revolt against the Hindus health warnings. First, many numbers in overreach of elitist secularismbe it Amer- Buddhists 21 religion are dodgy: most churches inate ica’s Supreme Court legalising pornogra- 2 their support and many governments do phy or Indira Gandhi harrying Hindus. not record religion in their censuses (in Ni- 13 From a more secular viewpoint, John 1 geria the best source is health records). Sec- Lewis Gaddis, a Yale historian, points out ond, in a eld where many believers claim that much religious politics dates back to 6 to know all the answers, it poses mainly the 1970s, a time when more worldly 0 questions. And lastly, given the emotion isms seemed to fail. By then, the Soviet 1900 25 50 75 2000 25 50 the subject arouses, the chances are that Union’s evils had made a mockery of Source: World Christian Database some of what follows will oend you. 7 4 A special report on religion and public life The Economist November 3rd 2007

O come all ye faithful

God is denitely not dead, but He now comes in many more varieties

ENTION a megachurch and most cal and unrelenting. His theme today is ical equivalents, will multiply. Women are Mpeople think of a gleaming building Deliver us from the Evil One. crucial. Mr Cho’s right-hand woman was in the American suburbs. In fact, many of Sin and Satan are omnipresent, he ar- his mother-in-law, Jashil Choi, a gure the biggest churches are outside the United gues, but if you ignore their enticements, known as Hallelujah Mama. Today States. In Guatemala, Pentecostals have your grave is already empty. As he cites Yoido boasts 68,000 female deacons built what may be the largest building in scripture, the passages appear on the big twice the number of male ones. A typical Central America: Mega Frater (Big Brother) television screens. Mr Cho urges the libera- evangelist will make 35 visits a week and packs a 12,000-seater church, a vast bap- tion of North Korea and quotes Edward drink an unhealthy amount of coee in tism pool and a heliport. One church in La- Gibbon. He then invites people to touch the process. gos can supposedly bring 2m people out the part of their body that most needs This sort of viral marketing might onto the streets. But ve of the world’s ten healing. There are shouts of success. After seem untraditional to those used to bish- biggest megachurches are in just one coun- he sits down, a young opera singer per- ops, cardinals and popes. In fact, Christian- try: South Korea. forms while the money is collectedby the ity advanced from an obscure sect to the The largest of them all, Yoido Full Gos- sackful in gold and scarlet bagsand piled ocial religion of the Roman empire by fo- pel Church, sits opposite the national as- up in front of the pulpit. cusing on women. Christians stressed - sembly in Seoul, an astute piece of politi- delity and marriage, which attracted cal positioning. It looks somewhat Divide and multiply women to the faith, who then bore Chris- unprepossessinga brownish blob sur- To Mr Cho’s critics, Yoido, like many mega- tian babies. rounded by oce buildingsbut Yoido churches, is too much of a business nowa- The Protestant surge in South Korea has boasts 830,000 members, a number it says days; and there was a fuss to do with his slowed down a bit recently, a develop- is rising by 3,000 a month. One in 20 peo- son running the church’s newspaper, Ko- ment which is variously blamed on ple in greater Seoul is a member. rea’s fourth-largest. Yet its beginnings were changes in school laws and the abuses of Each of the seven Sunday services at humble. Mr Cho, who was converted to some clerical families. Even so, the growth Yoido is a logistical challenge: apart from Pentecostalism from Buddhism by his has been phenomenal. In 1950 only 2.4% the 12,000 people in the main sanctuary, nurse after he nearly died of tuberculosis, of South Koreans were Protestant. Now the another 20,000 follow the service on tele- founded Yoido in 1956 in a battered $50 gure is close to 20%. Counting Catholics vision in overow chapels scattered tent bought from the Marine Corps. Like (which many Korean Protestants don’t), around neighbouring buildings. Some Pentecostals the world over, Yoido’s sys- Christians make up close to 30% of the 38,000 children go to Sunday school dur- tem is rooted in home-cells. Most of the population. Koreans don’t play church, ing the day. As one service begins and the praying and converting is done at home, in says an American elder at Yoido. next ends, around 60,000 comers and go- small groups of around a dozen people. The people who have ocked to South ers are ushered by white-jacketed trac di- The idea is that these cells, like their biolog- Korea’s megachurches are the upwardly1 rectors. If you want to attend one of the two services starring the church’s founder, David Cho, you need to be an hour early or you won’t get in. Not that you will lack entertainment whilst you wait. The massed choir (one of 12) is already belting out hymns, backed by a large orchestra (one of three). The audi- ence sings along, with huge television screens supplying the words, karaoke style. Pictures of the service are beamed to hundreds of satellite churches around the world and to Prayer Mountain, a gruelling religious camp close to the border with the North. Translation is oered in English, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, French, Indo- nesian, Malay and Arabic. By the standards of American preach- ers, Mr Cho is a relatively unashy gure. With his glasses, tie and tidy red cassock, he looks like one of the more bureaucratic kinds of Asian politician. His tone is logi- Home-cell battery The Economist November 3rd 2007 A special report on religion and public life 5

2 mobile. Asked (in 2004) which faith had rity and told them to avoid arid theology been most instrumental in their country’s (Always suit your subjects to your audi- modernisation, 42.7% of South Koreans ence, went the instruction, and choose named Protestantism and 11.3% Catholi- the plainest texts you can.) cism. Hahn Meerha, a professor at Hoseo The constitution explains not just why University, points out that 42% of the chief America still excels at the religion business executives of listed companies and a third (the late Peter Drucker, a famous manage- of its senators are Protestants. There are ment guru, used to point out that Ameri- monthly prayer breakfasts at the national can business could learn a lot from its pas- parliament, and the current favourite to torpreneurs) but also how it has become win the presidency in the election due in a huge export industry. Rick Warren, December, Lee Myung-bak, is the elder of America’s favourite preacher, likens his a megachurch. purpose-driven formula to an Intel op- That is not an undisguised blessing for erating chip that can be inserted into the Mr Lee. If one part of the middle classes motherboard of any church; there are now has ocked to the megachurches, another more than 100,000 purpose-driven is increasingly unhappy about religion’s Purposeful Warren churches in 160 countries. Korea was con- role in society: the same 2004 poll also verted by Americans. found that 59% of Koreans thought the the collection plate, show greater zeal in As the Methodists became more hierar- churches were going in the wrong direc- proselytising the inferior ranks of people chical in the mid-19th century, they began tion. When a group of clueless young Ko- than the established, salaried sort, who are to lose ground to the Baptists. In all likeli- rean missionaries were captured by the Ta- more interested in sucking up to clerical hood creative destruction will eventually liban in Afghanistan earlier this year, there bigwigs. Europe has been a textbook illus- hit Yoido and Mr Warren too. Religion in were widespread complaints in Seoul that tration of this (see box on next page). America tends to come in wavesand the the youngsters had been brainwashed into The second text is the American con- current awakening may just be dying going there as a marketing ploy for South stitution. As a refuge for dissenters, Amer- down. But an advantage of competition is Korea’s churches. ica was always closer to Smith’s vision, that it spurs responses. For instance, the re- Korean Protestantism is certainly ex- though it was not quite the religious city cent setback for Korean Protestantism has port-minded: Yoido sends out 600 mis- on a hill its boosters claim. The early Puri- given a push to Catholicism (whose priests sionaries a year. One target is North Korea, tans were soon swamped by more venal don’t have sons to inherit churches). The which used to be the more Christian end colonists: in Salem, the zealous town in Ar- Catholics are also ghting back against of the country. Yoido already has plans to thur Miller’s The Crucible, 83% of tax- Pentecostals in Latin America, becoming build a second sanctuary in Pyongyang. payers in 1683 had no religious allegiance. less Roman and more local, says Harvey Yanbian, a district in China that has a large Most of the Founding Fathers thought reli- Cox, a Harvard divinity professor. In Nige- ethnic Korean population, is choc-a-bloc gion was useful in a squirearchial sort of ria Catholic priests have so embraced the with missionaries. way, but they were not particularly godly: habits of their evangelical competitors But the biggest prize for Christians George Washington never mentions Jesus that the Cardinal of Lagos recently warned across Asia is China itself. Some call it the Christ in his personal papers. them about the incalculable damage be- Africa of the 21st century, recalling that Thus, the First Amendmentthat Con- ing done to services by unorthodox spon- the number of Christians in that continent gress shall make no law respecting an taneous prayers by all the faithful at the rose from below 10m in 1900 to 400m in establishment of religion, or prohibiting same time. 2000. Ocially, the Chinese government the free exercise thereofwas a compro- Has the same competitive spirit admits to 23m Christians within its bor- mise between dissenters (who wanted to gripped other religions? Buddhism, the re- ders, but it counts only churches that regis- keep the state away from religion) and ligion whose market share has dipped ter with the authorities, and the real gure more anti-clerical sorts like Thomas Jeer- most over the past century, remains pretty is probably around three times as high. son (who wanted the church out of poli- passive: its adherents believe that people Most Christians prefer private house tics). Yet it became the great engine of should discover faith for themselves rather churches. China even has two Catholic American religiosity, creating a new sort than be energetically introduced to it. But churches, one ocial and one under- of country where membership of a church there are some signs of awakening. In ground. One Korean ruse is to set up small was a purely voluntary activity. South Korea Buddhist monks, often hid- businesses and get work permits for trad- Look back at the rst great success in den away in inaccessible rural shrines, ers who are really missionaries. this free market, Methodism, and it is not have set up meditation areas in cities to dicult to spot where Yoido’s growth for- ght o the Protestants. On this rock mula came from. When Francis Asbury ar- Hinduism tends to be more turf-con- South Korea illustrates three features of rived in America in 1771, there were barely scious. Some states in India have passed modern religion: competition, heat and 1,000 Methodists in the country. By the anti-conversion laws banning evange- choice. To understand the competitive time he died in 1816, 1m people, one-eighth lists from using force or allurement mechanism, you need only two sacred of the entire population, were attending code for Christians and Muslims convert- texts. The rst is The Wealth of Nations, Methodist camp meetings (the 19th-cen- ing Hindu untouchables, who tend to get a in which Adam Smith argues that the free tury equivalent of megachurches). The raw deal under the caste system. And market works in religion as in everything Methodists paid their preachers only a when it comes to marketing pizzazz, the else. Non-established clergy, who rely on nominal stipend, gave them no job secu- trendier Hindu ashrams are more than a1 6 A special report on religion and public life The Economist November 3rd 2007

2 match for America’s pastorpreneurs. The Like Pentecostalism, Islam is a religion a fatwa (religious ruling), you do not have Art of Living, a Bangalore ashram that is without much hierarchy: most mosques to go to a mosque: you can get it online committed to making life a celebration on claim to be following the teachings of one (and in English) from efatwa.com, mufti- this planet, has oshoots in 141 countries. preacher or another, but their real author- says.com or askimam.com. This spirit of competition also helps to ity comes from the Koran. This helps new Islam is not as evangelical as Christian- explain some of Islam’s success. That may imams to set up shop and allows them to ity. Its followers are less intent on spread- sound odd. Saudi Arabia enforces reli- do pretty much what they like. But market- ing the good news; much of their attention gious orthodoxy with police and prisons. ing has not been neglected. There are me- is focused on stiening the resolve of com- Under many sharia systems, apostasy is gamosques (one in east London, planned munities that are already Muslim. But Is- still punishable by death. And in many Is- by missionaries, will hold 12,000 people, lam is expansionist in some areas, includ- lamic countries mosques get far more - ve times as many as St Paul’s Cathedral) ing sub-Saharan Africa and the fringes of nancial help and direction from the state and televangelists, such as Amr Khaled, an China. In Xinjiang province, the state gov- than Adam Smith would have approved engaging former accountant from Egypt, ernment has got so worried about Muslim of. But in fact there is more competition whose sermons are watched by millions separatism that it has cracked down on Is- within Islam than at rst appears. in Europe and the Middle East. If you want lam. China may yet end up being both the1

A heretical thought about The power of private prayer religion in Europe

VEN in these dark days for the Bush even in Europe, the religious breed more. to the World Christian Encyclopedia. Pen- Epresidency, there is one topic that can Writing in Prospect magazine, Eric Kauf- tecostalism is France’s fastest-growing re- make American conservatives smilereli- mann calculated that in the most secular ligion. London’s immigrant-packed East gion in Europe. The White House might bitsFrance and Protestant Europethe End is thought to have twice as many Pen- be going to hell (or at least to Hillary Clin- non-religious majority (currently 53%) tecostal congregations as Church of Eng- ton), but Europe faces a worse nightmare: would peak at around 55% in 2040. If land ones. a continued descent into Godlessness, present trends continue, by the end of the However, most evangelicals and char- and then a takeover by Islam. century there will be more religious Euro- ismatics are contained within the older The second partthe imminent arrival peans than there are today. religions. Over 2m Britons have now of Eurabiacan be dismissed as poor This has to do with recovering Chris- taken the Alpha course, an opportunity mathematics. Muslim minorities in Eu- tian belief as well as fertility and immi- to explore the meaning of life, which be- rope are indeed growing fast and causing gration. Islam plays a role: where there gan at Holy Trinity Brompton, a posh political friction, but they account for less are lots of Muslims in Britain, the locals church in Kensington. Richard Chartres, than 5% of the total population, a tiny pro- are more likely to profess Christianity. But the Bishop of London, uses Alpha veter- portion by American standards of immi- the real change is coming on the supply ans to rechurch areas of his diocese. gration. Even if that proportion trebles in side: religion is being privatised. Ms Davie cites two examples of opt-in the next 20 years, Eurabia will still be a Grace Davie of the University of Exe- behaviour within the older churches. long way o. ter argues that there are really two reli- First, the number of adult conrmations The more interesting question is gious economies in Europe. In the old in the Church of England has risen whether Christianity will recover. A new one, religion is a public utility: there is sharply even as the overall number has book by Philip Jenkins on European reli- one state-backed supplier, and most fallen. Second, pilgrimages are booming. gion comes up with some gloomy statis- Christians follow their religion vica- Some 100,000 hikers a year make the trek tics. Only 20% of Europeans say that God riously (in the sense that somebody else across Europe to Santiago de Compostela plays an important role in their lives, does your churchgoing for you). For in- in Spain; 6m people visit Lourdes and 4m compared with 60% of Americans. A sur- stance, around 75% of Swedes are bap- go to Jasna Góra in Poland. vey in 2004 found that only 44% of Brit- tised as Lutherans, but only 5% regularly The optimists point out that Europe’s ons believed in God, whereas 35% (45% go to church. The church pockets a stag- churches are roughly as full as America’s among 18-34-year-olds) denied His exis- gering $1.6 billion in membership fees, were before the First Amendment sepa- tence. Only 15% of them go to church each collected by the state through the tax sys- rated church from state. Hence the impor- week, against 40% of Americans. Even in tem. It has been rare for Swedes to opt out, tance of the current pope. One rumour is the Catholic heartlands of Spain, Italy though that seems to be changing. that Benedict XVI would prefer a smaller and Ireland attendance rates have Alongside this old religious economy, but more vibrant Catholic church in Eu- dropped below 20%. And priests are dy- a smaller one, based on personal choice, rope. In Germany he is said to have ar- ing out: in Dublin, home to 1m Catholics, is growing. Together evangelicals, charis- gued privately against the churches’ precisely one was ordained in 2004. matics and Pentecostals accounted for lavish state funding. If he took the same But there are a few signs of revival. 8.2% of Europe’s population in 2000, line publicly in Rome, that would cer- Some of this is of a demographic kind: nearly double the rate in 1970, according tainly test the free-market hypothesis. The Economist November 3rd 2007 A special report on religion and public life 7

its historic belief (now abandoned) in po- cused on rounding up customers? Rowan A living God 3 lygamy and its ban on such worldly plea- Williams, the thoughtful Archbishop of Pentecostals, % who have.... sures as beer, coee, tea and passionate Canterbury, points to the many things his kissing outside wedlock; there will be church does in the elds of social welfare witnessed received direct experienced more fun poked if Mitt Romney wins the and urban regeneration that pew-focused divine relevations or witnessed healings from God exorcisms Republican nomination. But clean-living rivals do not. Pick-and-choose religion, he United States 62 54 34 certainty sells: over the past half-century argues, has less depth. From the front-line the church has grown sevenfold, with half in Nigeria, the Catholic Archbishop of Jos Brazil 77 64 80 the world’s 13m Mormons living outside makes the same argument. He might be Chile 77 55 62 the United States. able to push up numbers if he spent his Guatemala 79 59 62 The hotter bits of Islam have also money on television rather than hospitals, Kenya 87 57 86 gained ground. As American neoconserva- and if he did not spend six years training Nigeria 79 64 75 tives never tire of pointing out, this is priests. But that is not his job. South Africa 73 64 60 partly a matter of Saudi money: petrodol- India 74 31 41 lars have owed into fundamentalist ma- The value of choice Philippines 72 58 52 drassas around the world and paid for mil- The nal lesson from South Korea, how- South Korea 56 20 30 lions of copies of the Koran with Wahhabi ever, is one that both archbishops admit is interpretations (for instance, stressing ji- crucial. Modern religion is pluralistic and Source: Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, October 2006 had as an extra pillar of Islam). But the increasingly based on choice. main driver has been globalisation. Often the spur is immigration. Richard 2 world’s largest Christian country and its In the Arab heartlands fundamental- Chartres, the Anglican Bishop of London, largest Muslim one. ism has become a refuge for anyone wor- calls his city a test case, pointing to the The second lesson from Korea is that ried by the spread of Western culture and sprawling number of mosques, Sikh tem- hotter religion does better. In the 1960s it power. In overseas communities where ples, synagogues, African and West Indian was thought that if any sort of religion Muslims are in a minority, notably Europe, churches, even the Church of Scientology. would survive, it would be the reasonable it has had far more to do with a search for In Latin America, evangelical churches and ecumenical sortintellectual Angli- identity. Scholars such as Olivier Roy have now oer a ready alternative to Catholi- canism, say, or Graham Greene’s doubting shown that extremism has become a form cism. And in the United States mainstream Catholicism. In fact, certainty has proved of generational warfare, with Western- Protestants will soon account for less than much easier to market. born Muslims girls choosing to wear the half the population. Although the country In America the famously tolerant Epis- headscarf that their mothers jettisoned on remains predominantly Christian, Amer- copal Church (which recently elected a gay their arrival from Pakistan and Morocco. ica is home to around 10m other believers bishop) has been in decline; the Southern One nal advantage for hotter religion (Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus) as Baptists (who in 1988 denounced homo- of all sorts is demography. From Salt Lake well as 30m agnostics and atheists. sexuality as a manifestation of a de- City to Gaza, religious people tend to And atheism is denitely part of this praved nature) have jumped forward. Al- marry younger and breed faster than non- pluralism. The proportion of Americans together conservative Christians now religious ones. An ultra-Orthodox Jewish citing no religious preference has in-1 make up around 25% of America’s popula- woman in Israel will produce nearly three tion, compared with 20% in 1960. times as many children than her secular peer. By some counts, three-quarters of the Hot as hell growth in the hotter varieties of American In global terms the most remarkable reli- Protestantism is down to demography. gious success story of the past century has But heat in religion does not necessarily been the least intellectual (and most emo- generate light. Relatively few Muslims tive) religion of all. Pentecostalism was have actually read all of the Koran, and al- founded only 100 years ago in a scruy though 83% of Americans regard the Bible part of Los Angeles by a one-eyed black as the word of God, half of them do not preacher, convinced that God would send know who preached the Sermon on the a new Pentecost if only people would pray Mount. American evangelicals are so wor- hard enough. There are now at least 400m ried by fundamentalists being ignorant of revivalists around the world. Their beliefs the fundamentals that they have set up re- are not for the faint-hearted. According to a fresher courses in Bible knowledge. study of ten countries by the Pew Forum Nor does the heat always last. You on Religion & Public Life, most adherents don’t see many graveyards in mega- have witnessed divine healing, received a churches, say the sceptics. Emotional, un- direct revelation from God or seen exor- hierarchical religion may be gloriously cisms (see chart 3). customer-centred, but it lacks a control The only other Christian faith to grow mechanism. Pentecostal pulpits have been at such rates is the Church of Jesus Christ a home to some almighty rogues, and of the Latter Day Saints, again hardly an many Muslims would like to bring radical easy-going religion. Mormonism remains imams under control. a favourite butt of comedians, because of Besides, should religion really be so fo- Demographic bonus 8 A special report on religion and public life The Economist November 3rd 2007

2 creased from 7% to 14% (20% for young peo- adults making a choice, going to a syna- movement already has around 200,000 ple). As Ross Douthat argued recently in gogue, temple, church or mosque. members, around two-thirds of whom are the Atlantic Monthly, anti-religiosity has This has a profound aect on public Christian. Its views are somewhat vague. moved from America’s east-coast elite to life. The more that people choose their reli- The founder, Jin-Hong Kim, complains the masses. By some counts there are at gion, rather than just inherit it, the more about the country’s leftward drift, Amer- least 500m declared non-believers in the likely they are to make a noise about it. Mi- ica-bashing, North Korea and corruption. worldenough to make atheism the roslav Volf, director of Yale’s Centre for His enemies say the New Right is really fourth-biggest religion. Faith and Culture, says this is showing up just a way to help his friend, Mr Lee, win Choice is the most modern thing in the workplace too: It used to be that the presidency. In the primary, Protestants about contemporary religion. We made a workers hung their religion on a coat rack voted overwhelmingly for Mr Lee. The category mistake, admits Peter Berger, the alongside their coats. At home, their reli- churches are banned from endorsing can- Boston sociologist, who was once one of gion mattered. At work, it was idle. That is didates, but one prayer at Yoido asks God the foremost champions of secularisation no longer the case. For many people reli- to help us choose the right president. but changed his mind in the 1980s. We gion has something to say about all as- The rest of this special report will look thought that the relationship was between pects of life, work included. at the various ways in which religion in- modernisation and secularisation. In fact The same applies to politics. For in- trudes into public lifefrom religion-based it was between modernisation and plural- stance, South Korea’s megachurches have parties to attempts to challenge capitalism ism. Religion is no longer taken for recently created their own version of and science. It begins with the subject that granted or inherited; it is based around America’s religious right. The New Right people fear most: the wars of religion. 7 The new wars of religion

An old menace has returned, but in very dierent forms

ARLIER this year Iran’s President Mah- transform conict. Appropriately, the argument. But once there, it makes con- Emoud Ahmadinejad, speaking to his centre was built in a church blown up in icts harder to resolve. A squabble over country’s parliament, posed two ques- 1993 by Irish terrorists, brought up, no land (which can be divided) or power tions: Who are our enemies? and Why doubt, with tales of Cromwell’s atrocities. (which can be shared) or rules (that can be do they hate us? He described an axis of Conict, of course, does not necessarily fudged) becomes a dispute over non-nego- evil, with Iran’s enemies being all the equate to war. But there are some depress- tiable absolutes. If you believe that God wicked men of the world, whether abroad ing echoes of Cromwell’s time. granted you the West Bank, or that any or at home. The root cause of their hatred Faith is once again prolonging conict. form of abortion is murder, compromise is was religiousa loathing of whomsoever Religion is seldom the casus belli: indeed, not really possible. should serve the glory of God. Having de- in many struggles, notably the Middle East Once again, politicians are stirring up re- scribed George Bush’s atrocities, he told in modern times, it is amazing how long it ligious passion. Mr Ahmadinejad may not the cheering MPs, Truly, your great ene- took for religion to become a big part of the have told Muslims that the Israeli has an my is the Americanthrough that enmity interest in your bowels (as Cromwell did that is in him against all that is of God in of Spaniards), but he has called for Israel’s you. Fortunately, Iran would not ght removal and denied the Holocaust. alone: it had the support of Muslims Osama bin Laden rages that Islam is under around the world. Be bold, he advised, and sustained attack: any Muslim who collab- you will nd that you act for a very great orates with the West is an apostate. many people that are God’s own. American leaders have been more care- For Mr Ahmadinejad, read Oliver ful, but many use religious imagery. In his Cromwell; for Iran, England; and for Amer- new book, God and Gold, Walter Russell ica, Catholic Spain. The quotes above Mead compares Ronald Reagan’s denun- come from a speech made by Cromwell to ciation of the Godless Soviet Union (the the English Parliament in 1656. Parliament Evil Empire) to Cromwell’s speech. then passed an oath of loyalty in which Franklin Graham spoke for many on the English Catholics were asked to disown religious right when he denounced Islam the pope and most of the canons of Catho- as a very evil and wicked religion. Amer- lic belief, or face losing two-thirds of their ican conservatives seem undecided on worldly goods. Shortly afterwards Crom- whether the battle against Islamofas- well invaded Ireland. cism is the third world war (Newt Ging- Faith is a source of conict, reads a rich) or the fourth (Norman Podhoretz). sign at St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconcili- Once again, outsiders are rushing to de- ation and Peace in the City of London fend their religions: religious scraps attract adding that it can also be a resource to Oliver’s army money and soldiers. Just as Guy Fawkes,1 The Economist November 3rd 2007 A special report on religion and public life 9

2 Britain’s most famous religious terrorist, hardened his radical beliefs when ghting for Catholicism in the Netherlands, Euro- pean Muslims have gone to defend their faith in Kashmir, Chechnya and Iraq. Some of the most fervent supporters of India’s Hindutva movement come from the dias- pora. Many migrants dene themselves by their faith, not their new home. One of the world’s great religions, Chris- tianity, split into Catholic and Protestant in the 16th century. Now Islam is having to contend with a sharpening split between Sunni and Shia. Once again nation states are weak: most Middle Eastern countries are recent creations. And there is a ring of instability on Islam’s southern frontier, which runs roughly along the 10th parallel from West Africa to the Philippines. Terrorist outrages are once again pre- sumed to have religious connections, as they would have done in Cromwell’s time. In the 1970s terrorism seemed to be the he also opposed the Iraq war. Most Islamic Most of the main jihadist terrorist orga- preserve of Maoist guerrillas, middle-class authorities preach non-violence. Ayatol- nisations are bottom-up aairs. Mr bin Germans and Italians or the then very sec- lah Sistani, the most revered Shia on the Laden would no doubt like to control an- ular (and partly Christian-led) Palestine planet, has often urged restraint in Iraq. other state (as he once did from Afghani- Liberation Organisation. Now three out of Of course, this does not prevent stan). But his organisation has been able to the four most likely ashpoints for nuclear individual clerics from committing appall- mount attacks and recruit volunteers with- conictPakistan-India, Iran and Israel ing acts of brutality: Catholic priests out help from a government. have a strong religious element. The only helped torture people in Argentina, Bud- The second way in which religion exception is North Korea. dhist monks have led murderous attacks in thrusts itself into politics is inter-commu- Sri Lanka and imams have encouraged sui- nal violence. Once again, other forces are Wars can be Godless too cide-bombing in Israel. But every zealot in- often at work, such as tribalism in Nigeria It is possible that these similarities could terviewed for this special report, including or nationalism in India. But religion sup- escalate into something horrifying. A con- those with blood near their hands, insisted plies the underlying viciousness. Sectarian frontation between nuclear Iran on one that his religion was peaceful. violence has been responsible for most of side and Israel and America on the other Meanwhile, the power of governments the killing in Iraq in the aftermath of the would reverberate around the globe. But to control religious politics has declined. war. Some 68,000 Sri Lankans have died the idea that the world is reverting to a for- The wars of religion took place in an age of since 1983. Other, lower-level conicts, mer age is too simplistic. cuius regio, eius religio, where the mon- such as Catholics and Protestants attack- Most obviously, humanity can nd arch dictated the religion. England once ing each other in Mexico’s Chiapas, occa- plenty of reasons for genocide and suer- turned to Protestantism because Henry sionally are up. Outside parties can play a ing without troubling God. The 20th cen- VIII found the Catholic church’s rules on role in stoking up such struggles (and sup- tury was the most secular and the most matrimony irksome. Nowadays, nobody plying arms), as Iran has done in Iraq and bloody in human history, argues George is trying to improve America’s relations Syria has done in Lebanon. But most of Weigel, a leading American conservative. with the Middle East by marrying o the these ghts have a local, tit-for-tat feel. The What he calls the Godless religions of Na- Bush twins to Arab princes. violence is often set o by events such as zism and communism killed tens of mil- marches, feast days or elections. lions of people. Each had its theory of sal- The new battles Third, there is state-based repression, vation, its rites, its prophets, its sacred With national armies no longer marching where religion is either the target or the places and its distinctive idea of morality; under religious banners, grievances have motivation. In the Muslim world the re- but communists and Nazis did not use reappeared in several guises. None of pression is sometimes by theocracies (like God to stir up passions. The Cambodian them is easy for the West to deal with. Iran or Saudi Arabia), against irreligious genocide was similarly secular. The one that gets most attention is ter- sorts, such as adulterers, heretics and ho- Where it does exist, religious conict is rorismespecially Islamic terrorism. mosexuals. But it also goes the other way, now far less of a top-down aair. No gov- States are certainly actors in this: Iran may with secular states (Syria, Egypt, much of ernment ocially approves of killing peo- not openly wage religious war, but it has North Africa) discriminating against reli- ple solely because of their religion, and no been happy to back Hizbullah in Lebanon gious dissidents. In the most bizarre exam- signicant religious leader sancties that and Hamas in Palestine. But then neither ple, China recently banned Buddhist killing by blessing armadas or preaching Hamas nor Hizbullah is a purely sectarian monks in Tibet from reincarnating with- crusades. Last year the pope took issue organisation. Like the IRA in Ireland, they out government permission. The religious- with Islam in a speech at Regensburg, but both have political-territorial objectives. aairs agency explained that this was an1 10 A special report on religion and public life The Economist November 3rd 2007

Holy depressing Religious politics at its worst

HEIKH Yazid Khader and Rabbi Yaacov tribes. Religious Zionismas opposed to is such an engagingly disputatious place S Medan both live in the occupied West the traditional, secular kindwas a fringe that religious people pop up on dierent Bank. Both are devoutly religious men movement. Many of the Palestinian lead- sides, depending on the argument. The ul- who feel they have been betrayed by sec- ers were Christians or Marxists. But the tra-Orthodox, who make up 5% of the ularists. The sheikh, a local Hamas leader, six-day war of 1967 set o a chain of sec- population, traditionally attach less im- has just emerged from another bout of Fa- tarian reactions on both sides. Polls show portance to land than some more secular tah custody (depressing when the rival that most people on both sides still want Israelis. Many see the same dilemma that Palestinians, he says, should both be a two-state solution, but many of the convinced their prime minister, Ehud Ol- ghting the Zionist enemy). The rabbi, a growing number determined to stop such mert, of the need for a two-state solution. leader of the settler movement, is still an outcome now enlist God on their side Thanks to the fast-growing Palestinian seething about the Israeli government’s of the argument. population, the dream of a greater Israel forcible ejection of its own settlers from Many of the most ardent fanatics live increasingly conicts with the still more Gaza. Both men are obstacles to any far away from the Holy Land. For Mus- precious idea of a Jewish state. chance of peace in the Middle East. lims the indignities heaped on the Pal- One sad irony of this dispute in the Not that they see it that way. Both in- estinians are part of a systematic attack Holy Land is how few holy people are try- sist that their religions are peaceful ones on Islam that must be fought to the bitter ing to make peace. Rabbi David Rosen ar- and each has solutions to the current im- end. On the other side, many American gues that the Oslo process collapsed in passe. Of course Israel should keep its set- Jewish groups will not tolerate the sort of part because no religious people were in- tlements in the West Bank (illegal under criticism of Israel that is routine in the volved. It was not until 2002 that a small international law), argues the rabbi: it is Jewish state itself. And now there are group of leading rabbis, Muslim clerics part of the land God gave it. But a system America’s Christian Zionists to deal with: and bishops signed the Alexandria Dec- of tunnels could be constructed for the some have rallied instinctively to a tiny laration, which condemned violence and Palestinians to nd their way round them. democracy battling terrorism, but many insisted that the holy places should be For his part, the sheikh refuses to accept think the creation of Biblical Israel is cru- kept open. There have been subsequent Israel’s right to exist: Palestine is a waqf, cial for Armageddon and redemption. meetings (including some recently with land placed by God in Muslim hands for Ignorance rules on all sides. Most Mus- Tony Blair and Condoleezza Rice) but pro- eternity. But if Israel retreats to its 1967 lims seem totally unaware that Arabs can gress is beset by practical problems, such borders, Hamas would generously grant vote in Israel. Many Jews, even in Israel, as the inability of Palestinian clerics to get the indels a hudna or truce, initially for are separated from the routine miseries of through Israel’s West Bank barrier. ten years. Palestinian life. American evangelicals Whatever the reason, when suicide- If you are concerned about religion’s are shocked to discover that some Pal- bombers strike Israeli towns, too few eect on politics, there is no more discou- estinians are Christians. imams condemn the violence; and when raging place to visit than the tiny sliver of The picture is not all bleak. Most of the Israeli rockets or shells fall on Palestinian land that is Israel-Palestine. Forty years Palestinians who voted for Hamas did so civilians, not enough rabbis speak out. ago the trouble there amounted to a terri- out of despair over Fatah’s corruption Until that changes, the various children torial dispute between two fairly secular rather than out of religious fervour. Israel of Abraham will nd peace elusive.

2 important move to institutionalise man- PAN party or the Islamic AK Party. consuming than their predecessors; but agement of reincarnation. The real pur- And it has not just been a case of de- also that tackling the politics of religion is pose is to prevent the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s mocracy helping religion. Timothy Shah more awkward than it used to be. Culture exiled spiritual leader, from being suc- of the Council on Foreign Relations argues wars are now global (a subject to which ceeded by someone from outside China. that it can go the other way too. By his cal- this special report will return). Yet the foremost way in which religion culation, more than 30 of the 80 or so This complicates foreign policy enor- has expressed itself around the world has countries that became freer in 1972-2000 mously. Should America focus on the tiny been more peaceful: the ballot box. Reli- owed some of the improvement to reli- number of angry Muslims with guns, or gious people have either formed religious gion. Sometimes established churches the millions who have voted for Islamic parties (such as India’s BJP) or converted helped to push for democracy (eg, the parties in Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey, Algeria secular ones into more faith-driven outts Catholic church in Poland), but more often and Palestine? If most religious fanatics (such as America’s Republican Party). In it was pressure from the grassroots: reli- were bent on conquest and terror rather places where religion was frowned upon gious people usually look for a degree of than democracy, their causes would be by the state, such as Mexico or Turkey, freedom (if only to pursue their faith). easier to discredit. And if religion were the greater freedom has allowed the pious to All this means that the modern wars of sole cause of the conicts, it would be eas- form parties, such as the Catholic-oriented religion are mercifully less violent and all- ier to work out why they hate us. 7 The Economist November 3rd 2007 A special report on religion and public life 11

Bridging the divide

The world’s most religious country is still battling with its demons

N THE face of it, Praveen Togadia is Ojust the sort of Indian the modernis- ing Jawaharlal Nehru might have been proud of. Urbane and sophisticated, he is a cancer surgeon, with more than 10,000 operations to his credit. He hails from Gu- jarat, one of India’s more go-ahead states, currently run by his friend, Narendra Modi, perhaps the most free-market-ori- ented of the state leaders. Yet Mr Togadia is also the international general secretary of something Nehru would have abhorredthe Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), one of the three main bo- dies of the Hindutva (Hinduness) move- ment. Mr Togadia drifted away from medi- cine towards politics because he became convinced that Hinduism, like Judaism, was a persecuted faith, especially by Mus- lims. He has played a leading role in the campaign to rebuild a temple at Ayodhya, the birthplace of Ram, one of Hinduism’s great trinity of gods. In 1992 Hindu activ- Bridge-building Ram ists tore down a mosque built there by a Muslim ruler. rah, a middle-class lawyer who was also killed in demonstrations. Sonia Gandhi, For Mr Togadia, the crucial dierence is forced to retreat to Little Pakistan, calls Mr Congress’s leader, has already ordered a that we [Hindus] believe in peaceful co- Togadia a fanatic, but she thinks most retreat by her partythough not before Mr existence; Islam does not. But his deni- Muslims have given in: They are too Modi had weighed in, asking pointedly tion of peaceful co-existence would be scared and poor to get anything. Al- what Italians knew about Ram (Mrs queried by India’s 150m Muslims, espe- though Mr Modi’s reputation has suered Gandhi is an Italian Catholic). cially those in Gujarat. The state is still (he was refused a visa to visit America in Today’s India is a test-tube for religious haunted by the riots of 2002, which began 2005), he should get re-elected comfort- politics. The birthplace of four big reli- after a train carrying Hindu activists on ably later this year. gions (Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and their way back from Ayodhya caught re in Ayesha and her friends already worry Hinduism), it has remained religious even a Muslim neighbourhood, and Muslims that the election will be a pretext for more as it has modernised. It was founded in the were blamed for the dozens of deaths. In violence. But ghettoisation has radicalised throes of a religious conictpartition be- the ensuing pogrom, 2,000 people died. the women in the resettlement complex. tween Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. In Gujarat’s state capital, Ahmedabad, They go to the mosque more often and talk And religion informs three dierent politi- many Muslims are now stuck in an eastern approvingly of Osama bin Laden. The oth- cal conicts: the external one with Pak- ghetto known as Little Pakistan. Ayesha, erwise mild Ayesha also praises Saddam istan; an internal one between the Hindu a widow housed in a gloomy resettlement Hussein, the Iraqi leader who died for Is- majority and the sizeable Muslim minor- complex, recalls how her family ill-advis- lam, and wishes a horrible death on Mr ity; and a rip-roaring debate about religion edly took sanctuary in a local leader’s Modi and his friends. in the public square. house, only for her Hindu neighbours to India has had three big wars with Pak- force their way in, stabbing, hacking and City of religious dins istan (in 1947, 1965 and 1971) and one mi- burning. There was so little left of Aye- Mr Togadia has survived several assassina- nor one in 1999. The wars were not explic- sha’s husband and one of her daughters tion attempts. He is now concentrating on itly about religion but about the disputed that she had trouble getting death certi- trying to stop the (mainly secular) Con- territory of Kashmir and, in 1971, the inde- cates for them. Many of the mob were gress party blowing a hole in a holy bridge, pendence of what was then East Pakistan, wearing Hindutva gearsaron head- supposedly built by Ram, that links India now Bangladesh. But religion is crucial to bands, or the khaki shorts favoured by to Sri Lanka. Congress says that the bridge, Kashmir, because Pakistan claims that the those who take part in the movement’s which is mainly underwater but visible mainly Muslim state was ceded to India early-morning physical jerks. from the air, is really just a ridge blocking unlawfully by its Hindu maharajah. And The place is more peaceful now. Fa- shipping. So far, two people have been some in the Hindutva movement think the1 12 A special report on religion and public life The Economist November 3rd 2007

2 real territorial crime is the existence of Pak- pecially by Nehru’s Congress party (which been met. Although most of India’s states istan itself. Hinduism, they claim, is the re- until recently most Muslims voted for). ban the slaughter of cows, there is no cen- ligion of Hindustan, the whole subconti- Muslims are allowed to live by their own tral-government ban; the Ayodhya temple nent. Maps in Hindutva oces have a habit family law and enjoy plenty of positive remains unbuilt; the uniform code un- of missing out the Pakistani border. discrimination, including subsidies to y passed. For this many Hindu nationalists At the moment India’s relationship to Mecca. There was also a change in Hin- blame the BJP; but the truth is that, having with Pakistan is relatively peaceful, partly duism: the more mystical strain, Vedanta, never won more than 26% of the vote, it because Pakistan is not in a state to be un- which preaches the unity of all religions, has had to rely on coalition partners, who, peaceful with anybody. But both sides was challenged by the stauncher Hindutva like most of the country, are less militant. now have nuclear weapons. And Hindus message. Vedanta Hindus stayed with When they think about it, many Hindus persistently worry that Indian Muslims Congress; Hindutva ones moved to the would like a temple built at Ayodhya. But are a fth column. One Hindu nationalist, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). they tend not to think about it, and are ap- Prafull Goradia, suggests that Indian Mus- Much of Hindutva is ocially dedi- palled at the violence the dispute has lims should be forced to take an oath of cated to social welfareespecially the spawned. loyalty (though he would rather Muslims Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Especially in its frustrations, Hindutva of all sorts moved to Arabia). world’s biggest voluntary movement. Ev- resembles America’s religious right. The ery day several million RSS members meet sprawling oces of the RSS in Delhi are Pluralist, in principle at some 50,000 shakhas (or meetings) to strangely similar in spirit to the Focus on An uneasy relationship with Pakistan was discuss the meaning of life and go through the Family campus in Colorado Springs. perhaps inevitable; but what would have their stretching exercises. But Hindutva Neither organisation is overtly political: distressed Nehru particularly is the promi- also has a clear political message centred the RSS’s motto is United Hindus, capable nent role played by religion in domestic on three issues: a federal ban on the India and most of its energy is plainly politics. India’s constitution writers tried slaughter of cattle; the introduction of a taken up with social welfare (just as Focus to get round this in two ways. The rst was uniform personal code (which is itself does indeed focus on families). But just like to embrace pluralism. The new country code for getting rid of a separate family law the Christians in Colorado, the Hindus at would be a sovereign, socialist, secular, for Muslims); and rebuilding Hindu tem- the RSS are obsessed by politicsand feel democratic republicPluralism is the ples, especially Ayodhya. just as let down by the BJP as Focus does by keystone of Indian culture and religious Politics has proved both exhilarating the Republicans. tolerance is the bedrock of Indian secular- and depressing for the Hindutva move- Meanwhile, the Hindutva movement ism. The second was to go out of their ment. The BJP, which swept to power six has set o a counter-reaction. Secular way to provide protection for the (gener- years after the mosque at Ayodhya was de- members of the Congress party, who pri- ally poor) Muslim minority. stroyed, has rmly established itself as the vately admit that they may have indulged Many Hindus would add that India party of the aspiring middle classes. The Muslims too much, adamantly defend sec- was also born with a third force for toler- RSS wields enormous power on the right ularism in public. Muslims too are on their ance: Hinduism. As a religion with count- of Indian politics. It has also broadened its guard. One Muslim politician says he less gods and many sacred texts, it does not arguments, couching them in non-reli- would get into trouble if he visited a Hindu lend itself to extremism: there are no rules gious terms. Cows, for instance, need to be temple. The minority, he says, will always for governments to enforce. kept alive for their milk (a white revolu- be insecureespecially if that minority How did things go wrong? The short tion, they argue), not just because they are used to rule India. Asked whether religion answer is that many Hindus, like Mr Toga- sacred. Ram’s bridge to Sri Lanka is essen- will ever leave Indian politics, he shrugs dia, came to see India’s secularism as a tial as a bulwark against tsunamis. his shoulders. That was the dreambut it code for favouritism towards Muslimses- Yet none of Hindutva’s main goals has did not work out that way. 7 Back to the Ottomans

Why Turkey matters so much to Islam

OR many Westerners, Hidayet Tuksal is has got into trouble with traditionalists. ing Muslim women about their freedoms. Fa confusing gure. Headscarfed and im- On the other hand, this 44-year-old Turkey is buzzing with such arguments. posing, she grew up in a strict Muslim mother of three is no fan of Turkey’s secu- When the (mildly Islamist) Justice and De- household in Ankara. At university in the larist laws, especially when it comes to velopment (AK) Party came into power in 1980s, she focused on the Koran’s teaching that headscarf. Because she wears it, she is 2002, people joked that it was like electing about women. She has since made a name currently banned from teaching at univer- the Taliban. So far the experience has been arguing that much of the discrimination sity. (Had she been younger, she could not revolutionary in the good sense. Under Re- against women in the Islamic world has have studied there either: the army tight- cep Tayyip Erdogan, the AK Party has occa- scant basis in the sacred text (because Eve ened up the laws on what students could sionally veered o target (at one time he was described as weak and awed, it does wear in 1997.) From her perspective, Tur- wanted to jail adulterers), but the main not follow that all women are). For this she key’s secularists are stopping her educat- emphasis has been on freeing markets and1 The Economist November 3rd 2007 A special report on religion and public life 13

2 stamping out corruption. Islam is dierent raises Muslim hackles. The rst answer that many Muslims In July Mr Erdogan faced down mutter- They sense a post-September 11th witch- and Westerners jump tothat Islam is ings from the army and deservedly won a hunt, and with some cause. Every Western stuck in a clash of civilisations with the second term. But now secular Turkey is get- schoolboy now knows that the Koran Westseems unconvincing. Put simply, ting worried again. Another Islamist, Abd- promises suicide-bombers will be pro- the main battle is not taking place in that ullah Gul, has become presidentan espe- vided with 72 virgins (not true) and that in arena. One great irony of the war on terror cially controversial appointment because Muslim countries you can get stoned to is that although George Bush has declared his wife wears the headscarf. Restaurants death for being gay (true, sadly, in some war upon jihadism, his enemies devote have become nervous about serving food places). Yet few Western schoolboys know very little energy to ghting him. The jiha- during the Ramadan fast. Recently a young much about the equally blood-curdling dists’ main war is not against the West but woman wearing a knee-length tunic and texts of the Old Testament: if you want il- against apostate Muslim regimes: where leggings was arrested in Istanbul for inde- liberal family law, Leviticus is hard to beat. they do battle with outsiders, it is mainly cent exposure. Islamic politics, Muslims continue, is against occupying powersRussia in Now Mr Erdogan wants to modernise not uniform: Kano is very dierent from Chechnya, America in Iraq, India in Kash- the constitution. The new version would Karachi or Kuwait. And the troubles of Ara- mir and Israel in Palestine. get rid of the headscarf ban at universities. bia, they maintain, have little to do with re- It also keeps some illiberal traits: a clause ligion. They were caused by the Ottoman New depth to an old split saying the state should ensure equality be- empire being amateurishly subdivided by The two most important arguments about tween the sexes has gone; an infamous the British, invaded by the Americans, oc- Islam are both internal ones. The rst is the piece of the penal code, which was used to cupied by Israel and exploited by the oil doctrinal split between Sunnis and Shias. prosecute various writers for insulting companies. An ancient disagreement to do with the Turkishness, remains. Many women who All these things may be true, but they primacy of various successors of the Pro- supported Mr Erdogan against the army do not stop Islam being dierent. There are phet has become a greater schismexag- are worried. still reasonable questions a dispassionate gerated not just by the sectarian killing in observer (or a Muslim) should be asking. Iraq but also by the worries of the Sunni How dierent is Islam? Why is Islam involved in quite so many powers, such as Saudi Arabia, about Shiite Turkey matters enormously to two big de- modern wars of religion? Why have its be- Iran. Emmanuel Sivan, an Israeli expert on bates about religion in public life. The rst lievers coped so badly with modernisa- Islam, points out that in the battle for Gaza, is specically to do with Islam: how com- tion? Back in 1700 it controlled three of the Fatah loyalists accused Hamas of being patible is it with political modernity? The world’s economic superpowersthe Otto- Shia. The same insult is used in Nigeria. second should be universal: where exactly man empire, Persia and India. Today, de- The more complicated argument has to to draw the line between religion and the spite (or perhaps because of) oil, the Arab do with how much Islam should adapt to modern state? Sadly, Turkey is one of the world in particular lags behind on most in- the modern world. Westerners, as you few Muslim countries where that debate is dices of modernity, from the number of might expect, like to split Muslims be- possible to have. books published to investment in science. tween traditionalists and modernisers. In Merely posing the question of whether Political bad luck cannot explain all of this. fact, the modernisers (people, say, who would like to let women lead prayers) are a tiny group. The main argument is between two sets of traditionalists, with both claim- ing to be the authentic ones. The rst strain, pushed especially by Wahhabi preachers and Saudi money, ar- gues that nothing of much value has hap- pened in Islam since the rst couple of gen- erations of the faith. Corrupted by indel ideas, Islam must re-centre itself on the Ko- ran. For Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab (1703-92), the battle was against the wor- ship of tombs and relics; for his spiritual descendants and other fundamentalists it is against television and Western clothes. The second strain, while respecting the Koran, points to traditions from a later per- iodand especially to Islam’s capacity to react creatively to new circumstances. The Koran, it argues, is the word of God given to nomadic tribes: it needs to be put into context. This version, which would be the heart of any Islamic reformation, is still the dominant strain in the great universities of Cairo and Damascus. But it has lost out to The prime minister, his wife and a headscarf the Wahhabi strain in countless mosques1 14 A special report on religion and public life The Economist November 3rd 2007

2 and madrassas around the world. House of Lords (as it should be). Christian Worse, from a modernising point of Democrat parties everywhere tend to treat view, this second strain counts for virtu- the rst part of their name as silent. ally nothing in the main political battle The idea of a rm division between within the Islamic world. That battle has God and Caesar is embedded not just in little to do with religious reformation. the gospels but also in Christian history: Rather, as this newspaper described it ear- hence the Holy Roman Emperors’ multiple lier this year, it comes down to a separate disagreements with the pope. Islam has al- contest between martyrs and traitors. ways left less room for the secular. Unlike The martyrs have a simple, coherent Jesus, Muhammad was a ruler, warrior message that goes well with the Wahhabi and lawmaker. Islam, which means sub- and other Islamist causes: failure in Mus- mission, teaches that the primary unit of lim countries has been due to moral disso- society is the umma, the brotherhood of luteness and secularism. Society should believers, and it provides a system of be rebased around the Koran. The martyrs’ lawsshariafor people to live by. As strength is that organisations like Hamas Mark Lilla, an American academic, has ar- or the Muslim Brotherhood are relatively gued, there has been no great separation: incorrupt and democratic. On the other pious Muslims still turn to holy texts for side of the argument are the traitorsthe Ataturk: the way forward or back? guidance on all aspects of their lives. Arab world’s deeply undemocratic re- In some extreme Islamic countries gimes, most of them propped up by some country is debating the role of religion in sharia, a system rooted in medieval tradi- mixture of Western might and oil money. education or the acceptability of religious tions, is so strictly interpreted that it is hard Some, such as Egypt, suppress the Islam- symbols in public life. Britain has had ar- to see how women in particular can lead ists in the name of maintaining secular- guments not just about Muslim veils but modern lives. In Saudi Arabia a woman ism; others, such as Saudi Arabia, suck up also about Christian crucixes, Sikh tur- cannot drive or go to a mixed gym. Sharia to the radicals. All the traitors in their dif- bans and Hindu nose studs. seems to work better when there is re- ferent ways feed the sly line that Islam is in- Why has the public square become so course to a secular system, as there is in compatible with democracy. ercely contested? One reason is that both Bosnia and northern Nigeria. In Nigeria religious people and their secular oppo- most Muslims do not bother to go through Neither martyr nor traitor nents are getting more uppity: now that the federal legal system, because sharia is Is there an alternative to this dismal they are both choosing their beliefs, they cheaper and quicker. choice? Some Asian brands of Islam seem are damned if they are going to let others Turkey is quite dierent. Its courts are better suited to coping with the modern boss them around. But in truth drawing a secular. Several of the erotic exhibits at its world. The government of Malaysia strict line between church and state has al- modern-art fair would have had Saudi (which in 2001 controversially decided it ways proved enormously dicult. Arabia’s religious police reaching for their had always been an Islamic state) has ac- This newspaper, for example, has al- scimitars. But even Ataturk could not stop tively favoured Islam and has increased ways leant towards strict separation, but, politics and Islam being intertwined. the role of sharia courts, to the yelps of hu- like most liberals, it has frequently found Religion in Turkey is run by a govern- man-rights people; yet it has also presided that goal conicting with other ones. For ment department. The diyanet’s main over a vibrant economy. The tiny emirate instance, if you support giving poor par- function is bureaucratic: it distributes of Dubai in the Gulf is another success. But ents vouchers to choose schools, why money to mosques, regulates prayer times Turkey oers by far the greatest hope. shouldn’t they pick religious schoolses- and so on. The current diyanet president, Historically, the heirs to the Ottoman pecially when in many inner cities they Ali Bardakoglu, who serves in the AK gov- empire have fallen into the traitor cate- may be the best choice? In northern Nige- ernment, has followed a liberal course. Ms gory. The West tolerated military interfer- ria American aid agencies seeking to pro- Tuksal approves of his erce opposition to ence in Turkish politics, partly because it mote female literacy faced a choice be- honour killings. He has also sent out the was told that the alternativereligious ex- tween giving money to secular schools rm message that Christian evangelicals tremismwas worse. The AK Party has dis- (which Muslims shun) or to hybrid ones, (who in the past have sometimes been proved that caricature. Indeed it marks which mix the standard madrassa fare beaten up) should be left alone. something new: a party of fervent Islam- with some Western basics (and are popu- This all sounds very enlightened. But ists, neither traitors nor martyrs. Provided lar with Muslims). The aid people rightly does it make sense for religion to be an- it sticks to its course, it could help normal- chose the lattereven though some con- swerable to the state? The same question ise the argument about Islam. It would gressman is bound to complain about tax- could be asked about Britain, where the also make it possible for Muslim countries payers’ money going to help Islam. new prime minister, Gordon Brown, to engage in a more reasonable debate So it is normal to have disagreement wants to get rid of his powers to appoint about religion’s role in the public square. about the public square. But Islam stands bishops, or about the money France Ms Tuksal’s problems to do with head- out as the religion that brooks the least dif- spends on Catholicism. But it matters scarves and universities might be serious ference between church and state. In the much more in the Islamic world. for her; but in many ways they are excit- Christian world, with the tiny exception of Ms Tuksal is a refreshingly modern g- ingly normal. France has a similar dispute the Vatican, clerics have no urge to rule ure. But Islam plainly is dierent. Turkey over whether Muslims can wear head- anybody. The Church of England seems marks the beginning of the faith’s debate scarves to school. And virtually every rich embarrassed by having 26 bishops in the about the modern world, not the end. 7 The Economist November 3rd 2007 A special report on religion and public life 15

Stop in the name

Religion and modernity have a love-hate relationship

ILLIAM BUCKLEY, the grand old to Nigeria’s outt. Bishop Akinola also il- sponsors pro-family scholarship. Human Wman of the American right, once ar- lustrates the importance of competition Life International, a Catholic outt run gued that a conservative’s duty was to especially with Islam, a religion that has from Virginia, opposes contraception as stand athwart history shouting Stop! So never been in favour of sexual liberation. well as abortion, campaigns against sex far this special report has argued that mo- The most conservative parts of the Angli- education in schools and defends tradi- dernity has been surprisingly helpful to re- can Communion are those ghting hard- tional marriage open to the creation of ligion. The reverse is not necessarily true. est for customers. life and to caring for children. Pious people are shouting Stop! (or at The traditional culture warrior in the Not all the religious right’s crusades least Slow down!) to things liberals re- West has been the Catholic church. Under overseas are loathsome to liberals. Ameri- gard as progress. The three main battle- John Paul II, the Holy See increased the can Christians have helped expose the Su- elds are culture, science and economics. number of countries where it has dip- danese government’s atrocities in Darfur Such a sweeping generalisation re- lomatic representation from 85 to 174. The and sex-tracking in Europe. They have quires an immediate caveat. The three bat- church concentrates much of its political also fought hard to get more aid money for tleelds are reasonably well dened, but activity on poverty, health care and educa- Africa and to ght AIDSeven if cash has the people ghting on them are not. On the tion; but it also stoutly defends the sanc- come with strings attached (notably pre- secular side, progressive Parisians and tity of life, ghting against euthanasia, venting any dollars going to abortion). But New Yorkers may both be modern, but of- abortion, the death penalty, cloning and, just as in America, much of their fury is ten have very dierent attitudes to eco- less aggressively than before, contracep- aimed at liberal shibboleths. nomics. The religious side is even more tion. The church makes less noise about One target is the United Nations. In Tim fragmented. Conservative American gay issuespossibly because of its own re- LaHaye’s wildly popular Left Behind se- churches tend to embrace modern capital- cent troubles with child abuse by clerics. ries of books the Antichrist returns to earth ism, but are suspicious of biotechnology American Protestants are now rallying as the UN Secretary-General. Two UN con- and modern culture; by contrast, leftish to the global ght. Focus on the Family has ferences particularly roused the religious American evangelicals are much more sister organisations in 54 countries. The right’s fury: one on population and de- bothered about globalisation than about Mormons’ World Family Policy Centre velopment in Cairo in 1994 and one on stem cells. The technophobic Catholic women in Beijing in 1995. Both were hierarchy in Europe is mildly hostile to dominated by liberal NGOs and the lan- modern culture, science and capitalism, guage of reproductive choice. Now the and technophile Muslim fundamentalists UN’s proceedings are monitored by the loathe all three. Catholic Family and Human Rights Insti- Slowly a phenomenon that America tute; and various right-wing organisations knows as the culture wars is going including Concerned Women of America global. Abortion, gay marriage, stem cells (which was founded by Mr LaHaye’s wife) and euthanasia are popping up all over the have become accredited lobbyists at the place as rallying calls for religious people. UN. In March 2005 the General Assembly In many developed countries politics is voted to ban all forms of human cloning, a increasingly driven by problems of iden- non-binding vote that still enraged several tity and values rather than economics. European countries, particularly Britain. Another export from America is secu- lar overreach. For instance, liberal-minded Meanwhile, down at the lab judges and politicians from Colombia to Cloning is a reminder that science and reli- South Africa have moved to legalise gay gion remain uneasy bedfellows. The anti- unions. That is admirable, but it often does scientic nature of church history is some- not reect the views of their countrymen. times exaggerated. Galileo, after all, got In Mexico, Red Familia (Family Network), into trouble precisely because he was which has ties to conservative business- sponsored by one part of the Vatican. On people and politicians, argues that strong the other hand, by discovering evolution, family values provide the basis of econ- Charles Darwin, a respectable Victorian, omic prosperity. Nigeria’s Peter Akinola, probably did more damage to religious who runs the largest province in the Angli- faith that any priest-hating revolutionary. can Communion, is against gays forming Now religion is ghting back. Perhaps associations. He has a lot of supporters the most dramatic single example of its not least in America, where 35 conserva- power was George Bush’s curtailing of tive Episcopalian churches have defected You say you want an evolution stem-cell research in America, which1 16 A special report on religion and public life The Economist November 3rd 2007

2 prompted a mini-exodus of scientists to wrong to think the issue is dead. In a News- hailed Jesus as the rst socialist. For a time Europe. But the longer-running dispute re- week poll earlier this year 48% of those the Catholic church banned usury; many mains over evolution. Americans surveyed reckoned that God versions of Islam still do. Much of it is pretty unsophisticated. For had created humans in their present form But capitalism is also the place where instance, Christians in Kenya recently de- in the past 10,000 years. the religious front is least constant. Mus- nounced the exhibition of the Turkana Nor is the intellectual argument quite lims like to point out that Muhammad was Boythe most complete prehistoric hu- won. Most of the cleverer intelligent-de- a merchant. Many Protestants claim that man skeletonbecause he inconveniently sign outts, notably the Seattle based Dis- the free market stemmed from the re- lived thousands of years before Adam is covery Institute, distanced themselves formation. In many countries Pentecostals supposed to have met Eve. A lavish new from the Pennsylvania case, where the de- sell their creed as a way to improve your $27m Creation Museum in Petersburg, fendants were too close to creationism for lot: self-restraint and discipline will make Kentucky, aims to set the record straight, their liking. And a erce theological debate you rich (some churches in Central Amer- showing how huge dinosaurs could have is under way in the Catholic Church about ica even sell management books). The mingled with humans shortly after time how to describe the extent to which man is wonderfully named Reverend Creo Dol- began in 4004BC, and how Noah man- dierent from other creatures. lar, a New York televangelist, who owns aged to squeeze all the world’s animals The main underlying emotion, even for several houses and a private aeroplane, into a boat only 135 metres long. religious people, does not seem to be be- has presumably found his own way to get The next level up is intelligent design lief in God so much as scepticism about his camel through the needle’s eye. the notion that evolution does not explain science. The worry is that man is getting ar- Doubts about capitalism have tended everything, so there must be an intelligent rogant, playing with things he barely un- to be voiced by liberal Protestants and creator. Much of this is refashioned cre- derstandssuch as the climate and his ge- European Catholics. Thus the Anglican ationism: believers still trying to prove that netic code. The debate is moving away Church denounced Thatcherism, and man might be descended from angels not from evolution to scientic ethics, points Pope John Paul II sounded o against apes. Intelligent design is now taught in out Harvey Cox at Harvard. The fuss about globalisation. A straightforward battle some Turkish schoolsthanks in large part stem cells may have been prompted by against neo-liberalism is still being to Adnan Oktar, a preacher who set up the abortion, but it has led into a much wider fought in many parts of the world. Evan- Bilim Arastirma Vak (Scientic Research argument about cloning. Crucially, gelicals have backed left-wingers in some Foundation). He claims to have 4.5m fol- whereas many moderate Christians sup- of the poorer parts of Brazil. But increas- lowers, and his Atlas of Creation has port stem-cell research, they take a much ingly the battle is moving away from op- been distributed around the Muslim dimmer view of anything that looks like posing capitalism per se to restraining its world and Europe. His organisation also genetic manipulation. The big battle on excesses. Hence the number of Christian sees links between Darwin and terrorism, science is yet to come. organisations attached to fair-trade and fascism and communism. workers’ rights movements. The battle to get intelligent design Learning to love the moneylenders One cause that could bring many pious taught in schools has suered a number of The last part of progress that some pious people together is the environment. Reli- legal setbacksin Russia (where it was sup- people seem bent on restraining is capital- gious people, argues Mr Cox, are question- ported by the Orthodox church), in Britain ism. Ever since Jesus in the Temple dealt ing an economic system based on the in- and most notably in America, where a harshly with the hedge-fund managers of nite expansion of nite resources. The judge ruled against a Pennsylvania school his time, many Christians have been suspi- religious left has long been involved in board in 2005. But scientists would be cious of nance. Some Fabians even greenery. The big change has come on the right. Conservative Protestants in America originally backed their political allies in the oil industry; now more of them are concerned about creation care. Biblical disaster seems to suit fundamentalists; hence their interest in greenish books such as Martin Rees’s Our Final Century. This debate may soon acquire a geo- graphical dimension. Philip Jenkins points out that by 2050, the time when climate change is expected to start biting, most of the largest Christian countries will be lo- cated in the global South: Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, Congo, Ethiopia, Uganda, the Phil- ippines, China. He thinks that environ- mental change could spark inter-commu- nal rivalry, recalling the little ice age at the end of the 13th century which caused starvation and pogroms, with Christians turning on Jews in Europe and Muslims turning on Christians in Africa and Asia. Rather intelligent, really Mr LaHaye may yet get his Antichrist. 7 The Economist November 3rd 2007 A special report on religion and public life 17

The lesson from America

The superpower has mastered the politics of religion at home, but not abroad

RITING of Calvin Coolidge, H.L. is also the world’s most powerful country. tected churches from the state. Unlike WMencken once observed that he Virtually every conict to do with religion France’s avowedly secularist laïcité, which might be dull and smell of boiled cabbage has ramications for the White House. is written into the legal code, America has but at least the president of the United And America’s experience has been inter- been content to let religious people get on States doesn’t believe that the earth is esting: success in dealing with religion at with their business: for example, there has square, and that witches should be put to home, failure abroad. been no fuss about headscarves. As a re- death, and that Jonah swallowed the sult, the country’s religious life is marvel- whale. The Golden Text is not painted Squaring the public lously varied. Mark Silk of Trinity College weekly on the White House wall, and The idea that America might oer some in Connecticut argues that there are in fact there is no need to keep ambassadors wait- form of model will annoy many Europe- eight regions of American religion, vary- ing while Pastor Simpson, of Smithville, ans: they detest its moralistic side. Yet the ing from California’s new-age spirituality prays for rain in the Blue Room. main explanation for America’s culture to Southern Protestantism. The pagan Pa- There is no rm evidence that George wars is that it is a country full of religious cic north-west’s unocial religion, says Bush has ever kept an ambassador waiting people; not that the system set up by the Mr Silk, is environmentalism. so that he could talk to his pastor, but given First Amendment is wrong. Nobody would claim the American the number of religious gures owing The line that the Founding Fathers system is perfect. It did not prevent Protes- through the White House it would be sur- drew between church and state still causes tants in the 19th century using the state to prising if that had never happened. And controversy. The Supreme Court spends a give both Mormons and Catholics a hard Mr Bush has done plenty of other Godly lot of time on issues such as whether a time. And it has pushed moral debates, no- things that would have surely made the Christmas crib in a public place can be ren- tably the one about abortion, towards the secular Mencken wince, such as naming dered secular by the presence of a plastic courts, rather than towards the lawmakers Jesus Christ as his favourite philosopher. reindeer (yes, though preferably with a (who nd them easier to fudge). But if the Two great questions have run through Santa as well), or where a state court can intention is to create a pluralistic society, this special report: where exactly is the line display the Ten Commandments (the gar- America’s church-state divide has the between church and state? And what, if den is ne; the building not). same advantage as democracy under Win- anything, can be done to ameliorate the So the detail is messy, but the First ston Churchill’s denition: it is the worst wars of religion? Both questions lead to Amendment still achieves its two goals. way for a modern society to deal with reli- America. It is the spiritual home of mod- First, churches are rmly kept apart from gion, except for all those other forms that ern choice-based religion and pluralism. It the state. It is noticeable how religious have been tried from time to time. 1 Americans have to frame their issues in non-religious terms. Our goal is not the presence of more religion in the public square, says Father Richard John Neu- haus, the author of the seminal The Na- ked Public Square. The goal is to advance a society characterised by more moral de- liberation over how we order our life. His complaint is that secularists have used laws that were supposed to separate church and state to promote their own atheistic ideas. That is a long-standing argument. There was certainly a period in the 1960s when a liberal Supreme Court banned some things that a religious country considered normal (such as school prayers) and per- mitted others it disliked (such as pornogra- phy). But the principle that formal religion should be kept out of politics has been ac- cepted by all. There are no bishops in the Senate, as in Britain, no church taxes, as in Germany, and no theocracies of the sort that hold back the Arab world. My place The constitution, in turn, has also pro- or yours? 18 A special report on religion and public life The Economist November 3rd 2007

2 The strange thing is that when America has tried to tackle religious politics abroadespecially jihadist violenceit has drawn no lessons from its domestic success. Why has a country so rooted in pluralism made so little of religious free- dom? In the cold war, America gained the high ground on human rights by getting Canterbury and Rome talk nowadays friends and foes (including the Soviet Un- ion) to sign the Helsinki Accords. That greater share of the public square than perfect peace. But the religious dimension made it hard to be accused of favouritism. other religions, and it has adapted least in the conict has decreasedand that has The US Commission on International well to modernity. Too often Westerners increased the (slim) chances of a solution. Religious Freedom produces interesting have made assumptions that turned out In northern Nigeria, where this special annual reports for Congress, but still looks not to apply in parts of the Muslim world report began, the Catholic Archbishop of to many foreigners as if it is steered by do- such as the idea that religion could be di- Jos gets a lot of stick from his fellow Chris- mestic politics. It has taken the commis- vided from politics or that the prime focus tians for setting up meetings with the local sion until this year to get round to looking of identity was the nation state and not the imam and visiting mosques. You are at religious freedom in Iraq; and it has not umma. Moreover, playing down the role sleeping with a snake, one Protestant yet looked at Israel (not a leading persecu- of religion in public life also means miss- preacher told him. But nowadays if there is tor, to be sure, but Christians and Muslims ing out on many potential solutions. For a are-up between Christians and Mus- moan about things such as security barri- once religion is part of politics, it must also lims, the imam and the bishop go together ers making it hard to visit holy places). be part of the solution. to try to sort it outand that seems to help. Similarly, in its battle for hearts and Doubtless something ghastly will hap- minds, America has made scant use of its Let faith speak unto faith pen again soon in Jos that the archbishop own Muslim population. The people of If you gather together a group of self-pro- and his new friend will fail to prevent. But Iran and Pakistan have no idea that Ameri- fessed foreign-policy expertswhether that does not mean they are wrong to try. can Muslims are free, laments one Bush they be neoconservatives, realpolitickers Take Ireland as an example. The cycle of vi- adviser. Notwithstanding his use of the or urbane European diplomatsyou can olence that Cromwell did so much to word crusade once, the president has a count on a sneer if you mention inter- create lasted for well over 300 years. Even- good record of visiting mosques and a gen- faith dialogue. At best, they say, it is lib- tually sectarianism involved a tangle of uine respect for other religions, founded in eral wae; at worst it is naive appease- other ideas, including class, economics his belief that all human rights come from ment. But who is being naive? and crime. The beginning of the end came the creator. But this got hopelessly lost in Back in the 1990s, Douglas Johnson, a when preachers from both sides of Ire- Rumsfeldian shock and awe. former diplomat, wrote a prescient book land’s religious divide began to join to- When the West has had to choose be- called Religion: The Missing Dimension gether to condemn violence. After each tween martyrs and traitors in the Arab of Statecraft. Since then he has laboured atrocity Catholic priests and Protestant world, it has backed the latter. It has been to bring together religious leaders. His ef- pastors stood side by side on bloodied hard to do otherwise: who would choose forts are easy to mock. Mr Johnson talks pavements pointing out that the bombers Hamas over Fatah? But when secular Arab proudly about getting groups of southern and God had nothing to do with each governments, like Egypt, lock religious op- Sudanese Christian and Muslim leaders other. In most other parts of the world that position parties like the Muslim Brother- together in 2000; the results have not been coming together has yet to happen. 7 hood out of power, they push pious peo- ple towards the extremes. The cost of Oer to readers Future special reports excluding Islamist groups from discussion Reprints of this special report are available at a Countries and regions is often higher than that of letting them in. price of £3.50 plus postage and packing. Austria November 24th 2007 If one part of America’s problem has A minimum order of ve copies is required. America and the world February 2nd 2008 been its failure to exploit its natural advan- Corporate oer tage, the other, oddly, has been its refusal Customisation options on corporate orders of 100 Business, nance, economics and ideas to admit how much religion is part of pub- or more are available. Please contact us to discuss Technology in India and China lic life. A desire to keep religion out of poli- your requirements. November 10th 2007 tics may be high-minded (as in the United Business in Japan December 1st 2007 Send all orders to: States Census not asking people about Migration December 22nd 2007 their faith), but it seems unrealistic too. The Rights and Syndication Department The ethical company January 19th 2008 One survey showed that in the period 26 Red Lion Square London WC1r 4HQ from 1980 to 1999 only half a dozen articles Tel +44 (0)20 7576 8000 in America’s four main international-rela- Fax +44 (0)20 7576 8492 tions journals dealt with religion. e-mail: [email protected] Not only is religion very much part of Previous special reports and a list of Please visit our website this century’s politics; it comes in many forthcoming ones can be found online www.economist.com/rights less clement forms than it does in America. for more information and to order special reports As this special report has made clear, Islam and reprints online www.economist.com/specialreports in particular is very dierent: it demands a