Dissent on Core Beliefs Religious and Secular Perspectives

Difference, diversity, and disagreement are inevitable features of our ethical, social, and political landscape. This collection of new essays investigates the ways that various ethical and religious traditions have dealt with intramural dissent; the volume covers nine separate traditions: Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, liberalism, Marxism, South Asian religions, and natural law. Each chapter lays out the distinctive features, history, and challenges of intramural dissent within each tradition, enabling readers to identify similarities and differences between traditions. The book concludes with an Afterword by Michael Walzer, offering a synoptic overview of the challenge of intramural dissent and the responses to that challenge. Committed to dialogue across cultures and traditions, the collection begins that dialogue with the common challenges facing all traditions: how to maintain cohesion and core values in the face of pluralism, and how to do this in a way that is consistent with the internal ethical principles of the traditions.

Simone Chambers is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for Ethics at the University of Toronto. She has been teaching at the University of Toronto since 2002, and her primary areas of scholarship include democratic theory, ethics, secularism, rhetoric, civility, and the public sphere. She has published articles in journals including Political Theory, Journal of Political Philosophy, Ethics and Global Politics, and Critical Review.

Peter Nosco is Professor of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Remembering Paradise: Nativism and Nostalgia in 18th-Century Japan (1990), Thinking for Oneself: Individuality and Ideology in Early Modern Japan (forthcoming, 2016), and the editor of Confucianism and Tokugawa Culture (1997), and Identity and Individuality in Nineteenth-Century Japan (with James Ketelaar and Kojima, Yasunori, forthcoming, 2015). He has served as guest editor for special issues of Philosophy East and West and Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. The Ethikon Series in Comparative Ethics

Editorial Board Carole Pateman, Series Editor Gavin T. Colvert Robert P. George Sohail H. Hashmi Peter H. Hoffenberg Will Kymlicka David Miller Philip Valera Michael Walzer The Ethikon Series publishes comparative studies on moral issues of current importance. By bringing together scholars representing a diversity of ethical viewpoints to focus on the same aspects of its topics, the series aims to broaden the scope of ethical discourse, to sharpen its focus, and to identify commonalities and differences among inﬂuential moral traditions.

TITLES IN THE SERIES Brian Barry and Robert E. Goodin, eds., Free Movement: Ethical Issues in the Transnational Migration of People and Money Chris Brown, ed., Political Restructuring in Europe: Ethical Perspectives Terry Nardin, ed., The Ethics of War and Peace: Religious and Secular Perspectives David R. Mapel and Terry Nardin, eds., International Society: Diverse Ethical Perspectives David Miller and Sohail H. Hashmi, eds., Boundaries and Justice: Diverse Ethical Perspectives Simone Chambers and Will Kymlicka, eds., Alternative Conceptions of Civil Society Nancy L. Rosenblum and Robert C. Post, eds., Civil Society and Government Sohail H. Hashmi, ed. Foreword by Jack Miles, Islamic Political Ethics: Civil Society, Pluralism, and Conﬂict Richard Madsen and Tracy B. Strong, eds., The Many and the One: Ethical Pluralism in the Modern World Margaret Moore and Allen Buchanan, eds., States, Nations, and Borders: The Ethics of Making Boundaries Sohail H. Hashmi and Steven P. Lee, eds., Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Religious and Secular Perspectives Michael Walzer, ed., Law, Politics, and Morality in Judaism William M. Sullivan and Will Kymlicka, The Globalization of Ethics: Religious and Secular Perspectives Daniel A. Bell, ed.., Confucian Political Ethics John Coleman, S. J., ed., Christian Political Ethics William A. Galston and Peter H. Hoffenberg, eds., Poverty and Morality: Religious and Secular Perspectives Simone Chambers and Peter Nosco, eds., Dissent on Core Beliefs: Religious and Secular Perspectives Dissent on Core Beliefs Religious and Secular Perspectives

Edited by SIMONE CHAMBERS University of Toronto

PETER NOSCO University of British Columbia University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107101524 © Cambridge University Press 2015 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2015 Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives plc A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dissent on core beliefs : religious and secular perspectives / edited by Simone Chambers. pages cm. – (The Ethikon series in comparative ethics) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-1-107-10152-4 1. Religions. 2. Conﬂict management – Religious aspects. I. Chambers, Simone, editor. bl85.d57 2015 202–dc23 2014043076 isbn 978-1-107-10152-4 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Contents

Contributors page vi Acknowledgments x

1 Introduction 1 Simone Chambers and Peter Nosco 2 Liberalism and internal dissent 19 William A. Galston 3 Intramural dissent: Marxism 35 Andrew Levine 4 Dissent on core beliefs in natural law 53 Tom Angier 5 The management of intramural dissent in Judaism 76 Alan Mittleman 6 Christianity and the management of intramural dissent 98 Peter Steinfels 7 Intramural dissent on core beliefs in Islam 128 Meena Sharify-Funk 8 Dissent and diversity in South Asian religions 158 Anne Murphy 9 Confucianism and dissent on core beliefs 186 Richard Madsen 10 Intramural dissent in Buddhism 201 Peter Nosco 11 Afterword 220 Michael Walzer

Selected bibliography 229 Index 232

v Contributors

TOM ANGIER teaches in the area of ethics and political theory at the University of St. Andrews, with a speciﬁc focus on ancient Greek philosophers. He also has subsidiary interests in nineteenth-century post-Kantian philosophy. His publications include Techne in Aristotle’s Ethics: Crafting the Moral Life and Either Kierkegaard/Or Nietzsche: Moral Philosophy in a New Key. He has also edited and contributed to a new volume on the great moral philosophers, entitled Ethics: The Key Thinkers. His essay on Alasdair MacIntyre’s theory of tradition appeared in The European Journal of Philosophy (published online: December 2011). SIMONE CHAMBERS is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for Ethics at the University of Toronto. She is the author of Reasonable Democracy: Ju¨rgen Habermas and The Politics of Discourse and many other book chapters and journal articles. She has also co-edited Alternative Conceptions of Civil Society (with Will Kymlicka), Deliberation, Democracy, and the Media (with Anne Costain), and Volumes i–v of the Encyclopedia of Political Science (with Kurian, Alt, Garrett, Levi, and McClain). In 1997 she received the Best First Book in Political Theory Award from the American Political Science Association. WILLIAM A. GALSTON is a senior fellow and Ezra K. Zilcha chair in Government Studies at the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, and formerly professor in the School of Public Affairs and director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland, College Park. Formerly deputy assistant to President Clinton for domestic policy, he has also served as executive director of the National Commission on Civic Renewal. His most recent books are The Practice of Liberal Pluralism and Public Matters: Politics, Policy, and Religion in the 21st Century. He is also the author of several other books and numerous articles on political philosophy, public policy, and American politics. He also co-edited Poverty and Morality (with Peter H. Hoffenberg).

vi Contributors vii

ANDREW LEVINE is presently a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, DC, and formerly a professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and research professor in philosophy at the University of Maryland at College Park. He has written extensively on recent liberal theory and on historical figures including Marx, Rousseau, Locke, and Mill. His recent books include In Bad Faith: What’s Wrong with the Opium of the People; Political Keywords; The American Ideology; A Future for Marxism?: Althusser, the Analytical Turn, and the Revival of Socialist Theory; and Engaging Political Philosophy: Hobbes to Rawls. RICHARD MADSEN is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego. He is a co-author (with Robert Bellah et al.)ofThe Good Society and Habits of the Heart, which received the Los Angeles Times Book Award and was jury nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. He has authored or co-authored eight books on China, including Morality and Power in a Chinese Village for which he received the C. Wright Mills Award; China’s Catholics: Tragedy and Hope in an Emerging Civil Society; and China and the American Dream. He also co-edited (with Tracy B. Strong) The Many and the One: Religious and Secular Perspectives on Ethical Pluralism in the Modern World. ALAN MITTLEMAN is Professor of Jewish Philosophy at The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. He teaches and writes in the areas of Jewish ethics and Jewish political thought. His most recent books are Hope in a Democratic Age and A Short History of Jewish Ethics. His book Human Nature and Jewish Thought will be published in 2015. Mittleman has been a guest professor at the University of Cologne, Princeton University, and the CUNY Graduate Center. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Center for Jewish Studies of Harvard University. ANNE MURPHY, Associate Professor is the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, is a cultural historian of early modern and modern South Asia, with particular interests in the historical formation of religious communities in Punjab and northern South Asia, and the Sikh tradition. Her recent monograph, The Materiality of the Past: History and Representation in Sikh Tradition, explores the construction of Sikh memory and historical consciousness around material representations and religious sites from the eighteenth century to the present. She edited a thematically related book entitled Time, History, and the Religious Imaginary in South Asia. Her current research concerns the articulation of secular ideas and practices in modern Punjabi literature in both Pakistan and India, and the historical formations of social service or seva¯ as an expression of ethical life within Sikh tradition. This latter project engages a broader interest in the viii Contributors intersection of philanthropic behavior and modernity in South Asia and beyond. PETER NOSCO is Professor of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia and a specialist in the intellectual and social history of early modern Japan. He is best known for his work on early modern Japanese Confucianism, nativism (kokugaku), underground religions, and popular culture. His current work is on the individuality and values of the last decades of the Tokugawa period, and their fate in the early Meiji. He is the author of Remembering Paradise: Nativism and Nostalgia in 18th Century Japan and the editor of Confucianism and Tokugawa Culture and Japanese Identity: Cultural Analyses. He has also contributed chapters on Buddhism and Confucianism to three other Ethikon volumes, and has been a guest editor of the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies and Philosophy: East and West. MEENA SHARIFY-FUNK, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Religion and Culture Department of Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario; she specializes in Islamic studies with a focus on contemporary Muslim thought and identity. Her current research focuses on the construction of contemporary North American Muslim identity in a post-9/11 context. It is a continuation of her first manuscript, Encountering the Transnational: Women, Islam, and the Politics of Interpretation, which examined the impact of transnational networking on Muslim women’s identity, thought, and activism. She also has written and presented a number of articles and papers on the politics of Islamic hermeneutics, Islamic conceptions of peace and conflict resolution, and the role of cultural and religious factors in peacemaking. Additionally, Sharify-Funk has two co-edited books, Cultural Diversity and Islam (with Abdul Aziz Said) and Contemporary Islam: Dynamic, not Static (with Abdul Aziz Said and Mohammed Abu-Nimer). PETER STEINFELS is a university professor emeritus at Fordham in New York City. From 1988 to 1997, he was senior religion correspondent of the New York Times, where he also wrote “Beliefs,” a biweekly column on religion, until 2010.In2004, with Margaret O’Brien Steinfels, he founded the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture, which they co-directed until July 2012. Earlier an editor at Commonweal and in the field of bioethics, he has written over 2,000 articles and reviews on topics including church and state, international affairs, social policy, and biomedical ethics. He is the author of The Neoconservatives, and A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America, and has contributed chapters to twenty other books. He graduated from Loyola University in Chicago and holds a Ph.D. in modern European history from Columbia as well as seven honorary doctorates. MICHAEL WALZER is Professor Emeritus of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He is the author of In God’s Shadow: Politics in the Hebrew Bible; Thinking Politically; The Revolution of the Saints; Just Contributors ix and Unjust Wars; Spheres of Justice; and On Toleration. He is also a co-editor of The Jewish Political Tradition, a four-volume set of texts and commentaries dealing with all aspects of Jewish political experience from biblical times to the present; a former co-editor of Dissent; and a member of the editorial board of The Ethikon Series in Comparative Ethics. Acknowledgments

The trustees of the Ethikon Institute join with Philip Valera, president, and Carole Pateman, series editor, in thanking all who contributed to the development of this volume. Special thanks are due to Simone Chambers and Peter Nosco for taking on the challenging task of editing this book. We are especially indebted to the Sidney Stern Memorial Trust for their enabling ﬁnancial support. Finally, we wish to express our thanks to Hilary Gaskin, our editor at Cambridge University Press, for her encouragement, valuable guidance, and support; and to Rosemary Crawley, assistant editor at Cambridge, for skill- fully guiding the manuscript through the production process.

The Ethikon Institute The Ethikon Institute, a nonproﬁt organization, is concerned with the social implications of ethical pluralism. Its dialogue-publication projects are designed to explore a diversity of moral outlooks, secular and religious, and to clarify areas of consensus and divergence among them. By encouraging a systematic exchange of ideas, the Institute aims to advance the prospects for agreement and to facilitate the peaceful accommodation of irreducible differences. The Ethikon Institute takes no position on issues that may divide its participants, serving not as an arbiter but as a neutral forum for the coopera- tive exploration of diverse and sometimes opposing views.

x Chapter 1

Introduction

Simone Chambers and Peter Nosco

Difference, diversity, and disagreement are inevitable features of our ethical, social, and political landscape. Although difference of opinion is not a modern phenomenon, the modern world is particularly concerned with the ethical navigation of difference. What is the range of appropriate responses to deep disagreement? How should we interact with those with whom we do not see eye to eye? When does elasticity properly become diversity? These questions can be addressed to many different actors. States for example are a common place to start as they are critical agents in managing and navigating pluralism and difference. We start with traditions rather than states, however, because traditions are in some sense prior to states. How a state deals with diversity and pluralism will often be determined by the ethical tradition or traditions that ﬁnd a home there. Traditions have an immense impact on people’s lives. To be brought up as a Catholic, to think of oneself as a liberal, to be at home within a Confucian social order, these ways of being in the world carry with them hosts of substantive implications. Interrogating the ethical messages that various traditions send about how to treat their opponents and rivals, and examining how these messages have been played out in the concrete histories of these traditions have proved to be a very large topic. The chapters that follow investigate the issues raised and ethical questions posed by one very particular type of opponent: the fellow traveler. We have asked our authors to lay out the distinctive features of intramural dissent in nine ethical traditions – Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Islam, Judaism, the religions of South Asia, liberalism, Marxism, and natural law – followed by a concluding Afterword. Ethical pluralism is both extramural and intramural, and gives rise to diverse challenges in different social frameworks. Two earlier volumes in the Ethikon series tackled the management of extramural diversity, or, more precisely, how different traditions propose to deal with ethical disagreements with persons and communities outside the circle of their own adherents. The

1 2 Simone Chambers and Peter Nosco

1 Many and the One considers the management of such diversity in the framework of an ethically pluralist national community. The Globalization 2 of Ethics considers it in the looser framework of international society, and how it affects the willingness and ability to talk to and interact with others across transnational boundaries. We in this volume concentrate on the characteristics of internal dissent and the strategies for its management. All moral traditions, both secular and religious, have some combination of core beliefs, key tenets, and central practices. Survival and continuity of a tradition depend on the reproduction and continued adherence to those core beliefs and practices. Nonetheless, disagreement and dissent are not only inevitable in the ongoing life of a tradition, but would also appear to be necessary to maintaining a tradition’s vitality, and it is here that one observes a Goldilocks-like paradox of dissent. On the one hand, the complete stiﬂing of criticism and argument would render a tradition static and incapable of growth and adaptation. On the other hand, a tradition’s inability to discipline and at times rein in criticism could equally lead to its demise, as the center cannot hold endlessly against comprehensive dissent. Indeed, all strong and vibrant traditions, and of course all the ethical traditions represented in this volume, have found their own ways to navigate between the Scylla of stagnation and Charybdis of revolt. The tension between stagnation and change is further complicated by where one stands. Whether the exit option – when dissenters depart from the fold – is good (welcome), bad (regrettable), or neutral is contingent upon whether we are the ones leaving or the ones left behind. The boundary between evolution and schism can be variously drawn, and the strategies of the traditions we examine have shared much but have also differed in important ways. In religious contexts, dissent has historically attracted accusations of heresy, apostasy, and schism, while in secular frameworks, similar charges are more often framed as unprincipled heterodoxy, deviation from a “party line” and disloyalty. In both instances, extreme measures have sometimes been adopted to suppress perceived existential threats to the tradition. Also to be reckoned with is the fact that intramural disagreement often brings with it an emotional dimension of betrayal, inﬁdelity, and abandonment. It is not uncommon for traditions to deal more harshly with internal critics and challenges from within than those on the outside. At times, the responses of our traditions have been less drastic and ultimately more productive, as attempts are made to manage, channel, and contain dissidence in ways that actually strengthen the tradition. Exit is an option that moves one from intramural to extramural dissent. The line between intra- and extramural

1 Richard Madsen and Tracy B. Strong (eds.), The Many and the One: Religious and Secular Perspectives on Ethical Pluralism in the Modern World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003). 2 William M. Sullivan and Will Kymlicka (eds.), The Globalization of Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Introduction 3 is difﬁcult to navigate, as evidenced by the fact that all of the traditions discussed here have their origins in dissent from an existing orthodoxy. The intensity, character, and quality of the measures taken to manage dissent depend on many factors, and below we outline a number of such factors and in the process introduce themes that run though all the chapters.

Authenticity and essentialism This book, like other Ethikon volumes, is intended to offer a platform for various ethical traditions – both religious and secular – to engage in a comparative conversation. We asked our authors to articulate how their tradition has dealt with and managed dissent and disagreement. This required our authors to construct on behalf of their traditions an initial introspective positing of a core set of beliefs, without which dissent, let alone its management, would be meaningless, and so the first point of comparison becomes how each tradition defines itself. All traditions have a history, and each of our chapter-authors has had to strike a balance between the essentializing impulse to define a tradition, and the historicizing impulse to document its transformation over time. William Galston in this volume defines a tradition as “a way of thinking with a history,” and as we are dealing with ethical traditions, we would simply add “a way of thinking about what matters in life, with a history.” All traditions point back in time to something like a “sacred history” with authoritative texts, pivotal historical moments, and founding figures as common components. Our traditions are themselves epic narratives of sorts, with a genesis that represents their own rupture with the past. The tradition as narrative will typically (though not necessarily) have foundational figures whose radical difference with conventional wisdom goes well beyond that of forerunners. It will also likely have apostles who sustain the tradition (re)defining its boundaries and shaping its trajectory. Some histories are more centered than others. For example, the Abrahamic traditions and Sikhism have clear central figures, founding moments, and agreed upon authoritative texts. By contrast, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Marxism appear less centered, with disagreement often about which texts or which individuals to think of as pivotal, despite having larger-than-life “founding figures.” And relative to these, liberalism and Hinduism appear positively diffuse, though this is surely a consequence of the circumstances surrounding their respective constructions. One even observes how traditions can interact and operate in tandem, as in the case of a Buddhist liberal, or Jewish Marxist, or Confucian Christian. Thus, even though history and narrative continuity are central elements of all traditions, not all traditions define core beliefs through a form of historical originalism. Sources of authenticity are actively contested, as we see when we ask who really speaks authentically nowadays for doctrines like Buddhism or Confucianism. 4 Simone Chambers and Peter Nosco

Traditions are moving targets if you will, and what is dissent one day can as easily be orthodoxy down the road. This means that the questions we asked our authors had a self-referential dimension to them, and thoughtful readers will likely at times disagree with (indeed dissent from) how our authors depict their traditions. Traditions are made up of complex multidimensional and contested narratives. The request to state as clearly as possible the core beliefs and central tenets of a tradition necessarily led our authors to weigh contesting claims of authenticity and different understandings of what is fundamental or essential. The chapters that follow thus represent to some extent intellectual and spiritual exercises in diplomacy, as well as analysis. All authors in this volume have had to grapple with the questions of which actors speak for the tradition and which actions represent the authentic response to dissent. The challenge posed by issues of authenticity is well illustrated in Andrew Levine’s chapter on Marxism. Many individuals and movements, not to mention parties and regimes have been labeled or have self-identified as Marxist. But despite this fact, many actions taken in the name of Marxism, such as the brutal enforcement of orthodoxy in the Stalinist era, have nothing to do with Marx, who simply did not write about this sort of thing. The question thus becomes, is the Marxist tradition to be defined in relation to an authentic originary set of core beliefs found in Marx or can we think of the tradition as the historical actions done in the name of Marxism? All traditions have to confront this question to some extent, and not everything done in the name of a tradition or by adherents of the tradition is representative of how that tradition deals with or how it teaches how to deal with dissent. But drawing this line between authentic and inauthentic expressions of a tradition can be quite tricky. A classic case is the Spanish Inquisition, which Nietzsche and others have pointed out was not a very Christian undertaking. But it would be disingenuous to argue that since the Inquisition was an abhorrent interpretation of Christianity as well as a set of practices that Jesus is not likely to have endorsed, the Inquisition should then not be considered as an example of how Christianity has managed dissent. There are other cases in which this argument might be more persuasive, however. Liberalism for example endorses toleration, liberty, and non-coercion as the main principles through which to deal ethically with dissent. But there have been many professed liberals acting on behalf of liberal states who have failed quite strikingly to live up to these principles. Here we might want to identify an inevitable tension between “isms” and “-ists,” that is, what one’s ethical tradition says you can do with or to dissenters and what people have actually done in the name of the tradition. To navigate this thorny issue, the authors have had to articulate some version of the tradition for which they claim authenticity and although all the authors stress that their respective traditions are complex and plural they nonetheless have had to come down somewhere. This necessarily renders our Introduction 5 authors open to the charge of essentialism. Perhaps there is no essential core to Confucianism; maybe Buddhism is different in every era and in every place; conceivably liberalism is too capacious to be properly captured as one tradition. These are all possibilities, which the authors themselves often discuss directly. But the nature of the enterprise is such that some core must be identified from which individuals and groups dissent. There are all sorts of ways we may disagree with principles that do not make us dissidents. Dissidence involves opposition and challenge in a way that ordinary disagreement may not. But in order to oppose, there has to be a “there there,” to borrow a famous phrase from Gertrude Stein. Even in arguably the most open tradition in our group, the liberalism described by Galston as entailing “the maximum feasible scope for diversity and dissent,” dissent and not mere disagreement are evident. This is because liberalism has throughout its history had to fend off challenges to prevailing or widely held ideas. All traditions then, and even the most capacious, open the door to dissent.

Modernity It is often said that the modern world is characterized by pluralism, difference, diversity, and disagreement. But it might be more accurate to say that modernity contains new ways to think about, manage, and perhaps value pluralism, difference, diversity, and disagreement. Difference and disagreement have always been with us, or as Peter Steinfels says in his contribution, “Christianity looks like one long argument.” What changes in modernity, then, is how we deal with difference or how we value argument. For all the traditions discussed in this book the transition to the modern world has had an immense impact on the management of dissent. This impact, however, has not been uniform. For all religious traditions finding a home within liberal democracies, but with a special impact on Christianity, the transition to modernity has brought with it the separation of church and state on the one hand, and the rise of toleration as a widely held value on the other. Burning heretics at the stake, capital punishment for apostasy, and withholding civil benefits from dissenters are no longer possible or accepted methods of managing dissent in liberal democracies. In modern liberal societies the tool of excommunication, while still available, no longer carries the civil consequences that it once did. For religious traditions at home or in the process of becoming naturalized in Western liberal democracies, the consequences of secularism and a liberal political culture go beyond the fact that states no longer enforce orthodoxy. Liberalism exerts both internal and external pressure on religious traditions to come in line with the broader culture and to become more liberal in how they manage dissent. Internal to traditions, we see liberal Muslims, Jews, and Christians raising dissident voices against conservative and old world methods 6 Simone Chambers and Peter Nosco of managing dissent. Changing attitudes toward heresy within many Christian contexts is just one example, and as Steinfels notes, “in recent times heresy trials have become an embarrassment, the very notion of heresy now being associated with intellectual daring and courage rather than spiritual deformation.” External to traditions, by contrast, we often see traditional practices held up to public scrutiny and subjected to criticism by non-adherents. As Meena Sharify-Funk observes, “negotiation between Islam and cultural liberalism is likely to be prolonged and in some cases difficult.” Ethical traditions that find themselves within a liberal political culture will understandably resist embracing the maximal toleration of dissent found in the liberal tradition itself. Another way to articulate this point is to highlight an important difference between the state, arguably the primary host institution of liberalism, and the associations of civil society that host ethical traditions. Pluralist liberal states and liberal societies at large are not constituted by the pursuit of an identifiable good in the same way as associations and organizations of civil society. So for example, we might disagree with the way the Anglo-orthodox community forced Rabbi Louis Jacobs from a leadership role in the orthodox community because he voiced nonconformist ideas, but it is not illegitimate per se for religious organizations to promote one common set of core beliefs. This type of creedal policing would be illegitimate for a liberal state however. Thus liberal states cannot expel citizens for beliefs at variance with liberal ideology, but a liberal club or even a liberal party enjoys the latitude to exclude and discipline internal dissent and dissidents. Although one cannot complain about the de-legitimization of violence as a means of managing dissent, the changing circumstances of liberal modernity pose a significant challenge to the survival of ethical traditions, and in particular religious ones. The value placed on pluralism and toleration in the society at large often puts efforts to hold a center together in a bad light. In modern societies the attempt to manage intramural dissent can have the ironic effect of provoking dissent. But to maintain coherence and continuity a tradition must find ways to stabilize a central set of core beliefs and convictions or risk becoming something else. All traditions that find themselves within modern liberal political culture, including and perhaps especially liberalism itself, face the double effect of freedom. On the one hand, liberal political culture represents an hospitable environment in which to pursue and practice one’s tradition in freedom. On the other hand, modern values of toleration, pluralism, openness, and freedom of thought can gently and sometimes not so gently push traditions onto a centrifugal course where the center is always challenged and sometimes cannot hold. There are also centripetal forces at work in modernity that press in the opposite direction, however. Here, it is instructive to contrast the three Abrahamic religious traditions with the three historically less centered Asian Introduction 7 traditions. For Confucianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, modernity appears to have pushed them in centripetal directions, encouraging the traditions to posit static core beliefs that are fundamentally ahistorical. Thinking of them as “isms” at all is to impose a conceptual coherence and metaphysical center where perhaps none ever existed. The move to think about these three in terms of religion, or even more particularly in terms of ecclesiastic structures and lineages, can be tied to Western ideas of religion with roots in the Enlightenment. This in turn of course has links to colonialism and the Western aspiration not just to profit globally but also to make the world over in its own image. Therefore the Enlightenment mind imagines a Buddhism and Hinduism that, because they are religions, must be analogous in some respects to Christianity. Indeed there is little question that modernity has encouraged the consideration of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Hinduism as religions in the Western sense, and so seeks to rein in disparate practices and beliefs into the semblance of a coherent whole. To use Anne Murphy’s phrase this involves an exercise in boundary setting, but boundaries like borders need policing. Further, the push to bring these traditions into and under an Enlightenment conception of religion has often been exacerbated and complicated by political forces also pushing centripetally. There are two primary political forces that push in the direction of consolidation and centering and therefore conduce toward stricter management of dissent. The first is a clear adjunct to the Enlightenment conceptualization of these dispersed practices as unified religions and involves the state harnes- sing the power of an ethical tradition for nation building. Peter Nosco describes how the early modern Japanese state used networks of Buddhist temples as population registries and instruments of consolidation, and Richard Madsen describes something similar in the use of Confucianism in the forging of Chinese identity and state ideology. Similarly, Islam has often been used for political purposes, whereby its spiritual principles and communities have served to undergird modern states. The second modern political force at work in the centering of traditions is the rise of identity politics. Ethical traditions are exceptionally well equipped to address questions of who we are, where we came from, and how we arrived here. They can also be effective instruments of orientation, as they place us temporally and spatially in our respective here and nows, especially when reinforced by organic conceptions of society. But when political parties become host institutions, as for example in the case of Hindu or even Buddhist nationalists, this introduces a new dimension to the need to manage dissent effectively, for no longer is it just the cultural survival of a tradition at stake. Now we begin to see the spoils of the state itself at stake in keeping a disciplined center alive. Modernity thus looms large in all of these traditions but it does not produce a singular outcome, and history shows that modernity can conduce to consolidation as much as pluralism. 8 Simone Chambers and Peter Nosco

Host institutions As Peter Nosco points out in relation to Buddhism, but with application to all the ethical traditions discussed in this volume, intramural dissent is “managed in different ways depending principally on the host institutions.” These host institutions are often charged with the task of managing dissent, as well as inculcating orthodoxy, and appear to fall into two categories. On the one hand, there are institutions in which there is a coincidence between the goods of the institution and the goods of the tradition, in the sense that the institutions exist to be hosts for traditions. Religious institutions such as churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques are the clearest example of this sort of institution. Monasteries and other religious custodians of culture might represent interesting outliers, because one can imagine monasteries pursuing internal goods (for example communism) that are not part of the tradition’s broader set of core beliefs and might at times even come into conflict with those broader values or beliefs. On the other hand, there are host institutions – families, political parties, universities, and of course states – that have other and additional purposes, which do not coincide perfectly with those of the tradition. These two categories of host institutions frequently come into conflict and tension. Religious institutions such as churches and temples often represent a near perfect coincidence between the promotion of the core values of their respective ethical traditions and the promotion of the good of the institutions themselves. That is to say, the good of the religious institution is defined almost entirely in a manner that supports and is supported by the good of the religious tradition. But this is not always true for the second type of institution, and especially in the modern era when this category of institution is typically secular, with universities offering a nice example. A Catholic university has a mission to promote Catholic values and beliefs, but universities in general are institutions that are defined by the internal goods associated with higher education. There is no necessary contradiction between these two sets of goods, but it is not difficult to see how they might come into conflict. One of the more visible cases of this is discussed in both the natural law and Christianity chapters and involves the case of Charles Curran. Curran developed strongly dissenting views within Catholicism especially with regard to questions of contraception. As a consequence of his teaching of these views, in 1967 the trustees of the Catholic University of America decided to deny him tenure. Student and faculty protest resulted in the reversal of this decision, and Curran continued as a professor at CUA and continued to dissent. In 1986 the Catholic Church again tried to discipline him, but this time the disciplinary action was taken with an effort not to violate standards internal to the university. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith revoked Curran’s “right” to teach theology but did not revoke his tenure or his position as a professor at the university. Introduction 9

The 1967 action and the 1986 action provide an interesting study in contrasts. In the first, doctrinal conformity trumped scholarly and teaching excellence, but dissent and opposition to this call forced a reversal. In 1986, however, the Vatican acknowledged that conformity to core beliefs was not an appropriate criterion to judge academic merit or to award or withhold university goods such as tenure and promotion, even though they determined that they could revoke the credentials and status of Curran as a spokesperson for the church’s doctrine. In the secular world outside the academy, this would immediately be recognized as a form of “brand protection,” but as an example of intramural dissent within a religious host institution, it continues to provide fruitful grist for the understanding of both the rationale underlying and the ethics of managing heterodoxy and dissent. Modern universities in particular are interesting cases for the question of managing dissent. Modern universities are central host institutions not so much for ethical traditions as a whole or in their totality (Catholic University of America being an obvious exception) but for the intellectuals and scholars who individually articulate, reflect, and often preserve the traditions. This is particularly true for ethico-philosophical traditions such as liberalism, Marxism, Confucianism, and natural law theory, but it is also true for the ethico-religious traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Islam. In the case of universities we see a dilemma analogous to the one we encountered above with regard to liberal political culture. There is a sense in which the very idea of orthodoxy or even managing dissent is anathema to the university. Andrew Levine puts this nicely in his discussion of Marxist theory. To be accountable to an academic community means in principle to go where the argument leads and to make truth and not solidarity one’s first priority. Disagreements abound but ideas of dissent have no place. We all know of course that universities and intellectual communities do not always live up to these lofty ideals. But oftentimes attempts to manage and discipline deviations from any and all orthodoxies explode into debates about political correctness, academic freedom, and free speech. An interesting case study concerned the question of who is and is not allowed the free use of space in on-campus inter-religious and student centers. As is well known, modern universities typically dedicate some portion of their student centers to religious and political organizations with little regard to the respective ideologies or theologies represented so long as they do not conflict with the core values of the university community itself. But what does one do with an organization such as the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP), which became controversial on a number of campuses not for the substance of the ideas it espoused, which amounted to little more than a kind of unitarianism, but for its suspected affiliation with the KCIA-supported Unification Church led by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012). Similarly, how should a university respond if one of its official salaried chaplains represents the doctrines of her/his faith in a manner deemed 10 Simone Chambers and Peter Nosco unorthodox by the external host institution? Or, to take these questions to something like their logical conclusion, should a secular university be concerned about hiring Charles Curran to teach Catholic Church history and dogma? The answer would appear to be obviously not, but the question is not by itself ridiculous.

Orthodoxy and orthopraxis An interesting distinction that comes up often in these chapters is between theory and practice, or orthodoxy and orthopraxis. Some traditions, such as Buddhism and liberalism, appear to center on a creed or set of core beliefs and convictions. Others, such as Judaism and Confucianism, are deﬁned in terms of what Richard Madsen has described in his chapter as “orthopraxis.” In Confucianism core beliefs that remain static over time are more elusive, and “Confucianism” developed out of certain core practices that later scholars articulated in the form of core beliefs. This is especially evident in such Confucian concerns as family values, household continuity, and hierarchical structures of veneration over many generations. The distinction here is not fully captured by the simplistic binary of spiritual versus this-worldly, because even as secular a philosophy as liberalism can be placed within a creedal camp in that it has roots in such abstractions as rights, individualism, and liberty more than in lifeworld or semi-ritualized practices. But identifying the core or heart of a tradition is not necessarily a predictor of where dissent will be tolerated and where it will not. So, for example, liberalism is a creed but it does not directly police belief. Liberal states usually try to inculcate adherence to some general liberal values through schools and other forms of soft power, but as a state ideology liberalism is more concerned with behaviors and practices than belief. Citizens are permitted to defend patriarchal doctrines, but they may not themselves discriminate against individuals based on gender in hiring practices. Whether a tradition is concerned with doctrinal dissent or behavioral deviance also forms a dividing line between traditions that does not always fall where one might think, and Judaism and Christianity form an interesting contrast in this respect. Alan Mittleman conﬁrms that Judaism has no creed, and that behavioral norms rather than right belief are where the tradition seeks compliance. This view is illustrated in a famous Talmudic adjudication of a doctrinal dispute between the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai. The Talmud says both are right on the principle of the matter, but that when it comes to acting in the world, one should follow Hillel. Judaism accordingly has a long history of tolerating doctrinal disputes and deviation in belief, focusing instead on behavioral norms. Belief of course is not absent in these discussions, but the focus tends to be on practice and not abstract principles of faith. Peter Steinfels tells quite a different story with regard to Christianity. Creedal and core beliefs are central and important loci of difference. Introduction 11

Steinfels notes that the management of dissent in Christianity has always been focused on “formal and learned dissent” rather than lifeworld practices. Indeed at the practical level of proselytizing, modern Christians have tolerated considerable diversity in local ritual practices, especially in missionary contexts where Christianity is trying to make inroads within an existing set of cultural practices and beliefs. In the Catholic Cathedral in Tokyo, for example, the practice has been each August to construct a stage for the performance of a Bon-odori, which is a traditional folk-Buddhist occasion analogous to the Feast of All Souls. Many East Asians believe that during this three-day period, the souls of the dearly departed return, and we are privileged to be able to commune with them. But this would clearly be at odds with Catholic teachings, even though the practice is tolerated by Japanese Catholics and by extension the Catholic Church in Japan. The Vatican might or might not approve, but, either way, it has not been inclined to intervene. So, where does one draw the line between what will and will not fall within the tradition? When salviﬁc propositions are raised, the issues are more critical, but do such practices as the Bon-odori rise to such a level? In this brief comparison of Christianity with Judaism but with implications for all our traditions, the focus on doctrinal disputes versus disputes about practice has one further twist. Christianity’s pre-modern doctrinal disputes often centered on abstract theological issues such as the nature of transub- stantiation or the trinity. Such doctrinal disputes appear today, especially in secular circles, to be so abstract as to lose meaningful purchase. Today, however, the disputes that elicit the strongest attempts to manage dissent in Christianity are almost always about what Tom Angier calls “‘life and death’ issues such as abortion, euthanasia, and contraception, and wider issues of human sexual relations, particularly the status of homosexual practice and same-sex marriage.” Purely theological disputes or foundational arguments such as those between traditional natural law adherents and new natural law advocates are typically allowed to go where the argument takes them, and in such instances disagreement does not rise to the level of dissent. But “life and death” questions are another matter, and so in a sense Christianity too is ﬁghting battles at the level of behavioral norms. But these are norms about the application of Christian doctrine to one’s private life and secular issues, while in Judaism the debates that lead to dissent are often about behavioral norms that are themselves constitutive of Judaism, such as the observance of Shabbat or whether women can form a minyan.

The use of violence The use of violence to manage dissent can be formal or informal, authorized or unauthorized. As we have seen in our discussion of modernity, the rise of secularism in many parts of the world has restricted the appeal to the state as executor and enforcer of orthodoxy. This has had a tremendous impact on the 12 Simone Chambers and Peter Nosco level and type of violence used against dissenters but it has not of course done away with violence. First there are still states that play a role in enforcing orthodoxy. Theocracies like Iran are obvious cases but laws against apostasy and heresy can be found in many Islamic states that do not rise to the level of theocracy. Furthermore, liberal states are sometimes dragged into doctrinal disputes even when they would prefer to maintain neutrality. The Israeli state has had a difficult time staying clear of the intramural dispute over whether women may read the Torah and wear Tallitot (prayer shawls) at the Wailing Wall, often being forced to physically remove the dissenting women. And there are a number of ongoing legal cases in the United States and Canada where intramural disagreements about doctrine spill into secular legal jurisdiction and so require state intervention and sanction. The Canadian Supreme Court, for example, was asked to decide whether Jews are required by religious law to have a family sukkah or whether the obligation is fulfilled by a 3 communal sukkah. These sorts of cases are rare, however, and liberal states are generally not in the business of adjudicating doctrinal disputes let alone enforcing orthodoxy with state-sanctioned force. When non-liberal states arrest and punish citizens for heresy the violence is authorized and formal. But violence can also play a role at the other end of the spectrum: unauthorized and informal. In the 1970s it was not uncommon to see fistfights break out between Trotskyites and Maoists vying for prime leaflet distribution spaces on university campuses. In 1982 Peter Nosco, a specialist in Japanese studies, delivered a lecture on Japanese Confucianism at a major university in Taiwan, and when he noted that in some respects eighteenth- century Japan was more consistent with Zhou-dynasty Confucianism than China at about the same time, the interpreter – himself a promising junior scholar – was attacked and beaten about the head by a senior scholar who found the views objectionable. Few outside the tradition would imagine that a historical interpretation could elicit so extreme a response. Intramural disagreement can bring violent passions to the fore. But do we really want to say that this is a form of managing dissent? It might be more accurate to say that this type of violence often erupts because there is no authorized agent to manage dissent. The parties do not recognize any common judge in the dispute and their dispute has nowhere to go but into aggression, name calling, and fisticuffs. At the individual level of scholars brawling at public talks and activists tussling over turf, the picture is more amusing than menacing. But informal unauthorized violence can take place on very large scales with devastating consequences. Mobs enraged by perceived irreverence can turn fisticuffs into massacres. Like individual acts of aggression, rather than a way of managing dissent, the explosion of unauthorized and informal sectarian violence can be seen as evidence of a failure to manage dissent at all. There are cases, however,

3 Syndicat Northcrest v. Amselem (2004) 2 SCR 551. The Court wisely refused to take sides. Introduction 13 where informal intramural violence is either tacitly or explicitly endorsed by authority figures in a tradition. In these situations the violence while still informal does appear to be an intentionally chosen method of dealing with dissent. Much of Sunni–Shiite violence has this character. But there are complications that might make us question whether doctrinal dissent is doing the work here in violent sectarian conflicts. Political dynamics are also at work in many of these clashes, and ethnic hatred and prejudice can of course also masquerade as ethical dissent. Intramural dissent can and has flared into violence but case-by-case empirical studies are needed to make any causal claims. Another factor in the rigor with which groups are willing to discipline dissent is the groups’ relation to power. When proponents of a religion or ideology are targeted by the state and are forced to take their practices and convictions underground, their strategies for managing internal dissent will have to be more extreme than in any above-ground movement in a pluralistic society. This is because even the slightest intramural dissent in a secret society runs the risk of rippling the waters above and thereby calling unwelcome attention to the secret activities. Peter Nosco describes just such a dynamic with respect to the fundamentalist fujufuse movement within Nichiren Buddhism. Marxist cells, party membership in pre-revolutionary Russia as well as communist resistance activity during the Second World War are also examples of this dynamic.

Overview of the chapters The hope and aim of this volume, and indeed all Ethikon volumes, is to contribute to a comparative conversation between and within traditions. It would be unreasonable of course to ask each author to compare his or her tradition with others, since few would claim the expertise to do so, and this would never succeed in achieving the deep level of analysis that we seek in this volume. Therefore the method of comparison adopted here is to request that each author address the same set of questions and concerns, thus allowing the reader easy access to comparative lines of argument. The reader will note then that for the most part the chapters all proceed along a similar structure. We first asked authors to set out the key tenets and core beliefs of their tradition, since without a core it is difficult to imagine dissent. From there the topics covered various aspects of intramural dissent, such as what priority do traditions place on maintaining a consensus on core beliefs in relation to other goods, and how elastic are the traditions prepared to be in defining themselves? What consequences do traditions see flowing from dissent, and is there diversity within the tradition on how to deal with dissent? We asked each author whether it was possible to identify an authority within the tradition tasked with articulating and enforcing the core beliefs. Next came the central question of management: what measures are seen as ethically appropriate 14 Simone Chambers and Peter Nosco ways of dealing with dissent? Have these standards of management changed significantly over the course of time? Have these measures and policies with regard to managing dissent themselves been the subject of internal criticism within the tradition? Finally, we asked our authors to discuss the scope claimed by their tradition on behalf of their management strategies. In other words, we wanted to know if individual traditions have thought that their approach to dissent might be appropriate for other traditions or in other institutional settings. In Chapter 2, William Galston traces a number of intramural debates and disagreements within liberalism, while at the same time suggesting that liberalism as a tradition is hesitant to think of these debates in terms of dissent. The strong and central place of toleration within liberalism militates against the suppression of intramural dissent and may make liberalism the single most elastic of the traditions discussed here. Furthermore, as a philosophical tradition, liberalism has no recognized authority to manage dissent. Liberalism is not only a philosophical tradition, however. It has found political articulation in parties, states, and international rights movements, and it is here that Galston traces some of the challenges faced by these associations as they endeavor to keep faith with liberal principles of toleration and maximum scope for dissent on the one hand, and reproduction and continuity of key tenets and principles on the other hand. Andrew Levine in his chapter on Marxism recognizes that philosophical debates in the academy do not raise issues of dissent so much as questions of disagreement. He proposes therefore to leave analytic Marxism aside and focus on Marxist politics broadly construed. But here too there is a problem with pinning down a particularly Marxist view of intramural dissent. Marxist politics, most prominently visible in the form of Leninist parties, did not draw on Marxist theory in developing political strategies and organizational structures. While these parties claimed Marxist pedigree, the connection was tenuous at best. Nevertheless, they are part of what is commonly thought of as the Marxist political tradition. These parties prized and indeed required unity, and therefore they were not diversity-friendly. But Levine tells us that it was political exigencies and excesses, and not Marxist theory, that led to show trials, internment camps, and purges. The sad part of the story is that the often brutal silencing of dissent associated with Marxist political regimes, although not properly Marxist, has contributed to a discrediting of Marxism. Distinguishing itself from our other traditions, Marxism may be effectively defunct: it will perhaps continue as a theoretical tradition and as such it has a healthy and open approach to dissent, but it also appears moribund as a political movement even though the movement need not be closed to dissent. In Chapter 4, devoted to natural law, Tom Angier brings to light the ways that natural law’s twin affiliations or perhaps identities can come into conflict. Natural law is a philosophical tradition committed to rational argument and not dependent on revelation. Angier reads Aquinas as endorsing this view of Introduction 15 natural law: although God stands behind natural law, it is natural because it speaks directly to natural man through reason and inclination. But natural law, especially its Thomistic variation, is also a central pillar in Catholic teaching, and is thus both an ethico-philosophical tradition as well as an ethico-religious tradition. Although its religious identity is also founded on rational argument rather than revelation, natural law’s special place within Catholicism introduces issues of dissent not present or relevant to its identity as a philosophical tradition. This is well illustrated in Angier’s comparison of foundational debates between traditional and new natural law theory on the one hand, and disagreements about practical issues pertaining to reproduction and sexuality on the other hand. Foundational disagreements have remained philosophical, that is, there is dissension but not dissent from orthodoxy, and the Church has for the most part let the argument go where it goes. When issues move from a foundational level to more practical questions of the application of natural law to ethical choices faced by modern individuals, questions of conformity and orthodoxy enter the picture. The content of the debates is still rational argument not revelation, but what changes is the insertion of authority into the debate, as when the Magisterium or teaching authority of the Catholic Church has weighed in and attempted to constrain dissent on natural law teachings. Echoing a number of other chapters in this volume, Alan Mittleman in Chapter 5 on Judaism reminds us that our present-day conception of religion (and perhaps all -isms) is heavily indebted to the Enlightenment. Judaism does not fit neatly into this picture of religion because it has more to do with belonging than believing, and issues of dissent therefore have focused more on behavioral norms than belief. Although the history of Judaism is not without its heretics, excommunications, and disciplinary actions, Mittleman argues that Judaism has always been open to pluralism especially in the form of intellectual, theoretical, and theological disagreement. The high value placed on learning and education on the one hand and the lack of access (certainly in the Diaspora) to state-sponsored sanctions on the other have contributed to a tradition of relative tolerance of difference and diversity especially with regard to theological and philosophical doctrines. Survival, however, dictated a tighter hold on variations in practice. Strong norms against intermarriage and conformity in everyday practices that required segregation in all aspects of life from host cultures have proved more useful to long-term survival than silencing or disciplining intellectual dissent. Christianity is perhaps the most deceptively familiar of the traditions we examine, and Peter Steinfels’ chapter offers a thorough overview of Christianity’s birth, rise, and trajectory into the modern era. Central to this story and the natural focus when thinking about intramural dissent is the “massive post-reformation resort to violence – from Inquisitions to religious wars, forced migrations, and persecutions of all sorts” that continued even into the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when civil penalties for 16 Simone Chambers and Peter Nosco religious dissent finally began to disappear. Much of the contemporary story is thus about recovering from that violent past and finding the right balance between doctrinal solidarity and consensus on the one hand and toleration, respect, and freedom on the other hand. As Steinfels tells us, that balance is not easy to find and many Christian denominations and sects feel themselves engaged in a rearguard action to maintain core beliefs (especially on sexuality and gender issues) in the face of a modern pluralist culture. Steinfels points out that Christianity’s failures in the management of intramural dissent have resulted in any number of successful examples of differentiation through denominationalism, and are an ironic source of Christianity’s capacity to flourish despite its divisions. Further, the fact that Europeans have been the ones to initially define “religion” has obviously tended to affect how religion has been defined by others, rendering Christianity, as Steinfels observes, the default religion of Western modernity. In Chapter 7, Meena Sharify-Funk stresses the diversity and plurality of Islam, which is probably the contemporary world’s most visible laboratory for the management of dissent and the violent extremes to which it can be taken. Islam is deeply heterogeneous. The multiple, cross-cutting, and competing strands of Islam are not only a source of tension, conflict, and intolerance between groups but also a resource to draw on in thinking about “new ways of voicing and accommodating dissent.” Sharify-Funk carefully lays out and untangles the differences between Sunni and Shiite, Sufism and Salafism, and the numerous subdivisions within these strands. She then overlays these sectarian divisions with a typology aimed at articulating ideological differences that often cut across sectarian lines, including secularist, progressive reformist, mainstream revivalist, radical, and neo-traditional variants. Her conclusion is that there is no single Islamic response to dissent per se, and what we observe instead is ongoing disagreement over what constitutes a falling away from truth, and how to address difference and disagreement. The fragmentation and pluralization of Islam have been complicated by being entwined with reactions to colonialism and the anti-Western sentiment that often accompanies a pushback against a colonial past. In the end, Sharify- Funk is hopeful that modern democratic practices and traditional Islamic sources are not fundamentally at odds, and that dialogic cosmopolitanism will become the new Islamic way of dealing with dissent and disagreement. In Chapter 8, devoted to the South Asian traditions of Hinduism and Sikhism, Anne Murphy tells a complex story of construction. Hinduism “as such did not exist in the pre-modern period.” Texts, practices, traditions, rituals, and beliefs that are retroactively identified as “Hindu” today existed in the pre-modern period, but there was no corresponding self-identification as a coherent unified tradition with boundaries in need of policing. The “construction” of Hinduism is a modern phenomenon born out of many different pressures and imperatives. Although Hindu and Sikh origins seem to stand at opposite ends of the heterogeneous–homogeneous spectrum, with Introduction 17

Hinduism maximally elastic and diffuse while Sikhism is the more bounded and centered, they share a modern concern with boundaries made necessary by the politics of identity and power. Hindus must distinguish themselves clearly from Muslims, and Sikhs must make sure that they are clearly distinguished from Hindus. Since this differentiation is substantially in the service of winning the spoils of representative democracy, questions of dissent are somewhat disingenuous in this context. The pull of political power can be both exclusionary and inclusionary, as, for example, in the attempt to include Dalit traditions in a Hindu identity that for many centuries had tried to exclude the lowest castes from access to its texts, practices, and communal activities. In the end Murphy suggests that politics and power intervene in a way that makes it near impossible to discern an authentic Hindu or Sikh way of dealing with difference and diversity. As Richard Madsen describes in his chapter on Confucianism, the term “Confucian” was coined by Jesuits to describe a complex set of ritual practices and associated convictions. This “Confucianism” was subsequently embraced by a succession of Chinese states, most recently in the twentieth and twenty- first centuries when some Chinese regimes have posited Confucianism as the foundation of Chinese national culture. Throughout its history, these practices and convictions have had close ties with the state and have frequently depended on the state to enforce orthodoxy. Confucian scholars saw their calling to be in the service of the state, but they also imagined the central purpose of the state to be assuring the broadest possible conditions of stability and well-being, allowing households and their members full rein to grow in the direction of goodness. In theory Confucian scholars enjoyed the privilege of expressing remonstrance upward, but in practice such dissent from the state was usually punished. The centrality of the state is thus internal to the core beliefs and values of Confucianism. Madsen notes that until the twentieth century “there was remarkable consensus, at all levels, on basic Confucian familial ethics and political ethics,” but with the collapse of traditional monarchical modes of government throughout East Asia, the central authority traditionally tasked with defining orthodoxy disappeared. In the absence of an accepted authority, Madsen describes how contemporary Confucianism has blossomed into a “hundred schools” of thought. No longer backed by monarchs, many of Confucianism’s core tenets remain hierarchical and are perceived to be favorable to authoritarian states and traditional gender roles, making it difficult for Confucianism to succeed outside East Asia. Peter Nosco in Chapter 10 approaches the question of intramural dissent within the Buddhist tradition at a slightly different methodological angle than the other chapters. Rather than begin by identifying key tenets or core beliefs in the abstract, he describes four seminal and defining moments of dissent in Buddhist mytho-history. These cases serve two purposes. First, they tell the reader something about the origins of the important divisions within the Buddhist tradition. Second, they invite the reader to think inductively from 18 Simone Chambers and Peter Nosco these cases in building a picture of the Buddhist way of managing dissent, which has depended less on Buddhism’s core beliefs than on the historical, political, and social situations in which Buddhism has found itself. Early Buddhists, for example, in trying to distinguish themselves – that is, to dissent – from the brahminical tradition from which they broke, were understandably concerned with defining orthodoxy and quashing dissent. For most of its history, however, Buddhism has been remarkably elastic in its capacity to accommodate itself to its immediate context. When not partnered with political or social interests, Buddhists seem quite happy to let a thousand flowers bloom and each can call itself Buddhist. However, in those rare circumstances when Buddhists have incurred the wrath of the state and have been forced to take the practice of their faith underground, their internal management of dissent has assumed a much higher priority. Michael Walzer’s Afterword places the foregoing chapters in three inter- locking frames. Walzer observes that as traditions take on a more liberal or quasi-liberal attitude toward internal dissent – by which he means as traditions move away from coercive attempts to force conformity – two strategies present themselves. The first is what he labels latitudinarianism and the second denominationalism. In the first we make the tent bigger and in the second we encourage dissenters to set up their own tents. This is a wonderfully productive frame through which to compare the routes each tradition has taken into modernity and into a version of itself compatible with liberalism. The second comparative question Walzer poses has to do with the relationship of the tradition to state power. How have traditions used state power (including soft power fully compatible with liberalism) to manage dissent and how has the state used traditions to consolidate political power? The final question takes up what Walzer sees as the most challenging dissident movement on the horizon: feminist and gay activists in all the traditions (including liberalism) are the dissidents of today. The future of all these traditions will be shaped by how they meet this challenge. Ethical pluralism is a permanent feature of our modern world. It is our hope that this volume and indeed all the volumes in the Ethikon series help the reader to navigate this pluralism as scholars, citizens, and persons. Although, such pluralism poses challenges to all of us at many different levels of our life, ethical pluralism also opens up opportunities and offers rewards. We hope that the comparative perspective on traditions put forward in this volume will contribute to the ways that pluralism enriches our lives. Chapter 2

Liberalism and internal dissent

William A. Galston

Introduction and key tenets Liberalism is a way of thinking with a history. That is why it makes sense to call it a “tradition.” Like every tradition, it not only develops but also changes in response to pressures and opportunities, internal and external. While historical change has its own inner coherence, there is no guarantee that what emerges historically will be entirely compatible with its original sources. It is possible – perhaps even inevitable – that traditions are instances of what Wittgenstein famously called family resemblances in which each family member has something in common with some but not necessarily all the others. Liberalism originated in two great struggles of the early modern era – one against arbitrary power and privilege, the other against religious war. In response to these twin ills, liberals have long stood for the core principles of individual liberty and civil peace. Regarding the first principle, it became apparent that any coherent account of individual liberty implied some conception of equality as well: at the very least, liberty meant equal liberty. Ever since, liberals have wrestled with the relation between liberty and equality: the further equality is extended, the more likely it is to collide with liberty, and vice versa. Regarding the second principle: From the liberal perspective, conflict is more than the naked struggle for power. It often stems from deep differences, starting but not ending with religion. The century-long wars of religion proved that no creed could forcibly silence or extirpate its competitors. The only alternative to endless war was a modus vivendi that allowed groups and nations to co-exist despite their differences. From this hard-won (indeed blood-soaked) wisdom developed the liberal principle of tolerance that came to occupy such a prominent place in liberal theory and practice. The liberal principles of liberty and peace pointed toward another conclusion fraught with theoretical and practical significance: if civil authority was

19 20 William A. Galston understood as plenipotentiary, with jurisdiction over all aspects of citizens’ lives, then civil law could not avoid severe impositions on some citizens’ liberty, exacerbating tensions between them and other citizens whose beliefs and way of life the law favored. The characteristic liberal solution was to limit the scope of public authority. For example, rather than specifying a single religion for all citizens, the law would make room for a multiplicity of faiths, restricting itself to keeping the peace among them and enforcing some minimal civil requirements on all. A characteristic outlook formed around these core commitments. While liberals are not necessarily hostile to religion, they tend to be rationalists who believe in the power of unaided human reason to understand and to improve the world. They believe in reasoned discussion as the best way of resolving or at least managing disputes. They believe, if not in the inevitability, at least in the possibility of progress in human affairs. And they are this-worldly: whatever our fate in the world to come may be, what happens to us here and now really matters. So liberals care a great deal about security against violent death, and they take pain and suffering very seriously. Liberals oppose cruelty in all its forms, and they support improvements in medicine as the best way of minimizing pain and extending healthy lives. And because liberals care affir- matively about how our lives go in this world, they believe that society has some obligation to create the conditions most conducive to human flourishing. (The extent of that obligation has long been contested among liberals, and it remains so to this day.) Through its historical development, liberalism understood as an ensemble of beliefs about the purposes and limits of government became linked – empirically rather than conceptually – with other emerging features of modern societies. Of these, four are of particular importance – markets, constitution- alism, democracy, and international organizations. Legally protected forms of ownership and exchange came to be seen as expressions of individual liberty as well as vehicles for increasing wealth. Written constitutions helped to delimit governmental power. Once the US Declaration of Independence had defined the people as the source of legitimate authority and the well-being of the people as its legitimate purpose, it was but a small step to the view that the people should govern themselves, directly or through their elected representatives. If government is of the people and for the people, why not by the people as well? While it was possible to see liberalism as a purely domestic doctrine, it was natural to extend it transnationally. The belief spread that liberal polities were less likely to enter into wars against one another. But the propensity for peace was not self-executing: the peaceful resolution of international disagreements implied the creation of transnational institutions and laws. Liberal internationalism is the effort to bring the anarchic world of relations among nations under the rule of law, so far as possible. Liberals view the rule of law as serving both liberty and concord, in domestic as well as international Liberalism and internal dissent 21 affairs. And they regard their basic principles as the architecture of decent societies, whatever their differences of culture and history. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, is the distilled essence of that belief. As every historian of liberalism recognizes, self-styled liberals have always disagreed vigorously among themselves. Efforts to draw a bright-line perimeter around the liberal creed stand in tension, not always explicit, with the liberal commitment to tolerance. Liberals cannot even agree whether, or under which conditions, tolerance should be extended to the intolerant. A fortiori,theyare reluctant to suppress intramural dissent. In the camp of liberals today, for example, one finds some thinkers who incline toward libertarianism and others toward social democracy. The two groups have radically different conceptions of the relation between liberty and equality, a disagreement with practical as well as theoretical consequences. But few philosophical liberals are inclined to end the debate by expelling one of the parties to it. Another key intramural debate concerns individual agency. Liberals respect the right of individuals to decide for themselves, and interference with that right labors under a substantial burden of proof. Still, liberals concede that agency presupposes at least minimal capacities for reflection and choice – whence the right of parents and guardians to act on behalf of minors in their charge. Some liberals have gone further, arguing that many if not all adults fall short of those capacities at least some of the time and that a measure of external interference may be warranted. Recent discoveries of pervasive cognitive distortions underlie defenses of liberal paternalism in 1 public policy. Evidence of liberal paternalism can also be found in international affairs. After proclaiming that “Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign,” John Stuart Mill hastens to reassure doubting readers that “this doctrine is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties.” It excludes not only children and other minors, but also “those backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage.” Accordingly, “Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the 2 means justified by actually effecting that end.” For some nineteenth-century thinkers and colonial administrators, “liberal imperialism” was anything but an oxymoron. By the mid-twentieth century, the failure of most colonial ventures to approach Mill’s standard of legitimacy had thoroughly discredited the idea, and it remains so to this day.

1 Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow (New York: Penguin, 2011); Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, “Libertarian Paternalism,” American Economic Review 93, 2 (May 2003): 175–179. 2 Mill, On Liberty, David Bromwich and George Kateb (eds.) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 81. 22 William A. Galston

This is not to say that it is always illegitimate for foreign powers to impose liberalism at the point of a sword, or that it is never possible to do so. After the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan in 1945, the United States and its allies tried to do just that, with results that exceeded expectation and endured. But the circumstances that make such efforts both acceptable and possible – wars of aggression, launched by illiberal powers, leading to total defeat and surrender of sovereignty – are very rare. The Bush administration’s attempt to bring liberal democracy to Iraq – and the world’s reaction to that policy – stand as vivid reminders that the circumstances of the post-war world were exceptional. As the preceding paragraphs suggest, liberalism enjoys a more than theoretical existence. It is in practice that the idea of “host associations” does real work. Historically, three such associations – polities, parties, and transnational movements – have played such a role. Louis Hartz argued that liberalism 3 was the United States’ founding creed and remained so down to the present. (It is not clear that this could be said of any other nation.) Whatever one’s views on this much disputed thesis, it is hard to deny that our founding documents – the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, James Madison’s “Memorial and Remonstrance”–are liberal in their inspiration, or that canonical texts such as the Gettysburg Address and the “I Have a Dream” speech are recognizable extensions of that founding commitment. This is not to say that the United States has been liberal through and through. As Rogers Smith has reminded us, it has embraced multiple “civic ideals,” including decidedly illiberal narratives of ascriptive Americanism that delimited that status along lines of race, religion, national origin, gender, and 4 sexual orientation. But while Smith insists that the focus on liberalism has obscured the ubiquity of illiberal practices in American history, he does not argue that liberalism is compatible with those practices. In the end, as Lincoln urged, we had to choose between fidelity to our founding creed and the ongoing acceptance of hierarchy and exclusion. And during recent decades, Americans have done just that. Whatever their historical importance, illiberal sources of national unity – race, ethnicity, and religion, among others – have been progressively discredited. To be a twenty-first-century American is to accept the liberal creed, at least for civic purposes. That is what naturalizing citizens are asked to affirm explicitly, while those who are citizens by birth are tacitly called upon to do likewise. Civic education in liberal societies is designed to foster belief in core liberal principles. Of course, there is no reliable way of reading citizens’ hearts and minds, and, even if there were, a truly liberal state would hesitate to initiate such

3 Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1955). 4 Rogers M. Smith, Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967). Liberalism and internal dissent 23 inquiries. (The House Un-American Activities Committee became notorious for overstepping this boundary.) In practice, then, membership in a liberal polity requires behavioral rather than creedal conformity. Some Protestants, for example, maintain their historical antipathy to the Catholic Church, but they go beyond the liberal pale only if they try to use law or coercion to suppress it. Citizens can be fined or jailed if they breach legally mandated behavioral norms. If transgressions are sufficiently serious, they can be deprived of key civic rights such as voting. Under some circumstances, the citizenship of naturalized Americans can be revoked. Second among host associations are liberal political parties, which came into being in most parliamentary systems during the nineteenth century. Many were anti-monarchical; some were anti-clerical. All were dedicated to what came to be known as “bourgeois” civil liberties and also to free trade. As the Industrial Revolution produced new economic and social problems, liberal parties shifted away from purist laissez-faire stances toward more activist agendas that regulated working conditions and offered at least minimal guarantees against economic dislocation. Parliamentary parties often imposed “party discipline” on key votes: to remain in good standing, individual members were required to support their leadership’s position. Leaders could withdraw their support and endorsement from members who failed to comply, and they sometimes did. More frequently, members who could not conscientiously support their leaders on momentous issues left the party, either to ally themselves with competing parties or to form new ones. Because parties, like churches, are in the end voluntary organizations, discipline can be pushed only so far before those whose voices are in the minority choose to exercise their right of exit. Liberal parties divide more frequently over foreign than domestic policy. In every major war since the mid-nineteenth century, liberals have argued among themselves about the decision to enter armed conflict, the means employed to prosecute the conflict, and the domestic restrictions on liberties that often occurred in wartime situations. During the First World War, the British Liberal Party split over these issues, and it continued arguing after the war ended about the appropriate treatment – generous or punitive – to be meted out to a defeated Germany. In the United States, divisions within the Democratic Party over the Vietnam War triggered massive rank-and-file defections during the 1970s and remained raw for the better part of two decades. In the American system, party leaders cannot formally “delist” dissenters within their ranks. They can deprive them of choice committee assignments and positions in the internal hierarchy. But here again, the possibility of rank-and-file exit limits leadership’s power to suppress dissent. Indeed, the exit option serves in part as a way of disciplining leaders. In addition to polities and parties, there is a Liberal International, which bills itself as the world federation of liberal political parties. Membership is 24 William A. Galston voluntary, but each member must adhere to the organization’s manifestos, six of which have been issued since its founding after the Second World War. The Oxford Manifesto, drawn up and adopted at an International Liberal Conference in 1947, lays out a broad liberal vision, including: respect for persons and families; a wide range of civil liberties; “true democracy,” which respects minority rights; private property, free enterprise, and free choice of occupations; security against the hazards of sickness, unemployment, disability, and old age; and a peaceful world order sustained by a new international organization, respect for universal human rights, and freedom of trade, travel, and information among nations. While the Liberal International makes it clear that the application of these principles will vary with circumstances, there can be no internal dissent on the principles themselves, for the simple reason that membership requires their explicit endorsement. It does not appear that any member has ever departed so far from these principles in their domestic agendas as to warrant reproof or expulsion. Indeed, it is not clear that the organization’s founding charter leaves room for such disciplinary procedures, even though its mission seems 5 to require them.

Priorities Ascertaining the relative standing of core liberal beliefs raises complex analytical questions, because most liberal values and principles are abstract concepts to allow for a wide range of specifications. “By definition,” Maurice 6 Cranston argued, “a liberal is [someone] who believes in liberty.” But what does that mean? Liberty exists, potentially, along a number of dimensions – religious, moral, political, civil, and economic. Early liberals tended to focus on freedom from external interference (negative liberty). Some nineteenth- century liberals shifted toward positive liberty, understood as freedom from inner constraints that distort the human will. Many twentieth-century liberals argued that mere negative freedom without the material means to act effectively on one’s choices was no liberty at all. In recent decades, a “republican” definition of liberty – freedom from the arbitrary power of another – has made its way into the liberal tradition. And agreement on an understanding of liberty need not yield consensus on particular liberties. Many liberals think of rights and their protection as the core of liberty. But which liberties do we enjoy as a matter of moral right rather than positive law? Parallel distinctions between abstract concepts and specific conceptions can be drawn for each of the other core liberal values, such as equality and limited government.

5 For details, consult the documents available at www.liberal-international.org 6 Quoted in Gerald Gaus and Shane D. Courtland, “Liberalism,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 edition, available at plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2011/entries/ liberalism/) Liberalism and internal dissent 25

These facts help explain a key ambiguity of contemporary American discourse: “liberalism” denotes both a philosophical tradition and a political creed. Today’s political liberals believe that the state may restrict liberty in economic relations in the name of promoting equality but that public restrictions on personal and lifestyle choices are harder to justify. While many American political conservatives would turn this on its head, they do not automatically breach the bounds of philosophical liberalism. Libertarianism, a creed that seems to be gaining ground (especially among young adults), advocates minimal government intervention in both economic and personal spheres. While this makes libertarians hard to place on the conventional left–right political spectrum, they are squarely within the tradition of liberal theory. Indeed, they insist that they are the real “classical” liberals and that today’s political liberals and conservatives have both abandoned portions of the liberal tradition rightly understood. It is reasonable to believe that the relative weights and priorities among values such as freedom and equality will vary with the specific understanding of them that different liberal thinkers and social movements embrace. In announcing his two principles of justice, John Rawls spoke for a main current of the liberal tradition. First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others. Second: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone’s advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all ...These principles are to be arranged in a serial order with the first principle prior to the second. This ordering means that a departure from the institutions of equal liberty required by the first principle cannot be justified ... or compensated for, by greater social and 7 economic advantages. In short, while the basic liberties of persons establish a zone of equality, they serve as constraints on the promotion of social and economic equality. Some contemporary liberals have pushed back against this strict priority: If economic and social inequalities are grave enough, some limitations on personal liberties can be justified. For example, they say, when speech is used to denigrate and marginalize specific groups, authorities may regulate it in communities such as colleges and universities. Do campus codes prohibiting “hate speech” violate or promote liberal values? To what extent can liberal polities acknowledge sources other than reason for understanding what is humanly desirable? Liberals in the Rawlsian tradition embrace the idea of “public reason”: whatever may be the case for families and religious communities, citizens are obliged to draw only on shared civic principles – in American terms, constitutional values – in debates over public policy. To be sure, we argue about the content of and priority among

7 John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 60–61 (emphasis mine). 26 William A. Galston those values. But they are in principle accessible to, and the common property of, every citizen. Citizens may draw upon other sources of value – religion and comprehensive conceptions of the good – but only if they can translate these sources into the common civic discourse. Other liberals disagree. In circumstances of freedom, they argue, citizens are bound to develop diverse understandings of value. A free society must allow all citizens to express their deepest convictions, in public as well as private life. Liberal politics must not censor some views or declare them out of order, and citizens should be able to bear public witness to the beliefs that animate their lives. But the mere expression of personal conviction in one’s own terms is unlikely to carry the day. To be persuasive beyond their own community, individuals and groups must build bridges between their views and those of others with different outlooks. Public reason emerges, not top-down, but bottom-up; not from an a priori decision that some forms of public discourse are inappropriate, but from the practical demands of political effectiveness. Other debates roil contemporary liberal theory and practice as well. Liberals try to strike a balance between personal responsibility and social provision, using the latter to promote rather than undermine the former. Judged against that standard, was Bill Clinton’s welfare reform consistent with liberalism’s core tenets? The issue split his party and led to something all too rare in American politics – principled resignations from his administration. Or consider the conﬂict between equality and freedom of association. Can the Boy Scouts be compelled to accept gays? Can the church-related organizations be compelled to fund contraceptive services as part of the health insurance they offer their employees? Some liberals believe that it is improper to offer faith-based claims when arguing about public policy. Does excluding such claims foster or undermine core liberal principles? To what extent do liberal principles require, permit, or forbid tolerating the practices of illiberal groups within liberal polities? Many liberals believe that their commitment to individual liberty precludes authoritative institutions from promoting speciﬁc conceptions of good human lives. Some reach the same conclusion via the claim that reason cannot achieve compelling answers to this question. For centuries, in fact, liberal theorists have expressed skepticism about our ability to generalize about the human good. John Locke equated understanding of the good with individual tastes: The philosophers of old did in vain enquire, whether the summum bonum consisted in riches, or bodily delights, or virtue, or contemplation: And they might have as reasonably disputed whether the best relish were to be found in apples, plums, or nuts ... For ... pleasant tastes depend not on the things themselves, but their 8 agreeableness to this or that particular palate.

8 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Peter H. Nidditch (ed.) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), p. 269. Liberalism and internal dissent 27

Proponents of this view typically understand liberty as negative: As much as possible, government should leave individuals alone to lead their lives as they see ﬁt. What moral instruction there may be comes from parents, mentors, and religious leaders, not the state. But there has long been a countercurrent. Certiﬁed liberals such as John Stuart Mill have embraced theories of human development with a distinctly perfectionist cast. And many liberals inspired by Kant see individual autonomy as an achievement – the fruit of moral cultivation – rather than an endowment. To be sure, both Mill and Kant were critical of direct state promotion of the human good and saw no contradiction between perfection- ism and negative liberty. But understandably, many who followed them asked the obvious question: is it wrong in every respect – a per se invasion of liberty – to institute social arrangements and systems of cultivation to promote human goods and capacities that reason can defend? So liberal perfections are often at home with a more positive conception of liberty: without the ability to discern morally relevant differences and to choose freely without inner constraints, freedom is a chimera, and these abilities result from intentional policies, public as well as private. It is not hard to see why clashes between negative and positive conceptions of liberty often come to a head in debates about content and pedagogy in public schools.

Consequences From the liberal standpoint, intramural consensus on core beliefs has two valuable consequences. First, deliberation and debate are likely to be well-ordered, because all parties to them are appealing to the same principles and goals. This basic structure is far from ensuring agreement, of course. As we have seen, liberals disagree about the speciﬁcation of core concepts and the priority among them. Even when agreement on these matters is secured, as it often is not, different readings of the empirical evidence can yield heatedly debated conclusions. During the controversy over Clinton’s proposed welfare reforms, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, himself a long-time backer of reform, predicted that if Clinton’s version were adopted, a million children soon would be homeless and huddled on outdoor heating grates. If events had borne out his forecast, it would have been a decisive argument against the reforms. But despite Moynihan’s well-informed judgment, they did not. Second, consensus on core beliefs enables liberals to sidestep foundational disagreements that are unlikely to be resolved. Rawls propounded a strategy of overlapping consensus: we can agree on certain beliefs without having to agree on the grounds of those beliefs. Taking our bearings from free and equal citizenship means that we can set metaphysics and even moral theory aside. Without reaching the question of whether this strategy of avoidance is possible, a glance at the history of liberal theorizing makes it clear that 28 William A. Galston

Rawls’ concerns were not without warrant. The list of liberalism’s possible foundations includes the social contract (Locke); free economic and social competition as the antidote to tyrannical concentration of power (Smith and Madison); the autonomous personality (Kant); individual development and its enabling conditions (Mill, Green, Hobhouse); and value pluralism (Berlin). If these foundational differences are in play, practical discussions can hardly get off the ground.

Diversity While it is hard to find liberals in any venue who would cast aside values such as liberty, equality, or the rule of law there is (as we have already seen) considerable debate over their meaning and scope of application. There is, in addition, controversy through the history of liberalism about the “core” status of key commitments. For example, nineteenth-century British liberals saw free trade not just as a policy but as a basic principle. In the twentieth century, on both sides of the Atlantic, free trade became far more contested within the liberal camp, and it remains so today, especially among US Democrats. Free trade works to the advantage of many citizens but worsens the lot of others. If those harmed are already among the less fortunate members of society, today’s liberals wonder whether the aggregate gains justify increased inequality. Another telling example: For early liberals, limited government was among the core commitments. Today, it is not so clear. Over the past century, liberal philosophers and their political followers have become increasingly comfortable with activist government that tries to manage the economy and provide security to all citizens against the vicissitudes of old age, disease, poverty, and unemployment. And even in the social sphere, expanding equal civil rights – voting, access to accommodations, marriage – can and often does require an expansive use of state power. While every philosophical liberal will acknowledge limits to government in principle, the significance of that commitment today breaks down along partisan and ideological lines. One thing is clear: liberals believe – must believe – in maximum feasible scope for diversity and dissent. Enforced uniformity of belief is antithetical to 9 the liberal creed. In the case of West Virginia v. Barnette, the Supreme Court was asked to decide whether the Constitution permitted the government of a state to compel Jehovah’s Witnesses to salute and pledge allegiance to the American flag, a practice to which this small denomination was conscientiously opposed. A majority of the Court said that government could not do so. Writing for that majority, Justice Robert Jackson declared that “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or

9 319 US 624 (1943). Liberalism and internal dissent 29 other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith 10 therein.” It is hard to imagine a clearer or more stirring statement of the official liberal attitude toward dissent. This attitude stems from the liberal understanding of a good society. The circumstances of liberty allow for and make inevitable the development and expression of diversity. So liberals are committed to wide tolerance for these differences. They regard dissent not only as permissible, but even as desirable. For liberals, “robust debate” is an honorific phrase. Here as elsewhere, liberal practice does not always comport with liberal principles. Liberals recoil from attitudes that they see as denigrating or subordinating particular social groups, and there is a perennial temptation to rule the expression of these attitudes out of bounds. Not all manifestations of diversity end up endorsing the moral equality of human beings – even in an officially liberal society – and liberals experience a tension between freedom of expression and respect for persons. In my judgment, there is an authentically liberal way of resolving this tension: liberals should rely on tectonic shifts in public attitudes rather than the force of law to render illegitimate the attitudes they abhor. Many gay activists, for example, believe that shifting public attitudes through persuasion is preferable to court decisions that cut through evolving public ambivalence in a single stroke.

Inculcation and reproduction There are three cases to consider, corresponding to different venues within which liberalism may be operative. As the creed of a liberal polity, it is reproduced and reinforced through school-based civic education, through some but not all civil society associations, through authoritative institutions such as the Supreme Court, and through the pronouncement of influential office-holders and civic leaders. Each of these sources is open to contestation. In all these cases, reproduction and reinterpretation are not easily distinguished. Debates over civic texts in public schools reveal shifting conceptions of what is to be preserved and what left behind. And landmark statements such as Abraham Lincoln’s “House Divided” address, FDR’s “Four Freedoms,” and Martin Luther King’s “IHaveaDream” speech both preserve and alter the operative liberal creed. Liberalism can also serve as the ideology of political parties. As such, it is reinterpreted through political contestation, crystallized in party platforms, disseminated through messages to individual party members, and enforced among elected officials through the disciplinary power of party caucuses. In multi-party systems, it is easier for party leaders to settle on binding creedal uniformity. In two-party systems, even avowedly liberal parties are bound to

10 319 US 642. 30 William A. Galston be diverse coalitions, and the zone of reproducible uniformity will be much narrower. In such situations, leaders must balance demands for creedal purity against the requirements for attaining majority status. Consider, finally, liberalism as an intellectual movement or tendency. Students and younger colleagues tend to gather around important liberal thinkers. Seminars, colloquia, conferences, and scholarly publications serve as key vehicles for transmitting liberal thought. Some leading thinkers have also used non-academic journals and magazines to transmit and apply liberal principles. (The late Ronald Dworkin’s essays in the New York Review of Books are a notable example.) And liberal thought dominates some academic institutions – elite law schools, for example. Decisions about faculty hiring and what gets published in prestigious law reviews can have the effect of both defining and policing the perimeter of legal liberalism. It is mainly within liberal parties and polities that the duty to uphold core beliefs becomes a serious issue. Despite Gilbert and Sullivan’s influential ditty, it is not quite right to say that children are “born into” liberal parties. They certainly cannot be drafted into them and held there against their will. However compelling liberal principles may be, their authority over liberal partisans rests on consent. It makes more sense to say that individuals are born into liberal polities, in part because the cost of opting out is so high. While naturalized citizens explicitly consent to core principles, native-born citizens do not. Still, the social contract tradition tilts strongly toward voluntary rather than natural duties. That is why remaining within the jurisdiction of a liberal political community in which one is born is taken to imply tacit consent to its principles. At the very least, liberal citizenship implies a duty to uphold core political institutions, whatever one’s private misgivings about their underlying principles may be. As a liberal citizen, one is free to work for fundamental change, but only through the processes that existing institutions permit.

Authority As a philosophical movement, liberalism contains no authority beyond what exemplary authors may establish for themselves. Not even the decades of Rawlsian hegemony in the United States managed to quell intramural debate about liberalism’s foundations, core values, and practical implications. To some extent, liberal political parties can deﬁne what counts as orthodox and permissible, in speech as well as deed. But parties are only partly hierarchical organizations. The eruption of dissent remains a constant possibility if leaders manage sensitive issues poorly, as they often do. And the freedom of rank-and-ﬁle members to leave their party serves as a perennial check on leaders’ authority. Liberalism and internal dissent 31

In some respect, liberal polities enjoy even less authority than do liberal party leaders. Freedom of speech and the ability to choose how to lead one’s life are protected liberties. While law can regulate conduct and sometimes reshape attitudes, many Americans harbor reservations about core liberal principles and institutions. And they are permitted to do so, as long as they behave toward others as the law requires. In any event, authority to establish the legal regulation of conduct is widely dispersed in liberal authorities. Public opinion restricts what legislatures can enact and restrains other authoritative institutions – executives, bureaucracies, even courts – at least in the long run. As an international movement, liberal declarations and manifestos deﬁne the shared core beliefs of the coalition members. The authority of these documents rests on the express consent of member parties. While it is possible that the desire to retain the regard of peer parties restrains the temptations some experience to deviate from core liberal principles, the liberal international movement enjoys only the authority that its members choose to confer upon it. It is possible to view international organizations such as the European Union and the United Nations as embodying liberal principles. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights enunciates such principles, among others, and membership in the EU carries with it obligations to uphold core civil and political liberties. While membership in both organizations is voluntary, their authority over members is more substantial than is that of the Liberal International. Uses of this authority can reveal tensions between transnational principles and the sovereignty of individual liberal polities, however, and the ability of individual members to resist limits the authority of transnational institutions.

Management options Different venues offer a range of tools for managing dissent. Within public schools, for example, this form of control occurs through decisions about staff, curricula, and textbooks. It is virtually unimaginable that today’s school boards would knowingly hire racist teachers or use the racist materials that were commonplace half a century ago. But the use of this form of control often sparks controversy. As the movement for same-sex marriage gathers momentum, supporters of a more restricted conception of marriage openly worry that school texts will be forced to treat sexual orientation on a par with race and to equate anything less than full support for marriage equality as akin to racism. Political parties typically contain structures of authority, and leaders have various tools at their disposal for managing dissent. They may deprive dissenters of desirable positions and assignments; they may withhold ﬁnan- cial support from their campaigns; and in extreme cases they may publicly 32 William A. Galston censure the utterances of rank-and-ﬁle members who deviate from party norms – as the leadership of the Republican Party did in the cases of Rep. Don Young’s reference to Mexican immigrants as “wetbacks” and Rep. Todd Akin’s positing a category of “legitimate rape.” As we have seen, core liberal principles limit the ability of liberal polities to constrain dissent. Still, liberal law and jurisprudence can often discourage what they cannot prohibit outright. While private educational institutions may still employ racially discriminatory principles for selecting students and regulating their conduct, a 1982 Supreme Court decision renders such institutions ineligible for tax-exempt status. A more recent decision leaves educational institutions free to exclude groups who reject norms of gender equality and full acceptance of all individuals regardless of sexual orientation from participating in subsidies and using common facilities.

Internal criticism Every exercise of authority invites dissent, and the use of authority to regulate internal dissent is no exception. If you have doubts about Roe v. Wade, can you be a philosophical liberal in good standing? John Rawls once answered that question in the negative, generating a storm of philosophical controversy. It is easy to imagine that leading liberal philosophers will extend the liberal definition of equality to include what is now called marriage equality. It is one thing to say that the application of core liberal concepts to new issues can generate new liberal policies, quite another to say that such contested policies are inherent in the definition of those concepts. The former is a kind of practical syllogism whose major premise rests on conceptual specification and minor premise on empirical findings. Claims of this source may be controversial, but they are not experienced as coercive; not so for the claim that if you believe in liberal equality, you have no rational or moral choice but to embrace marriage equality as well. As I have insisted throughout, there is no locus of authority within liberal philosophy. This is less true for liberal polities and parties, and the use of their (limited) authority to regulate internal dissent generates resistance on many fronts. Laws can be attacked as unconstitutional; courts can be attacked for allegedly misinterpreting the constitution (or the fundamental traditions and basic laws that often take the place of constitutions in liberal polities without written constitutions). Minorities within liberal parties can attack majorities for imposing their views on parties through official platforms. Dissenters often argue that their party should be a “big tent” with scope for diverse views, while majorities insist that their party must stand firm on basic beliefs. When the locus of formal authority is clear, as it often is, dissenters can claim that particular acts represent unwise or inappropriate uses of that authority. The use of authority to censure or expel deviating Liberalism and internal dissent 33 party members can be especially controversial. Even when the offense is not contested, the punishment often is.

Scope Most liberals acknowledge that their preferred system for the management of intramural dissent does not apply to, and cannot be imposed on, other groups. While liberals tolerate and even cherish diversity and dissent, they understand that not every organization should be required to do likewise. For example, the Catholic Church is the quintessential hierarchical organization with a fixed locus of ultimate authority. To be a priest, professor in a Catholic university, or even a member of the laity is to be subject to an authority that defines what counts as permissible dissent and can silence or even expel those who defy that authority. In this respect, religion is paradigmatic but not unique. The liberal commitment to limited government implies restrictions on the extent to which compliance with public norms – including tolerance – is mandatory for civil society organizations. Underlying this limit is a basic difference between civil groups and political communities: liberals consider the former but not the latter to be voluntary associations. Dissenting members of civil groups are free to leave and join other groups or start their own. Exit from political communities is far more costly; often it is impossible. And founding a new polity is out of the question. So it makes sense for liberal societies to manage dissent within civil associations by safeguarding the right of dissenters to exit freely. From a theological perspective, devout Muslims may believe that abandoning Islam is impermissible; once a Muslim, whether through birth or conversion, always a Muslim. No liberal society can back this belief with coercive power. But equally, no liberal society can forbid Muslims from espousing this doctrine. Civil groups, both secular and religious, are free to define their membership and practices, even if that definition contradicts general public norms. But civil associations are not completely free to order their internal affairs or to dissent from general public norms. Since Locke, liberals have acknowledged a zone of core norms that political authorities may enforce. Although a neo-Aztec cult may sincerely believe that its gods require human sacrifice, liberal authorities may intervene to prevent it from acting on that belief. While no court would interpret the free exercise of religion to permit human sacrifice, the US Supreme Court has ruled in favor of animal sacrifice, a decision that dismayed many liberals who believe that concern about suffering should not cease at the perimeter of our species. Some liberal feminists have argued that protecting women’s formal right to exit from communities that embody gender hierarchies means little if those communities deprive women of education, occupations, and psychological autonomy. But few if any liberals would go so far as to subject institutions like the Catholic Church to legal non- 34 William A. Galston discrimination requirements for the selection of its priests or to liberal norms about the treatment of dissenters. In short, liberals accept the principle that their preferred system for the management of dissent cannot be applied to all groups and institutions within liberal societies, but they disagree as to where the line should be drawn. Chapter 3

Intramural dissent: Marxism

Andrew Levine

What is Marxism? The question is complicated and also contentious – or, rather, it was contentious when the name still counted for something politically, as it did only a few decades ago. Even the denotation of the term is controversial. One might think that “Marxism” denotes the thought of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and of others who identify with it or are identified with it by others. However, Marx himself, not without reason, famously declared that he 1 was not a Marxist, and there are good – Marxist – reasons for excluding from the fold any strictly theoretical purchase on “Marxism” that is not also joined with the kind of politics Marx promoted. That would leave out many academic Marxists, and others as well. What is clear is that by the 1870s, a self-identified Marxist current emerged within the larger European socialist movement. With the founding of the Second International in 1881, Marxism became the official doctrine of the leading organization of European socialism, and a point of reference for all socialists. Over the next hundred years, as distinct and sometimes opposing tendencies developed within the socialist fold, and as socialist aspirations came to animate political struggles throughout the world, very different kinds of socialists represented themselves as Marxists. Nowadays, only a few dinosaurs do. Marxists of all sorts share a common history. This is why, however much they may differ among themselves, Marxist currents, like Christian denominations, are joined by family resemblances. What is sometimes called “classical Marxism,” the Marxism of the Second International in the years before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, amalgamated

1 In 1883, shortly before he died, Marx wrote a letter to Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue, both of whom claimed to represent “Marxist” principles. Marx faulted them for “revolutionary phrase-mongering” and denying the value of reformist struggles. That exchange was the source of a remark, made famous by Engels: “ce qu’il y a de certain c’est que, moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste.” In other words, if they are “Marxists,” then I am not.

35 36 Andrew Levine three distinct, but related, bodies of theory. There is, first of all, a theory of human emancipation and, along with it, a vision (deliberately underelabo- rated) of ideal social, political, and economic arrangements. Then there is a theory of history: historical materialism. This is an account, among other things, of how the capitalist present under which humanity suffers arose and is maintained, and of capitalism’s future: socialism and eventually communism. Finally, there is a commitment to the working class as the agent of the desired epochal transformation from capitalism to communism. There are also subsidiary bodies of theory. Of greatest importance, historically and conceptually, is the one that Marx himself devoted most of his life to elaborating: a political economy or, as Marx would put it, an account of “the laws of motion” of capitalist societies. There is also a distinctive purchase on cultural and historical issues that was of more concern to later generations of Marxists than to Marx himself. These strands of theory were always more or less freestanding. By the late twentieth century, the connections between them had become so frayed that it hardly made sense any longer to think of Marxism as a comprehensive ideology. At most, it was a collection of theories that bore only a tenuous connection to one another. The most vulnerable part of the classical synthesis is the one that joined the others into an integral whole: its account of the proletariat – the (mainly industrial) working class – as the agent of universal human emancipation. Marx first ascribed this mission to the working class in the 1840s, at a time when modern industry barely existed in his native Germany or anywhere else apart from a few cities in northern England. But Marx had already envisioned a developed capitalist order as his and other societies’ future; and, in such an economic structure, it was the workers, Marx reasoned, whose labor is indispensable and whose stake in maintaining the system is nil. This is why, as Marx and Engels (1820–1895) wrote in The Communist Manifesto, the workers of the world, the agents of the coming communist revolution, the people 2 who have “a world to win,” have “nothing to lose but their chains.” By the dawn of Marxism’s Golden Age in the 1880s, Germany and other industrialized countries did have a substantial working class that was a close approximation to the proletariat Marx and Engels envisioned four decades earlier. But the working classes of all developed societies were already becoming integrated into the capitalist system. This process intensified as the years wore on; workers, empowered by the rise of labor movements in all capitalist countries and by decades of workers’ struggles, became less of a proletariat. And so, Marx’s account of historical agency, of how we get from where we now are to a communist future, became increasingly problematic. The Leninist notion of a vanguard party was, in part, a response to this situation. Following V. I. Lenin’s(1870–1924) lead, many Marxists came to

2 David McLellan (ed.), Karl Marx Selected Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 271. Intramural dissent: Marxism 37 believe that professional revolutionaries, fighting on behalf of the working class, were indispensable for inculcating the class-consciousness that earlier generations of Marxists thought circumstances alone would impress upon the working class. With this modification, some feasible approximation of the original synthesis remained in force. But even the Leninist reconstruction of the classical Marxist view lost much of its appeal as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and therefore the Soviet state fell increasingly under the sway of Joseph Stalin (1878–1953). As vanguard parties of Bolshevik origin came to adopt the emblematic Stalinist idea that class-consciousness entailed support for the Soviet Union even at the expense of workers’ interests domes- tically, and as the process of workers’ integration into the capitalist order proceeded, the Leninist reconstruction of the original Marxist synthesis also began to unravel. In the twentieth century, many Marxist intellectuals rejected Leninism, and some who did not, Trotskyists especially, nevertheless distanced themselves from official Communism. The most creative dissidents came from Western Europe. These “Western Marxists” were a heterogeneous lot. Their ranks included neo-Hegelians like Georg Lukacs (1885–1971) and Karl Korsch (1886–1961), theorists of culture like Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), and the members of the Frankfurt School (Theodor Adorno [1903–1969], Max Horkheimer [1895–1973], Herbert Marcuse [1898–1979], and others), existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) and Maurice Merleau- Ponty (1908–1961), structuralists like Louis Althusser (1918–1990) and Étienne Balibar (b. 1942), and so on. Notwithstanding the many insights Western Marxists advanced, and despite their role in keeping Marxism from degenerating into a justifying theory of Stalinist practice, they never quite succeeded in reconstructing anything like the classical Marxist synthesis. Neither did they connect with the working class or substantially advance understanding of the historical and economic issues that Marx addressed. For the most part, they focused pro- grammatically on grand reconstructions of Marxist theory, and on aesthetic and cultural concerns on the margins of “the laws of motion” of capitalist societies. In February of 1956, the Soviet Premier and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971), denounced the personality cult that had grown up around Stalin in a historic “secret” speech delivered to the Twentieth Congress of his party. Though it was hardly his intention, the political opening Khrushchev’s speech brought on weakened the hold of the increasingly stifling orthodoxy promoted in official Communist circles, and led to a marked expansion of Western Marxism’s influence – in Western Europe in the first instance, but also in the Communist East and among dissident leftist intellectuals throughout the world. Western Marxism was of a piece with what was thought of at the time, and is still sometimes called, “continental philosophy.” As the name suggests, this 38 Andrew Levine was mainly a creature of the German and French spheres of intellectual influence. It involved ways of doing philosophy that its critics denounced for its grandiosity and obscurity. The contrast was with “analytic,” mainly Anglophone, philosophy, which continental critics denounced, in turn, for its small-minded obsession with clarity and rigor, and for its purported conservatism. These much touted differences were overdrawn and misleadingly described; the real differences were mainly stylistic, and seldom rose to the level of substantive disagreements on key issues. Nevertheless, each side was right enough about the other to make geographical origins matter in mid- and late twentieth-century philosophy departments. Traces of the old continental– analytic divide persist to this day, though post-Kantian German and French philosophers, including Marx, are now widely studied throughout the English-speaking world, while analytical philosophy is practiced extensively in Germany and France. Partly because continental philosophy evoked near allergic reactions in leading Anglophone philosophy and social science departments, some analytically trained academics who had internalized prevailing norms – G. A. Cohen (1941–2009), Jon Elster (b. 1940), John Roemer (b. 1945), Erik Olin Wright (b. 1947), along with many others (myself included) from the generation of 1968 – set to work to apply the standards of their respective disciplines to Marxist topics; above all, to Marx’s theory of history, and to the normative issues implicit in Marxist accounts of human emancipation. Central aspects of Marxist theory were therefore reconstructed and criticized according to exacting standards. The predictable result was that many of the old sureties had to be abandoned or revised beyond recognition. Also, many ideas that were once assumed emblematic of Marxism, including some defining tenets of Marxist economic theory, were effectively folded into the broad tent of mainstream social science and liberal political philosophy. Analytical Marxists who remained true to the values that had brought them to Marx therefore became something Marx and Marxists had long inveighed against: utopian socialists. They argued for socialism – or, more precisely, for egalitarian justice and uncoerced cooperation – on moral, not “scientific” (historical materialist) grounds. This is odd because Marx’s theory of history, or some reasonable approximation of it, remains viable, notwithstanding the scrutiny it has received, and because it resists incorporation into non-Marxist 3 theoretical traditions. Analytically inclined Marxists investigated Marxism to defend it, not oppose it; and even when they abandoned key Marxist doctrines, they never

3 I argue in support of this contention in A Future for Marxism?: Althusser, the Analytical Turn and the Revival of Socialist Theory (London: Pluto Press, 2003), and Engaging Political Philosophy: Hobbes to Rawls (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001). Intramural dissent: Marxism 39 succumbed to the temptations of apostasy, as earlier generations of disaf- fected Marxists had done. But were they Marxists at all? If a Marxist is anyone who identiﬁes with or is identiﬁed with Marx and Marxism, the answer is plainly “Yes.” But there is a difference between doing philosophy on Marx and Marxism and being a Marxist philosopher. Similar considerations apply mutatis mutandis to political theorists, economists, historians, and sociologists. The difference has to do with accountability. Analytical Marxism was accountable to the disciplinary standards in force in leading universities in the English-speaking world. That was its strong point; it enabled its practitioners to discern Marxism’s strengths and vulnerabilities with a degree of clarity that had seldom been achieved since Marxism’s Golden Age. But, for just this reason, analytical Marxism severed Marxist theory from Marxist politics in a way and to a degree that was unprecedented in the Marxist tradition. Nevertheless, in university circles, analytical Marxism came to enjoy a certain succèsd’estime. This was ironic. For most of its history, Marxism was a marginal phenomenon in English-speaking universities, especially in the 4 United States. Then, after decades of exclusion, it became respectable – just as it was about to disappear from the larger intellectual and political 5 culture. The great thinkers of Marxism’s Golden Age were not academics, and neither were some prominent Western Marxists. But even those who did have university appointments were accountable mainly to political, not academic, constituencies. For them, academic work was one way, among others, of doing politics in a Marxist vein. But the work analytical Marxists did was no more inherently political than the work of their academic colleagues. When they reconstructed, defended, or criticized Marxist positions, they held themselves accountable to the same standards that their fellow philosophers, political theorists, economists, historians, and sociologists did; the difference being that they were interested in Marx and Marxism while the others, for the most part, were not. This interest was, in nearly all cases, motivated by socialist values and left- wing sympathies. But analytical Marxism was remote from those concerns in ways that Marx – and most Marxists, including Western Marxists – disdained. Recall The Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach: “the philosophers have only inter- 6 preted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.”

4 The situation in Great Britain was a little different, especially for historians – thanks to a less repressive political atmosphere at the height of the Cold War and to the presence of a few magisterial ﬁgures who were too respected to marginalize or dismiss. 5 The situation was not the same everywhere in the capitalist West. Throughout southern Europe and especially in France, Marxism was not only academically respectable but almost de rigueur. Then, at some point in the 1980s, this changed abruptly – much like a Paris fashion – leaving only the tail of the comet. 6 McLellan (ed.), Karl Marx Selected Writings,p.173. 40 Andrew Levine

For analytical Marxists, questions about intramural dissent therefore make no sense; one goes where the arguments lead. If they lead away from Marxism altogether, then so be it. That would be an outcome to regret; but one’s ﬁrst obligation is to do what Reason requires. Marx and Marxists after him accorded preeminence to a rather different obligation: to the working class and ultimately to humanity’s communist future. In this respect, analytical Marxism was apolitical in a way that other Marxist currents were not. But it did tap into a core conviction of Marx himself and of many, though hardly all, Marxists. Qua theorists, they followed 7 the Enlightenment dictate sapere aude!, Dare to know! Their ﬁrst duty was always to the truth. Unlike adherents of religious traditions – or of secular 8 “comprehensive doctrines” – there therefore was no possibility for intramural dissent within their ranks, even on core issues. Disagreements, yes; but that is something else altogether.

It is different, though, if we turn from the Marxist theoretical tradition to Marxist politics. As the original Marxist synthesis became undone, theory and (political) practice became estranged, and it became possible for politics to become as freestanding as the various strands of Marxist theory had become. Marxist theoretical commitments still tended to block political positions, especially those that favor the wrong side in the class struggle – though, with sufficient ingenuity, almost anything was possible. To cite an example that has already been mentioned: nothing could be less in the spirit of Marx or classical (Second International) Marxism than personality cults organized around dictators. Yet that is precisely what Marxists boasting orthodox credentials managed to concoct. That they could is symptomatic of a deep truth that the most thoughtful Marxists have long wanted either to evade or deny: that, when the original Marxist synthesis became unsustainable, the connections joining Marxist theory and practice became so attenuated that, for all practical purposes, they hardly exist. This is why, in discussing the Marxist political tradition, Marx’s own thinking and the thinking of leading Western and analytical Marxists are of much less importance than the theory and practice of leading political figures who identified with Marx and Marxism. The most important of them, for most of the twentieth century, was, of course, Lenin. His preeminence came from the fact that he was the first Marxist to lead a successful revolution; it survived and

7 Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 17. 8 The term comes from John Rawls. It denotes a general, well-integrated conception of what is of value in human life, along with associated ideals of personal character and associational relationships. The historical religions are comprehensive doctrines, but so too are some moral philosophical theories – such as Kantianism or utilitarianism. Intramural dissent: Marxism 41

ﬂourished because he had the good fortune to die before enthusiasm for that accomplishment began to wane. In a world where everybody loves a winner, his prestige was without equal. And so, for a time, Leninism became almost synonymous with Marxist politics. However, even on that understanding, Leninism and Marxism are not the same. Lenin was a Marxist. He contributed importantly to Marxist political economy, helping, like other master thinkers of Marxism’s Golden Age, to bring Marx’s account of capitalism up to date in a world where ﬁnance capital assumed an importance it had previously not enjoyed, and where leading capitalist centers vied with one another to colonize what they could of the world. Lenin also developed some of Marx’s most important contributions to political theory and philosophy. As a political theorist in the Marxist 9 tradition he was arguably second to none, including Marx himself, and his writings on philosophical subjects, though underappreciated, were profoundly 10 insightful. Nevertheless, the political tradition that bears his name has little to do with Marx’s ideas or, for that matter, with the evolving consensus view of leading Second International Marxists. His thinking, set forth in What Is To Be Done?, and developed in countless texts written over the two following decades, owes more to a tradition of vanguardist revolutionary practice that goes back at least to seventeenth-century England, and which is associated with French Jacobinism and its nineteenth-century continuations. It also owes a great deal to strains of military doctrine that began to take shape at the time of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. This is not to say that Leninism is inconsistent with Marx’s understanding of revolutionary politics, though that could be argued. The point is just that Leninism is not derived from any of the core elements of Marxist theory – or, for that matter, from the political positions Marx or any of his closest associates actually took. As it is for Marxism generally, it is controversial what Leninism is. The reasons why mainly have to do with its historical circumstances. In the Russian Revolution, seizing state power was the easy part; consolidating a new, socialist order in the face of civil war, famine, and hostile military interventions

9 I have so argued in, among others, The General Will: Rousseau, Marx, Communism (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993) and The End of the State (London: Verso, 1987). 10 Lenin’s most important writings on philosophy are Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1908) and his summary account of Hegel’s dialectics (1914) in vol. XXXVIII of Lenin’s Collected Works (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965). It was in Materialism and Empirio- Criticism that Lenin advanced some theses – for instance, that all philosophy is either materialist or idealist and that the choice between them is ultimately political – that became canonical in official Communist ideology. It was for the apparent crudity of these distinctions, and of Lenin’s “unprofessional” and most un-academic literary style, that his views were much derided, especially during the Cold War. See, however, the essays on Lenin’s philosophy in Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (London: Verso, 1971), reissued in 1978 and again in 2001. 42 Andrew Levine was considerably more difficult. But the state Lenin founded survived until 1991, and remnants of the once mighty Communist Party that he did so much to fashion still exist (though in an enfeebled form). There is therefore a historical connection between Lenin’s Bolshevism and the official Communist (Stalinist and post-Stalinist) versions of Leninism that took shape in the early years of the Soviet Union and in the Third (Communist) International, founded in 1919. That much is indisputable. However, the nature and extent of the affinities joining Bolshevism to what would later be done in Lenin’s name are and always have been controversial. Leon Trotsky (1879–1940), the most important leader of the Russian Revolution after Lenin, famously argued that Stalin betrayed what Lenin had begun. Trotsky launched a Fourth International to restore classical Leninism. That aspiration has remained alive among his followers, even as the Trotskyist movement has splintered into minuscule, politically inconsequential sects. Along with Communists and others, most of them claim that they and they alone are the true Leninists. It hardly matters which of them, if any, were right, but it does make identifying what is essential to Leninism all but impossible. In any case, there is more to the Marxist political tradition than its Leninist offshoots. There is the politics of pre-First World War Second International parties, German Social Democracy especially. And there is Maoism, officially Marxist-Leninist but also very different, if only for the paramount role it assigns to guerilla warfare and to insurgent peasantries in revolutionary struggles. Other versions of revolutionary politics identified with Marxism emerged in Asia and Latin America as well. In Vietnam and Cuba they were different enough to constitute distinct models of their own. There are also examples that can be teased out of the experience of “non-aligned” national liberation movements that never quite identified with Marxism or Leninism, but which drew on ideas associated with the Marxist and Leninist traditions. However, with respect to intramural dissent, Marxist politics, broadly construed, knows at most only two very general types: the type associated with pre-war Second International parliamentary socialism and the type associated with Lenin. The differences have more to do with political exigencies than principled convictions and only became salient when Leninist political formations conquered and held onto state power. In neither case is there anything distinctively Marxist about these ways of dealing with dissenters. They hardly differ from standard operating procedure in political contexts that have nothing to do with Marx or Marxism. And, except in extremis, they are not even very different from each other. The parties that formed the Second International, when they were able to operate openly, emulated the internal workings of “bourgeois” parties as much as they could. Unlike their parliamentary rivals, they were joined orga- nizationally to the labor movements of their respective countries and committed to establishing socialism, not shoring up capitalism. But none of this had any bearing on how they handled dissenters. Political parties in parliamentary Intramural dissent: Marxism 43 systems in the pre-war period generally did enforce party discipline. But the worst that could happen was that a dissident would be expelled from the party’s ranks. It was the same with pre-war Social Democrats. When Leninist political organizations were forced underground, as they often were, they dealt more harshly with dissenters. This was the norm for revolutionary groups throughout history whenever dissent posed an “existential threat” to the group and to its larger cause. Even so, there were, at most, only differences of degree between the Leninist way of dealing with intramural dissent and the pre-war Second International parliamentary way. In both cases, peer pressure was the main coercive means, and expulsion was the principal sanction. It was different though, when Leninist parties controlled the state, and when domestic or international tensions were acute. Then what had been a difference in degree effectively became a difference in kind. The history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the years preceding the Second World War and in the High Stalinist post-war period preceding the dictator’s death epitomizes what can go wrong. But even in relatively quiescent periods, the penalties accorded dissidents could be harsh. It was the same wherever Leninist parties were in control. There were shades of difference, of course; there always are. But when self-identified Leninists were in power, institutionalized revolutionary Terror still could be, and often was, an instrument of 11 social control. In the Soviet Union, from the Khrushchev period on, the population was, for the most part, kept in line in more benign ways. The Chinese were not always so fortunate, nor were peoples elsewhere who were ruled by groups that identified with Maoism. Very generally, though, it is fair to say that the ways of dealing with dissidents that emerged in the Soviet Union – partly under Lenin’s aegis but mostly after his death – were adapted, with minor variations, everywhere that Leninist parties ruled; and that while those ways were not sufficiently at odds with the letter or spirit of Marxism to count as un-Marxist, neither were they implied by core Marxist theoretical commitments. It is also not clear how true to Lenin’s thinking Leninist parties were, especially when they operated under conditions unlike those that Lenin confronted. Lenin’s Leninism was an expression of Jacobin politics applied to Russian conditions. It was shaped by the repressive nature of the Tsarist regime, which forced revolutionaries to adopt clandestine modes or

11 I mean the kind of Terror associated with the most radical phase of the French Revolution (from September 1793 to July 1794), the kind Hegel brought into his account of Mind’s (Geist’s) trajectory in The Phenomenology of Spirit. So conceived, Terror is an extraordinary, but necessary, phase in the consolidation of revolutionary regimes confronting dire emergency situations. The “terrorism” of which we hear so much nowadays – political violence perpetrated mainly by non-state actors intended to frighten and demoralize civilian populations or sometimes just to express outrage at a prevailing status quo – is a different phenomenon, as are military operations undertaken for similar purposes. 44 Andrew Levine organization and action. But his followers then went on to hold that to move history along elsewhere, there must also be vanguard parties comprised of professional revolutionaries organized along quasi-military lines. In developed capitalist countries with liberal or quasi-liberal political traditions, this sort of politics was plainly out of place. Nevertheless, Leninism became a pole of attraction for many on the Left in developed countries too, thanks in large part to the perception that it worked.

Key tenets and priorities Marxism combined a theory of history’s structure and direction, a vision of an ideal, but materially and humanly possible, egalitarian (small-c) “communist” society where individuals cooperate voluntarily and therefore neither need nor have a state, and an account of the working class as the agent of the epochal historical transformation from capitalism to communism. There is also a political economic theory, an account of capitalism’s “laws of motion,” associated with these core positions and a sociological perspective that emphasizes class and class struggle. More peripherally, Marxism includes accounts of cultural phenomena informed by these positions. As the original Marxist synthesis became undone, thanks mainly to the growing integration of the working class into the capitalist order, these core positions and the theories associated with them became increasingly freestanding. This is why it is mistaken to think of Marxism as a coherent ideology or that it prioritizes some doctrinal commitments over others. But to the extent that it nevertheless does, Marx’s account of the importance of class struggle both for understanding the world and for changing it, and his conviction that communism can be humanity’s future, would surely top the list. Another consequence of the breakdown of the Marxist synthesis was a disarticulation of Marxist politics from Marxist theory. This enabled political currents that draw mainly on non-Marxist sources to claim a Marxist pedigree, making twentieth-century Marxism’s associations with Leninism possible. That connection always had more to do with contingent historical circumstances than with Marxist theory. It was widely thought otherwise, when Leninist political movements were still going concerns. But that notion has become harder than ever to sustain now that Leninism’s historical moment has passed – outside a few redoubts in North Korea, Southeast Asia, and on the Indian subcontinent, where a few parties and sects still lay claim to a Leninist identity, notwithstanding the fact that they manifest few, if any, real afﬁnities with Lenin’s views or with the political initiatives he undertook. In any event, if we set politics aside and take “Marxism” to denote a body of more or less viable theories, it is plain that there is no Marxist view of intramural dissent. As a creature of the Enlightenment, the Marxist theoretical tradition commits its adherents to go wherever the argument(s) lead. Of course, it seldom works that way because Marxists, like everybody else (and Intramural dissent: Marxism 45 for much the same reasons), bend logic and evidence to ﬁt desired conclusions. But it was only in Leninist strains of the Marxist political tradition that this all-too-human tendency assumed anything like the status of a principled conviction. Within that framework, intramural adherence to certain – not necessarily core – beliefs was, at times, essential for assuming leading roles in state and societal institutions. But that phenomenon had more to do with prevailing institutional arrangements and with the nature of political parties in the modern era than with Marxism per se. It did not even have much to do with the historical Lenin, who many times proclaimed that the essence of Marxism was “the concrete analysis of concrete situations.” Lenin was committed in theory and in practice to taking fresh data and fresh insights on board, and to adapting programs and policies accordingly. Orthodoxy was never a temptation. To be sure, some of Lenin’s self-declared followers and successors did turn Marxism into a kind of secular religion. But Lenin did not, and it is far from clear how much, if any, responsibility he bears for this unfortunate turn. In short, notions of right practice (or observance) and right belief make little sense in a Leninist context, and even less in a Marxist one. But there is much that happens in the world that doesn’t make sense. And so it was that Communist states in the Stalin era endeavored to enforce a kind of orthodoxy. Indoctrination and censorship persisted, though in an attenuated form, even after the Stalin era came to an end. Now that all that is left of those days are bad historical memories, it should be plain just how anom- alous those practices, along with other manifestations of religious habits of mind, were.

Consequences Leninists believed that vanguard parties must operate with a unity of purpose; they therefore discouraged intramural dissent (sometimes with tremendous ferocity). However, they were also officially committed to full and free discussion of programs and policies – not in society at large but within vanguard parties. They practiced or rather claimed to practice “democratic centralism”–a procedure according to which programs and policies are debated from the bottom up, but are decided at the top, by party leaders accountable to the base. In this way, the base shapes the party’s course – democratically. Thereafter, deliberation and debate are over; once the line is set, it is implemented top- down with single-minded purpose. That, anyway, was the theory. In practice, democratic centralism was, at best, more aspirational than real. It could hardly have been otherwise: the arrangement all but invites top-down control. With party leaders operating like generals, and party members taking orders, democratic centralism is no more democratic than an army is; in other words, it is 46 Andrew Levine not democratic at all. With only slight and occasional exceptions, this was the case with Leninist parties everywhere – whether they were in power or not. The result, very often, was strategic inflexibility if not outright stultification. This was both a cause and effect of a more general problem: Leninist forms of political organization tended to stifle liberal and democratic impulses; inadvertently, but inexorably, they helped propel (big-C) Communist societies in a “totalitarian” direction.

Diversity Political parties and movements that emphasize unity inevitably discourage disagreement. In this sense, they oppose diversity. The Marxist political tradition, its Leninist strains especially, was therefore not diversity-friendly. However, within the Marxist theoretical fold, the situation was different. While the active encouragement of differences was rare, many different positions were advanced within the Marxist ambit, and it was not unknown for adherents of widely disparate views to engage one another in constructive ways. Needless to say, however, there were limits, as there are within every theoretical paradigm. The general outlines of the story famously told by T. S. Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions holds in the Marxist case as well. What was distinctive about Marxism was that, for the most part, Marxist theorizing was more accountable to political constituencies than to communities of co-thinkers. Analytical Marxism was an exception. But this is what one would expect of an academic phenomenon that emerged in a time and place in which significant Marxist political organizations had either never existed or else had, long ago, gone missing. Political accountability affected the nature and extent of theoretical uniformity, and also how dissenting views were accommodated. Specific instances were different enough that it is pointless to generalize. It is fair to say, however, that, on the whole, the exigencies of real world politics intensified the spontaneous conservatism Kuhn observed among practitioners of all entrenched scientific paradigms. Second International Marxism was comparatively accommodating to diverse views; official Communist Parties were less so, though in some times and places Western Marxist forms of dissent were tolerated. Some of the most distinguished Western Marxists (Georg Lukacs, for example, and Louis Althusser) were (big-C) Communists.

Inculcation and reproduction On a theoretical plane, Marxism is no more passed on from parents to children than, say, Darwinism is. It is not different if we focus on Marxist (or Leninist) politics, except when parties that identify with Leninism control states. Intramural dissent: Marxism 47

In other circumstances, having had Marxist parents probably did increase the likelihood that, when grown up, one would identify with Marxism at least for a while, especially in times and places where left-wing politics flourished; recall, for example, the “red diaper babies” who flooded the ranks of the New Left. But this was a matter of widespread radicalization, familial socialization, and individual psychology, not socio-cultural identity. Children of Marxists are not born into a “Marxist faith,” and they are certainly not Marxists – not even “self-hating” ones – if they reject their parents’ ideological convictions or political affiliations. Officially Communist countries did, of course, try to inculcate support for their own regimes. But, in the modern period, this has been the norm everywhere. The Communist way of indoctrinating the young in the states they controlled seemed particularly salient, if not grotesque, to Western eyes, but only because their efforts were, on the whole, cruder than what was normal in Western countries, and also because Western authorities took pains to exag- gerate the differences. It is also relevant that it is easier to find fault in the “other” than in oneself. In general, though, outside the (long defunct) Communist world, there is no more presumption that a child of a Marxist will become a Marxist than that a child of a doctor will go into medicine. This is one very conspicuous way in which Marxism differs from religions as they (still) function in our society.

Authority In the heyday of the Second International, when Karl Kautsky (1854–1938), who had worked with Engels and edited the three volumes of Marx’s Theories of Surplus Value, was called “the pope of Marxism,” everybody understood that the title was at least partly facetious. In the days when Stalin effectively operated like a pope, an infallible one, no Communist dared be facetious. But the preposterousness of the situation was widely appreciated, even within Communist ranks. This was the only moment in Marxism’s hundred-year- plus history for which it makes any sense to talk about any person or institutions having (official or quasi-official) authority to identify and interpret core beliefs or other shared convictions. To the extent that expertise, as distinct from rank or office, confers special prestige (and therefore unofficial or informal authority), it does so in just the way that is familiar outside religious traditions. If I have a question about, say, Darwin’s theory of evolution, I’d do best to ask an evolutionary biologist or, faute de mieux, a philosopher of biology. The idea is to find someone who knows what he or she is talking about, someone whose opinion can be trusted. Outside the Stalinist purview that was effectively dispatched more than a half- century ago, it is the same for Marx and Marxism. There is nothing more to “authority” in Marxism than that. 48 Andrew Levine

Management options There were show trials and something akin to public confessions in the worst days of the Stalin era. They served to consolidate the dictator’s power by eliminating genuine revolutionaries (old Bolsheviks, Eastern Europeans who had fought against fascism and Nazism), and to inculcate fear in the general population. A similar phenomenon occurred in China during the Cultural Revolution, though the Chinese relied more on popular mobilizations than judicial proceedings. These latter-day Reigns of Terror were Jacobin excesses. Because Soviet and Chinese – and later Kampuchean and North Korean – Communists used Marxism-Leninism, as they construed it, as a justifying theory for everything they did, they sometimes defended their use of Terror in Marxist and Leninist terms. In a similar vein, Maximilien de Robespierre (1758–1794) and other leading Jacobins defended the original Reign of Terror by drawing on ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) and by appealing to widely accepted (small-r) republican notions of virtue. These representations were, in both cases, (strained) rationalizations, not genuine rationales. It is worth noting too that the crimes that were alleged in these show trials and mass mobilizations were never exactly doctrinal or ideological. The accused were said to be agents of foreign governments or to have committed espionage or, in the Chinese and other Asian cases, to be intractably “bourgeois.” No one was faulted for harboring doubts, say, about the labor theory of value or about Marx’s periodization of history. Dissent, such as it was, was dissent from the party’s strategic line. If a dissenter was punished, it was not for his or her thoughts, but for working “objectively” against the party’s interests. Core doctrinal commitments were not involved. Could those who fell afoul of the party come back into its fold? There are instances of this, especially in the Chinese case. But what made coming back possible were changed circumstances, not changed convictions. Put differently, the Revolution’s Inquisitors, unlike the ones Rome installed on the Iberian Peninsula and elsewhere, were not interested in dissidents’ souls – only in their usefulness (or not) to the vanguard party and the Revolution it directed. Ironically, this was one of the few Marxist things about them: their metaphysics was materialist, not theological – in their view, there are no eternal souls to save, only minds to mold in the here and now.

Internal criticism There is at least one good example within the Marxist political tradition of dissent centering on a “host association’s” management of dissent; in the Marxist theoretical tradition there are, of course, no examples at all. The example I have in mind is the great schism within official Communism that resulted from the removal of Leon Trotsky from the Soviet Party’s Intramural dissent: Marxism 49 leadership some ten years after the seizure of state power in Russia. This was followed, in short order, by Trotsky’s expulsion from the party and exile from the Soviet Union. The schism was not exactly Trotsky’s doing; it was part of a complex power struggle that Stalin engineered. Because Trotsky was an intellectual, he intellectualized his differences from the Stalinists – most famously, by promoting “permanent revolution,” in contrast to “socialism in one country.” It is far from clear, however, what practical difference this dispute made by the late 1920s, when it had already become clear that, for the time being, socialism, if it was to survive at all, would survive, for the foreseeable future, only in the Soviet Union. Even Trotsky deemed it crucial to protect the interests of that “deformed” (or later “degenerated”) workers’ state. Communists implicitly abandoned the idea of socialism in one country after the historic Soviet victory in the Second World War, when the Red Army imposed Communist regimes throughout Eastern and Central Europe. The Chinese Revolution then sealed the old Stalinist doctrine’s fate. Other, more pertinent differences emerged as the Trotskyist movement took shape during the 1930s, while Trotsky was still alive to keep it together. In the fight against fascism, official Communists favored “popular fronts” in which anti-fascist forces combined across class lines, while Trotskyists favored “united fronts” comprised of workers’ organizations only. The disagreement was not so much doctrinal as strategic. For Trotsky, the popular front idea was just one of many examples of unsound thinking on Stalin’s part. Stalin, in his view, had “mismanaged” the Revolution so thoroughly that he had effectively “betrayed” it. The problem, then, was not that official Communists misidentified core beliefs or misinterpreted them, or that they had put the wrong institutional arrangements in place. Trotsky did not even object to the nature or gravity of the sanctions Communists imposed upon dissenters, himself and his closest comrades excepted. The problem, for Trotsky and his followers, was just that the actual performance of one duly authorized official, Joseph Stalin, and of the people around him who made his dictatorship possible, had gotten the Revolution off course.

Scope Marx started out as a Young Hegelian, an atheist intent not just on disproving “God exists,” as some eighteenth-century French materialists had already done, but on revealing the human meaning inherent in religious ideation. The extent of Marx’s break from what he called his “erstwhile philosophical 12 conscience” has long been controversial. What is clear is that, as his thinking

12 McLellan (ed.) Karl Marx Selected Writings,p.426. The expression occurs in the Preface to The Critique of Political Economy (1859). It refers to work Marx and Engels did a few years 50 Andrew Levine evolved and his interests changed, he became less, not more, sympathetic to religion. His antipathy was taken up and, if anything, magniﬁed, in the thinking of Second International Marxists. Lenin and those who claimed his heritage were even more adamant; they were militant atheists. It can therefore be said, with complete conﬁdence, that even if Marxism did have a preferred mechanism for managing intramural dissent, classical Marxists and true Leninists would have greeted the idea that this or any other mechanism should be applied within religious communities with scorn. To be sure, in the decades preceding Marxism’s demise as a political presence, there was a great deal of interest, especially in countries with large Catholic and Leninist political parties, in forming alliances. More than a few intellectuals on both sides of the historic divide, not just liberation theologians, investigated the prospects for fusing Marxist and Christian (Catholic) themes. That enthusiasm waned as Marxism itself did – in part, because it became increasingly clear to Marxists that Catholics couldn’t help them, and clear to Catholics that they didn’t need the support of (self-immolating) Marxist parties in Italy or France or even in Latin America, where Marxism’s decline was less pronounced. It is one of history’s many ironies that the anti- religious views of Marx and classical Marxists, and of Leninists and (most) Western Marxists, have been vindicated by events, though emphatically not in the way that they expected.

Conclusion It is ironic too that, at a time when the major world religions are thriving, Marxism, as a political force, is effectively spent. One can only wonder why, so long after eighteenth-century materialists did their foundational convictions in, and more than a century since Nietzsche focused attention on the death of the God who held those traditions together, the world religions ﬂourish, while Marxism has faded from the scene, notwithstanding the viability of nearly all of its basic contentions – except, of course, the pivotal one about the historic mission of a proletariat with nothing to lose but its chains. Within living memory, it looked like things would turn out differently – that the world religions would fade away while Marxist ideas, if not Marxism itself, would contribute substantially toward making a better, more humane, world. But then the pendulum swung back. This “stubborn fact,” as Engels called unwelcome developments like this, cannot be ignored. Enlightened thinkers, Marxist or otherwise, are obliged, above all, to face reality; and the reality is that the great world religions are not just still around and doing well, but that

earlier – for example, in The German Ideology (1845). It was around this period, when Marx was still in his twenties, that he rather decidedly distanced himself from the thinking of Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872), the leader of the Young Hegelian movement. Intramural dissent: Marxism 51 the more atavistic they become – the more anti-modern, violent, and extreme – the better they do. Meanwhile, Marxism is a memory almost everywhere – except in a few, basically apolitical, academic quarters. That is how it goes in this most ironic of all possible worlds. Of course, the pendulum can always spring back; perhaps that has already begun. After all, the relevance, indeed the urgency, of many Marxist convictions has only become more acute in recent years. Marxism as such may never revive, but distinctively Marxist ideas, key components of the long-gone grand Marxist synthesis, have never been more timely – the Marxist account of history’s structure and direction, for example, and the Marxist vision of ideal social, political, and economic arrangements. For several decades, some of the gravest evils of capitalism were diminished, though never stilled, by social democracy and, in the American case, by the New Deal-Great Society liberal settlement. Now they are back with a vengeance. In addition, for reasons that were not much appreciated decades ago, capitalism has also become, quite literally, a scourge on the landscape. There is no sounder account of these evils, and of the prospects for a post- capitalist future, than the one Marx and his close followers provided. We desperately need the insights they left us; as much or more today as when Marxism was a live presence on the political scene, a specter haunting the boardrooms of banksters and corporate moguls, and the hordes of flunkies and flacks who service them. No doubt, Marxism’s associations with Soviet and Chinese Communism partly explain why it has gone missing. Whatever the balance sheet on those historical experiences – a more complicated issue than today’s conventional wisdom assumes – they certainly had their dreadful side. And it is an undeni- able fact that they suffered a historic defeat. Nobody likes a loser. This is especially true when the tables suddenly turn. Marxism’s or rather Leninism’s main appeal used to be that Lenin and his followers actually made a revolution. So did the Chinese Communists and the Vietnamese and the Cubans. And there was the prospect of more to come, of a Third World making itself over in the image of the world the Bolsheviks and Maoists constructed. Those perceptions seem like ancient history now. Perhaps they were always only illusions in Freud’s sense – expressions of a wish. But even if that is all they were, we are still worse off in crucial ways now that they are gone – now that capitalists think that they no longer face any “existential threats” and, not unrelatedly, now that “hope” and “change” have become words that stick in the craw. The Marxism and Leninism we know were creatures of their moment in history. So, of course, were the world religions that have survived, in one form or another, for millennia. But religions, especially the Abrahamic ones, exercise, as it were, an ungodly hold over their adherents, not least because they offer reasons for consolation and hope that evidence cannot refute. They also contain resources that have enabled them to adapt to changing circumstances 52 Andrew Levine while maintaining at least a semblance of historical continuity with their ancestor forms. Marxism could not possibly have done anything like this; it was too bound to a this-worldly conception of the working class and its struggles; and its political expressions, the historically most prominent Leninist one especially, were too dependent on conditions that no longer obtain. This is why it will probably never be revived; the historical chain, once broken, cannot be repaired. In academic circles, interest in Marx and Marxism never quite expired and could well pick up again. This may already be happening. But for academic work on Marx to prepare a way for a genuine Marxist renewal, the old issue of political accountability would have to be faced. That was always a struggle for Marxists in academic precincts; it will be an even more intractable problem for future students of Marx and Marxism because robust political movements that identify with the Marxist tradition are, in all likelihood, a thing of the past. Even so, the hundred or more years in which Marxist theory and practice flourished left a treasure trove of elements worth reconstructing, retrieving, and recycling. The important thing is that this gets done; it hardly matters if it does not take place under a Marxist banner. Indeed, for as long as memories of “the God that failed” remain vivid, it may be best that it does not. But if Marx’s ideas can have their day again, if they can be put to use for changing the world, we will all be better off for it. It has been a long time since workers had nothing to lose but their chains. However, now, with capitalism in chronic decline, with perpetual war the order of the day, and with humanly caused ecological catastrophes looming, there is still a world to win, as much or more than there ever was. Chapter 4

Dissent on core beliefs in natural law

Tom Angier

Introduction The natural law tradition in ethics has its origins in ancient Greek philosophy. While the Greek sophists tend to oppose “nature” and “law,” viewing the first as a realm of universal regularities, and the second as a realm of changing cultural conventions, both Plato and Aristotle suggest that nature is itself a source of law. For them, that is, nature is not merely a domain to be described, but begins to take on the role of a prescriptive, that is, normative or practical guide, so that x’sbeing“according to” or “against” nature is no longer a solecism, but has distinct moral force. And this rapprochement between nature and law is deepened and made central to ethical theory by the Stoics. 1 For the Stoics, both Greek and Roman, nature becomes an absolutely pivotal, indeed the core practical notion: human agents are enjoined to “follow nature,” where this is tantamount to living a good life. Although what this consists in, exactly, is not wholly perspicuous – at the level of detailed, positive norms – the Stoics supply a constellation of formal concepts that flesh out the contours of nature, and which will prove highly influential on natural law theory’s later development. According to the Stoics, nature is normative because it is (a) rational, and (b) divine. It is nature’s rational content that partly grounds its prescriptive force for humans, who are (following Plato and Aristotle) rational animals, and thus directly addressed by the laws nature embodies. And it is nature’s divinity

1 Cicero, Roman statesman and philosopher, is our best systematic source for Stoic ethical theory. See his De Re Publica (On the Commonwealth) and De Legibus (On the Laws). For an excellent overview of Stoic ethics, see Jacob Klein, “The Stoics,” chapter 3 in Tom Angier (ed.), Ethics: The Key Thinkers (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012), and Jacob Klein, “Stoic Eudaimonism and the Natural Law Tradition,” chapter 2 in Jonathan A. Jacobs (ed.), Reason, Religion, and Natural Law: From Plato to Spinoza (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

53 54 Tom Angier that not only bolsters its prescriptive force – by demonstrating the elevated status, as it were, of natural reason – but also fills in the sense in which nature can embody laws or norms in the first place: for God, according to Stoic theory, operates in and through nature. It should be clear, then, how far we have come from the sophistic view that nature and law are opposed. On the Stoic view, nature is thoroughly normative, being the arena of a host of rational ends, which are inextricably embedded in its myriad workings. And it is this teleological conception of nature – according to which description and prescription, “fact” and “value” are deeply intertwined, and never finally separable – that will be the hallmark of natural law ethics hereafter. This is true not least of the (arguably) most impressive and most influential theory of natural law in the Western tradition, that of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). Aquinas inherits the Stoic framework above, and though he devotes relatively little of the Summa Theologiae to 2 natural law per se, develops that framework in great conceptual and argumentative detail. Like the Stoics, he holds that God stands behind the natural law, or, as he puts it, the natural law is grounded in the “eternal law.” But he also holds that it is “natural” partly in virtue of its being accessible without any recourse to specific religious revelation. And this points to a threefold sense in which the natural law is, for Aquinas, natural. It is so, first, because of its content – it applies to us in virtue of our nature (ST Ia IIae q. 94 art. 2), rather than the will of God or some autonomous rational imperative. Secondly, it can be known naturally, and by all, without any special education, let alone any religious instruction (ST Ia IIae q. 91 arts. 4, 6). And thirdly, it motivates us naturally, insofar as it is made apparent in our natural “inclinations” to feel and to act (ST Ia IIae qq. 91/4 art. 2). Now these three marks of Thomistic natural law are crucial for my subsequent exposition and argument, for although some authors have treated natural law theory in an essentially biblical context, that is, as dependent on, and even as informed by revelation, I shall not be treating it so. Why not, exactly? First, because Aquinas leaves room for a purely philosophical treatment of the natural law (as I have already indicated), and such treatment

2 See Summa Theologiae (ST), T. Gilby (ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) Ia IIae q. 94, and more widely, qq. 90–97 (on law in general). For a crisp introduction to Aquinas on natural law, see Terence Irwin, The Development of Ethics: Volume 1 – From Socrates to the Reformation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007), pp. 545–570. For a trenchant analytical reconstruction of his theory, see Anthony Lisska, Aquinas’ Theory of Natural Law: An Analytic Reconstruction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996). John Goyette, Mark S. Latkovic, and Richard S. Myers (eds.), St Thomas Aquinas and the Natural Law Tradition: Contemporary Perspectives (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004) contains a helpful set of essays on Aquinas and the subsequent natural law tradition. For introductions to Aquinas’ moral philosophy more widely, see Ralph McInerny, Ethica Thomistica: The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, revised edn. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1997), and Vivian Boland, “Aquinas,” chapter 4 in Angier (ed.), Ethics. Dissent on core beliefs in natural law 55 can appeal to a far wider audience than one requiring the antecedent acceptance of some particular revelation. Secondly, because the broadly Thomistic 3 philosophers who engage in contemporary controversies over core natural law beliefs tend to approach these controversies on the basis of exclusively naturalistic premises. Granted, there are eminent contemporary thinkers who approach natural law from a more revelation-based point of view, such as the Thomists Germain Grisez (the father of “new natural law theory”), Russell Hittinger, and Jean Porter, and the Jewish natural law theorist David Novak. But not only are these thinkers less engaged (Grisez excepted) with the issue of core beliefs and dissent from them, once again they rest their case, in crucial part, on claims derived from revealed texts. Putting these thinkers on one side, then, what are the core beliefs that broadly Thomistic natural lawyers, working from solely naturalistic, non-revelation-based premises, have been con- 4 cerned with?

Key tenets When it comes to the key tenets of natural law theory, we need to distinguish between its foundational principles on the one hand, and applications of these on the other. As I’ve already outlined, traditional Thomistic natural law is committed to at least three foundational principles, which are (respec- tively) metaphysical, epistemological, and moral psychological in kind. Metaphysically, traditional Thomists hold that human nature is universally 5 shared, and basically unchangeable. In this way, they are true to Aristotelian essentialism, which posits a single, timeless essence for each species or life-form. And this essentialism, they take it, precludes any variety of relativism, subjectivism, or conventionalism: human nature is ﬁxed, as it were, and determines, ultimately, the truth or falsity of our ethical claims.

3 These are (on the “orthodox” side) Ralph McInerny, Anthony Lisska, John Haldane, David Oderberg, and the self-styled “new natural lawyers,” especially John Finnis, Joseph Boyle, Robert George, William May, and Patrick Lee. On the “heterodox” or dissenting side we have, principally, Joseph Fuchs, Charles Curran, Richard McCormick, Todd Salzman, and Michael Lawler. 4 I should note here that proceeding on non-revelation-based premises is consistent with taking a broadly theological approach to the natural law, in the sense that one views God as the ultimate source of natural norms (Aquinas, indeed, and most of those treated in this chapter, are instances of this approach). I should also note that there is an alternative tradition of natural law that aims to be purely metaphysical, doing without God altogether. Originating with Grotius, Pufendorf, and Hobbes, this tradition is taken up by Lon Fuller and (arguably) Leo Strauss in the twentieth century, and developed by Philippa Foot, Timothy Chappell, and Michael S. Moore in the twenty-ﬁrst. I will not be investigating this post-Thomistic tradition, since it has been shaped wholly independently of the Catholic Church, viz. precisely that body which – as I will show – gives clear sense to there being assent to and dissent from the teachings of the natural law. 5 It is in virtue of this that the ﬁrst principles of natural law are “altogether unchangeable” (ST Ia IIae q. 94 art. 5). 56 Tom Angier

Epistemologically, they hold that we can know the content and practical teleology of our nature in two distinct, but intimately related ways: first, by discerning the functions that structure our form of being qua rational animals, and, second, by discovering those ends to which we have a settled, rational tendency or inclination. In some cases, particularly those involving functions we share with plants and the lower animals (e.g. nutrition), identifying our natural functions will be relatively straightforward. But when it comes to those functions suffused with rationality – viz. that which determines our essence – such identification will have to proceed through our moral psychology, that is, by deep inspection of those ends embedded in what Aquinas calls our fundamental “inclinations.” In sum, then, the foundational principles of traditional Thomistic natural law consist, as Alasdair MacIntyre puts it, in “an Aristotelian conception of essential human nature, defining goods in terms of the flourishing of such a nature and of the satisfaction of its various, hierarchically ordered 6 inclinations.” As I’ve outlined, this foundational picture relies heavily on the idea that human life is informed by certain essential functions, and that 7 these have prescriptive, rather than merely descriptive, force. But what exactly are the “inclinations” that delineate our rational functioning, and therefore our fulfillment as human beings? It is at this juncture that Aquinas moves from foundations to applications in his theory of natural law. Rather than understanding “inclinations” in the sense of mere impulses or recurrent 8 desires, he draws on Aristotle’s philosophical anthropology to erect a hierarchy of objective, non-contingent ends, grounded in our functioning as a particular animal species. At the most basic level of functioning, which we share with all forms of life, we have an inclination to preserve ourselves in

6 Alasdair MacIntyre, “Theories of Natural Law in the Culture of Advanced Modernity,” chapter 5 in E. B. McLean (ed.), Common Truths: New Perspectives on Natural Law (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2000), p. 105. 7 NB: “natural law theory sees normativity as built into the very fabric of reality” (David Oderberg, “The Metaphysical Foundation of Natural Law,” chapter 3 in Holger Zaborowski [ed.], Natural Moral Law in Contemporary Society [Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2010], p. 45). For the notion of function as vital to natural law reasoning, see (e.g.) John Haldane, “Natural Law and Ethical Pluralism,” in Richard Madsen and Tracy B. Strong (eds.), The Many and the One: Religious and Secular Perspectives on Ethical Pluralism in the Modern World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), pp. 94, 96–97. Although not a Thomist, Timothy Chappell agrees that bona fide natural law reasoning must draw centrally on the idea of an “essential function or tendency” (see Timothy Chappell, “Natural Law Revived: Natural Law Theory and Contemporary Moral Philosophy,” chapter 1 in Nigel Biggar and Rufus Black (eds.), The Revival of Natural Law: Philosophical, Theological and Ethical Responses to the Finnis-Grisez School [Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2000], p. 45). Cf. Oderberg, “The Metaphysical Foundation of Natural Law,” p. 63. 8 The locus classicus forthisisAristotle’s “function argument,” given in summary form at Nicomachean Ethics,S.BroadieandC.Rowe(eds.)(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), I.7. Dissent on core beliefs in natural law 57 being, that is, to survive. At the next level up, which has vast structural ramifications and deep salience for the common good, we have an inclination shared with other animals, namely the inclination to couple, procreate, and subsequently to raise our young. And finally, at rationally the most sophisti- cated level (on Aquinas’ view), we have an inclination to know truths, truths about the universe and its origins, but also about social life and its necessary 9 conditions. With this ordering of inclinations and their concomitant functional goods in place, Aquinas has laid the ground for the “primary precepts” of the natural law. One of these is the precept that knowledge is to be pursued, ignorance to be avoided; another, that we should work for the peace of society, rather than “offend those with whom [we] must live” (on pain of becoming social outcasts, thereby hampering our good). And from these there follow a large number of “secondary precepts,” which are either strict deductions from the primary precepts, or specifications of them (by means of what Aquinas calls 10 “determination” ). It should come as no surprise that it is these secondary precepts – which enjoin concrete norms governing (e.g.) procreation, child- rearing, and the organization of social life – that generate the most ethical controversy, and are hence the locus of marked dissension among natural 11 lawyers. Indeed, as I will explore below, it is at this level of concrete moral application of the primary precepts that intellectual disputes spill over into institutional strife: not only between “orthodox” and “dissenting” natural law theorists, but also between the latter and the hierarchy of the Catholic 12 Church (at whose universities many, if not most, natural lawyers work ). But at this juncture, I want to tackle a controversy that has arisen at the purely intellectual and foundational level, viz. that inspired by the challenge to traditional Thomistic natural law theory by the “new natural lawyers.” New natural law theory (NNLT), initiated by Germain Grisez, philosophi- 13 cally elaborated by John Finnis in Natural Law and Natural Rights, and subsequently developed by him and others (see Note 3), poses a number of

9 For an efficient outline of Aquinas on the three levels of inclination, see McInerny, Ethica Thomistica, pp. 44–46. 10 “Determination” falls short of logical entailment, but still constitutes a form of inference that is answerable to real moral constraints, ones derived largely from elsewhere in the natural law. It is best understood as a kind of “concrete articulation,” or “positivization”: one that is reasonable, yet sub-demonstrative. 11 Starting in the section headed “Priorities”; for the philosophical detail, see “Internal Criticism.” 12 From the fact that a university is Catholic in affiliation it does not follow that the institutional church has any control over the academic work, curricula, or wider life pursued therein. Indeed, in the United States, most Catholic universities and colleges are now substantially independent of church control. It is only where the hierarchical church does maintain (at least some) direct control over a teaching institution that natural law dissent can – as we shall see – run into significant difficulty. 13 John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980). 58 Tom Angier challenges to traditional Thomistic natural law. Centrally, NNLT replaces an emphasis on human nature and its functioning with an emphasis on human reason per se. Why so? Because even though humans would be subject to different norms if they had a different nature, there is no legitimate way (NNLT contends) to derive norms from nature. Derivation is a logical operation, and there is no set of premises specifying facts about our nature that entails evaluative conclusions about how it is good or bad to act. In other words, Hume’s moratorium on inferring “ought” from “is” is fundamentally 14 justified, and traditional Thomism falls foul of it. In lieu of this metaphysical route to natural law norms, NNLT follows a rationalistic and primarily epistemological path. It posits a series of “basic goods”–in Finnis’ original 15 version, there are seven – which are purportedly “indemonstrable and 16 self-evident.” According to NNLT, then, any rational agent should, upon reflection, be able to understand these goods as fundamental forms of good for us. Indeed, the demand for demonstration or proof of this is (it is claimed) substantively irrational, since these “intelligible goods” constitute the starting points of practical reason, and (as Aristotle maintains) first principles are indemonstrable. Having elaborated this apparatus of basic goods, NNLT invokes Aquinas’ notion of “determination” to move from these to particular, concrete goods- to-be-achieved. And to that extent it aligns itself with traditional Thomistic natural law theory. But even on this cursory analysis, it can be seen that NNLT has shifted the intellectual ground significantly. The metaphysics of human nature, although not banished by NNLT, is bracketed as no more than a 17 “speculative appendage” to what is essentially a rationalistic ethics. And this bracketing has knock-on effects elsewhere. Having claimed, for instance, 18 that no objective priority holds between the basic goods, Finnis claims that the same is true of the types of good specified by Aquinas’“inclinations” (viz. life, procreation, and knowledge). What appears as a hierarchical ranking 19 between these is, Finnis contends, merely an “irrelevant schematization.” And this is consonant with NNLT’s wider concern to rule out utilitarian

14 For Finnis on the supposedly fallacious move from “is” to “ought,” see Finnis, Natural Law, pp. 33–36, 81, 85, 91, 94. 15 Namely life, knowledge, play, aesthetic experience, sociability, practical reasonableness, and religion. See Finnis, Natural Law, pp. 86–90. Over the years, Finnis has given progressively more ﬁne-grained content to his list of basic goods, but their number has remained constant. For the changes that have taken place between Finnis, Natural Law, John Finnis, Joseph M. Boyle, and Germain Grisez, Nuclear Deterrence, Morality, and Realism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), and John Finnis, “Is Natural Law Theory Compatible with Limited Government?” in Robert George (ed.), Natural Law, Liberalism, and Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), see Sabina Alkire, “The Basic Dimensions of Human Flourishing: A Comparison of Accounts,” chapter 3 in Biggar and Black, The Revival of Natural Law, p. 76. 16 17 18 Finnis, Natural Law,p.81. Finnis, Natural Law,p.36. Finnis, Natural Law, pp. 92–93. 19 Finnis, Natural Law, pp. 94–95. Dissent on core beliefs in natural law 59 reasoning. For on its view, not only do the basic goods display no objective hierarchy, but they are in fact incommensurable, thereby precluding any 20 utilitarian “weighing” of one against the other. When it comes to choice between goods, then, NNLT simply calls upon agents to choose in light of their 21 own, subjective “life-plan.” Although (as we shall see) the new foundational paradigm propounded by NNLT has not engendered the kind of institutional strife unleashed by disputes at the concrete, applied level, it has created its fair share of dissension 22 among natural lawyers. To begin with, the notion of basic yet incommensurable goods has come under attack for ruling out not only utilitarianism, but also any impersonal, well-founded choice between goods. As MacIntyre adjures, for the “Grisez/Finnis theory, individual goods are not understood 23 in terms of a prior notion of the common good”; if there is anything akin to a common good, then, for NNLT, it devolves merely into the aggregate of individuals’“life-plans.” Besides contravening Aquinas’ objective, rank-ordered conception of goods, this threatens to bring NNLT into close proximity to precisely the kind of Rawlsian, liberal vision of society the 24 new natural lawyers seek to avoid. And as to the actual list of basic goods proposed by Finnis et al., many natural lawyers remain unconvinced. Whereas Aquinas reserves the description “self-evident and indemonstrable” for abstract claims like “man is a rational animal,” or the ﬁrst principle 25 of practical reason, NNLT applies it to a controversial list of goods the contravening or “impeding” of which does not seem, in all cases, a self-evident harm or evil. More fundamentally, then, the method used by NNLT to arrive at the basic 26 goods has been found “overly aprioristic.” New natural lawyers appeal to the deliverances of reason to underwrite these goods, eschewing any appeal to nature – on the grounds that one cannot derive evaluative, practical conclusions from purely factual premises. But this is to accept a view of nature

20 21 Finnis, Natural Law, pp. 95–97. Finnis, Natural Law,p.93. 22 McInerny, Ethica Thomistica, Russell Hittinger, A Critique of the New Natural Law Theory (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1987), and Lisska, Aquinas’ Theory of Natural Law are three notable book-length treatments essentially aimed against NNLT. 23 MacIntyre, “Theories of Natural Law,” p. 105. 24 For defenses of the claim that the basic goods are incommensurable, see John Finnis, “Natural Law and Legal Reasoning,” chapter 6 in Robert George (ed.), Natural Law Theory: Contemporary Essays (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), pp. 145–151, Joseph Boyle, “Natural Law and the Ethics of Traditions,” chapter 1 in George (ed.), Natural Law Theory, and Robert George, “Does the ‘Incommensurability Thesis’ Imperil Common Sense Moral Judgements?” chapter 4 in Robert George, In Defense of Natural Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999). 25 Viz. “Good is to be sought and done, evil to be avoided” (ST Ia IIae q. 94 art. 2). 26 John Haldane, “Reasoning about the Human Good, and the Role of the Public Philosopher,” chapter 3 in John Keown and Robert P. George (eds.), Reason, Morality, and Law: The Philosophy of John Finnis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 47. 60 Tom Angier that, as I argued earlier, is profoundly anti-teleological, and thus at odds with that affirmed by traditional Thomists. As a corollary of this, moreover, NNLT crucially alters the role played by knowledge by inclination. Whereas NNLT treats inclination as a way of rationally discerning goods tout court, Aquinas treats it as a way of knowing, first and foremost, one’s nature. As David Oderberg puts matters, the agent, by gaining knowledge of human nature ... through inclination, grasps what does and does not fulfill that nature, hence what is good and bad and so a matter for pursuit or avoidance ... On what basis could such generalizations be made if there were no room in ethics for the kind of third-personal, objective, speculative 27 knowledge about just what it is that fulfills the human species? In other words, by bracketing human nature, NNLT effectively occludes the basis of normative justification it so vitally needs.

Priorities We have seen, then, that insofar as natural lawyers form an intellectual community, foundational disputes between traditional Thomists and followers of NNLT have led to a good deal of communal dissension. Indeed, some traditional Thomists may even conceive of NNLT as a form of dissent from intellectual orthodoxy. But equally, they would never assim- ilate it to the full-blown dissent that has arisen at the level of concrete applications of the natural law. Here I am thinking of dissent over core “life and death” issues such as abortion, euthanasia, and contraception, and wider issues of human sexual relations, particularly the status of homosexual 28 practice and same-sex marriage. Not only have these concrete, applied issues inspired far more intellectual and institutional strife than their foundational counterparts, both traditional Thomists and the new natural lawyers ﬁnd themselves, perhaps surprisingly, in agreement over them. For whether basing their conclusions on knowledge by inclination, proper organic function, basic intelligible goods, or some combination of these, both camps agree that any practices that (allegedly) systematically endanger the core, 29 generic goods of life and procreation are impermissible. In this regard,

27 Oderberg, “The Metaphysical Foundation of Natural Law,” pp. 71–72. 28 Some take this focus on family and sexual ethics to be unwarranted, to show an obsessive concern with “personal” issues to the detriment of more pressing political concerns. Although the new natural lawyers have made a point of tackling the ethics of war, and of nuclear warfare in particular (see Finnis et al., Nuclear Deterrence, Morality, and Realism), it is true that such political issues are generally not the focus of natural lawyers’ interest. Why not? In “Inculcation and Reproduction,” I offer some tentative explanations for why natural law dissent has been predominantly in the areas outlined, while what could be called “macro” political issues have been comparatively ignored. 29 As I’ll document in “Internal Criticism,” the new natural lawyers have been especially active in arguing against the above practices, most recently same-sex marriage. Dissent on core beliefs in natural law 61 then, both traditional and new natural lawyers stand united, and are perforce deeply opposed to a group of thinkers who, whether justly or not, have been labeled “dissenters” proper. Who are these thinkers, and what are their main normative commitments? Natural law dissent proper can be usefully divided into two “waves.” The first wave consists in those thinkers who reacted against the 1968 papal encyclical Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life), which reasserted in unequivocal terms that contraception by any other means than “natural family planning” is against the natural law, and hence immoral. Key figures in this group are the Jesuits Josef Fuchs and Richard A. McCormick, and Charles E. Curran 30 (also a priest-academic, but not a member of a religious order). What links these natural lawyers is their critique of traditional Catholic teaching on artificial contraception, and (subsequently) their liberalizing approach to 31 most, if not all, the moral “absolutes” found among the secondary precepts. Given this development, Finnis seems justified when he writes that “Dissent in one area has reinforced dissent in others,” and in particular that, “The formal attack on the moral absolutes emerges ... in response to the problem of 32 contraception.” The second wave of dissent involves a set of thinkers who, partly inspired by the 1960s pioneers, have boldly – and with less initial reticence – impugned moral absolutes across the board. Key here are the lay academics Todd A. Salzman, Michael G. Lawler, and Lisa Sowle Cahill, and 33 the Sister of Mercy, Margaret A. Farley. As I shall outline in the next section, both the first and second waves of natural law dissent have generated firm, critical responses from the institutional Catholic Church: if not from its teaching institutions, to which many of the dissenters belong(ed), at least from those in the Catholic hierarchy

30 See, especially, M. E. Graham, Josef Fuchs on Natural Law (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2002); Charles Curran, Loyal Dissent: Memoirs of a Catholic Theologian (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2006), Transition and Tradition in Moral Theology (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979); Charles Curran and Richard A. McCormick (eds.), Readings in Moral Theology No. 6: Dissent in the Church (New York: Paulist Press, 1988); Richard A. McCormick, How Brave a New World?: Dilemmas in Bioethics (London: SCM Press, 1981). 31 By “absolutes” I mean exceptionless prohibitions, centrally those on abortion, euthanasia, contraception, homosexual practice, and any form of marriage other than life-long, heterosexual monogamy. 32 John Finnis, Moral Absolutes: Tradition, Revision, and Truth (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1991), p. 85; cf. Curran’s similar diagnosis at Curran, Transition and Tradition, pp. 17, 37. 33 See, especially, Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler, The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2008;foreword by Charles Curran); Lisa Sowle Cahill, Theological Bioethics: Participation, Justice, and Change (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2005); Margaret A. Farley, Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics (London: Continuum Publishing, 2006). Unlike Salzman and Lawler, Cahill and Farley make few references to the natural law tradition as such, but their arguments pose similar, if philosophically less rigorous, challenges to it. 62 Tom Angier

34 charged with safeguarding orthodoxy. And this suggests that the latter view it as their priority to minimize dissent not at the foundational level – that is, the level at which traditional Thomists and new natural lawyers disagree – but rather at the concrete, applied level of personal and family norms. Why so? Partly, I take it, because the institutional church now has comparatively limited power and financial resources, and the good of purely theoretical and metho- 35 dological consensus is thought not to warrant the use of these. Moreover, since the 1960s, it has grown wary of the idea that certain intellectual methods are in principle privileged over others: as well as Thomism, the phenomenological method, for instance, flourishes within Church institutions, and was practiced by no less than John Paul II. But above all, the relevant Church authorities take it that – whatever the rights and wrongs of (say) NNLT’s philosophical foundations – it is the concrete, practical conclusions of natural lawyers that matter most, because these have direct implications for the conduct of life in its most sensitive and significant aspects. When taken together with the fact that new natural lawyers are wholly orthodox in their practical conclusions, it is hardly surprising that the contemporary hierarchy concentrates its fire on those I’ve labeled natural law “dissenters” in a strict sense.

Consequences The consequences for some (albeit few) natural law dissenters have been severe. The most celebrated case is that of Charles Curran, whose right to teach at the Catholic University of America was withdrawn by the 36 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in 1986. Having survived a previous attempt to remove him in 1967, thanks to support from faculty and students, Curran proceeded to issue many publications that – although professing adherence to the tradition of natural law – came increasingly to challenge the moral absolutes speciﬁed above (see Note 31). Drawing largely on 37 Bernard Häring’s “personalist” model of ethics, he argued centrally – as

34 I shall be concerned with such safeguarding only insofar as it appeals to naturalistic, non-revelation-based arguments, even if revelation is appealed to in addition. 35 It was not always so. NB the Condemnations (particularly of Aristotelianism) at the University of Paris in 1277, and in the modern period, Pius IX’s anti-modernist “Syllabus of Errors” (1864). The Index of Prohibited Books was suspended in its operation only in 1966. 36 At this time, the Congregation was headed by the then Cardinal Ratzinger, subsequently Pope Benedict XVI. For documents and essays on the Curran case, see Part Five of Curran and McCormick, Readings in Moral Theology No. 6. It is important to note that the Catholic University of America is the only institution of higher education founded directly by the American Catholic Bishops. It was this close relation to the episcopate that led eventually to Curran’s leaving the institution. 37 See, for example, Curran, Transition and Tradition, pp. 4–7.Häring (1912–1998) was a Redemptorist priest whose most famous book is The Law of Christ (Cork: Mercier Press, 1961; original German, 1954). Teaching in America, he became close to the natural law dissenters, and although investigated by church ofﬁcials, was exonerated of fault. Dissent on core beliefs in natural law 63

I will detail below in “Internal Criticism”–that traditional Thomistic natural law is too wedded to a “physicalist” conception of the human person, and that consequently it rules out a series of practices that are at least tolerable, and at most affirmable. But this and other forms of argument failed to persuade the Roman authorities, and, since 1991, Curran has been teaching at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas. According to the then Cardinal Ratzinger, “In light of [his] repeated refusal to accept what the Church teaches and in light of its mandate to promote and safeguard the Church’s teaching on faith and morals throughout the Catholic world,” the CDF had no choice but to act 38 against Curran in the way it did. The second wave of natural law dissenters has so far escaped more lightly than Curran, but censure from magisterial (i.e. Roman) and episcopal authorities has not been lacking. In June 2012, Margaret Farley’s Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics – which criticizes natural law prohibitions on divorce, masturbation, and homosexual practice – was issued a 39 “notification” by the CDF. As Cardinal Levada, successor to Cardinal Ratzinger as Prefect of the CDF, puts it, Farley “manifests a defective understanding of the objective nature of the natural moral law,” and therefore her 40 book cannot but pose “grave harm” to the faithful. And things look awkward too for Todd Salzman, who, unlike Farley, still holds a teaching post. His book, The Sexual Person (2008), written together with Professor Emeritus Michael Lawler, recapitulates and develops Curran’s advocacy of a “person-centered,” rather than a “physicalist” understanding of sexual relations. In doing so, it arrives at strongly liberal positions on marital morality, homosexual practice, and artificial reproductive technologies. Hence, according to a United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’“Committee on Doctrine” report (September 2010), Salzman and Lawler’s work effectively denies natural law norms in favor of personal preferences. The Committee concludes that this is “clearly in contradiction to the authentic teaching of the Church, cannot provide a true norm for moral action and in fact [is] harmful to one’s moral 41 and spiritual life.”

Inculcation and reproduction Even if we accept this reasoning, we might still question why the institutional Church chooses to move against speciﬁcally moral dissent. After all, the natural law has traditionally been interpreted as recommending, in part, the pursuit of knowledge (see “Key Tenets”), and moral knowledge is only one

38 39 Curran and McCormick, Readings in Moral Theology No. 6,p.362. Farley, Just Love. 40 See www.news.va/en/news/notification-from-the-congregation-for-the-doctrin 41 See www.usccb.org/about/doctrine/publications/upload/Sexual_Person_2010-09-15.pdf. Despite being issued by a “Committee on Doctrine,” this report is strongly philosophical in content, even if it also makes appeal to revelation. Indeed, Cardinal Wuerl, the Chairman of the Committee, is a philosopher by training. 64 Tom Angier species of this. So why target specifically moral natural law dissent? To this there are, I think, two basic answers: the first negative, and the second positive in force. First, there has, at least since the Second World War, been relatively little dissent emerging from natural law thinkers, or from Catholic thinkers more generally, on non-moral issues. True, there has been systematic ecclesiological dissent since Vatican II, and some dissent over the relation between 42 Church teaching and natural science. But this has been of limited extent and influence. Secondly, and more vitally (as I indicated under “Priorities”), the Magisterium or teaching authority of the Church believes that dissent from the concrete moral norms of the natural law has maximally serious implications for both the socialization of Catholic youth, and the continued well-being of Catholic adults. Since the 1960s, so the argument runs, dissenting views have abetted a dramatic increase in the abortion and divorce rates, along with the failure of many industrialized countries to reproduce themselves. And if these are grave outcomes, then the opening of marriage to same-sex couples promises to fray the social fabric still further, with especially deleterious effects on the well-being of children (see “Internal Criticism”). So to concentrate on dissent from the moral precepts of the natural law is, far from being irrational or arbitrary, vital to the flourishing of society, and even to the future of society itself. More liberal opinion – which tends to congregate in Catholic universities, and especially around natural law dissenters – disputes this, of course, arguing that the proper socialization and well-being of Catholics depend on natural law dissent being heard, rather than sidelined or silenced. Furthermore, such opinion also tends to hold that within the category of moral secondary precepts, Church officials pay far too much attention to sexual, reproductive, and family norms, and far too little to the political or “social” teaching of the 43 Church on justice and peace. To this challenge there is perhaps no immediately compelling answer, but I think at least three observations are in order. First, while issues of justice and peace are politically pressing, they involve massive structural problems that most individuals cannot begin to tackle in their daily, circumscribed lives. So to prioritize such issues would, arguably, be pastorally counterproductive. Secondly, issues of justice and peace can create deep tension between different episcopates (e.g. over nuclear weapons and

42 A key instance of ecclesiological dissent is that of the Society of Saint Pius X, founded in 1970 by Marcel Lefebvre to combat and resist the manifold liturgical and other changes instituted by Vatican II. As to the relation between church teaching and natural science, the works of the Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) on cosmic evolution were heavily criticized in Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical Humani Generis (Of Humankind), and were issued a reprimand by the Holy Office in 1962. 43 For a helpful volume on the church’s social teaching, see Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, published by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (London: Continuum Publishing, 2006). Dissent on core beliefs in natural law 65 the death penalty), so to highlight them would be to foment even more international tension than already exists. And thirdly, there has been comparatively little intellectual dissent from the Church’s social teaching (e.g. on the need to provide fair wages and maternity leave, or to avoid direct targeting of non-combatants) – indeed, almost all natural law dissenters endorse it. So while there is huge practical failure to implement justice and peace, intellectually the Church finds itself here with a relatively willing audience.

Authority Even if we allow, however, that the moral precepts of the natural law (narrowly construed) deserve primary inculcation, and thus greatest protection by the Church, it might still be objected that Church officials abuse their authority by treating natural law dissenters in the ways outlined above. As Yves Congar points out, in the Middle Ages the term “Magisterium” referred 44 to the teaching authority of theologians, whereas in the modern period its sense has become narrowed to the teaching authority vested in the College of Bishops under the headship of the pope. This narrowing has arguably been prejudicial not only to deep reflection on the natural law, but also to proper freedom of conscience, with bodies like the CDF insisting on a “religious submission” that is unreasonable, and in fact inconsistent with Vatican II teachings on conscience. As natural law dissenters like Richard McCormick put things, “We shall only grow in knowledge and understanding ...if acceptance of ...[Church] teaching is completely uncoerced ...[i.e. not] a form of 45 paternalism detrimental to personal and corporate growth.” And this call for 46 “spiritual adulthood” or “independent judgement” goes together with a wider call for the institutional Church to respect the deliverances of such 47 judgement – especially when these reflect majority public opinion. Although the issue of institutional authority is liable to provoke some of the sharpest disputes surrounding the issue of natural law dissent, it is not clear

44 See Yves Congar, “Pour une histoire sémantique du terme Magisterium,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 60 (1976): 85–98. Cf. Congar, “Bref historique des formes du ‘Magistère’ et de ses relations avec les docteurs,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 60 (1976): 99–112 (English translation in Charles Curran and Richard A. McCormick (eds.), Readings in Moral Theology No. 3: The Magisterium and Morality (New York: Paulist Press, 1982), pp. 314–331. 45 McCormick, How Brave a New World?, pp. 234–235. 46 McCormick, How Brave a New World?,p.236. 47 To take just one example, Lisa Sowle Cahill notes (with approval) the extent to which “US Catholic opinion supports Farley [in Just Love]. While Catholics divorce at a rate much lower than the near 50% of the rest of the country, fewer than 10% of Catholics say divorce is never justiﬁed. A majority of Catholics (64%) favor legal recognition of gay unions, which is more than other Christian denominations and more than Americans overall.” See www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/18/vatican-dogma-v-magaret-farley-just- love. Cf. Salzman and Lawler, The Sexual Person, pp. 176, 178. 66 Tom Angier that the institutional Church is without resources to respond to the above criticisms. For a start, the CDF’s 1990 “Instruction,” entitled Donum Veritatis: 48 Of the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, acknowledges in its section on 49 “The Problem of Dissent” that tensions do arise between theologians and the Magisterium, and that the former’s “objections [can] contribute to real progress and provide a stimulus to the Magisterium to propose the teaching of the Church in greater depth and with a clearer presentation of the arguments” (§ 30). But equally, the CDF denies that “independent judgement” is an overriding good per se, despite the almost overwhelming plausibility of this view to many in liberal democracies. In the context of Church teaching, and especially with regard to speciﬁc moral norms of the natural law, every theologian is answerable, the CDF adjures, to a tradition of interpretation and set of basic moral orientations that act as constraints on inquiry. So although it is profoundly sinful to coerce someone into professing the faith, once faith has been professed, there are limits to what moral claims can legitimately be made. Indeed, these limits are not merely those set by reason and tradition, but also by a key datum of faith, namely that “Magisterial teaching, by virtue of divine assistance, has a validity beyond its argumenta- 50 tion” (§ 34). On dissenters’ appeal to conscience, Donum Veritatis maintains that whereas “conscience illumines the practical judgment about a decision to make,” this is crucially distinct from deciding “the truth of a doctrinal pronouncement” (§ 38). In other words, conscience is fundamentally a private monitor of action, rather than a faculty that can determine the truth or falsity of moral norms. And this argument is elaborated by Dietrich von Hildebrand, who holds that “conscience always presupposes a moral conviction, which does not originate in conscience,” but rather in reasoned argument and substantive 51 moral sources. It follows that while, for example, “my conscience tells me not to have another drink” is an item of sense, “my conscience tells me that abortion is wrong” is an item of nonsense. As Von Hildebrand sum- marizes matters, “Conscience does not instruct us about whether something is morally good or evil ...this question must be answered before conscience 52 can speak.” And an equal and opposite mistake to relying on one’s

48 See www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_ doc_19900524_theologian-vocation_en.html 49 “Theologians” here should be taken in its wide sense, to include not only those who appeal to revelation, but also natural lawyers who appeal to naturalistic premises (in a broadly theistic context). See Note 4. 50 Clearly, this notion that magisterial authority transcends the perceived cogency of its arguments is very hard to justify according to the canons of post-Enlightenment rationality. Indeed, I suspect it is impossible to justify such a view apart from strong ecclesiological commitments to the inspired nature of the Magisterium. 51 See Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Encyclical Humanae Vitae – A Sign of Contradiction (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1969), p. 66. 52 Von Hildebrand, The Encyclical Humanae Vitae,p.65. Dissent on core beliefs in natural law 67 conscience to assess moral natural law norms is relying on majority public (or even majority Catholic) opinion. For not only is such opinion volatile, admitting of contradiction over even short periods of time, there is no con- clusive reason to think it is an ultimate arbiter of moral truth. Majorities can, to put it bluntly, make mistakes – and bad mistakes, at that.

Management options Even if one endorses these claims – that moral truth is not simply a majoritarian matter, that conscience needs to be independently formed, and that the Magisterium possesses a teaching authority transcending that of other institutions – it does not follow that Church officials have the right to discipline natural law dissenters in the way that, for example, the CDF disciplined Charles Curran. Depriving someone of their teaching post is, it might be said, more reminiscent of the Inquisition than a modern “watch- dog” institution. Surely challenges to Church teaching, even teaching of long standing, can be fruitful and much needed, and the attempt to rein them in is indicative of a hidebound, authoritarian institution, quick to deny people their rights and scared of open debate. In response to this, the “case for the Holy See,” as the Jesuit David Fitch 53 puts it, might run as follows. To begin with, the Curran debacle is exceptional. Many dissenters, like Margaret Farley, work for decades without any interference: indeed, the “notification” against her book Just Love appeared six years after its publication, and at the end of her academic career. Even in Curran’s case, the CDF gave him several chances to withdraw his public denials of Church teaching, denials that began with his collection (in 1968) of the signatures of over 650 American moral theologians against Humanae Vitae. Given that this dissent, together with his subsequent, far broader dissent, went beyond the airing of mere moral hypotheses, Church bodies were justified in depriving Curran of his right to teach at a Catholic University that is under direct supervision of the episcopate (see Note 36). After all, they were not burning him at the stake: rather, they were recognizing, institutionally, that someone hired to teach within the bounds of natural law tradition was no 54 longer willing to do so. And this points to a wider, more fundamental case against dissenters like Curran, one that might be called the argument from “confusion of the spheres.” True, it may be appropriate and fruitful for debate in the mainstream

53 Fitch’s “Curran and Dissent: The Case for the Holy See” forms a nice counterweight to McCormick’s “L’Affaire Curran,” both contained in part ﬁve of Curran and McCormick, Readings in Moral Theology No. 6. 54 “To speak in this instance of a violation of human rights,” Donum Veritatis holds, “is out of place for it indicates a failure to recognize the proper hierarchy of these rights as well as the nature of the ecclesial community and her common good” (§ 37). 68 Tom Angier media to enjoy more or less free rein: this is, arguably, for the common good. But debate conducted by and within particular institutions – particularly those, like the Church, charged with care of a speciﬁc moral tradition, and the constituency governed by it – is subject to different norms. Just as it would be reasonable for the National Secular Society to remove one of its public representatives intent on arguing for positions upheld in the Catholic Catechism, so it is reasonable for the Church, after due process, to withdraw a teaching license from one of its avowed representatives who, over decades, persists in arguing for positions propounded (typically, if not exclusively) by 55 consequentialists and moral relativists.

Internal criticism While the ways the institutional Church handles intramural dissent are of crucial ecclesiological significance, what is of central philosophical interest is the cogency with which dissenters argue both against core moral positions developed within the natural law tradition, and for their own, revised positions. In this section, I will outline what I take to be their four main arguments, first in the context of debates over contraception (the original 56 locus of widespread dissent within the Church), and second in that of debates over same-sex marriage (the latest locus of dissent from natural law teaching). Both traditional and new natural law theorists hold that contraception by artificial means is impermissible, on the grounds that it systematically and intentionally blocks the good of new life, and in the context of acts essentially ordered to procreation. To avoid this outcome, every conjugal or marital act of intercourse must, so the argument runs, be open to the transmission of life. The first dissenting argument against this appeals to a “principle of proportionate good,” namely that if a greater good is served – such as the love between spouses, or the preservation of a marriage in the face of financial 57 hardship – contraception can be justified. And this argument is closely related to the further claim that individual contraceptive acts must be viewed as part of a totality, which includes all the motivations and circumstances

55 As Donum Veritatis comments, “the theologian who is not disposed to think with the Church ... contradicts the commitment he freely and knowingly accepted to teach in the name of the Church” (§ 37). This is not the trivial point that a club has rules, which members are supposed to obey; it is the deeper point that undertaking to teach natural law ethics, and then systematically denying many of its key tenets, spells a lack of integrity. For Curran and those like him are at no stage forced into such an undertaking, and are free to relinquish it when they no longer feel able to abide by its requirements. 56 Here I am particularly indebted to William E. May’sPère Marquette Theology Lecture, Moral Absolutes (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1989). 57 By which I mean, and shall mean from now on, “artiﬁcial” (i.e. not just rhythm-method) contraception. Dissent on core beliefs in natural law 69

58 relevant to human self-realization and self-development. In this way, the first argument affirms a kind of holism about human acts that natural law reasoning has tended to deny. The second dissenting argument targets the so-called “physicalism” or “biologism” of natural law ethics. Whereas “transcendent” principles like “always act according to right reason,” or “formal” norms like “always act 59 justly and bravely” are exceptionless, injunctions against particular, “pre-moral” types of act – such as contraception – can never be so, on pain of absolutizing merely “material” prohibitions. Such prohibitions pick out acts in abstraction from any conscious purposes or intentions, and thus restrict the moral life unduly, to the detriment of any wider significance such acts 60 can have. Furthermore, if natural law teaching against contraception is essentially grounded in the infertility of contracepted sexual intercourse, then surely sterile (yet sexually active) spouses, along with spouses practicing “natural family planning,” are no less in contravention of the natural law. 61 This is a claim Curran, among others, is keen to press. The third dissenting argument is historicist in form, and amounts to the view that few, if any specific moral norms hold for all time, in virtue of cultural and technological changes, which in turn alter the nature of human beings. The goods internal to sexual relationships, for instance, have, according to this view, changed markedly with the advent of oral contraceptives, which give women greater control over their fertility, and thereby fundamentally alter their (already changing) role in society. Granted, some types of action – such as the direct bombing of civilians, or child-abuse – should be seen as “practical 62 absolutes,” that is, as “virtually exceptionless” evils. But it remains the case that all “material” norms must be understood as open, in principle, to exceptions: for as Curran avers, “A more historically conscious moral methodology 63 realizes the need for a more inductive approach to moral theology.”

58 See (e.g.) McCormick, How Brave a New World?, pp. 231, 237; Fuchs, Personal Responsibility and Christian Morality (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1983), pp. 131, 139, Christian Ethics in a Secular Arena (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1984), p. 75. 59 See (e.g.) T. E. O’Connell, Principles for a Catholic Morality (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), pp. 157–159; Fuchs, Christian Ethics in a Secular Arena,p.72. 60 See (e.g.) L. Janssens, “Norms and Priorities in a Love Ethic,” Louvain Studies 6 (1977): 210, 216; Fuchs, Personal Responsibility,p.191; Fuchs, Christian Ethics in a Secular Arena,p.74. Cf. McCormick: “biological structure and the processes of nature are accepted as the determinants of [value]” by natural law ethics; but “the basic criterion for the [value] of human actions is the person, not some isolated aspect of the person” (McCormick, How Brave a New World?,p.222). 61 See (e.g.) Curran, Transition and Tradition, pp. 30–37; cf. McCormick, How Brave a New World?,p.221. Curran points out that Pius XII ofﬁcially acknowledged the morality of the rhythm method in 1951. 62 See Janssens, “Norms and Priorities,” pp. 217–218; Fuchs, Personal Responsibility,pp.140–142. 63 See Curran Transition and Tradition,p.7; cf. ibid. pp. 13–14, and J.-P. Wils, “Does the Natural-Law Approach have a Future? A Hermeneutical Proposal: Nine Objections to 70 Tom Angier

The fourth dissenting argument dovetails with the third by supplying allegedly Thomistic warrant for the idea that there are exceptions to moral “absolutes.” Here dissenters cite Aquinas’ view that derived, secondary natural law precepts, because they involve contingent particulars, hold only “for the most part” (ut in pluribus – see ST Ia IIae q. 94 art. 4). In other words, those precepts are helpful generalizations, but not universal, exceptionless 64 moral norms. As Curran puts matters, “On a more general level one can and should find great certitude, but as one descends to the particular, the 65 individual and the specific, the possibility of differing positions exists.” So just as, for instance, the supreme value of human life leaves room for legitimate killing (e.g. in war), so the moral centrality of reproduction within human life leaves room for the legitimate use of contraception. The response to these four arguments among traditional and new natural lawyers has been concerted and robust. With regard to the first argument, NNLT criticizes its implicit “proportionalism” (i.e. consequentialism), namely the view that goods can be commensurated and thence summed, in order to yield a “greater good,” against which all lesser goods (or greater evils) lose 66 out. But since, as I maintained in “Key Tenets” above, NNLT’s critique of commensurability is controversial, it would be unwise to rest too much on it. More promising is an anti-proportionalism that invokes and defends the traditional scholastic principle that moral absolutes are never to be directly 67 contravened for the sake of anticipated benefits, however great. Since most dissenters deny this principle, and even think that deliberately intending evil 68 for the sake of a greater good is positively admirable, I suggest it is on this

Natural Law,” in Lisa Sowle Cahill, Hille Haker, and Eloi Messi Metogo (eds.), Human Nature and Natural Law, Concilium International Review of Theology 3 (London: SCM Press, 2010), p. 69. 64 See Anthony Kosnik et al. (eds.), Human Sexuality: New Directions in American Catholic Thought – A Study (New York: Paulist Press, 1977), pp. 88–98; F. Scholz, “Problems on Norms Raised by Ethical Borderline Situations: Beginnings of a Solution in Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure,” in Charles Curran and Richard A. McCormick (eds.), Readings in Moral Theology No. 1: Moral Norms and Catholic Tradition (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), pp. 164–165; Curran, Transition and Tradition,p.40. 65 Curran, Transition and Tradition,p.49. 66 See (e.g.) Finnis, Natural Law, pp. 118–125; Finnis, Fundamentals of Ethics (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1983), pp. 86–105; Finnis et al., Nuclear Deterrence, Morality, and Realism, pp. 254–261; Finnis, Moral Absolutes,p.52. 67 At the level of single acts, this amounts to the claim that in order to be morally good, and thus choiceworthy, an act must be good as a whole; if it is bad in any of its elements, it is morally vitiated. See Finnis, Moral Absolutes, pp. 16–19, 96–98. 68 Because, that is, it purportedly shows a greater love of the good. Those in the anti-dissent camp argue that this confuses the greater with the moral good, which incorporates constraints on good-maximization. See the essays in Richard A. McCormick and Paul Ramsey (eds.), Doing Evil to Achieve Good: Moral Choice in Conflict Situations (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1978). Cf. Curran, Transition and Tradition, pp. 37–38. Dissent on core beliefs in natural law 71 terrain that natural law anti-proportionalism has the best chance of making headway. As to the charge that natural law ethics has been led astray by “physicalism” or “biologism,” defenders of the majority natural law view agree that sexual 69 acts are not reducible to “biological structure and the processes of nature.” But having agreed this, they go on to accuse dissenters of affirming an equal and opposite mistake, viz. that of dualism – according to which human consciousness, affect, and personality can effectively be sundered from their grounding in bodily experience. On the contrary, they adjure, the way we behave bodily – especially sexually, where body and personhood are most intimately and profoundly united – has deep, reflexive repercussions. Rather than constituting a distinct realm, to which we can take up different attitudes at will, bodily acts (even of an “everyday” variety) ineluctably shape us and make us the people we are. So contra the dissenting view, to hold that one can engage in contraceptive sex in the total, self-giving way essential to truly unitive sexual activity is, although perhaps well-intentioned, nevertheless 70 an illusion. On the historicity of moral norms, critics of natural law dissent are prepared to concede that some secondary precepts do vary over time. New technologies entail new forms of responsibility, and certain norms may cease to have force outside emergency situations (such as those governing war). But to reject, in the spirit of Karl Rahner, the whole notion of a universal human nature in favor of a historically conditioned, “concrete” human nature – one grounding a radically open-textured form of normative 71 being – is to embrace a species of relativism that needs far more defense. After all, it is intuitively very plausible that there are types of act (such as rape and torture) that are impermissible whatever their historical and personal context. So even if contraceptive acts do not obviously fall under this category, legitimating them by appeal to changed historical circumstances per se does not succeed.

69 See McCormick, How Brave a New World? 70 To bolster this analysis, writers cite Aquinas’ claim that human acts are never specified independently of an agent’s “objects,” that is, the aims integral to a particular mode of acting (see ST Ia IIae q. 1 art. 3 ad. 3; De Malo, B. Davies and R. Regan [eds.] [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001], q. 2 art. 4c). While these objects are not those of animal instinct, neither are they determined at will: so it is not open to an agent to construe an act of incest, say, as an act of genuine, healthy love. On Thomistic practical “objects” and their role in this debate, see Finnis, Moral Absolutes, pp. 38–39; Finnis, “Natural Law” (1996), in his Collected Essays: Volumes I–V (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), I.13,p.204. 71 See, in particular, Karl Rahner, “Basic Observations on the Subject of the Changeable and Unchangeable Factors in the Church,” in his Theological Investigations, Vol. XIV (New York: Herder and Herder, 1976), pp. 14–15. Rahner was a Jesuit who, although he came under suspicion from the Roman authorities in 1962, was elevated by Pope John XXIII to the status of expert adviser to Vatican II, and thereby exercised significant influence on the text of Lumen Gentium. 72 Tom Angier

When it comes to derived moral norms having only general (ut in pluribus), rather than universal force, Finnis and his followers make an exegetical argument. According to them, Aquinas’ claim that such norms are only generalizations or rules of thumb is itself a generalization, one that does not apply to moral absolutes. This is made clear, they argue, by Aquinas’ reiter- ated claim that, while the majority of secondary precepts are affirmative, and have exceptions – such as “you should return what you borrow”–there are also negative secondary precepts (albeit a minority) that hold always and 72 without exception. Once again, this is insufficient to show that contraception falls under the latter category of absolutely prohibited types of act. Nonetheless, if the new natural lawyers’ interpretation of Aquinas here is well-founded, it does close a loophole that dissenters have been quick to exploit. Whatever we conclude about the dialectic between dissenters and their critics on the issue of contraception, it is clear that substantially the same set of problems has been generated by the latest natural law controversy, that over same-sex marriage. The key dissenters here are Todd Salzman and Michael Lawler, who hold that the natural law tradition, with its ideal of 73 “two-in-one-flesh-communion” between man and wife, has upheld a 74 “grossly physicalized” conception of marital consummation. Not only does this “heterogenital” conception, with its focus on procreativity, unduly privilege a particular type of physical act within an overall love-relationship, it thereby wrongly excludes those who lack the requisite, functioning sexual organs. This includes homosexual couples, obviously, but also sterile heterosexual spouses – viz. those whose intercourse the Church wants to claim is 75 no less legitimate than that of fertile spouses. Salzman and Lawler go on to argue that although, after Vatican II, this “biologically procreative” model of marriage ceded some ground to an

72 See (e.g.) ST IIa IIae q. 33 art. 2c; De Malo q. 7 art. 1 ad. 8. For further references, see Finnis, “Moral Absolutes in Aristotle and Aquinas” (1990), in his Collected Essays, I.12,p.189 n. 9 and Finnis, Moral Absolutes, pp. 90–91. 73 The phrase is taken from NNLT sources. See (e.g.) Robert George, “What Sex Can Be: Alienation, Illusion or One-Flesh Union,” chapter 9 in George, In Defense of Natural Law; Patrick Lee and Robert George, “Quaestio Disputata – What Male–Female Complementarity Makes Possible: Marriage as a Two-in-One-Flesh Union,” Theological Studies 69 (2008): 641–662. 74 Salzman and Lawler, The Sexual Person,p.165. 75 Gareth Moore, a dissenting Dominican friar, argues along similar lines. The NNLT notion of “two-in-one-ﬂesh-communion” is, he contends, little more than a metaphor (see his “Natural Sex: Germain Grisez, Sex, and Natural Law,” chapter 10 in Biggar and Black, The Revival of Natural Law,p.225). Indeed, it is effectively a pretext for ruling out certain forms of sexual relationship as non-marital, and thus (on Catholic premises) as illegitimate. As Moore writes, “Any sexual act, even though not suited to procreation, may be an act of reciprocal self-giving, an act undertaken willingly and lovingly, and [NNLT] is not entitled to infer otherwise” (p. 230). Cf. Salzman and Lawler, The Sexual Person,p.166. Dissent on core beliefs in natural law 73

76 “interpersonal procreative” one, thus rendering the good of spousal 77 “friendship-love” at least on a par with that of reproduction, this develop- 78 ment did not go far enough. Appealing to “empirical human ‘nature’,” and a 79 supposedly concomitant “empirical natural law,” they claim that deep friendship-love is all that matters in grounding the institution of marriage. And given that those of predominantly same-sex orientation are equally capable of such love, not only are “homosexual acts ... when they lead to 80 just and loving human flourishing ...thoroughly moral,” they can constitute a vital (albeit inessential) component within a married relationship. In this way, Salzman and Lawler posit an avowedly great good – viz. “complemen- 81 tary, just, and loving relationship” – to legitimate same-sex marriage. Those arguing for traditional, heterosexual marriage on natural law grounds will, clearly, have to reject this reasoning as proportionalist, that is, as papering over a serious disvalue in the name of a greater good. But their task is made difficult by the fact that, whereas the first wave of dissenters simply assumed that 82 homosexual relationships are (at worst) sinful, (at best) suboptimal, andinany case never marriages, the second wave of dissenters makes no such assumptions. What arguments, then, can these dissenters be offered to show that same-sex marriage embodies a positive and significant disvalue? New natural lawyers, who are at the forefront of this debate, begin by contending that, even if it could be shown that a predominantly homosexual orientation is essential to certain people’s nature, it would not follow ipso facto that they should act on that nature, let alone publicly affirm it through marriage. For people’s nature can be harmful, both to themselves and to others, and, in such cases, should be 83 curtailed rather than encouraged. This logical point seems weak, however, since many now believe that same- sex orientation and practice are not harmful. What are needed are reasons to disqualify same-sex couples from marrying, whatever their alleged “nature.” Here NNLT recurs to the central notion of “two-in-one-flesh-communion.” As Patrick Lee and Robert George argue, only in heterosexual intercourse is sex “oriented to reproduction (though not every act of coitus actually results in

76 Salzman and Lawler, The Sexual Person, pp. 182–183. 77 Salzman and Lawler, The Sexual Person,p.172. 78 Salzman and Lawler, The Sexual Person,p.167.A“nature,” they claim is “concrete, socially constructed” (p. 186), thereby echoing not only Rahner, but also the emphasis on historical conditioning found among first wave dissenters. NB. “The unitive meaning [of marriage] is ‘natural’ only as socially interpreted in Western culture” (p. 188). 79 Salzman and Lawler, The Sexual Person,p.168. 80 Salzman and Lawler, The Sexual Person,p.168. 81 Salzman and Lawler, The Sexual Person,p.191. 82 See (e.g.) Curran, Transition and Tradition, pp. 73–74; Curran, “Utilitarianism and Contemporary Moral Theology: Situating the Debates,” in Curran and McCormick, Readings in Moral Theology No. 1,p.360. 83 See (e.g.) Finnis, “Marriage: A Basic and Exigent Good” (2008), in his Collected Essays, III.20, pp. 332–333 (note). 74 Tom Angier reproduction)”; it follows, they claim, that only such intercourse achieves organic unity between individuals, in the sense that through it they become a “biological 84 unit,” or single “organism.” And lest this sound offensively “physicalist,” they stress that such organic unity acts as the “biological foundation and matrix” for the substantial goods of marriage, which include not only the bearing, but also 85 therearingofchildren. It is the latter that, properly understood, provides the rationale for couples’ exclusive, life-long (i.e. marital) commitment. For as Finnis contends, apart from its “dynamism towards, appropriateness for, and fulfillment in, the generation, nurture, and education of children ...the institu- 86 tion of marriage ...make[s] little or no sense.” While this telescopes a complex argument, developed jointly by several new 87 natural lawyers, its immediate vulnerabilities are plain. There is still the worry that NNLT has failed adequately to justify its claim that sterile spouses can engage in “reproductive-type acts,” at least in any rich or truly unitive sense. True, Sherif Girgis et al. (among others) are willing to declare that permanently infertile spouses “see their infertility as a tragic limitation,”“a loss, a regrettable 88 lack,” and this has the virtue of making their position self-consistent (since sterile – or more broadly, childless – marriages have, in effect, been relegated to a secondary or defective status). But this still leaves the deeper worry that making the capacity to bear and rear children so central to marriage simply begs the question against alternative conjugal models. Robert George admits that the intrinsic and all-determining value of reproductive-type acts “cannot, strictly speaking, be demonstrated,” and that those who deny it adopt a “logi- 89 cally flawless,” yet (on his account) false position. The suspicion remains, however, that natural law dissenters are proposing not a false, so much as a 90 different conception of marriage, one that has so far not clearly been refuted.

84 Patrick Lee and Robert P. George, Body-Self Dualism in Contemporary Ethics and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 648. 85 Lee and George, Body-Self Dualism. 86 See “Sex and Marriage: Some Myths and Reasons” (1997), in Finnis, Collected Essays, III.22, p. 385. Cf. Finnis, Collected Essays, III.20,p.330; Sherif Girgis, Robert Anderson, and Ryan T. George, What is Marriage? – Man and Woman: A Defense (New York: Encounter Books, 2012), pp. 33, 36. 87 See, in addition, Girgis et al. What is Marriage?; Lee and George, Body-Self Dualism, pp. 176–185; Finnis, Collected Essays, III.20. 88 Girgis et al., What is Marriage?, pp. 24, 31). Cf. Lee and George, Body-Self Dualism,p.180; Finnis, Collected Essays, III.22,p.381. 89 George, “Marriage and the Liberal Imagination,” chapter 8 in his In Defense of Natural Law, pp. 143–145. 90 This is so all the more, I take it, if same-sex couples wish to adopt and/or raise children of their own, since this suggests (at least implicit) agreement with the NNLT view that child-rearing is central to the good of marriage. It is at this juncture that the debate shifts to whether same-sex couples make suitable parents, a question bedeviled by disagreement over the (so far rather limited) empirical evidence. See (e.g.) Lee and George, “Quaestio Disputata,” pp. 658–662; Finnis, Collected Essays, III.22, pp. 356–357 n. 15; Girgis et al., What is Marriage?, pp. 58–62. Dissent on core beliefs in natural law 75

Scope All in all, then, despite what appears a somewhat inconclusive outcome to the latest round of the debate between natural law dissenters and their traditional or NNLT adversaries, at least it seems clear it has been conducted, at the philosophical level, and like the ﬁrst wave debate on contraception, with a good deal of intellectual sophistication and attention to detail (detail I have not had space to elaborate). And in this respect, it could, arguably, serve as a model for intellectual debate within other moral traditions. It is less clear that, at an institutional level, those responsible for handling natural law dissent have done so, in every case, with the requisite charity or desirable level of judicious restraint. Nevertheless, when it is considered how such disputes were handled, on occasion, in the medieval period – a period in which the Church took itself, unlike now, to have more or less direct charge of the spiritual well-being of the world – things have improved signiﬁcantly. Moreover, when the treatment of natural law dissenters by Church authorities is compared to that now often meted out by business corporations to rebellious employees, those authorities may, I suggest, even have something to be proud of. Chapter 5

The management of intramural dissent in Judaism

Alan Mittleman

Introduction “Judaism” (and its equivalents in French, German, etc.) is the name given, since early modern times, to the traditional way of life of the Jewish people. If left to themselves, the Jews would have preferred to continue to refer to their 1 complex tradition by such terms as Torah, emunah,ordat. These Hebrew terms get at the various dimensions of the irreducible amalgam of peoplehood, faith, and law that constitutes “Judaism.” Although I will henceforth drop the scare quotes, it is worth retaining them long enough to call attention to what they imply – namely that Judaism is not simply a religion. As Wilfred Cantwell Smith has argued, the very notion that there is such a thing as religion, in the sense of a genus of which Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism inter alia are species, is an artifact of the Enlightenment. For a host of reasons, the partisans of Enlightenment sought to create a cross-cultural category, religion, which they could set against philosophy and science, often to the detriment of the former. A robust and self-sufficient secular domain required a compact and identifiable, rather than extended and diffuse, religious one. Given that strategy of constituting (and diminishing) “religion,” both the abstract category and the supposed concrete instances of it generated by the conceptual move strongly resembled Christianity insofar as creedal elements came first, ritual ones came next, and legal elements were scanted or criticized as

1 The ﬁrst instance of designating the life of Torah by a term such as “Judaism” goes back to ancient Alexandria, where Jews had to make their way of life intelligible to non-Jews. The Greek term iudaismos came into use as a contrast with hellenismos. Although the impetus in this case seems to have come from the Jews themselves, the need only arose due to their participation in a foreign culture. Biblical and rabbinic Hebrew lacks a term equivalent to “Judaism.” For the sociological factors underwriting the use of such terms, see Alan Mittleman, “Judaism: Covenant, Pluralism, and Piety,” in Bryan S. Turner (ed.), New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2010).

76 The management of intramural dissent in Judaism 77

2 retrograde. This construction put the life of Torah onto a Procrustean bed. To squeeze the historically ramiﬁed, categorically untidy phenomena of Jewish tradition into the framework of religion did (and does) violence to the phe- 3 nomena at hand. The upshot of this for our purposes is that religions are supposed to be characterized by distinctive beliefs. Judaism, however, has been reticent to formulate beliefs. Its most robust intellectual enterprise has been the development of law, drawn from its scripture (the Torah or Pentateuch) and greatly elaborated upon by its ancient sages (the Rabbis) in several vast collections, most notably the Babylonian Talmud. To be sure, the Jews have narratives, parables, aphorisms, and other non-legal teachings, but no attempt was made to formulate these into necessary beliefs – and then quite controversially – until the twelfth century, when the attempt to specify a set of core beliefs was initiated by Maimonides (d. 1204). These necessary beliefs were absorbed, to an extent, by rabbinic culture but also challenged by later, philosophically inclined successors. By the eighteenth century even so devoted a modernizer as Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) denied that Judaism required any beliefs 4 other than those of enlightened reason. The Jews have traditionally thought of themselves as a holy people, joined by covenant with one another and with God. By accepting God’s teaching (Torah) at Sinai, Israel became a nation. The terms of the covenant – what the Jewish people consented to do when they accepted God as their

2 For the basic statement of the argument, see Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991). For a parallel argument, see Timothy Fitzgerald, The Ideology of Religious Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). 3 Leora Batnitzky, How Judaism Became a Religion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011). Judaism “became a religion” as Jewish proponents of legal emancipation and social equality sought to convince the resistant Christian majority of the German-speaking lands, in particular, that Judaism was simply a matter of belief, ritual, and liturgy, not of peoplehood and ethnic-political loyalty. Their motive was to render Jewish life compatible with the outlook and prerogatives of the emerging modern nation state. This required dismantling the medieval semi-autonomous Jewish community and replacing it by the functional Jewish equivalent of a church. See also, Alan Mittleman, The Scepter Shall Not Depart from Judah (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2000), chapter i. 4 For the history of controversy over the question of belief, see Menachem Kellner, Dogma in Medieval Jewish Thought: From Maimonides to Abravanel (Portland: Littman Library, 2004) and Must a Jew Believe Anything? (Portland: Littman Library, 1999). In brief, classical Judaism gave scope to a broad range of beliefs through its refusal to specify what Jews ought to believe. It contented itself with what Jews ought not to believe, as in the judgment of the Mishna that “these are they who have no share in the world to come: he that says that there is no resurrection of the dead prescribed in the Law, and he that says that the Law is not from Heaven, and an Epicurean” (M. Sanhedrin 10:1). For the absorption of and resistance to Maimonides’ thirteen beliefs into European rabbinic culture, see Ephraim Kanarfogel, “Varieties of Belief in Medieval Ashkenaz: The Case of Anthropomorphism,” in Daniel Frank and Matt Goldish (eds.), Rabbinic Culture and Its Critics: Jewish Authority, Dissent, and Heresy in Medieval and Early Modern Times (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008). 78 Alan Mittleman sovereign – are articulated in terms of commandments (mitzvot), which have legal force. Although the mitzvot are separable from a political expression of nationhood, the latter seems to be their ideal framework. Some ancient teachers, such as Philo, and medieval ones, such as Maimonides, understood the Torah as a constitution. Thus, Jewish faith has the quality of love, loyalty, and obligation to a (divine) sovereign (ahavat Hashem), expressed through fidelity to the constitution (ahavat Torah), as well as concern for the continued flourishing of the Jewish people (ahavat Israel). Their ancient status as a political nation living under a sacred law that governed all aspects of life continued to exert a normative force. There is an irreducible political dimension to Judaism, which the concept of religion fails to capture. (Spinoza, 1632–1677, captured it well, only to pronounce Judaism dead, given the death of its bygone polity.) The long centuries of exile did not dim Jewish hopes for return to the land, restoration of sovereignty under an anointed king (the messiah), and the full renewal of the laws of the Torah. The long legacy of anti-Jewish hatred in both the Christian and Muslim lands heightened the Jews’ sense of solidarity and their need for resistance. “Political” sentiments, such as the shared memory of a sacred national past and the hope for a collective, future restoration kept the Jews alive as a people. These sentiments have had a higher salience in Jewish life than any putative core beliefs. Insofar as core beliefs play a role in any given Jewish culture, they usually function as markers of loyalty or, in dissent from them, disloyalty – as signs of belonging or estrangement rather than as stand-alone theologoumena. The social and political embeddedness, salience, and function of belief are, of course, not peculiar to Judaism. But the weight the political dimension bears might be. The stress on behavioral conformity within a legal framework (halakha) has made a high level of pluralism as to belief possible. Lawrence Schiffman has argued that the split between Jews and Jewish Christians in the first century began to occur when the latter became lax about halakha and “Jewish Jews” felt that they could no longer marry Jewish Christians. Beliefs about the status of Jesus, in his view, were not deal-breakers; they could be accommodated, given shared allegiance to broad patterns of legal obser- 5 vance. Others argue that when Jewish Christians left Jerusalem before the Roman destruction and ceased to identify with the fate of the city and their fellow Jews, estrangement set in. A case could be made that forming a counter-community rather than dissent over core beliefs per se constitutes heresy or apostasy in the Jewish experience. Given the conditions of exile, Jews lost the central institutions of their ancient polity which, first in biblical and then, in transfigured form, in post- biblical times, brought a measure of coherence to their national life. The loss of institutions, particularly those capable of coercion through capital

5 Lawrence H. Schiffman, Who was a Jew? Rabbinic and Halakhic Perspectives on the Jewish Christian Schism (Jersey City, NJ: Ktav, 1985). The management of intramural dissent in Judaism 79 punishment, as in antiquity, or through excommunication and civil penalties, as in the Middle Ages, makes modernity fundamentally different from its predecessor epochs. In the modern period, at least in the West, belonging to a Jewish community is entirely voluntary. No modern Jewish community has a formal mechanism for enforcing conformity in behavior or in putative core beliefs. Only informal mechanisms such as social pressure or shunning or, for intensely religious “fundamentalist” communities, self-segregation from the environing culture can underwrite thick, shared norms. Voluntary adherence to beliefs and practices rather than sanctioning mechanisms in the case of deviance is the more crucial force. Where Jews have returned to a full, sovereign national life – in the State of Israel – there is no question of enforcing conformity over core beliefs. As a contemporary Western democracy, Israel sponsors freedom of belief. That state takes no interest in citizens’ Jewish beliefs although it does involve itself in deﬁning Jewish status and identity with respect to practical halakha (e.g. marriage, divorce, registry as a Jew). An additional differentiating factor is that modern Jews have taken democratic pluralism per se to be a compelling value and have interpolated it into their Judaism. Thus, both the inability of rabbinic and lay authorities to excommunicate dissenting Jews and the valorization of dissent as an expression of democratic pluralism distinguish the modern Jewish situation.

Key tenets Judaism has no creed. Unlike Christianity, which fought significant early battles over metaphysical doctrines and theologoumena, Judaism focuses on indicia of loyalty to God and to the Jewish community. An early declaration of such loyalty, which has something of a creedal aspect, is found in Deuteronomy, Chapter 26. The text envisions a future in which the Israelites are settled in the land of Israel and, being farmers, are commanded to bring a basket of first fruits to the “place that God will choose” and to present the fruit to the priest. The Israelite individual shall say: “I acknowledge this day before the LORD your God that I have entered the land that the LORD swore our fathers to assign us.” The priest will take the fruit and place it before the altar. The Israelite will then recite a declaration. My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation. The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. We cried to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression. The LORD freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Wherefore I now bring the first fruits of the soil which You, O LORD, have given me (Deut. 26:5–10) 80 Alan Mittleman

The text is less a statement of beliefs than a ritual script for embedding the individual within the collective narrative of oppression and deliverance, memory and gratitude. Its force is to identify the individual with the ancestors; to make the powerful experience of redemption a present reality, at least notionally. The ritual awakens a sentiment of belonging and, most significantly, of fidelity and love toward God, who effected the redemption. This text lives on in the Passover liturgy, the Haggadah, which Jews recite at their ceremonial meal, the Seder, on the first two nights of the eight-day holiday. In that setting, the original imaginative and emotional aims of the first fruits ritual are replicated. Although one could extract key tenets or core beliefs from this text or, indeed, from the ongoing Passover rite, there would be a certain artifice in doing so. What remains salient for Jews is the willingness to participate in a ritual that reconfigures idiosyncratic personal identity into an ideal, shared transpersonal one. Belonging is more primary than believing. In a slightly less sociological register, Martin Buber distinguished between “two types of faith”: Jewish faith (emunah), in which the existential attitude of trust in God and solidarity with others is most salient, and Christian faith 6 (pistis), in which the acceptance of salvific beliefs is primary. Even for this modern religious thinker, the role of belief in Jewish faith was minimal and highly qualified. Nonetheless, as Max Weber reminds us, belief (Weltanschauung) and behavior within a context of social belonging (ethos) are typically related. There must be beliefs that define and distinguish groups, giving semantic contours to their identities. One would think – as Maimonides did – that the 7 belief in one God should constitute a solid, non-negotiable key tenet. Maimonides takes the first phrase of the Decalogue, “I am the LORD your God” (Exodus 20:2) to constitute the first commandment – belief in one God. His astute medieval critic, Ḥasdai Crescas, however, found it self-defeating and illogical to command belief. One cannot, on his view, be commanded to believe; belief does not, logically, work that way. One can, through learning, discovery, reasoning, or intuition come to a belief; but belief as such cannot be willed. And commandments are matters of the will. We respond to commandments through an act of will. Belief, when we come to have it, forces itself upon us. We cannot will ourselves, for example, to resist the conclusion that 2+2=4. Crescas thought that one must come to belief in God on one’s own. It is a presupposition of the system of commandments, not an item to be

6 Martin Buber, Two Types of Faith, Norman P. Goldhawk (trans.) (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2003). 7 For Maimonides’ statement of true and necessary beliefs such that without affirming them one is not fully and properly Jewish, see his commentary to Mishnah Sanhedrin, Chapter 10, (Ḥelek) in Isadore Twersky (ed.), A Maimonides Reader (West Orange: Behrman House, 1972), p. 417. For an acute interpretation of Maimonides’ construction of heresy, see James A. Diamond, Converts, Heretics and Lepers: Maimonides and the Outsider (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007). The management of intramural dissent in Judaism 81 numbered among them. Undoubtedly, Crescas would be horrified, as would Maimonides, by a Jew who believed in two gods. That would clearly be heretical. But Crescas refrains from commanding beliefs, at least beliefs as fundamental as this one. Among modern Jewish religious groups, most give at least lip service to key tenets. Orthodox Jews should believe in the divine provenance of the Torah and of its constitutive halakha, as well as in the exclusive authority of its rabbinic decisors to determine the law. Conservative Jews should believe in the necessity of halakhic observance for meaningful Jewish life, as well as in the authority and competence of their rabbis to adjust halakha to contemporary circumstances. The difference between Orthodoxy and Conservatism, at least at the level of principle, is the willingness of the latter to allow critical changes based on admittedly non-halakhic considerations such as increased gender equality or social acceptance of homosexuality, which have come to assume normative force in the environing culture. Reform Jews need not believe in the tradition-oriented tenets of Orthodoxy or Conservatism, but they should believe in the moral core of Torah; they should believe that a truly Jewish life requires making the world a better place (tikkun olam). Reform Jews are willing to take a critical scalpel to inherited Judaism far beyond what Conservative Judaism allows. They believe that one can pare off the entirety of Jewish law, affirm its ethical core, and practice Jewish ethics without the existential or phenomenological context of a halakha-shaped traditional life. The Reform movement’s selective embrace of traditional elements from the Jewish past does not change the underlying paradigm in which the Enlightenment value of autonomy still reigns supreme over traditional values such as legal piety and deference to the authority of the rabbis. The history of the American synagogue – the main site in which Jews publicly express their identification with Judaism – is one of ever increasing abandonment of attempts to secure conformity in behavior, let alone in 8 belief. The colonial synagogue, serving the several thousand Jews who lived in America on the eve of the Revolution, began as a transplant from England. The English synagogue was able to excommunicate deviant or dissenting members, although not with the robust (albeit derived) authority of Jewish communities on the Continent. In eighteenth-century America, however, no governmental authority stood behind the decisions of the synagogue. Despite synagogue constitutional documents that allowed these institutions to fine members for infractions of behavior, in practice dissident Jews could merely walk away, perhaps founding new institutions or simply dropping out of

8 For sources see, Daniel Elazar, Jonathan Sarna, and Rela Monson, A Double Bond: The Constitutional Documents of American Jewry (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1992). For interpretation, see Alan Mittleman, “Judaism and Democracy in America,” in Dana Evan Kaplan (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to American Judaism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 82 Alan Mittleman

Jewish life altogether. After the Revolution, synagogues increasingly adopted the language of the federal and state constitutions in which freedom of conscience or belief was a cherished value. By the twentieth century, synagogues were only able to expel members for non-payment of dues. They contracted from putative “holy communities” that aspired, in the ancient covenantal way, to inspire or enforce sacred patterns of behavior, into fee for service organizations. The introduction of American democratic norms into Jewish life weakened older conceptions of covenantal obligation. Given the social and political realities of Jewish life in North America, however, the older conceptions never had a chance. It is hard to say what beliefs, if any, function as key tenets today. But perhaps this situation is not simply a reflex of modern democratic pluralism. Joseph Davis has shown that consensus over “drawing the line” between necessary and heretical beliefs has always been rather fluid. He traces several phases of shifting frameworks. In the mid-thirteenth century, European Jewish leaders – at least those who banned Maimonides’ philosophical writings – insisted on the literal acceptance of Talmudic stories (aggadot), as against Maimonides’ philosophical allegorizing interpretation, as necessary to belief. Heresy was comprised of non-literal, or at least non-naïve interpretation. Yet by the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Maimonides’ philosophically inflected dogmas became regulative; heresy was constituted by dissent from them. By the seventeenth century, the Jewish mystical movement known as Kabbalah became the mainstream and dissent from its propositions, such as the transmi- gration of the soul (gilgul), was heretical. Moses Mendelssohn’s eighteenth- century judgment that Judaism had no dogmas and that all of Judaism, at the level of belief, was fundamentally compatible with reason, became, paradoxi- 9 cally, a kind of modernist Jewish dogma. This shifting field of key tenets reinforces the view that the social salience and consequences of beliefs rather than their inherent cognitive character are decisive. Compliance with broad behavioral norms excuses deviations in belief – if such can be ascertained. This is not to deny that spectacular deviations in belief have proven difficult for Judaism to manage over the centuries, as in the case of Karaites in the Middle Ages or Sabbateans and Frankists in early modernity. It is to say that these are 10 rare and, where possible, resolved by reference to shared behavioral norms.

9 Joseph Davis, “Drawing the Line: Views of Jewish Heresy and Belief Among Medieval and Early Modern Ashkenazic Jews,” in Frank and Goldish (eds.), Rabbinic Culture and Its Critics, pp. 161–194. 10 Consider, for example, the claim of some Chabad Hasidim that the late Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, is the messiah. Although critics such as Rabbi Professor David Berger accused the Chabad messianists of a heresy tantamount to that of early Jewish Christianity, the broader Jewish community continued to accept the impeccable status of Chabad messianists as Orthodox Jews based on their observant behavior. See David Berger, The Rebbe, The Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference (Portland: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2008). The management of intramural dissent in Judaism 83

Priorities A core belief of classical Judaism, although one considerably weakened by Jewish emancipation in modernity, is the authority of the rabbis. The ancient group known as rabbis or sages (ḥakhamim) likely grew out of the Second Temple era sect called the Pharisees, perhaps in coalescence with the group known as scribes. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 ce, with the elimination of competing groups such as Sadducees, Qumran sectarians, and Zealots, the sages became the dominant force in the shaping of Judaism. Their collective teaching, known as Oral Torah, expounds the Pentateuch and other biblical texts (“written Torah”), which they themselves canonized. The Pentateuch projects an institution of future authority, which the sages in their exposition claim for themselves. Thus, Deuteronomy, Chapter 17 describes a situation where a legal case is too difficult to decide. The Israelites of that indeterminate future time should go to the place that God will choose (i.e. Jerusalem) and defer to the priests, Levites, or the judge (shofet), who will then be in charge. When the judge announces the verdict, the Israelites “shall act in accordance with the instructions given you and the ruling handed down to you; you must not deviate from the verdict that they announce to you either to the right or to the left” (Deut. 17:11). The rabbis see in the somewhat vague allusion to the “judge,” a foothold for their own authority. Their tradition of Oral Torah gives them the competence to make legal judgments. The Talmud, the main collection of Oral Torah, adds that even if the future judges (i.e. the rabbis) tell you that “right is left and left is right,” you should believe them; “how much more so when they tell you that right is right and left is left” (Sifre Deut. 154). Their authority, although not dictatorial, should be compelling. Indeed, the Heavenly Court agrees with the decrees of the human, rabbinic court (Makkot 23b). God, as it were, waits to learn what the rabbis decide (Rosh Hashanah 8b). For the rabbis to set aside their own authority and defer to popular custom, even when they think it is wrong, signifies the priority of such values as communal unity and compromise over valid rabbinic interpretation of the law. Precisely this happened in the clash between rabbinic scholars and entrenched Jewish custom in the case of Kol Nidre. Kol Nidre (“all vows”)is an immensely popular ritual that occurs immediately prior to the onset of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). The late antique Aramaic text provided a formula whereby Jews could undo personal vows that they had made over the previous year that they failed to fulfill, thus wiping the slate clean as they entered the penitential holiday of Yom Kippur. The rabbis, however, found 11 this custom legally groundless and railed against it. Nonetheless, they could not eliminate it; fervent piety caused Jews to cling to it and to believe in its

11 Ismar Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History, Raymond P. Scheindlin (trans.) (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1993), p. 128. 84 Alan Mittleman efﬁcacy. By the twelfth century, rabbinic authorities changed the text so that it referred to future vows (from this Yom Kippur to the next) rather than past ones, thus depleting the text of its (pseudo) legal character and rendering it purely symbolic. Rabbinic authority was not therefore entirely suspended and a principled compromise, at least among Ashkenazi (Western and Central European) Jews prevailed. In the modern period, the ritual was frequently attacked by non-Jews who thought it to be proof that the word or oath of a Jew cannot be trusted. Modernizing rabbis also tried to eliminate the ritual. In the end, however, Kol Nidre remains a lasting monument to the durability of folk custom even when rabbinic elites disapprove. Custom can be determinative of law. A major challenge to rabbinic Judaism arose in the ninth century in the Karaite (from mikra, scripture) movement. The Karaites rejected the Oral Law and thus the authority of the rabbis and the cogency of their interpretation of Judaism. Nourished by trends in Islam, they presented their movement as a return to (as we would say) authentic, biblical Judaism. The birth of this movement was partially motivated by beliefs but it also seems to have arisen through political intrigue as well; “Rabbanite” (non-Karaite Jewish) sources trace Karaism’s origins to a cynical manipulation of the masses by a failed candidate for leadership of the Babylonian Jewish community. The response of rabbinic leaders to Karaism often reﬂects the desire to contain doctrinal differences and help return Karaite Jews, after the founding generation, to the rabbanite fold. Maimonides considers them as children taken captive by pagans, that is, as forced converts who should not be held responsible for their views. Maimonides endorses civility and solicitude toward them on the basis of shared monotheistic faith, despite their rejection of the Oral Law – an extraordinary concession, given his general stringency in favor of complete 12 adherence to dogmatic belief. Karaites are to be considered Jews, although marriage with them is problematic on legal grounds. This norm was intentionally suspended during the Holocaust when Eastern European rabbis led the Nazis to believe that Karaites were not Jews, in order to spare their lives.

Consequences Classical Judaism has an attractive indulgence of pluralism. An oft cited Talmudic text virtually celebrates the principled hermeneutic disagreements between the ancient schools of sages known as the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai. “Both these [words] and those [words] are the words of the living God” (Eruvin 13b). But pluralism, of course, has limits. The open- ended arguments of the academy could lead to chaos in communal life

12 For an array of sources on rabbinic treatment of Karaites, including those of Maimonides, see Michael Walzer, Menachem Lorberbaum, and Noam J. Zohar (eds.), The Jewish Political Tradition, Vol. ii (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), chapter 15. The management of intramural dissent in Judaism 85 where some minimum of settled law must apply. Thus, the Talmud asserts that although both Hillel and Shammai speak the words of the living God, the halakha is in accordance with Hillel. On the level of academic interpretation, the dispute continues; on the level of practical adjudication, Hillel’s views must prevail. As its reason, the Talmud adduces the moral character of the sages of the House of Hillel. They were humble, patient, pleasant people who listened to their opponents and took the views of the latter seriously. Although modern Jews ﬁnd ancient rabbinic pluralism appealing, not all pre-modern Jews would agree. Maimonides, for one, found disagreement to be a sign of political and conceptual disorder. In his comprehensive code, the Mishneh Torah, he wrote of the relative unanimity of opinion that prevailed when the Great Sanhedrin existed. So far as traditional laws are concerned, there never was any controversy. If there was any, we may be sure that the tradition does not date back to Moses our Teacher. As for rules derived by means of hermeneutical principles, if they received the sanction of all the members of the Great Sanhedrin, they were binding. If there was a difference of opinion among them, the Great Sanhedrin followed the majority and decided the law in accordance with their opinion ... So long as the Great Sanhedrin was in existence, there were no controversies in Israel ... After the Great Sanhedrin ceased to exist, disputes multiplied in Israel: one declaring “unclean,” giving a reason for his ruling; another declaring “clean,” giving a reason 13 for his ruling; one forbidding, the other permitting (Laws of Rebels, Chapter i:3–4) The Sanhedrin stood atop a many-tiered court system. Reliable procedures of judgment, appeal, and judicial review existed. Maimonides retrojects a kind of legal utopia, where the law, both written and oral that was revealed to Moses and passed on to prophets, disciples, and rabbinic sages, was fully understood and implemented. It was only the dispersion of Israel and the destruction of its authoritative legal institutions that occasioned the proliferation of hermeneutic perspectives. Cognitive and legal pluralism is not a virtue on Maimonides’ view. They issue from historical powerlessness and lead to the 14 loss of wisdom. His own code, unparalleled in its comprehensiveness, sought to summarize and replace all the primary sources of the Oral Law, bringing

13 Twersky, A Maimonides Reader,p.208. Maimonides also, following the ancient rabbinic commentary on Pirke Avot, Avot de Rabbi Natan, sees the rise of the ancient Sadducees (and of their contemporary descendants, the Karaites) in doctrinal disagreement. See his commentary on Pirke Avot, Chapter 1:3, in Twersky, A Maimonides Reader,p.389. The original source is Avot de Rabbi Natan, Chapter 5. 14 It is an open question whether the Jews would have been as indulgent of pluralism as they, for the most part, were had they been in possession of a state for more of their historic existence. Would the needs of sustaining a sovereign political community have constrained the range of permissible beliefs? On the one hand, as a small, diasporic community often at odds with its host environment, the Jews were constantly confronted with the need to survive as a collective. Perhaps the experience of statehood would not have made a dramatic difference in this respect. On the other hand, the existence of a state might have encouraged the politicization of beliefs, with the rancor and heightened divisiveness that follow. A 86 Alan Mittleman ultimate clarity and consensus to halakha. Needless to say, Maimonides’ code did none of these things; it served as a platform for further commentary and disagreement. It is typically printed with the glosses of a strongly dissenting contemporary, Rabbi Abraham ben David. Whether for reasons of principle or through acceptance of circumstances, a functional pluralism usually pre- vails over the aspiration to unanimity. Rigorous insistence on conformity of belief, which mainstream Judaism has tended to shun, leads to sectarianism. Perhaps mindful of the division of the Jewish people into sects prior to the Roman destruction of the Temple, Jews remember that the cost of deep divisiveness is high.

Diversity Given the rather open-ended approach of Judaism to core beliefs, where are the boundaries drawn? What beliefs, if any, are thought to be so threatening to Jewish survival that those who hold them are marginalized? The “last of the medieval and the first of the modern” Jews, Spinoza, was excommunicated by the Jewish community of Amsterdam in 1656 for his “evil opinions” and “abominable heresies.” Although we do not know precisely what these opinions were, Spinoza’s eventual writings give us a clue as to the direction he was likely taking as a young man. He probably rejected the immortality of the soul, the divine origin of the Torah, the obligatory nature of the commandments, and the chosen status of the Jewish people. The leaders of the Amsterdam Portuguese community, themselves recently emerged from the long ordeal of forced conversion and clandestine Judaism, were keen to rein in heterodoxy. Spinoza may have fallen afoul of the authorities not merely for his views per se but for his principled refusal to publicly recant them, while privately maintaining them, as appears to have been the case with his predecessor, Uriel da 15 Costa (c. 1585–1640), and his contemporary Juan de Prado (b. 1614). His views would not only have horrified Jews but also Christians. The ban against him was not only about his beliefs; it was about demonstrating to the regents of Amsterdam that the Jews could control their own dissident members and not cause trouble for the wider polity. More than two centuries later, the German Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen (1842–1918), an opponent of old-fashioned Orthodoxy, nonetheless repeatedly affirmed the wisdom of the excommunication on the grounds that Spinoza advocated pantheism. Cohen thought pantheism a bridge too far for any authentic Judaism, however open-minded. Thus Cohen, a spiritual descendant of Mendelssohn who eschewed any coercive dimension to Judaism,

glimpse of this may be found in the division of ancient Judaism into sects (Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, Zealots), a phenomenon surely exacerbated by politics. 15 For a full, nuanced discussion, see Steven Nadler, Spinoza: A Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), chapter 6. The management of intramural dissent in Judaism 87 nonetheless would keep excommunication, at least in an intellectual sense, 16 alive. Jewish history is replete with excommunications or their conceptual equivalents. Within three decades of Maimonides’ death, his chief philosophical work, The Guide of the Perplexed, and the philosophical basis of his law code, the Book of Knowledge, were banned by some of the rabbinic leaders of northern France and eventually burned. With the rise of the Hasidic movement in the eighteenth century, traditional authorities excommunicated Hasidic leaders and followers – and were excommunicated by the latter in turn. In both of these cases, fear of the religious and social consequences of the views embodied in the new literature was an important factor. Maimonides’ Aristotelian views seemed to sponsor a cultural stance that, in the eyes of traditionalists, led to laxity, skepticism, and disloyalty. Maimonides’ views on resurrection, the soul, creation, and authority among other topics were volatile. Although there were no ﬁxed “orthodox” positions on such matters, proposing views clearly based on neo-Platonic Aristotelianism, as Maimonides did, was threatening. In the case of Hasidism, the early critique was based on the social separatism, liturgical innovation, and the alleged extreme behaviors of the Hasidim. By the nineteenth century, a more conceptual line of attack developed wherein Hasidism was charged with neglecting the Torah for its own sake by using it as a vehicle for personal 17 mystical experience. A contemporary example of a “bridge too far” is so-called Jewish Christianity. In the United States, evangelical Christians of Jewish ethnic background claim status as “messianic Jews.” The Jewish community is unan- imous in rejecting the legitimacy of such syncretism and refusing to see messianic Judaism as a “denomination,” or “movement” of modern Judaism. One scholar, an ethnographer of messianic Judaism, questions the intellectual integrity of American Jews who will unblinkingly accept the legitimacy of Jewish secularism, even in its most militant expressions, but dogmatically 18 reject Jewish Christianity. This argument has no traction. Jewish Christian syncretism is deemed (correctly) by most Jews to be unacceptable at this point in Jewish history. What was a live option in the ﬁrst century of the Common Era is a dead-end today, given the intervening history. No amount of American experimentalism in religion can alter that verdict. In all of these cases, argument over the permissible range of belief is not the sole or perhaps the most important driver of criticism and exclusion; it is a

16 Martin Kavka, Zachary Braiterman, and David Novak (eds.), The Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy, Volume 2: The Modern Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 377–378. 17 For the critique of Hayyim of Volozhin, see Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing, 1972), Vol. vii,p.1,417. 18 Carol Harris-Shapiro, Messianic Judaism: A Rabbi’s Journey Through Religious Change in America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1999), chapter 7. 88 Alan Mittleman factor, however. The very attempt to raise the category of belief to promi- nence, to highlight the decisive role of belief in defining belonging, awakens opposition. This is seen clearly in the case of contemporary Jewish public criticism of Israel. Although this is not a case of religious dissent per se, the conversation about Israel in the Jewish community is more critical and divisive than are strictly religious matters. The Jewish community (reluctantly) accepts the legitimacy, in the name of democratic principles, of criticism of the Israeli government but prefers that any such criticisms be made in private, that they be conditioned on an unequivocal acceptance of Israel’s right to exist, that they be made out of love and concern for Israel, and that American Jews restrain themselves insofar as they are not Israelis and bear none of the existential costs. The further expectation is that American Jews should be proud Zionists and that they should be deferential to whatever Israeli government is in power. Thus, norms of democratic debate and dissent are in tension with Jewish survival and solidarity concerns. Some groups and figures typically on the political Left recurrently relax the tension and claim that robust fidelity to democratic norms should outweigh “tribal” considerations. They argue that what Israel and the Jews most need is greater fidelity to secular canons of moral normativity, such as the framework of human rights. One current standard bearer for this view is the journalist Peter Beinart; the current institutional embodiment is a group called J Street, which aspires to be a counterweight to the mainstream lobby, the American-Israel Public Affairs 19 Committee (AIPAC). Persons and groups such as these can get a hearing, although they are highly controversial for many in the organized Jewish community (which, it should be pointed out, is comprised of somewhat less than half of the total American Jewish community). They are probably on their way to becoming fully mainstream. Jewish tribunes and groups that advocate harsh and “disloyal” criticism of Israel are excluded. Figures such as Noam Chomsky or Judith Butler and groups that align with the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) 20 movement are effectively shunned by the Jewish community. When they, often with Palestinian and far Left allies, organize events on university campuses, Jews find themselves torn between the democratic and the Jewish- solidarity axes of their axiology. Jewish communal spokespersons struggle to articulate why such speakers violate the academic ethic and should not be given public forums. They liken the positions of these ideologues to those of unambiguous hate groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan. Insofar as some on the radical anti-Zionist Left use their own Jewishness as a cover for the legitimacy

19 For a statement of Beinart’s position, which captures much of contemporary Jewish dissensus surrounding Israel, see Peter Beinart, The Crisis of Zionism (New York: Times Books, 2012). 20 For a (partisan) study of such groups, see Edward Alexander and Paul Bogdanor, The Jewish Divide Over Israel: Accusers and Defenders (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2008). The management of intramural dissent in Judaism 89 of their views, the organized community must symbolically disown them by 21 pronouncing them beyond the pale. Within Israel itself, freedom of belief is protected, as mentioned, as a basic right by the state. The State of Israel is an outgrowth of Zionism, a movement for Jewish political liberation and cultural renewal originating in the nineteenth century. Although Zionism developed out of the millennial religious longing of the Jewish people to return to the Land of Israel, it transformed that pious messianic hope into a program of political action. It was, therefore, a modernist and revolutionary movement, which many traditionalists in Europe opposed. As such, the founding values of the Israeli democracy are Western ones rather than categorically Jewish ones. Halakha is not the law of the land; an amalgam of British, Ottoman, and developing indigenous law is. Most Israeli citizens are secularists, either by default or on principle. They are alienated from and sometimes hostile to the large, ultra-traditional religious community that lives in its own enclaves in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, and other cities. The accommodations made by the Zionist leaders with that community at the founding of the state cede control over certain aspects of personal law and of public decorum in sacred places to representatives of the traditional community, which is itself riven by divisions into “ultra-Orthodox” anti- Zionists, ultra-Orthodox Zionists, modern Orthodox Zionists, traditional Jews from the eastern communities, inter alia. Many Israelis resent the effects of this accommodation, such as the shutdown of public transportation and the closure of shops on the Sabbath, the control of traditional rabbis over marriage and conversion, the functional exemption of young ultra-Orthodox men from the draft (although as of 2013 this is under review), etc. One would imagine that the secular majority would be sympathetic to the complaints of Jewish religious minorities for more rights, funding, or equal status in the eyes of the state. But this is not necessarily the case. When the Israeli versions of Reform and Conservative Judaism or the “Women of the Wall”–feminists from across the denominational spectrum – dissent from the Orthodox, state-sanctioned status quo, the population has a range of reactions. Some secular Jews equate Judaism with Orthodoxy full stop and see the dissenters’ protest as pointless; they reject not only Judaism but also efforts to reform or adapt it. Some see the more liberal movements as unwelcome imports from the Diaspora, irrelevant to Israeli life. Others, including some judges and civil ofﬁcials, see their dissent as legitimate expansions of basic rights under a secular (evolving) constitution. Non-Orthodox Jews abroad typically see liberal-religious Israelis, as well as the Women of the Wall, as waging a cause akin to the American Civil Rights Movement; they endorse it wholeheartedly.

21 See for example the Anti-Defamation League’s inclusion of the Jewish Voice for Peace on its list of anti-Israel hate groups: www.adl.org/press-center/c/anti-israel-groups-polluting- the-debate.html#.UV2XsleS-3Y 90 Alan Mittleman

Inculcation and reproduction The Torah itself is concerned with the education of children in its precepts. Deuteronomy, Chapter 6, in a section that has something of a creedal character for subsequent Judaism, commands: “Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. Impress them upon your children” (Deut. 6:6–7). The Talmud infers a commandment (mitzvah) to educate one’s children in the Torah (Berakhot 13b). This includes both the written and the oral tradition (Kiddushin 30a). If one is not able to teach one’s child oneself, one must find a teacher through whose agency one can fulfill one’s responsibility. Eventually, the rabbis established a communal responsibility for the education of children. The Talmud relates that Joshua ben Gamla (first century ce) established a comprehensive network of schools in the Land of Israel (Baba Batra 21a). Maimonides would excommunicate a city that failed to provide education as a public good (Laws of Torah Study, Chapter 2). The sages liken the teaching of Torah to the next generation to the acceptance of the Torah at Mount Sinai. The world is sustained only by the breath of schoolchildren (Shabbat 119b), on which float the words of Torah. The highest ideal of classical Judaism is that of the sage; the person involved in life-long learning for its own sake. The duty to educate one’s (male) children is directed toward enabling them to participate in this honored way of life. To some extent, this inculcation is coercive; study should start at an early age and shape the young Jew’s cognitive and moral horizon without his consent. The Talmud envisions age six or seven (Baba Batra 21a), or, alternatively, nine or ten as the time when education in the commandments begins (Berakhot 15b). Although Maimonides would make their early learning sweet, by giving the children honey and treats, he would also discipline them with a light leather strap. The content of such basic Torah study would not be beliefs as such, but the Hebrew language and its grammar, the stories of the Bible, and most importantly the practical commandments that define the daily life of the Jew, as well as those pertaining to Sabbath and festivals. An early tradition has the book of Leviticus as the basic curriculum of young children insofar as the book is concerned with purity regulations and young children are eo ipso pure. From the point of view of a contemporary liberal theorist, a comprehensive, sacred system of Jewish education might foreclose discovery, experimentation, and the growth of robust individuality. Such an upbringing, someone 22 like George Kateb might argue, would sin against human dignity. From a classical point of view, the goal of inculcation and reproduction is not to produce an army of rabbinic clones but to equip persons for the richest life imaginable, given the metaphysical and moral assumptions inherent in classical Judaism. The highest goal, as the eleventh-century philosopher Baḥya ibn

22 George Kateb, Human Dignity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), pp. 11–12. The management of intramural dissent in Judaism 91

Paquda taught, is for the Jew to achieve, through disciplined inquiry, a rational grounding of the entire Jewish way of life. Everything that has been inherited 23 and inculcated, must be made perspicuous; it must be demonstrated. In a more modern idiom, autonomy is higher than heteronomy. The law must be made one’s own. This medieval philosophical valorization of something akin to autonomy grows out of rabbinic literature. A famous Talmudic story (aggadah) has God holding Mount Sinai over the heads of the Jews (“like a cask”) and telling them that if they don’t accept His Torah, He will drop the mountain and the place shall become their grave. The text then remarks that this story constitutes a worrisome objection to the morality of the Torah. If Israel was forced to accept it, but would subsequently be punished for the violation of its laws, where is the justice? It raises an apparently justiﬁed complaint against the Torah in the eyes of the nations. The solution is to be found generations after Sinai. A verse in the Book of Esther has the Jews of that time saying “we establish and we accept” (Esther 9:27). What did the Jews establish and accept? They established as law for themselves what they had accepted long before at Mount Sinai. In this rather fanciful way, the moral principle of consent is interpolated into the story. Israel consented to enter into the covenantal relationship with God and so can be held accountable for covenantal violations. Individual Jews are both members of this covenantal people – and so their standing as responsible agents within the covenant is not of their own choosing – and persons capable of autonomy. They are not, in the end, normatively free to reject the tradition of their birth. They are, however, free to accept it in a fully consensual way through study, understanding, and love rather than as an accident or burden of history. This is an instance in which an older notion of corporate, transgenerational belonging rests uneasily with a modern concept of voluntary association and self-elected identity. But it is not purely a case of the ancients versus the moderns; clearly, the ancients had worries about blind group-think as well.

Authority There is, of course, no central agency among the Jews charged with identifying or interpreting core beliefs. Different Jewish groups have their own authorities, although “authority” may be too strong a term to use in reference to the most liberal groups. Nonetheless, even a group as supportive of freedom of conscience, inclusiveness, and experimentation as the Reconstructionists was forced to grapple with limits when a rabbinical student at its seminary challenged existing norms. The student reintroduced ancient Israelite divine names, such as Asherah, into blessing formulas. Her intention was not to

23 Baḥya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda, The Book of Direction to the Duties of the Heart, Menahem Mansoor (trans.) (Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004), p. 183. 92 Alan Mittleman replace the worship of one God with that of pagan divinities, but to claim that scanted feminine aspects of the divine, expressed in names like Asherah, could 24 be reincorporated into monotheism. She urged an “effort to dig up women’s 25 spiritual practices from the past and see what resonates.” The president of the school tried to restrict the student to more mainstream expressions of devotion; when she refused, a trial of sorts was held before the faculty. The internal deliberations of the faculty are not known, but the end result was that the student was allowed to remain at the institution and graduate. The president sent a letter to all students with guidelines for what forms of worship were permissible and what must be avoided. Although other factors may have been in play, the incident seems a straightforward example of how conflicts over belief (cum-practice) can arise even when tolerance and pluralism are deeply held norms. In the Orthodox world, where matters of belief are more sharply drawn, it is easier to run afoul of rabbinic authorities. An outstanding example dates to the late 1950s and early 1960s in Britain where one of the leading Orthodox scholars of the day, a then rising star named Rabbi Louis Jacobs, published a book in which he accepted the Documentary Hypothesis, albeit arguing that 26 its acceptance need not damage Jewish faith or the authority of halakha. The “Jacobs Affair” roiled Anglo-Jewry and led eventually to Jacobs’ exit from the Orthodox community. Although local political considerations were involved, the attempt to marginalize Jacobs was motivated by ideological considerations; the then Chief Rabbi and his supporters were afraid that Jacobs would legitimize heresy and tilt modern Anglo-Orthodoxy toward American-style Conservative Judaism. In this case, something resembling a central agency, the Chief Rabbinate and the London rabbinical court (Beth Din), were involved. The issue was not entirely Jacobs’ beliefs but rather his fitness, as someone who held “deviant” beliefs, to serve in key public roles sponsored by the organization over which the Chief Rabbi presided, the United Synagogue. Had Jacobs been content to remain an academic he might not have run into difficulty. A recent controversy in the so-called “ultra-Orthodox” (haredi) world involved the “Zoo Rabbi,” Nosson Slifkin. Rabbi Slifkin is a haredi author who is fascinated by zoology and wrote several books trying to harmonize contemporary natural science with classical Jewish teaching. The most neur- algic point went beyond zoology and evolution – Slifkin disputed the belief that the universe is less than 6,000 years old, as traditional Jewish chronology

24 Correspondence with the student in question, February 2013. 25 Cited in Jack Wertheimer, A People Divided: Judaism in Contemporary America (Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 1997), p. 168. 26 For Jacobs’ own retrospective on the “affair,” see Louis Jacobs, Beyond Reasonable Doubt (Portland: Littman Library, 2004). The management of intramural dissent in Judaism 93 stipulates. A group of twenty-three ultra-Orthodox sages condemned Slifkin’s works and called him a heretic, leading to his publisher dropping his work as well as a loss of income. Nonetheless, the ultra-Orthodox world is a diverse place and many thought that the ban against Slifkin was wrong and unfair; that precisely his pious efforts to harmonize science and Torah were necessary. For some, the rabbis who condemned him diminished their authority by 27 the very act of asserting it. Authority in Judaism, at least in the contemporary world, rests on the willingness of relevant Jewish populations to accept it. While not constituted democratically, authority is accepted by something akin to democratic consent. Given that there is always a right to leave, no one can be constrained to live by a leader’s authority if he or she chooses not to do so. Of course, there are strong social pressures, particularly in insular haredi communities, to remain and high exit costs for those who leave. Authority is accepted on the basis of expertise – extraordinary achievement in the ﬁeld of Torah learning – for non-Hasidic haredim. In Hasidic communities, authority tends to be traditional – passed on in a line of succession – augmented by charismatic and scholarly (expertise) elements. In the non-Orthodox world, authority is strictly institutional. To the extent that Conservative, Reform, or Reconstructionist Jews pay attention to the directives of their institutional ofﬁcers at all, their views would be seen as advisory rather than binding. In theory, for Orthodox and Conservative Jews the views of one’s local rabbi (the halakhic authority or mara d’atra of one’s community) should be authoritative for one’s personal practice, as well as for communal norms. How seriously one takes this depends on the individual. While tradition-minded Jews will seek their rabbi’s decision on matters of halakhic observance, it is probably rare for Jews to defer to their rabbis on matters of belief. Among Reform Jews, conscience alone is valorized. Reform theology elevates autonomy to a signal religious value. Reconstructionism frames the rabbi as a teacher, not a decisor of Jewish law. On the basis of his or her provision of relevant sources and context, a Reconstructionist congregation decides democratically what its policy shall be. The past, as the founder of Reconstructionism, Mordecai M. Kaplan (1881–1983), said, has “a vote but not a veto.”

Management options The Mishnah presents the case of the “rebellious elder” (zaken mamre); the case explores the nature and limits of permissible dissent on (something very much like) core beliefs. The biblical term “elder” is understood by the sages to mean, in Maimonides’ words, “one of the wise men of Israel who is at home in

27 For a report in the mainstream press, see www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/science/22rabbi. html?pagewanted=1. For Rabbi Slifkin’s own website, see http://zootorah.com/ 94 Alan Mittleman

28 traditional lore, functions as a judge, [and] imparts instruction in the Torah.” Only an elder’s opinions put him at risk of punishment, not those of an ordinary Jew, even a student of the sages. These are opinions, however, of a publicly salient kind; they are legal rulings, not mere views. His rebellion consists not of teaching a view at variance with other sages but of prescribing a course of action based on that variant view. The Mishnah, amplified by the gemara (the two together make up the Talmud), envisions a situation in which the elder disagrees with other elders in his town. They go to the town’s court to resolve their dispute. If the court does not have a tradition that can be brought to bear on the dispute, they go to the court in the next town. Failing a decisive reply, they go to the court outside the entrance to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Should that court fail to produce a tradition, they proceed to the court at the entrance to the Temple courtyard. Should that court fail, they go to the Sanhedrin, meeting in the Hall of Hewn Stones within the Temple enclosure. The high court votes on the matter and follows the majority (Sanhedrin 88b). The elder thereupon returns to his town. He may continue to teach his now authoritatively discredited view but he cannot act on his ruling or rule that others so act. If permissible academic teaching shifts into legal decision-making, he becomes liable to capital punishment. His teaching – a matter of sincerely held belief – is permissible even after it has been judged false by the Sanhedrin. Teaching per se is not rebellion. Ruling on the basis of that teaching is rebellion. There is latitude in terms of belief but deviant rulings must be precluded, lest “controversies (makhloket) abound in Israel” (Sanhedrin 88b). The tolerance, even affirmation of different opinions at the discursive level, is of a piece with rabbinic interpretive pluralism. The public consequences for legal practice are a weightier matter, however. The Torah has seventy faces, the rabbis say. Any good student of the sages should be able to come up with dozens of reasons for why something is impure and an equal number of reasons for why it is pure. But these flights of hermeneutic fancy must be disciplined when public order is at stake. The rabbis mean to prevent the Torah from becoming two Torot. An analogue to this norm is found in late twentieth-century debates about Jewish status. Traditionally, status was determined by matrilineal descent. Although the Bible presents figures who are Jewish because of their fathers (e.g. Solomon), the Mishnah rules that it is the mother’s Jewishness that is determinative (insofar as it is easier to determine who the mother is than the father in problematic cases). In 1983, the rabbinic body of the Reform movement decided, in a contentious vote, to accept patrilineal descent as a criterion of Jewish status, along with matrilineal descent. This decision led to much criticism and condemnation from more traditional quarters, even among those

28 Mishneh Torah, Laws of Rebels, 3:4, cited in Michael Walzer, Menachem Lorberbaum, and Noam J. Zohar (eds.), The Jewish Political Tradition, Vol. i (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 328. The management of intramural dissent in Judaism 95

29 traditionalists generally supportive of pluralism. When Reform beliefs and practices affected only self-identiﬁed adherents, they could be ignored, although certainly not approved of, by more traditional Jews. When these beliefs veered into practices that had a potential impact on the whole Jewish population, opposition became vocal. The Reform policy made good sense internally. With a large and growing number of intermarried families in the movement, accepting children of Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers as Jews increased the ranks. However, it also labeled a whole class of people as Jews whom the majority of the Jewish world, especially in Israel, would not accept as Jews. This would complicate, if not weaken, the unity of the Jewish people. The ability of Jews to marry one another, without a thorough and emotionally upsetting “background check” was imperiled. Nor would these persons be accepted as Jews under Israel’s Law of Return, thus further heightening tensions over religious matters between Israel and the American Jewish community. Critics faulted the Reform movement for its disregard not of ancient legal precedent – that is constitutive of Reform – but for its disregard of klal Israel, the Jewish people in its contemporary length and breadth. Thirty years on, this issue is no longer hotly controversial but only 30 because traditional Jews have largely self-segregated from Reform Jews.

Internal criticism The various institutional expressions of Jewish religiosity hardly contend with one another anymore over their respective versions of core beliefs. They do not seek to convince each other of the truth of their views or of the authenticity of their practices. The non-Orthodox group most concerned to maintain halakha, the Conservative movement, edged away from looking over its shoulder at Orthodoxy with the ordination of female rabbis in 1983. Their 2007 decision in favor of the ordination of openly gay and lesbian rabbis, as well as their affirmation of religious ceremonies for same-sex couples, complete the steady alienation from Orthodox expressions of traditionalism. The dialogue between Conservatism and Orthodoxy is over. At most, the “denominations” compete with one another in the religious free market (where there is one, as in the United States) for adherents. But the competition is not intense. The liberal movements are in demographic decline and worried about their survival. Orthodoxy by contrast is highly self-confident and feels that it owns the Jewish future. Its criticism of the other movements is existential: you are dying and we are flourishing; your centuries-long

29 The liberal Orthodox rabbi, Irving “Yitz” Greenberg, called the decision “a ﬁrst class disaster” (Steven Bayme, Jewish Arguments and Counter-arguments [Hoboken: Ktav Publishing House, 2002], p. 353). 30 Jack Wertheimer, All Quiet on the Religious Front? Jewish Unity, Denominationalism, and Post-Denominationalism in the United States (New York: The American Jewish Committee, 2005), p. 21. 96 Alan Mittleman experiment in dissent from robustly traditional norms is a failure. The ground for this widely diffused view is not a philosophical or theological judgment about the truth or falsity of belief. It is a sociological observation. We (Orthodoxy) are what works: we have lower rates of assimilation and intermarriage; our Jews are more educated (in Jewish matters), connected, and committed; we are more involved in Israel in terms of visiting, studying, speaking Hebrew, becoming citizens, etc. Orthodoxy in the late twentieth and twenty-ﬁrst centuries is an astonishing tale of success, so much so that non-Orthodox Jews are urged to emulate its strategies even if they don’t fully 31 embrace its halakhic commitments. Orthodoxy’s stubborn dissent from modern Jewry’s epochal dissent constitutes an enduring and salient internal criticism.

Scope Moses Mendelssohn’s 1783 book-length essay on religion and state, Jerusalem, is a founding document of Jewish modernity. In it Mendelssohn argued for a Lockean approach: the state should be neutral with regard to the religious affiliations and beliefs of its citizens. Those are simply not the business of the state. Correlatively, religious groups should have no share in civil authority or power. Religion is about other-worldly salvation; the state is about this-worldly justice, order, and felicity. Mendelssohn argued that Judaism, like other religions, must have no share in political life. It should only teach, preach, and persuade; it must never be able to discipline, punish, or excommunicate. Its ability to do so in ancient times was a peculiarity of its theocratic constitution. God’s law and the law of the state were one and the same. But that condition no longer obtains; Judaism must simply appeal to the heart and mind through rational suasion and winsome teaching. Mendelssohn initiated a pervasive domestication of Judaism to Enlightenment norms. Jews continue to affirm this evolutionary adaptation. To the extent that Judaism seems to permit, even encourage, questioning, doubt, autonomy, pluralism, and so on, modern Jews see Judaism as having much to offer the world. Nineteenth-century figures such as Isaac Mayer Wise and Hermann Cohen thought that (Reform) Judaism would become the ideal-typical religion of the United States (Wise) and of Germany (Cohen). Judaism best represented an enlightened, moral “religion of reason.” Mendelssohn had to see such systems of dealing with intramural dissent as excommunication as historical aberrations. They were not, however. Although modern Jews do not celebrate, or even remember, the coercive powers of pre-modern Jewish communities, they are more than historical artifacts. Unpleasant as they were, coercive powers, exercised on dissenting

31 This is the approach of Charles Liebman and Bernard Susser, the authors of Choosing Survival: Strategies for a Jewish Future (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). The management of intramural dissent in Judaism 97 individuals and groups represented an attempt to construe Jewish community as something other than a modern voluntary association. A thickly developed, historically enduring community has laws and sometimes laws have to have teeth. Mendelssohn’s gambit to restrict the civil power of religious communities was daring in its day although it appears as no more than commonsense now. No friend of democracy would want to revise it too much. But as always in human affairs, there is no gain without some loss. No one should miss excommunications, corporal punishments, ﬁnes, denunciations, and bans as ways to police the boundaries of membership. But the loss of the ideal of a holy community is to be missed. At the least that ideal should serve as a touchstone for an open-ended conversation about consensus, dissensus, and Jewish belonging. Chapter 6

Christianity and the management of intramural dissent

Peter Steinfels

Introduction Christianity is the largest of world religions, with an estimated 2.18 billion adherents, almost one out of every three human beings. Half of these are Roman Catholics. Another 600–800 million are Protestant Christians tracing their roots to the churches that broke with Catholicism in the sixteenth- century Reformation. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches that charted distinctive paths in the first millennium can claim 250–300 million adherents. Churches of the Anglican Communion, with their own mix of Protestant and Catholic traits, embrace 85 million. Within and beyond these Christian “families” one can find an estimated 41,000 distinct Christian denominations. Among them are millions upon millions of Pentecostal Christians, in the view of many observers the fastest-growing religious group 1 in the world. Christianity is based on the relatively simple premise that human beings exist in a state of alienation from both each other and God, and that this alienation “has been healed through the life and saving deeds of a single 2 person, Jesus of Nazareth ... [who] is both fully human and fully divine.” This simplicity notwithstanding, that Christians have nonetheless managed to disagree fiercely among themselves on matters both large and small is notorious, and viewed in terms of the history of ideas, Christianity looks like one long argument. Its first decades were marked by a sharp conflict among its leaders about its relationship to new Gentile adherents on the one hand, and

1 The best entry point for understanding such estimates is “Global Christianity – AReport on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population,” www.pewforum.org/ 2011/12/19/global-christianity-traditions/ (accessed October 10, 2013); but see also “List of Christian Denominations by Number of Members,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ List_of_Christian_denominations_by_number_of_members 2 “Christianity,” in Jonathan Z. Smith (gen. ed.), Lawrence C. Cunningham (ed. for Christianity), The HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), p. 250.

98 Christianity and intramural dissent 99 to the Jewish matrix from which it emerged on the other. Christianity’s first surviving documents, the letters of Paul to newborn Christian communities, report all sorts of internal tensions, doctrinal and behavioral. Paul’s responses reveal a tension that will never disappear. At one moment, he insists that the truth must never be compromised; at the next, he pleads for transcending differences through love. Christianity quickly confronted the challenges of classical Greek and Roman culture, of Stoicism, Gnosticism, and neo-Platonism, and later of Aristotelianism, Renaissance humanism, the new science of Galileo and Descartes, Enlightenment rationalism, political liberalism, and revolutionary socialism. There is hardly a strand of philosophy or social theory that hasn’t posed questions and proposed answers for Christianity while creating disagreements along the way. Christianity is also the default religion of Western modernity. In important respects, Western modernity was born out of a reaction, by both believers and non–believers, against intramural Christian conflict. Christianity’s handling of those internal conflicts has been subject, by Christians and non-Christians alike, to scrutiny and critique perhaps more searching than that undergone by any other tradition of belief. Consciousness of Christianity’s past ways of managing intramural dissent is now internalized in the tradition itself and shapes its contemporary approaches to that task. Christianity’s propensity for internal differences has already been noted. What may look like small differences often proved as intractable as disagreement over obviously core issues. Heated disputes arose in early centuries, for example, about how to calculate the date of Easter. A major schism in Russian Orthodox Christianity occurred in large measure over the question of whether to make the Sign of the Cross on one’sforehead, chest, and shoulders with three fingers held together (representing the Trinity) or two fingers (representing Christ’s two natures, human and divine). Lasting splits have arisen over the proper way to baptize – sprinkle, pour, dunk, immerse – to say nothing of when – as infants or adults – or by whom and with what words. Henry VIII, erstwhile defender of Catholic sacramental theology against Lutheranism, separated the Church of England from Rome over his desire for a divorce and a male heir. It was far from the first conflict within Christianity over the proper conditions for valid marriage. Of course, lurking in the background of even the most seemingly marginal question is always the “core” one, namely who has the authority to decide, and on what grounds? Among other issues dividing Christians have been the proper place in Christian life of exceptional ecstatic experiences, including visions and glossolalia, or of icons and other images of the sacred. Christians have debated justifications for warfare, the prerogatives of secular powers in religious matters, the relationship between scripture and science, the number of sacramental rituals and their proper forms, and whether the church should be integrated into society, stand apart from it, or strive to transform it. 100 Peter Steinfels

Christians have disputed over styles of dress, qualifications for clergy, the role of women, relations with non-Christian faiths, and whether to use leavened or unleavened bread for the Eucharist. And that is only a beginning. A handful of questions do stand out as core. What scriptural texts are authoritative and who possesses the authority to interpret them and prescribe their use? How can one understand the relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit in a single godhead? How can one understand Jesus as both fully human and fully divine? Can those who separate themselves by public actions from the body of Christians be readmitted into the community of the faithful or into its leadership? How radically has human nature been deformed by alienation from God and godliness? Do human reason and will retain a capacity to know and respond freely to God or are they so corrupted that one’s spiritual destiny is utterly dependent on God’s initiative alone? What is the nature of the church and who truly belongs to it? Are changes in church teaching and practice over time the work of the Holy Spirit, or are they corruptions from the apostolic age? Are church-authorized mediators and church-sanctioned rituals critical to the relationship between God and the individual Christian? In what sense is Christ present in the Eucharist, the common rite in Christian worship based on Jesus’ offering of bread and wine as his body and blood at his last supper with his disciples? What would be the basis for resolving such questions? Basically, the testimony of the apostolic generation, those who had known Jesus or known his immediate followers. That testimony was found in the scriptures that those earliest disciples held to be revelatory. Those scriptures to begin with were the Tanakh, the Jewish biblical texts, known to Christians primarily in their Greek translation, the Septuagint. Then came the writings of the early Christians: the letters of Paul and others, the narratives of the four evangelists, and the apocalyptic vision of the author of Revelation. This apostolic testimony was also embodied in the rituals and practices of the first Christian communities. And it was authenticated by the communal memory and wisdom that evaluated and verified which surviving scriptures, rituals, and practices should be judged authoritative. Responsibility for preserving and authenticating this testimony as recorded in scripture and enacted in ritual and practice fell to Christian leaders. Jesus was understood to have chosen twelve apostles (Greek, apostolos: one sent, messenger) representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Paul of Tarsus claimed similar status on the basis of the mystical experience on the road to Damascus that turned him from a persecutor to a preacher of Christianity. Leadership passed to co-workers, many of whom Paul names in his letters, in the newly founded but far-flung Christian congregations. From these fluid local arrangements emerged the pattern of a single leader in each Christian community, a bishop (Greek, episkopos: elder, overseer), who inherited the mantle of the apostles. Bishops acted both individually and collectively in synods or councils. Certain bishoprics, whether in major cities or tracing their roots to Christianity and intramural dissent 101 particular apostles, claimed preeminence, above all the bishop of Rome, site of the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul. The sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation challenged the longstanding preeminence of bishops as well as of Rome. Most Protestant groups banished the title altogether; others retained it; but the powers of leadership in either case were more limited, usually diffused to congregations or church-wide assemblies. Offices were often held temporarily and no longer linked to apostolic authority. Anglicans hewed to something close to the Catholic and Orthodox patterns, but not without contestation from their Protestant wing. Until recent times, human societies have featured a congruence between governing and religious forces, and even to distinguish between the two has been for most of human existence anachronistic. Christianity came into a world where the congruence was relatively relaxed and permissive. The Roman empire viewed Christianity as a suspect variant of a peculiar group, Jews, whose religious attachments were pronounced and venerable enough to earn special exemption from imperial ritual practices. Persecution of Christians for refusing to acknowledge the empire’s gods could be brutal but it was mainly local and sporadic. It did occur, however, in several empire-wide outbursts, under Emperor Decius in 250 and continued under Valerian in 257–259,finally culminating in the “Great Persecution” under Diocletian in 303–305. But less than a decade afterward, in 313, Constantine legalized and began to favor Christianity, and within a century Theodosius (r. 379–395) was to make it the official religion of the Roman empire. In 325 Constantine, seeking imperial unity, summoned the bishops into the Council of Nicaea to resolve the Church’s conflict over Arianism – the view that Christ, although exalted, was a creature of God rather than an equal part from all eternity of a single yet mysteriously trinitarian godhead. Division persisted. In 381 Theodosius con- vened the Council of Constantinople to try again, and soon he was identifying heretics and heretical sects and threatening them with harsh punishments. From then until modern times, rulers, whether motivated by personal religious belief or political and dynastic calculation, have inserted themselves into Christianity’s internal disputes. In the East, subservience of the church to the Byzantine emperors and later the Russian tsars prevailed; in the West, although church and state remained in alliance, the tension never disappeared despite many efforts to delineate distinct spheres of authority. Confronted with contested areas, popes made claims of superiority in principle while rulers usually achieved superiority in practice. As the Roman empire collapsed in the West, bishops and especially the bishop of Rome took on civic responsibilities and negotiated protection or accommodation with the leaders of invading peoples. A convergence of religious and political interests between Rome and the non-Arian Christian Franks culminated in the papal crowning of Charlemagne in 800. The pope emerged as ruler of a large swath of Italy; and as the Frankish empire ultimately evolved into the “Holy Roman 102 Peter Steinfels

Empire,” bishops, even prince-bishops, became part of the emergent feudal hierarchy. These blurred but never merged roles were a central factor in Western Christianity’s attempts to manage internal conflicts, which until modern times were played out against the background assumption that political unity and religious unity went together. Intramural dissent created three major divisions in Christianity and countless minor ones. The first of the major divisions occurred after 451, when the Council of Chalcedon agreed on a formula defining the complex matter of Jesus’ two natures, human and divine. While the Chalcedonian definition satisfied Latin and Greek Christians of the Roman empire, two groups of dissenters remained unreconciled. Some non-Chalcedonians continue today in the Coptic churches of Egypt and Ethiopia and in the Apostolic Orthodox churches of Georgia and Armenia. Only small remnants survive of the non-Chalcedonian churches that flourished beyond the imperial eastern borders. Arab Christians in southeastern Turkey and south around the Holy Land and Syrian Christians once constituted a remarkable Church of the East despite persecutions from Persian rulers. Much of this non-Chalcedonian Christianity was swallowed by expansion of Islam, and its history has shrunk 3 in Christian consciousness. The second division occurred gradually between Greek-speaking “Orthodox” Christians of the eastern empire and the Latin-speaking “Catholic” Christians in the west. The division was less over core beliefs than political, cultural, and spiritual distancing, reflected in rivalry between Constantinople and Rome and culminating in the mutual excommunications in 1054 of the patriarch of Constantinople and the pope in Rome. The third division was of course that of the sixteenth-century Reformation in Europe, separating Catholic Christians from Protestant Reformers. Catholics united around the pope. Protestants grouped into Lutherans, Calvinists, and a host of Anabaptist and radical sects, with Anglicanism balancing uneasily in the middle. The Reformation divided a European Christendom that had entered an age of competing political units and dynasties, which proceeded to yoke religious fervor with armed might. Printing was only one of the social factors that made this division a popular conflict of an entirely different magni- tude than previous ones. Questions of core beliefs and religious authority metamorphosed – or metastasized – into a war of sharply defined religious identities, truth against error, light against dark, Christ against Antichrist. The massive post-Reformation resort to violence – from Inquisitions to religious wars, forced migrations, and persecution of all sorts – was a nadir in Christianity’s attempts to assure unity and quash dissent. Now “intramural dissent” took two forms, between Catholics and Protestants on the one hand,

3 Robert Louis Wilken, The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), pp. 195–237; also Diarmaid MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (New York: Penguin Books, 2011), pp. 231–254. Christianity and intramural dissent 103 and within the ranks of Catholics and Protestants on the other. The conse- quent civil and social penalties against religious dissenters lasted until the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Despite major setbacks, these disabilities were very slowly lifted, often by political and church leaders for purely pragmatic reasons, although these practical accommodations were accompanied by theological and philosophical rationales that gradually stiffened tolerance among religious groups into a principle while leaving open issues of tolerance and conformity within groups. Jump to Mass on the ﬁrst Sunday of the penitential season of Lent in the year 2000, when John Paul II, leader of a Christian body known for condemning unorthodox views, begged “pardon for the divisions which have occurred among Christians, for the violence some have used in the service of the truth and for the distrustful and hostile attitudes sometimes taken towards the followers of other religions.” Seven high Vatican ofﬁcials confessed a list of church sins that clearly referred to religious wars and Inquisitions as well as injustice toward Jews, 4 women, indigenous cultures, the poor, and others. The millennium apology represented something much wider than a Catholic phenomenon. Ecumenical movements to not only tolerate but overcome divisions among Christians through prayer, study, and practical cooperation, particularly among Protestant Christians, dated back to the nineteenth and early 20th centuries. Intramural argument over core matters remains a serious issue for Christianity overall and within its major “families” and its tens of thousands of smaller bodies. But contemporary views on managing it had come to depart radically from the practices of the past.

Key tenets It has often been pointed out that Christians in their classic creeds do not declare that they believe that, but rather that they believe in, or as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, future Pope Benedict XVI, reminded believers, “The essence of Christianity is not an idea, not a system of thought, not a plan of 5 action [but rather] a Person, Jesus Christ.” Faith, for Christians, is thus not

4 “Homily of the Holy Father, ‘Day of Pardon,’ Sunday, 12 March 2000,” Vatican website, www. vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/homilies/2000/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_20000312_ pardon_en.html (accessed October 10, 2013). The entire series of prayers asking forgiveness for sins of the church and responses from the pope can be found at “Universal Prayer, Confession of Sins and Asking for Forgiveness” at www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/docu ments/ns_lit_doc_20000312_prayer-day-pardon_en.html. A news report on the event can be found at Alessandra Stanley, “Pope Asks Forgiveness for Errors of the Church Over 2,000 Years,” New York Times (March 13, 2000), www.nytimes.com/2000/03/13/world/pope-asks- forgiveness-for-errors-of-the-church-over-2000-years.html 5 “Introduction” to Romano Guardini, The Lord (Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 1996), p. xiv. Ratzinger has expressed this idea in many places, for example “The basic form of Christian faith is not: I believe something, but I believe you” (Faith and the Future [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009], pp. 29–30; original German publication, 1970). 104 Peter Steinfels primarily assent to a set of propositions but trust in a person, whom they experience as alive. It would be naïve, however, to think that the person can be separated utterly from tenets about the person or a larger framework of beliefs. Indeed, it may be a commentary on the vast edifice of complicated teachings that Christianity has erected, in many cases in response to internal disputes, that Christian spiritual leaders have so often had to remind the faithful that the object of their faith is a person, not a compendium of doctrines. The first Christian preaching took the form of a story about that person. It was a story framed within the story of Israel and its covenant with a God who created the world and had liberated the Israelites from slavery. In the fullness of time, the story went, the God of Israel had sent Jesus, who in word and miraculous deed announced a new reign of healing and reconciliation, but was nonetheless put to death. God, however, raised him from the dead and thus confirmed him as Messiah, or in Greek Christos, the “Anointed One” of Israel, who will come in glory to judge the living and the dead and to fulfill the promise of a transformed and everlasting life. The first Christian professions of faith were simple ones: “Jesusisthe Christ.”“JesusistheLord.”“Jesus is the Son of God.” The phrases are now familiar, but in their original context they carried a freight of disruptive meanings, religious and political. “Jesus is the Lord,” for example, put Christians at odds with both Jewish guardians of strict monotheism and Roman guardians of the imperial cult. Such professions of faith may have been associated with baptism, the cleansing water rite that marked a person as a follower of Jesus and a member of the messianic community he had initiated. Over the next two centuries Christianity moved from these simple affirma- tions to fuller creeds. Why this evolution? Christians were convinced that in their experience Jesus Christ was alive and, as he had promised, animating them and their assemblies through the Spirit of God. From the start they had used forms of “Godly” language in connection with Jesus, but they were also committed, like Jesus himself, to Israel’s monotheism. So they groped for ways to understand Jesus and the Spirit within a single godhead. And they did so in a Hellenistic environment that was a cauldron of competing philosophical doctrines and esoteric cults. Christian thinkers felt compelled to fend off notions that would threaten their beliefs while trying to articulate them by drawing on available abstract concepts. From the fourth through seventh centuries, church councils devised and revised complex, subtle formulations of basic beliefs. These councils sought precise language to protect Christian belief that Jesus was truly God and truly

See Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), pp. 79–80. Christianity and intramural dissent 105 human. Particulars of Jesus’ life were added to professions of faith as bulwarks against those who would subordinate his humanity to his divinity. (Thus the name of a run-of-the-mill Roman regional governor, Pontius Pilate, sacked for an outstanding case of police brutality a few years after condemning Jesus to death, gets mentioned weekly by hundreds of millions of Christians reciting their Creed.) At the same time, the Trinitarian creeds that emerged affirmed the one God of Israel’s monotheism who as almighty Father created all that exists, but who as eternally begotten Son also became truly human in Jesus of Nazareth and redeemed humankind, and who as enlivening Spirit was present in the prophets, in the church, in its reconciling rites and in its hope for everlasting life. Noteworthy are what these early creedal formulations leave out. They make references to scripture but they do not address the issue of which books should be considered authoritative. Some creeds refer to baptism and the forgiveness of sins but not otherwise to worship or sacraments, nothing, for example, about the Eucharistic rite of bread and wine. The creeds refer to the church but not to bishops or how the church should be ordered. Theological discussion – as well as dispute – on these and many other topics was ongoing. Often there were provisional judgments by individual bishops, local councils or synods, even theology faculties at medieval universities. In the Catholic West, these would sometimes lead to papal decrees or rulings of church-wide councils, for example, the synthetic statement of medieval Catholic belief issued by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), while in the Orthodox East, final authority rested with patriarchs and synods of bishops, eventually of self-governing national churches. The Reformation era controversies over justification by faith, scripture, church authority and sacraments produced a raft of Protestant confessions and the Catholic decrees of the Council of Trent (1545–1548, 1551–1552, 1562–1563). These statements frequently took the legal or semi-legal form of numbered propositions or condemnations, like Anglicanism’sThirty-Nine Articles. Sometimes these confessions tried to outline common ground, as Philip Melanchthon’s Augsburg Confession, presented to the imperial Diet of Augsburg in 1530, did for Protestants. Sometimes the confessions drew a sharp line in the doctrinal sand: the 1619 Canons of Dort drawn up by a synod of Dutch Reformed leaders sharply condemned the party that wanted to soften the more severe Calvinist teachings on predestination and human depravity. Neither the ancient creeds nor the later confessions say much, if anything at all, about moral norms. That may surprise modern Westerners, especially in the United States, where a combination of Calvinist emphasis on moral discipline and Enlightenment stress on the practical rather than the supernatural has encouraged a tendency to equate religion, at least Christianity, with ethics or moral rules. The morality of the new kingdom proclaimed by Jesus in the Gospels is certainly marked by distinct emphases. The most 106 Peter Steinfels frequently cited is love, love of God and neighbor, a self-less and forgiving love;forJesusthisistheessenceof“all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:40). Jesus also preached paradoxical reversals: the first shall be last, the last first; only in dying will one find life; the meek and the humble will inherit the earth; love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Also Jesus underlined the importance not just of deeds but of inner states of mind related to them, not just of shunning adultery, for instance, but of adulterous lust. Finally, Jesus issued a call to discipleship that involved a degree of imitation of himself. This did not constitute anything like a moral code, however. If anything, in the scriptural accounts of his exchanges with the Pharisees, Jesus challenged the rigor and specificity of codes of behavior. For Paul, trained as a Pharisee, questions of morality were intermixed with a complicated argument, of special significance for Gentile converts, about the priority of grace over Israel’s law. But Paul’s letters are filled with moral exhortations, with lists of virtues and vices, with eloquent expansions on the meaning of love and discipleship, and with specific advice on questions of marriage, celibacy, and partaking of foods offered to idols. Similar moral exhortations, sometimes detailed but not systematically codified, characterized the preaching and writing of church fathers in the following centuries. All told, Christian morality appears to have combined the inherited moral injunctions of Judaism (the Decalogue) and blended them with Greek and Roman ethical ideals and philosophical theories like Stoicism as well as with conventional morality – always under the canopy of imitating Christ and, at least for earlier generations, in expectation of his imminent return. That lack of system changed after the sixth century with the emerging practice of private confessions and, in medieval times, with the moral analyses of scholasticism. Christianity, like Judaism and Islam, developed a thorough- going casuistry in order to apply general moral norms to specific cases. Particular moral tenets have loomed large in Christian disputes – over usury, slavery, and divorce, for example, or sexual norms currently – and they have raised difficult problems of managing dissent. But it would be hard to say that they have constituted key tenets except to the degree that they reflected background beliefs, such as the place of reason and experience in interpreting scripture or the tension between laxism and rigorism in setting church standards. The final topic that must be mentioned under key tenets is that of church law. Those early councils of bishops that were hammering out creeds were also dealing with lesser matters of administration and discipline, everything from the best form for ordaining bishops to sexual offenses by Christians. In addressing such questions, church leaders began to refer to precedents and collections of conciliar canons (Greek, kanon: ruling, norm). In the twelfth century the Italian jurist Gratian organized nearly 4,000 canonical rulings into a massive, highly systemized work. It was said to reflect the more legal mind of Christianity and intramural dissent 107

Western Latin Christianity compared to a more mystical Eastern Orthodoxy. Anglican and Protestant bodies, although more modestly than the Catholic code of canon law, have developed their own books of church order and rulings. At least some of their contents, even procedural ones, are inevitably linked to key tenets, and thus the line between disagreement over core beliefs and over apparently organizational issues are easily blurred.

Priorities In general, Christianity has been insistent in demanding adherence to its core beliefs, and it has always honored martyrs (Greek, martys:witness) who died rather than violate those beliefs. It has been equally sensitive to the danger of heresy. “Heresy was a dominant issue in the life of the early church, and has continued to ﬁgure prominently throughout most of its subsequent history,” wrote Maurice Wiles, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. “The struggle between orthodoxy and heresy is a witness both to the intellectual seriousness of the main Christian tradition and also to its fatal tendency to demonize its opponents, especially internal opponents; heretics were generally regarded as worse than outsiders, since they had some acquaintance with Christian truth and yet set themselves in opposition 6 to it.” Christians have sometimes agreed to disagree but rarely about core beliefs. If a consensus cannot be achieved, Christians have preferred to part company and maintain their convictions in separate groups. Some strands of Christianity, among Anglicans most notably and some non-denominational evangelicals as well, have prided themselves on their “latitudinarian” acceptance of a wide range of beliefs contained within a common pattern of worship. Other strands, such as Roman Catholics, Calvinists, and Calvinist-inﬂuenced evangelicals, have been intent on maintaining theological orthodoxy. But even the latitudinarians have limits, as witnessed by the divisions within Anglicanism today over questions of ordaining women and accepting homosexual conduct. A distinction should be made, however, between pastoral practice and formal challenges to core beliefs or key tenets, whether expressed in teaching and preaching or embodied in liturgy. Over the centuries Christian missionaries have welcomed mass conversions in which formal adherence ran far ahead of truly internalizing core beliefs. A mixture of Christian beliefs with lingering pre-Christian ones was undoubtedly widespread in medieval Europe and is probably the case today in many regions. Folk religion and local or individual doctrinal eccentricities can be tolerated; formal or learned dissent is quite another matter.

6 “Heresy,” in Adrian Hastings, Alistair Mason, and Hugh Pyper (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 294. 108 Peter Steinfels

Consequences Christians have always been aware of the price to be paid for demanding adherence to key tenets or core beliefs. Division in the church has been seen as a wound to be prevented or healed if possible. Appeals to unity in Christian scriptures could hardly be more frequent or stronger. Jesus urges his disciples to be one as he and the Father are one (John 17:21). Christians experience “communion” with Christ and one another in the breaking of the bread. The creeds declare the church to be one, holy, catholic (universal), and apostolic. This thrust toward unity is two-edged. For Paul, it meant that there is neither Greek nor Hebrew, male nor female, slave nor free in the one Lord (Galatians 3:28). It also meant defending unity against heresy (Greek, hairesis: choosing, faction). So the main concern of the tradition’s leaders was to assure its integrity and fidelity. “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:1.) Fidelity to core beliefs and membership in the community that lived by them were critical to the salvation of individual souls. But Christianity was not a religion only of individual salvation and it shared the communal outlook of Judaism. Followers of Jesus the Christ constituted a “new Israel” looking toward a universal, messianic reign of peace and justice; indeed, their original expectation that this reign would be imminent gave the first generations’ faith a particularly high-voltage character. In fact, they believed that this reign had already begun within their own ranks, which implied that to the greatest extent possible they should be of one mind. Pressures for church unity were reinforced by pressures for political unity. Heresy was ultimately viewed as potential contagion, threatening the individual’s salvation, the unity of the church, and the unity of the secular reign. Of course, ego and power have always played a part in leaders’ insistence on assuring unity, just as harsh views of dissidents have always caused leaders to minimize the cost. Moreover, as Christianity developed complex institutions and structures of authority, gains or losses in assuring unity were often seen as reflecting on these institutions and structures, which had now become identified with core beliefs. Finally, to avoid anachronism and a cerebral distortion of the place of “tenets” or “beliefs” in the lived religion of pre-modern or early modern Christendom, it is essential to understand its communal nature. Every town and village was a microcosm of the body of Christianity. Civic rituals were not separate from sacred ones. Daily, weekly, and seasonal time had a religious dimension. Communal welfare depended on divine wrath or favor, which might bring on flood, famine, or bountiful harvest. Tolerating heretical deviations was a high-stakes business. In 1781, Thomas Jefferson could write, “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” But as Benjamin J. Kaplan shows in Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Christianity and intramural dissent 109

Early Modern Europe, a century earlier such individualism was unthinkable to most Europeans. Indulging heresy threatened to do more than pick their 7 pockets and break their legs even as it endangered their souls.

Diversity Christianity has embraced an enormous diversity of ethnicities, races, languages, cultures, economies, and political regimes. It has embraced strikingly diverse theologies and spiritualities not only in the array of separate churches but even within the larger churches. Think of the faith’s musical and archi- tectural expressions, from the austere to the extravagant, in every regional and cultural idiom. These are not just different aesthetic tastes, they express different spiritual and ecclesiastical outlooks. But given the extent of this historical and global diversity, Christianity has been surprisingly united on its core beliefs about God and Jesus. Various Christian thinkers and movements that came to deny the divinity of Christ found themselves outside Christian ranks despite episodes of temporary growth such as that of Unitarianism in New England, which in 1822 Thomas Jefferson expected soon to be “the religion of the majority from north to 8 south” in the United States. On the other hand, Christians have divided dramatically on questions about interpreting scripture, the locus and operation of authority in the church, and the sacraments, all the while agreeing that these are in fact core questions, whatever one’s position. Internal disagreement ordinarily grows heated less on core beliefs directly examined than on whether differences on less central but often highly practical issues entail challenging a core belief. The debate over homosexuality in many Christian groups provides a contemporary example. The question is not directly whether an authoritative place of scripture in Christian life must be abandoned – put baldly that proposal would not get much traction – but whether scripture can be legitimately read in such a way that a change in Christian teaching on homosexuality or homosexual acts can be accommodated precisely without such a radical abandonment. Something similar could be said about the Catholic Church’s afﬁrmation of religious freedom at the Second Vatican Council or the possibility of changing its ofﬁcial condemnation of contraception or its limitation of the priesthood to males. What do such developments entail in regard to Catholic understanding of church authority as exercised through its hierarchical magisterium and the role of the papacy in particular? The sheer complexity of scripture or tradition provides grounds for

7 Benjamin J. Kaplan, Divided by Faith: Religious Conﬂict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), pp. 70–71. 8 Letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, November 2, 1822. University of Virginia Library, Electronic Text Center, Jefferson, Thomas, 1743–1826. Letters. 110 Peter Steinfels dissenting views to get a hearing and even retain a following, provided, that is, that they convincingly avoid a frontal assault on core beliefs.

Inculcation and reproduction Christianity’s core beliefs, along with other beliefs, have been inculcated, first of all, through regular worship, which involves prayers, singing psalms and hymns, reading and explication of scriptures, inspired preaching, and sharing of a sacred memorial meal of bread and wine. Easter was the central liturgical event of the year, a reliving of Christ’s passage through death to life, a time of vigil and baptism. Those seeking baptism were instructed. Penitents who had fallen away were reinstructed. Eventually a calendar of liturgical seasons developed. Blessings multiplied. Holy men and women, especially those martyred, were honored. Hermits and monks presented new, heroic models of devotion. Images and statues, not without controversy as noted, directed attention heavenward. Architecture translated Christian beliefs into space and stone, eventually into unforgettable glass. Monasticism created centers of daily prayer and learning. Religious rites were integrated into the cycle of rural life and into the organization of crafts and trade. Pilgrimages sprung up and mystery and morality plays were performed. Mendicant friars preached revivals. The rewards and punishments in the next life for fidelity in this one were vividly portrayed. Aristocrats, clerics, and well-off townsfolk engaged in the private reading of scripture and devotional books; printing and literacy brought such individual practices to a broad segment of the population. Internal disagreement actually stimulated inculcation. With the Reformation came catechisms expounding Christian beliefs, often with a polemical Protestant or Catholic emphasis, in question-and-answer format. Children memorized answers as they did basic prayers and key passages from scripture. New religious orders such as the Jesuits, the Ursulines, and the Brothers of the Christian Schools created schools for lay people, some for elites or gentry, some for the impoverished. Confraternities mounted proces- sions and pageants. Methodists promoted open-air preaching and chapel meetings. Sunday schools educated adults and children. Clergy oversaw many levels of education, from village schools to academies and colleges. Parents were responsible for conveying the basics of faith and morality to children, teaching them prayers, and creating a pious household. The means of inculcation and reproduction were practically endless, but core beliefs, it should be recognized, were not necessarily distinguished from a host of pious ideas and practices that were inculcated with them and often held to be no less important. What in Christian history was socially imposed and what was freely chosen? Wherever one religion enjoys a pervasive monopoly, the likelihood of choosing another is obviously limited. What is true of religiously monochrome Christianity and intramural dissent 111 nations or cultures is to a lesser degree true of villages and families. Of course, one should never discount the quiet or ornery skepticism of a villager or the creativity of people in patching together their own personal religion that renders the miraculous powers of the Virgin or patron saints more “core” than redemption by Jesus or that mixes fervor with anti-clericalism, moral laxity, or doubts about the afterlife. But this question of imposition and choice also touches on one of Christianity’s core discussions. Christianity has always placed a high value on freedom. “For freedom Christ has set us free,” writes Paul (Galatians 5:1). “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17). Jesus declares himself the truth and “the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). Christianity has traditionally understood freedom more as liberation than as choice, liberation from slavery to sin, to death, or to the discipline of the law of Sinai. This liberation is, first of all, a gift of God, like the liberation of Israel from slavery in Egypt. Christians have divided sharply over the role of free will or personal choice in this liberation: arguing over the meaning of the Fall or Original Sin, of grace, of free will, and of predestination. For fallen humans, what matters primarily is the liberation, regardless of their own role in it. But God’s offer of liberating faith does demand a personal assent, however much Christians may contest exactly how that comes about, or whether it is consistent with infant baptism or only adult “believer’s baptism.” Despite understanding the freedom involved in becoming a Christian to be different from that of joining the Rotary or enlisting in the Army, Christianity has nurtured modernity’s conviction that freedom is central to human dignity and self-constitution. Religious liberty arose from the competition and conflict of religious groups and from the belief that a coerced decision of conscience was a contradiction in terms. Many Christians would reject what might be called indoctrination, distinguishing it (admittedly at different points or in different ways) from education, formation, catechizing, evangelizing, or what is here called inculcation. Humans have a moral obligation to pursue the truth about religious questions. But ultimately “nobody is to be forced to embrace 9 the faith against his will.” A wholehearted conviction that mature individuals should be free to decide whether or not to align themselves with any set of core religious beliefs does not resolve all problems. In this regard, note that in line with thestanceofmanyotherChristian bodies, Roman Catholicism’s landmark Declaration on Religious Liberty affirms not only the religious freedom of individuals but also the freedom of religious traditions and institutions,

9 Declaration on Religious Liberty, #10, Vatican Council II, the Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, Study Edition, Austin Flannery, OP (ed.) (Northport, New York: Costello Publishing Company, 1987), p. 806. 112 Peter Steinfels freedomtomaintaintheirbeliefsandpractices,toinculcatemembers,to 10 speak and act out their faith publicly, and so on.

Authority The central role of bishops throughout Christian history as the agents of decisions about core belief has already been noted. Naturally, episcopal leadership was never wholly united; in the early centuries, that was the reason for gathering the bishops in church-wide councils. Episcopal leadership was also never without challenge. Christians who had survived torture or imprisonment for their resistance under Roman persecution were known as “confessors”; they often enjoyed a moral authority that could rival the institutional authority of bishops, especially bishops whose conduct under pressure 11 had been less than courageous. Episcopal leadership had to compete on occasion with charismatic holy men and women, with monastic movements, or with the itinerant preachers of medieval mendicant orders; and bishops and popes regularly confronted pressures from kings and emperors; but episcopal leadership remained the central factor in all management of intramural disagreement until the Reformation of the sixteenth century when some Protestant Christian groups substituted other forms of authoritative leadership for bishops. In a very approximate way, one can say that bishops were selected locally with the clergy having the primary role but possibly reflecting popular opinion as well. Ambrose of Milan, who was not yet even baptized, was famously selected by popular acclamation, spontaneous or possibly manipulated. The idea that local selection should be approved by the wider church was symbolized in the recommendation of the Council of Nicaea that not just one bishop but three from nearby regions should participate in the ordination of a new bishop. In reality, emperors, empresses, kings, and nobles often played a decisive role in selecting bishops from among the pool of likely clerical candidates (whom the rulers had often seeded with relatives or favorites). Beginning around the turn of the first millennium, this became the subject of one of the longest-running battles between religious and secular powers in Latin Christian history. A reform movement cultured in monasteries attempted to retrieve the selection of bishops from royal or noble power. Warfare between pope and emperor ensued, both spiritual and military, and the outcome was compromise: secular rulers could still nominate candidates but final investiture remained with the church, specifically the pope, which one could see as either crucially or disappointingly symbolic. This struggle was of course more complicated than the reform narrative of assuring the

10 Declaration on Religious Liberty, #4, Vatican Council II, the Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, pp. 802–803. 11 Wilken, The First Thousand Years, pp. 69–71; MacCulloch, Christianity, pp. 174–175. Christianity and intramural dissent 113 independence of the church would have it. First, many bishops were de jure or de facto civil leaders, in the choice of whom secular powers had a reasonable interest. Second, secular leaders were Christians as well as aggrandizing rulers, and in notable cases were greater forces for reforming the church than bishops or popes. In any case, securing independence of appointment from secular powers became a long-term goal of the papacy, not really achieved until the nineteenth century. Meanwhile, the selection of popes, the bishop of Rome, had its own checkered history. At times the choice fell into the hands of Roman mobs or brawling families of local nobles. Worldly rule over the papal states only intensified political calculations in the choice of popes. Gradually the institution of a college of cardinals evolved along with the complex procedures for electing a pope that now captivate the media and public. And papal claims to intervene authoritatively at any level of Catholic life were mitigated by procedures written into church law and even more by distance, communications, and the resistance of national clergy and rulers. The French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and turmoil of the nineteenth century undermined many of those national structures. Modern communication and transportation did the rest. Though the papacy’s external powers had been weakened, it could effectively exercise the kind of universal jurisdiction over internal church affairs that it had earlier claimed. Subsequently papal powers have been limited largely by the sheer size of the church, the modest size of the papal bureaucracy, and since the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) a theological reemphasis on the role of bishops 12 and of consultation generally in the church. In varying ways Orthodox, Anglican, and Protestant churches have also struggled at times to limit government or other secular influence over the choice of top leaders. Authority in the Orthodox Christian world rests with the episcopal synods of the more than a dozen autocephalous national churches and entities, many of them headed by patriarchs. Among them the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople holds a primacy of honor although none of actual jurisdiction. The Patriarch of Moscow with its claims to be a “third Rome” has become something of a rival, with Constantinople and Moscow each enjoying a sphere of influence among the national hierarchies. In the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury enjoys a similar primacy of honor and moral authority without jurisdiction; working authority rests with the separate episcopacies of the thirty-seven national churches in the Anglican Communion, which often share power with

12 For recent accounts, see John W. O’Malley, SJ, A History of the Popes: From Peter to the Present (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littleﬁeld Publishers, 2010) and What Happened at Vatican II (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008), chapter II “The Long Nineteenth Century.” 114 Peter Steinfels assemblies of clergy and laity or, at least technically in the British case, even with Parliament and the Crown. The selection of new bishops rests to a great extent with local clergy and lay delegates. The Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops, which meets regularly to pronounce on issues of church and world, has no jurisdiction over member churches and wields its moral authority at the price of avoiding clear decisions. Authority in Protestant Christianity varies tremendously from denomination to denomination. Who ordains a minister? Who sets church policy? Who credentials ministers as pastors? How partial or complete is the power of individual congregations to choose or dismiss pastors? What church-wide assemblies operate and how often and who participates and what is the import of the decisions for church life? How do major leaders emerge – as prominent pastors, as elected ofﬁcials, as recognized thinkers or scholars, as public personalities? Some of these questions are also pertinent to leadership in the more traditionally ordered branches of Christianity, but they are essential to understanding the workings of authority in Protestantism. A few generalizations are possible: Protestantism emphasizes the “priesthood of the faithful” and deemphasizes the need for intermediaries between the individual believer and God in interpreting scripture and core beliefs; Protestantism, like all human institutions, needs leaders nonetheless. The quest for them has alternatively emphasized election; learning; self-selection through training, examination, and promotion by established leaders; charismatic personality and entrepreneurial skills.

Management options What mechanisms has Christianity employed, first, for determining which views were perilous to the core of the tradition or the life of the church and, second, for actually enforcing those determinations? Of course, the first resort for resolving disputed questions, as well as for raising them, has simply been vigorous argument, not infrequently marked by odium theologicum straining Christian charity. When argument did not establish consensus, bishops, whose early emergence has already been described, became the key decision-makers, as did the successor leadership, much more diffuse in nature, found in Protestant churches. As already indicated, serious disputes were submitted in the early church to synods or councils of bishops. Though synods and councils continued to function in the West, the bishop of Rome – the pope – emerged first as the court of final appeal and eventually claimed a universal competence to intervene in disputes at any level and then to teach proactively even on matters not in dispute. Still, councils took on special importance whenever the papacy fell into disarray. An extended battle over whether councils or the papacy was the supreme authority ended in a formula stressing their cooperation. That left the papacy with the upper hand administratively, but councils, held with papal approval, possessed exceptional moral authority. Christianity and intramural dissent 115

Other mechanisms also had roles. During the Middle Ages, theological faculties at the University of Paris, Oxford, and elsewhere rendered judgments on theological controversies, sometimes by invitation from the hierarchy, often on their own initiative. Civil rulers, especially in the East, always wielded considerable influence in promoting theological views. Lutheranism could probably not have survived if Elector Friedrich III of Saxony had not provided the excommunicated Martin Luther a refuge from imperial edict, and one of the most consequential theological presentations in Christian history was Luther’s before the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the 1521 Diet of Worms. Once councils, creeds, confessions, and catechisms delineated orthodox and heretical beliefs and practices, these documents became the basis for preaching or educating the faithful, for shaping all the vehicles of inculcation mentioned above, but, if challenged, how could these rulings be enforced? Sometimes dissenters willingly recanted or fell silent out of deference to an official judgment. Often more forceful measures came into play. Advocates of controversial positions were deposed from offices they held or banished from their cities, as was Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, who was ultimately vindicated and celebrated for his stance in the battle over Arianism. To this day, Christian churches may demote or depose officials who question important teachings or violate ritual or moral norms. The Catholic Church has frequently ordered well-known theologians to cease publishing or teaching their opinions. A number of them were vindicated when the Second Vatican Council endorsed their positions, for example, the American Jesuit John Courtney Murray who helped draft the Council’s Declaration on Religious Liberty. In many instances, however, dissenters could maintain their views only under threat of much more serious penalties – excommunication, for example, which under Catholic canon law cut off the dissenter from receiving the sacraments and exercising any church office. Protestant groups practiced parallel forms of exclusion, which could be quite consequential even among the pacifist Anabaptist bodies that rejected any forms of civil coercion. In fact, as long as rulers believed themselves obliged to assure the orthodoxy of their particular strand of Christianity, civil coercion of varying sorts was more often the rule than the exception. By act of Parliament, the English were supposed to adhere to the Thirty-Nine Articles. From 1672 to 1824, adherence was a precondition for holding any office in the nation. Ordination required an oath subscribing to the Articles. Subscribing to the Articles was necessary to matriculate at Oxford or receive a degree from either Oxford or Cambridge. Similarly, the Calvinist moderates who lost out at the Synod of Dort were expelled from their pulpits and in many cases from the Netherlands. When the political climate changed, they recovered, although their views remained officially condemned until 1795. One can specify any number of ways in which dissenting views came under official pressure. Dissenters could be barred or removed from university or 116 Peter Steinfels seminary posts or from prominent pulpits. In early centuries, heterodox writings were simply not copied and thus lost to history either because they fell under official condemnation or copyists had other priorities. During the first centuries of printing, church and state often worked hand in hand to censor works judged heretical or subversive, categories that frequently overlapped. The Index of Forbidden Books was established by Pope Paul IV in 1557 and not formally abolished until 1966. Some of these procedures continue to operate. In 1979, the Vatican removed Hans Küng, an outspoken critic of Vatican actions, from his chair of Catholic theology at the University of Tubingen for unacceptable theological positions. In 1991, Charles Curran lost his position in the Catholic University of America’s theology department for writings on moral theology; he had doubtlessly made himself a target by organizing public dissent to Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical reasserting the church’s condemnation of contraception. Repeated election victories by conservative candidates for top offices in the Southern Baptist Convention made possible a gradual purge from Southern Baptist seminaries of administrators and professors who did not meet the conservatives’ standards of “biblical inerrancy.” The requirement to submit instructional material for theological approval continues in Roman Catholicism, at least in principle, and a number of Protestant denominations similarly oversee religious education texts. Defenders of freedom of inquiry may find even these vestigial controls distressing, but they should not be exaggerated. Küng and Curran, for example, not only retained highly visible academic platforms and esteem in their disciplines but also remained Catholic priests in good standing. Church authorities can control their own seminaries, but this no longer provides much leverage over theological discourse as theology has shifted from church institutions to universities (and their divinity schools) and, especially in the 13 Catholic case, from clergy and members of religious orders, to lay people. These lingering mechanisms for managing intramural dissent can hardly be compared with those of pre-modern or early modern times. The severest measures against heresy involved imprisonment or even death. In 380 a local council in Spain condemned the dualistic teaching of Priscillian. This world-rejecting aristocrat nonetheless went on to be elected a bishop but was then tried, condemned, and burned at the stake by an upstart emperor in Gaul in 385, the first Christian to fall victim to such a practice. Not long after this, in the context of increasing imperial decrees of punishment for heretics, Augustine, a formative thinker for Western Christianity, took a fateful step. As bishop of Hippo in North Africa since 395, he was confronted with a particularly disruptive heresy, Donatism, a rival church of the “pure” rooted in denunciations of Christians who had compromised with imperial

13 See discussion in Peter Steinfels, A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), pp. 241–252. Christianity and intramural dissent 117 persecution almost a century before. After extended efforts to refute and win over Donatists, in the course of which Augustine repudiated the use of force, he finally justified imperial repression. He never advocated use of the death penalty; to the contrary, he personally pleaded that condemned Donatists be spared. But deploying examples from the Hebrew scriptures and from Jesus’ parables, he constructed an argument in favor of a “pedagogy of fear” that would bring heretics back to the church. Given his stature, this established a 14 powerful precedent. It was some six centuries before burning heretics was revived; but in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, as definitions of heresy proceeded apace with the development of church law, campaigns against heresy were institutionalized, and executing heretics became state policy. John Hus, the Czech precursor of the Reformation, died at the stake in 1415 as did the apocalyptic Florentine preacher Savonarola in 1498. Once the Reformation split Western Christianity into warring camps, such executions became widespread. Calvin’s Geneva burned the anti-Trinitarian Michael Servetus. Henry VIII beheaded Thomas More. Queens Mary and Elizabeth, successive Catholic and Protestant-leaning rulers in England, burned or wrought similarly excru- ciating deaths on their respective religious opponents. There was no line between religious dissent and sedition. One case from Switzerland reminds us of what such procedures entailed. Michael Sattler was a former monk who largely drafted the 1527 Schleitheim Confession that became one of the founding documents for Mennonite and Amish Christians. In May of that year he and other Anabaptists were arrested by Catholic Hapsburg authorities and condemned to death. The sentence read: Michael Sattler shall be committed to the executioner. The latter shall take him to the square and there first cut out his tongue, and then forge him fast to a wagon and there with glowing iron tongs twice tear pieces from his body, then on the way to the site of execution five times more as above and then burn his body to powder as an arch-heretic. His male companions were slain by the sword. His wife, Margaretha, and other 15 women accompanying them were drowned. Such frightful deterrents to heresy inevitably bring to mind the most notorious means of eliminating dissent, the Inquisition. In fact, one should distinguish four Inquisitions. The medieval Inquisition consisted of traveling tribunals that investigated complaints of formal heresy. It received papal authorization mainly for rooting out the dualist Albigensian or Cathar heresy

14 MacCulloch, Christianity,p.304; Wilken, The First Thousand Years, pp. 188–189. 15 William Roscoe Estep, The Anabaptist Story, 3rd edn. (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1996), p. 57.ChapterIII “A Superlative Witness” is devoted to Sattler. Also: C. Arnold Snyder, The Life and Thought of Michael Sattler, Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1984). 118 Peter Steinfels in thirteenth-century southern France and northern Italy, which was also combatted by preaching but ultimately crushed through a brutal crusade. The Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions operated, by papal delegation, under the monarchies of Spain and Portugal from 1478 (Spain) and 1536 (Portugal) until the eighteenth century. They were the instruments primarily of a ruthless class and racial suppression by “Old Christians” of rising groups of “New Christians,” converts or descendants of converts from Judaism and Islam who were suspected of secretly adhering to their prior beliefs. These Inquisitions also swept up the small number of Iberian Protestants and uncon- ventional Catholic adherents, some in high places, of an interior, mystical spirituality. Eventually the Inquisitors occupied themselves largely with policing the Iberian Peninsula against small-scale irreligious conduct (village atheism, blasphemy, bigamy, superstition). The Roman Inquisition, the fourth of the series, was a resurrection by Pope Paul III in 1542 of the medieval version, now aimed at combatting Protestantism or its offshoots under central papal control. Its rulings were in principle church-wide, but its effective reach never extended beyond Italy. The term “Inquisition,” especially the Spanish Inquisition, has achieved mythic status as shorthand for religious repression. Only in the last century has the history of its different instantiations been rescued from anti-Catholic polemics and Catholic apologias. Historians have compared its procedures and penalties, including the use of torture and gruesome executions, to those of contemporary European justice generally. When possible, the numbers of victims, charges, acquittals, convictions, and sentences have been compiled. The political and social contexts, the long-range consequences, and the 16 constraints operating on the Inquisitions have been explored. Summing up the historiography since the mid-1970s of the most infamous of the Inquisitions, one historian writes: It is now acknowledged that the Spanish Inquisition was a far less repressive instrument of ideological control than had hitherto been thought, and that torture and the death penalty were only rarely applied – almost exclusively during the ﬁrst two decades of its existence. By comparison, other European countries, including England, France and Germany, continued to burn heretics until well into the seven- 17 teenth century. Seeing the Inquisitions in the context of the generally appalling practices of medieval or early modern European systems of justice should not dull anyone to the human suffering they inﬂicted in the name of religion; nor were those unimaginable pains the whole story. The Inquisition’s public procedures were designed to instill fear, even if most towns were rarely visited by Inquisition

16 Helen Rawlings, The Spanish Inquisition (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), and Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998). 17 Rawlings, The Spanish Inquisition,p.2. Christianity and intramural dissent 119 tribunals and its punishments less consequential than the discord, suspicion, recriminations, and family quarrels that malicious denunciations left in their wake. And thinkers and religious leaders who fell under suspicion had reason to fear arrest or conviction and to fear that fear would also keep others from 18 coming to their defense. It would be unrealistic to ignore an even more powerful fear that operated in all management of intramural dissent: the fear of hell. To violate authoritative teachings was to risk eternal damnation, and the consequences of that were vivid in Christian imaginations. Not even a comparably intense trust in God’s mercy could make that fear completely disappear, at least until recently. The decline in the belief in hell or the likelihood of being damned (an understudied topic) plus the withdrawal of state power from religious disputes plus Christian shame at the atrocities perpetrated in the name of the faith have radically altered Christianity’s options for dealing with intramural disagreement. In recent times heresy trials have become an embarrassment, the very notion of heresy now being associated with intellectual daring and courage rather than spiritual deformation. Acquittals became as likely as convictions and did little more than remove an offender from a church office. During the nineteenth century, popes like Pius IX eliminated or marginalized internal dissent from Catholic liberals and proto-Christian Democrats. A witch hunt against “modernists” in the early twentieth century, carried out under Pope Pius X with a network of denouncers and asweeping“Oath Against Modernism,” chilled Catholic thinking for decades. But the Second Vatican Council’s vindication of theologians who earlier suffered sanctions remains an albatross on church authorities attempting to discipline dissenters. Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical reasserting papal condemnation of contraception was widely rejected by Catholic opinion, even among the clergy, and Paul VI never issued another encyclical. Successor popes have become more prolific than ever in issuing lengthy theological statements, but many of these documents have taken a personal and discursive turn rather than clearly declaring norms. Condemnations issued by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Defense of the Faith usually stir as much opposition as acceptance. A Vatican effort to require episcopal mandates for Catholics teaching theology in Catholic colleges and universities, along with other controls over these institutions, has fallen into desuetude. Vatican criticism of women’s religious orders in the United States proved a public relations disaster. Censure by Rome or episcopal conferences of particular theological works usually assures that these books become, at least by the standards of theology, best-sellers. In general, the power of Catholic authorities to manage dissent has narrowed to the use of norms (e.g. about official papal positions on sexual

18 Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition,p.172. 120 Peter Steinfels morality and the ordination of women) as litmus tests for the selection of bishops who will afﬁrm those norms publicly and inculcate them, under the guidance of Rome, through seminaries, diocesan ofﬁces, parishes, educational programs, publications, and other organizations. With a declining number of priests and a greater reliance on an increasingly independent-minded laity, the levers for exerting effective control grow fewer and fewer.

Internal criticism The burning at the stake of Priscillian in 385 elicited outrage from Martin of Tours and Ambrose of Milan, two eminent Christians later declared saints. Such opposition to pursuing and penalizing heresy was long overshadowed by justiﬁcations for executing heretics set forth by thinkers of the rank of Thomas Aquinas. Just as the Reformation era was setting Christian against Christian, Europe’s leading Christian humanist, Desiderius Erasmus, protested that using violence against heretics was un-Christian – and futile in addition, since it only stimulated more heresy. Erasmus’ friend, Thomas More, by contrast, wrote a Dialogue on Heresies that argued in favor of suppressing them by force or, if necessary, by death. Six years later, he would himself be beheaded by Henry VIII for refusing to swear support for the English king’s break with Rome. Sebastian Castellio, a French Protestant humanist who was the most outspoken of those protesting Calvin’s burning of Michael Servetus in Geneva, is cited as one of the ﬁrst campaigners against forcible suppression of heresy. His 1553 work Concerning Heretics is said to have triggered the arguments for religious toleration that over the course of the next century ran through the Netherlands to England. The American colonies, with Roger Williams above all but also William Penn and Lord Baltimore, saw a parallel debate. With the exception of Spinoza, most of these advocates of toleration were moderate Protestant Christians and made their case on Christian 19 grounds. Many themes were sounded by different thinkers during this auto-critique: the need for theological minimalism in identifying and returning to core beliefs; a plea for modesty in claiming certainty; doubts about the zeal of church authorities; the impossibility of plumbing and measuring conscience; the contradiction between using force to ensure church unity and Christ’s teaching; the incompetence of civil authorities in religious matters. Internal criticism by Christians eventually overlapped but never coincided with criticism by Enlightenment skeptics. Change came about with the loosening of the bonds between church and state and the secularization of life as more and more areas of human activity – commerce, politics, law, science, journal- ism, art – escaped the direct sway of church authorities.

19 For a solid account, see Perez Zagorin, How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003). Christianity and intramural dissent 121

The nineteenth-century removal of legal religious disabilities and in the new United States separation of church and state sprung from conflicts between groups of Christians who had coalesced into separate churches – Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, Baptists, and so on. It could be argued that the nineteenth century saw a religious mobilization that temporarily strengthened 20 the identities of different churches and their ability to manage internal dissent. In the long run, assimilation, mobility, intermarriage, and secularization undermined those identities and that ability. Today virtually any attempt to manage intramural dissent in Christian churches provokes further dissent. Among Protestant bodies, this usually focuses on the necessity or pastoral appropriateness of any action that seems to exclude or stigmatize fellow believers. Among Catholics, criticism often focuses on the procedures of Vatican offices or local bishops. The Catholic Theological Society of America has repeatedly come to the defense of censured theologians; in turn, it has criticized official procedures and proposed alternatives. Richard R. Gaillardetz, the editor of a volume containing extensive criticism of the American bishops’ 2011 censure of a book by Sister Elizabeth Johnson, acknowledges, “We live in a time when authority is almost habitually 21 viewed with suspicion.” A major question, raised by another contributor to that volume, is whether these disputes have become irrelevant in a world where the environment in which beliefs are inculcated and reproduced is one of visual media, digital communications, and consumerist mentalities. 22 How does church teaching really function in the twenty-first century? Three case studies drawn from the United States illustrate the challenge. The hallmark of evangelical Christianity has long been resistance to liberal Christians’ accommodations with natural science, history, archaeology, and textual criticism in understanding scripture. For decades the Southern Baptist Convention, the United States’ largest Protestant denomination, has tried to root out even the slightest deviations from “biblical inerrancy.” Confronted by the denomination’s essentially congregational structure, the defenders of inerrancy embarked on a conscious plan to win the annual election to the Convention’s presidency for a stretch of at least a decade. From this office, they systematically replaced trustees and presidents of Southern Baptist

20 The fortunes of Christianity after the French Revolution and during the Industrial Revolution are recounted in MacCulloch, Christianity, chapter 22, “Europe Re-enchanted or Disenchanted (1815–1924); Charles Taylor, in A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), portrays these cross-currents in two chapters, “Nineteenth-Century Trajectories,” pp. 377–419,and“The Age of Mobilization,” pp. 423–472. 21 Richard R. Gaillardetz (ed.), When the Magisterium Intervenes: The Magisterium and Theologians in Today’s Church (Collegeville, MI: Liturgical Press, 2012), p. 294. 22 Vincent J. Miller, in Gaillardetz (ed.), When the Magisterium Intervenes, chapter 7, “When Mediating Structures Change: The Magisterium, the Media, and the Culture Wars,” pp. 154–174. 122 Peter Steinfels seminaries and institutions of higher education, of the denominational publishers and news service, of agencies overseeing Sunday School education, public affairs, foreign missions, and so on – sometimes by dismissals but mostly by attrition. To a large extent, this “long march” through Southern Baptist institutions succeeded, even at the cost of alienating distinguished leaders and institutions and quite likely losing members. And of course the battle is 23 never-ending. For Roman Catholicism, the gravest recent difficulty in managing intramural dissent was posed by its condemnation of contraception. In the 1960s, facing new moral arguments about the anovulant pill as well as alarms about population growth, Pope John XXIII appointed – and his successor, Paul VI, enlarged – a papal commission to reexamine church teaching. The majority of commission members recommended reconsidering the ban – and their arguments were leaked to the public in 1967, at a time when the Second Vatican Council had primed many Catholics for a change. When Paul VI, in his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, nonetheless reaffirmed the official condemnation, the church suffered a major crisis of authority, which spread from shrugging off the reasserted ban to questioning all sex-related teaching and on to even further areas. The crisis contributed to a sharp drop in Mass 24 attendance and an exodus from the priesthood. In 1993, the Rev. Avery Dulles, SJ, a theologian and future cardinal respected in all sectors of American Catholicism, warned of the “ripple effect” the controversy was having: the alienation of priests and people and the elimination from church 25 leadership of otherwise qualified theologians and potential bishops. Indeed, under John Paul II, whose papacy stretched from 1978 to 2005, this “ripple effect” continued apace, leading to a more conservative hierarchy often perceived as focused on little more than opposition to legalized abortion and same-sex unions while failing to prevent the sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy. Beginning with differences over contraception, the Catholic campaign to manage dissent appeared only to have metastasized it. The surprising resignation in 2013 of John Paul II’s successor, Benedict XVI, followed by the election of Pope Francis, a “reformer,” has opened a new chapter in the Catholic approach to dissent. Francis has challenged the priority

23 There are many accounts of the remaking of the Southern Baptist Convention. Nancy Tatom Ammerman, Baptist Battles (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1990)is one. The conservative leadership’s perspective can be found in an online column by R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, www.albert mohler.com/2006/06/14/the-southern-baptist-reformation-a-first-hand-account/. Mohler on the never-ending struggle: www.albertmohler.com/2010/08/16/the-inerrancy-of-scripture- the-fifty-years-war-and-counting/ (accessed October 23, 2013). 24 The Rev. Andrew M. Greeley, a leading sociologist of religion, argued this in many places. 25 Avery Dulles, S.J., “‘Humanae Vitae’ and the Crisis of Dissent,” Origins (April 22, 1993): 774–777. Christianity and intramural dissent 123 his predecessors put on quelling dissent and that conservative hierarchies put on combatting abortion and same-sex marriage. He has done this by way of personal comments (e.g. “Who am I to judge?”–said of gay men sincerely seeking God) and institutionally (urging the 2014 Synod of Bishops on the Family to debate freely and, when sharp disagreements surfaced, declaring that he would have been worried if they had not). He has stressed “mercy” and pastoral outreach over anxiety about maintaining moral standards. At the Synod on the Family contraception itself was oddly ignored; but other topics that would scarcely have been on the table if Catholics had not already divided over sexual morality – the sacramental status of divorced and remarried Catholics, cohabitation, same-sex unions – made headlines. Despite Francis’ openness, it is not yet clear how the clashing views on such matters will be resolved. Will the pope issue a final ruling, like Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae? Will he and the church abide by whatever the required two-thirds majority approves at the follow-up Synod in 2015? Will dissent be managed only by some longer-term evolution of overwhelming consensus uniting bishops and pope alike? Or perhaps not be managed at all? While moral disagreement over same-sex attractions and relationships has increasingly riled Roman Catholicism, it has become a much more deeply divisive issue for Anglicanism worldwide and for many older, “mainline” Christian denominations in the United States. The first voices calling for a new Christian understanding of the experience of gay and lesbian people were raised in the wake of the churches’ engagement in the struggle for racial equality followed by feminist-inspired challenges to barriers to women’s ordination. Mainline Protestant leadership often viewed gay and lesbian arguments for equal treatment in the light of these earlier struggles. Congregants were much more divided. Many identified with the evangelical backlash to dramatic changes in sexual norms marking the late 1960s and 1970s. It was one thing for their churches to pass resolutions opposing discrimination against homosexuals in employment, housing, and criminal justice. It was something else to alter language bearing on sexual morality and all that this implied for church membership, ordination, marriage, and public rituals. Again and again such changes were proposed to the churches’ governing assemblies, conferences, or conventions of delegates that meet at intervals of several years. Again and again the proposed changes were rejected. National caucuses and lobbies advocating gay and lesbian equality formed in every mainline church. Matching, usually evangelical groups emerged as well. Church-wide assemblies were preceded by intense lobbying. At the meetings, gay and lesbian sympathizers wore identifying garb and, in the face of adverse votes, mounted protests. Both advocates and opponents of change enlisted local congregations and regional bodies. Church policies were tested by ordained minsters who declared themselves in gay or lesbian relationships, by candidates for ordination who did the same, and by blessings of same-sex 124 Peter Steinfels unions. Church trials or rulings about withdrawing ministerial credentials or barring ordinations generated publicity and personalized the conflict without being decisive. Meanwhile, theological debate focused above all on the handful of biblical passages condemning same-sex relations and secondarily on what weight should be given to personal experience and current social science, alongside scripture and tradition, in theological reflection. Virtually every denomination appointed commissions to study the issue. Same-sex orientation and acts could not be evaluated apart from judgments on larger issues such as the authority of scripture and the meaning of sexuality in general. Yet to delve into these larger issues vastly enlarged the range of likely objections. A 1991 Presbyterian Church (United States) study reexamining all sexual morality, for example, stirred outrage. By contrast, a 1991 United Methodist Church study focused on homosexuality alone and was a particularly interesting example of trying to manage internal disagreement. The committee agreed on a long list of matters: (1) that the Bible deals with homosexual acts in relatively few passages; (2) that all of these seven references are negative; (3) that the biblical writers had no concept of sexual orientation as a fundamental component of personality; (4) that scholars are divided about how to interpret these passages and how to apply them today; (5) that the church has recognized some scriptural directives as no longer applicable, for example those about stoning idolators or about women not speaking in church; (6) that biblical statements on sexuality cannot be considered binding today just because they are in the Bible but must be considered in the light of the basic biblical message and of their socio-cultural contexts; (7) that the church includes substantial numbers of homosexuals whose gifts “manifest the work of the Spirit”;(8) that “the church cannot teach that gay and lesbian persons are generally dysfunctional” or “prone to seduce or corrupt others”; that although it cannot be authoritatively said whether sexual orientation is fixed before or after birth, “the church cannot teach that sexual orientation, either heterosexual or homosexual, is deliberately chosen”; and (9) that the emotional intensity of discussions of homosexuality arises from fear that any change in Christian standards about sexuality will contribute seriously to the erosion of the whole. Despite these agreements, the committee remained divided on the bottom line. For the majority, “the present state of knowledge and insight in the biblical, theological, ethical, biological, psychological and sociological fields does not provide a satisfactory basis upon which the church can responsibly maintain the condemnation of homosexual practice.” The minority replied that “the present state of knowledge” about all those fields “does not provide a satisfactory basis upon which the church can responsibly alter its previously held position.” Christianity and intramural dissent 125

In May 1992 the denomination’s General Conference voted 710–238 to maintain the position that homosexual practice was “incompatible with Christian teaching,” rejecting the view that the phrase be deleted because of 26 the church’s “lack of a common mind.” For most denominations this standoff remained the pattern for decades. Passionate appeals and actions publicly challenging church teaching elicited minor accommodations. But church-wide assemblies regularly rejected fundamental change. Each cycle produced rumors and threats of schism, followed by laments over divisiveness and pleas for moratoriums on the debate. An exception was the traditionally liberal United Church of Christ, advantaged by its congregational polity. In the 1970s it began leaving decisions about accepting clergy in non-celibate same-sex relationships to individual congregations. In 2003, after decades of bending church rules, the Episcopal Church (United States) achieved some closure by consecrating a bishop living openly in a monogamous same-sex partnership and six years later would open all official leadership positions to such individuals. This precipitated a crisis in the Anglican Communion. Several Anglican churches in Africa, later joined by conservative leaders from other continents, threatened to split the global Anglican Communion. After protracted consultations under Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, his successor as leader of Anglicanism’s “mother church,” Archbishop Justin Welby, concluded that 27 a break was probably irreparable. In 2009, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America dropped opposition to clergy in same-sex monogamous relationships, and the Presbyterian Church (USA) soon followed suit. All these groups have suffered from declining numbers, and decisions about homosexuality appear to have increased the losses and encouraged competition from rival Episcopal, Lutheran, and Presbyterian churches. The United Methodists have resisted the trend toward changing their teaching. The May 2012 General Conference voted once again to retain the “incompatible” phrase rather than approve compromise “agree to disagree” alternatives. But agitation continues. Prominent clergy have officiated at same-sex marriages or ordained individuals in same-sex unions. The denomination’s Judicial Council has managed to avoid any decisive ruling. Regional leaders have argued that clergy can simply disregard the church’s position as unjust, and clergy increasingly do so without incurring any serious penalties. The air is filled with talk of schism or of leaving the

26 For the reports and debates as of 1991, see Peter Steinfels, “Ideas and Trends: What God Really Thinks About Who Sleeps with Whom,” New York Times (June 2, 1991), “Methodist Panel Is Split on Homosexuality Issue,” New York Times (August 28, 1991), and “Beliefs,” New York Times (September 28, 1991). 27 Trevor Grundy, “Archbishop Justin Welby: ‘There Is A Possibility that we will not hold together.” Religion News Service. www.religionnews.com/2014/12/09/archbishop-justin- welby-possibility-will-not-hold-together/ (accessed December 10, 2014). 126 Peter Steinfels

28 matter to local congregations. Maintaining the denomination’s position has not kept the United Methodists, too, from declining in numbers, for some members simply because of the interminable nature of the conﬂict. In the twenty-ﬁrst century, at least in settings like the United States, Christian churches can no longer look to the coercive power of civil authorities nor cultural hegemony nor strong denominational identity nor unequivocal legal leverage over local congregations nor unchallenged control over academic theology and the formation of clergy nor the old-time fear of hell to assure conformity of belief. Of course the reality differs from one Christian group to another, but what appears generally determinative is the relationship of the mass of believers to the surrounding culture. Roman Catholics, for example, long felt at odds with Protestant America, of which the church’s stance on contraception was one sign. That tension ended with the election of John F. Kennedy and the Second Vatican Council, and without it the highest church authorities were unable to quell massive theological and grass-roots dissent on contraception. Southern Baptists, in turn, long carried the banner of a defeated and besieged region and transferred those sentiments from a defense of segregation to the defense of biblical “inerrantism” and with corresponding court battles about teaching evolution in public schools. In short, the theological cause of “inerrancy” rode the emotional waves of political polarization, regional identity, and the culture wars, but for how 29 much longer? Mainline Protestantism was not long ago the dominant culture, and when that, with the participation of mainline dissenters, began to shift on same-sex relations, there was little to keep mainline denominations from eventually shifting with it. The United Methodist Church is the exception that proves the rule. Just as an Anglican shift on homosexuality has been challenged by African Anglicans whose theological views coincide with attitudes found in their local cultures, the margins of votes needed to sustain the United Methodist position has come from delegates living outside the United 30 States.

28 Timothy C. Morgan, “Is Gay Marriage Destroying the United Methodist Church? Progressives Violate Ban on Same-sex Unions, Sparking Fresh Talk of Schism,” Gleanings, a blog of Christianity Today. www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2014/june/is-gay-marriage- destroying-united-methodist-church.html?paging=off. Consulted December 10, 2014.Sarah Pulliam Bailey, “Methodists Resolve Gay Marriage Complaint Against 36 Pastors Without a Trial,” Religion News Service. www.religionnews.com/2014/10/06/methodists-resolve-gay- marriage-complaint-36-pastors-without-trial/ (accessed December 10, 2014). 29 See Neil King, Jr., “Evangelical Leader Preaches a Pullback from Politics, Culture Wars,” Wall Street Journal (October 22, 2013): 1. 30 Daniel Burke, “Methodists Uphold Policy that Calls Homosexuality ‘Incompatible with Christian Teaching’,” Religion News Service (May 4, 2012): www.religionnews. com/2012/05/03/methodists-uphold-policy-that-homosexuality-is-incompatible-with- christian Christianity and intramural dissent 127

Scope Pointing to division of powers within the church and delegated representatives to church-wide assemblies, some older Protestant Christian denominations view their polity, including their mechanisms for managing intramural dissent, as forerunners to liberal democratic institutions. There is a pride in Protestant advocacy of freedom of conscience and of the right to form groups by means of a common covenant. At present, Catholic Christianity, still at a loose end over how internal dissent can best be managed, probably sees its past record of managing intramural disagreement as more of a model not to be emulated by others. As for Christianity’s other great families, Anglicanism is in turmoil about intramural dissent, Orthodoxy is in stasis, and Pentecostalism remains too ﬂuid and congregational for larger patterns to jell. Christians believe that their teachings about forbearance, honesty, and so on would serve all kinds of organizations. But most Christian bodies, while happy to exist legally as voluntary associations, also believe themselves to be a very particular type of voluntary association, shaped by humans but called into existence by God. Christians do not assume that Christianity’s own ways of managing intramural dissent would necessarily be appropriate to secular or even other religious associations and vice versa. Chapter 7

Intramural dissent on core beliefs in Islam

Meena Sharify-Funk

Introduction: primary sources in Islam The Arabic word, muslim, means “the one who surrenders.” In the religion of Islam, a Muslim is one who surrenders to the will of al-Lah (which, translated 1 from Arabic, literally means “the God”). For Muslims, guidance for living in accordance with God’s will may be found in the Holy Book of the Qur’an as well as in the Prophet Muhammad’s example and model. Surrendering to and following God’s will necessarily means dissent from the norms that do not express this will. For centuries, this has presented Muslims with a threefold challenge: ﬁrst, discerning God’s will amidst the complexity of authoritative texts and lived contexts; second, navigating genuine disagreements concerning what is right, true, and incumbent upon believers; and third, deciding on the most appropriate mode of dissent and manner of expression. A key position of this chapter is that focusing keenly on dilemmas associated with the latter two issues – the diversity of Islamic truth claims and the question of how dissent ought to be expressed – can provide contemporary Muslims with a means of deepening their engagement with textual sources, and enriching communal dialogue about the nature of God’s will for humanity within a contemporary context of global life.

Islam’s sacred book: the Qur’an As the sacred scripture of Islam, the Qur’an is a book slightly shorter than 2 the New Testament in Christianity. For Muslims, the Qur’an is God’s ﬁnal guidance to humanity, authored by God and revealed to the last Prophet,

1 Arabic-speaking Christians (for example Syrian Orthodox or Roman Catholic) also use the name, Allah, to refer to the One God. 2 Some material on primary sources and key tenets for this chapter is adapted from my co-authored section (with William Rory Dickson) on Islam published in Doris Jakobsh’s edited volume, World Religions: Canadian Perspectives (Toronto: Nelson Publishers, 2013), pp. 150–200.

128 Intramural dissent on core beliefs in Islam 129

Muhammad. Resembling parts of the Old and New Testaments, the Qur’an warns of the Day of Judgment, exhorts Muslims to charity, kindness, and justice, and recounts stories of the prophets of old. The Qur’an further contains commandments and prohibitions, from which key aspects of Islamic law are derived. If there is one theme to draw from the text, it is undoubtedly the overwhelming reality of God, who simultaneously transcends all thought and imagination and yet whose signs are found in the world and the human soul. And there are many signs in the heavens and in the earth that they pass by and give no heed to. (12:105) We will show them Our signs on the horizons and in their own souls, until it becomes clear to them that this is the Truth. (41:53) The Qur’an permeates Muslim life, not only in prayers, but also on the radio, television, and in public in most Muslim countries. Those who recite the Qur’an with particular skill and grace gain fame in the Muslim world for their ability to bring Islam’s sacred scripture to life. The Qur’an is further woven throughout classical Islamic literature and poetry. Suﬁsm’s great poet of love Jalaluddin Rumi (d. 1273) was the best-selling poet in America in the 3 late 1990s. He refers to Qur’anic verses and themes throughout his works. It is fair to say that the imagery of the Qur’an has shaped the landscape of Muslim minds and imaginations for centuries, to a degree rarely paralleled in history or religions.

The Prophet Muhammad’s lifestyle: the Sunnah and the Hadith After the Qur’an, the second most important sacred source in Islam is the Sunnah. The Arabic word sunnah literally means “trodden path,” and more generally refers to a person’s lifestyle or habitual practice. In the context of Islam, the Sunnah refers to (a) the lifestyle of the Prophet Muhammad, and (b) the lifestyle of the early Muslim communities of Mecca and Medina. If the Qur’an provides ideal guidance for Muslims to live in accordance with God’s will and command, the Prophet Muhammad’s behavior in words and deeds provides the best guide to implement the Qur’anic command into everyday life. Therefore, the ideal lifestyle for a Muslim to observe is the way of the Prophet: how he organized his life spiritually, economically, intellectually, socially, politically – in all spheres. In short, Muslims seek to emulate the way and practice of the Prophet Muhammad, as he is the best example of how to live the teachings of the Qur’an. This is why the majority of Muslims describe themselves as Sunni, “the People of the Sunnah.” It is important to note that Shi‘a Muslims also follow the Sunnah. The Sunnah of the Prophet includes not only his actions, but also his sayings and those actions of others to which he gave silent approval or tacit consent.

3 Franklin D. Lewis, Rumi Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teachings and Poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi (Oxford: Oneworld, 2008), p. 1. 130 Meena Sharify-Funk

How do Muslims access the Sunnah? The Sunnah is recorded in the Hadith. Hadith literally means a story, or report. In the context of Islam, Hadith are written reports about what the Prophet said and did. Starting in the ninth century ce, scholars of Hadith developed criteria to determine the authenticity of reports about the Prophet. These scholars analyzed the content of Hadith texts in light of the Qur’an, and evaluated the trustworthiness of the transmitters of the Hadith. Each Hadith has an isnad, or chain of transmission support- ing a Hadith going back to the Prophet. If any one of the transmitters in the chain is thought to be unreliable, due to a reputation for poor memory or lying, or if it is deemed historically unlikely that one transmitter in the chain could have met the next, a Hadith may be deemed to be weak or of dubious authenticity. The Sunnah of the Prophet forms the ideal way of life for Muslims. The Sunnah functions as a pattern of behavior and manners that Muslims strive to imitate in their daily lives. The Hadith collections provide written accounts of the Prophet’s behavior in remarkable detail, including his style of hair, what foods he preferred, how he sat, ate, and how he interacted with his wives, etc. For example, following the Prophet, Muslims eat with their right hands, avoid foods that he disliked, and wear colors he is reported to have worn frequently. Besides functioning as a pattern of life that unites Muslim practice around the world, the Hadith (as the written record of the Prophet’s Sunnah) are the second most important source of Islamic law, the shari‘ah. 4 Due to the diversity of Hadith collections and the differences in interpreting the Qur’an and the Sunnah, within 500 years of the Prophet’s death a variety of legalistic schools would emerge and inﬂuence the institutionalization and regionalization of particular hermeneutical understandings of Islam. While each legalistic school sought to be comprehensive and authoritative, traditional legal scholars developed what might be called an “ethics of disagreement” 5 with respect to their differences. For the most part, Islamic culture was able to accommodate differences between legalistic schools (madhahib,sing. madhhab), particularly when larger issues of sectarian identity (speciﬁcally Shi‘a–Sunni differences) were not at stake.

4 There is a tradition that states the idea to codify the Hadith occurred to Umar (the second Sunni leader of the Muslim community after the Prophet Muhammad); however, it was not until 300 years after the Prophet’s death that the collection and codification processes of the Hadith were seen as definitive collections. In the Sunnite tradition there were six definitive collections of Hadith and in the Shiite tradition over four collections and each collection was named after the individuals who collected them. The Sunnite collections are: al-Bukhari (d. 870), Muslim (d. 675), Abu Dawud (d. 888), at-Tirmidhi (d. 892), an-Nasa’i (d. 915), and ibn Majah (d. 886). And the four definitive Shiite collections are by: al-Kuluni (d. 939), al-Qummi (d. 991), at-Tusi (d. 1067), and al-Murtada (d. 1044). 5 Taha Jabir al-Alwani, The Ethics of Disagreement in Islam (Herndon, VA: IIIT Publishing, 2011). Intramural dissent on core beliefs in Islam 131

Undeniably, providing patronage to legal scholars (the ‘Ulama, or learned ones) was an important means by which Muslim rulers sought to enhance the legitimacy of their leadership. The claim to uphold divine will made manifest in the findings of legal scholars with respect to shari‘ah was a foundation of legitimacy for traditional Muslim leaders. At the same time, shari‘ah was also a framework for dissent. Conceived as a protective code in the face of often arbitrary caliphs, sultans, and emirs, shari‘ah defined fundamental rights and offered hope that fickle, abusive, and self-serving judgments by rulers might be constrained. Challenging leaders on the grounds of fidelity to shari‘ah,therefore, was a primary mode of dissent in pre-modern Islamic culture. This mode of dissent persists in the present, mixing perennial concerns about justice and propriety with a cultural politics of authenticity and post-colonial revivalism.

Islam in the global era: discontinuity and continuity Contemporary Muslims are fragmented on questions pertaining to what constitutes legitimate dissent, and differ also on the manner in which dissent ought to be expressed. Much of this fragmentation can be attributed to modern historical experience, and the nature of the Islamic encounter with what is often referred to as “Western modernity.” Having encountered the ideas of Western liberalism at the receiving end of colonial enterprises, Muslims are decidedly at odds about where and how the boundary between authenticity and inauthenticity ought to be drawn. In the face of historical discontinuity, political polarization, and hermeneutical fragmentation, various camps of interpretation have emerged, often under labels such as “modernism,”“traditionalism,” and “revivalism.” For many Muslims, the colonial experience still looms large over the subject of dissent. Revival and recovery of authenticity are preeminent priorities, and restoring continuity with authoritative tradition is closely associated with social justice priorities and the critique of privileged, Western-oriented elites. In such cases dissent is primarily directed in one of two directions: outward, against forces perceived as encroaching on the rights of Muslims and perpetuating major injustices, or upward, against rulers and politically compromised religious leaders who are perceived as complicit with a neo-colonial agenda. For others, the imperatives of inward self-critique and reform exert a more powerful claim. For those who take this position, contemporary Muslims face not just the challenge of restoring dignity and cultural continuity, but also the challenge of rediscovering themselves in a global context and rereading sacred texts without giving undue precedence to past historical syntheses. Within this more reformist current of Islamic thought, the scope for internal dissent is broad, inviting confrontation with what was previously “unthinkable” or 6 simply “unthought.”

6 Mohammad Arkoun, The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought (London: Saqi Books, 2002). 132 Meena Sharify-Funk

Key tenets or core beliefs Despite the diversity of Muslim peoples and the many different ways Muslims practice their faith, Muslims are united by the core beliefs of monotheism, prophecy, and moral accountability.

Monotheism Like Jews and Christians, Muslims believe that there is only one God who is the Creator of the cosmos, the world, and humanity. The Qur’an declares that Muslims worship the God of Abraham – a God who is all-powerful and all-knowing, as well as merciful and loving. Unlike Jews and Christians, Muslims believe that the revelation given to Muhammad in the Qur’an restores the original, universal monotheism of Abraham. Highlighting what all three Abrahamic faiths share, the Qur’an addresses Jews and Christians as the People of the Book (Ahl al-Kitab), acknowledging that Jews and Christians too have received a legitimate revelation from God: Say: People of the Book, let us arrive at a statement that is common to us all: we worship God alone, we ascribe no partner to Him; and none of us takes others beside God as lords. (3:64) In Arabic, the principle of God’s oneness is known as tawhid, a word meaning “to make one.” By accepting faith in the one God, Muslims reject what the Qur’an deems to be the one unforgivable sin: shirk, or associating any partners with God. Like the Torah, which states, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord” (Deut. 6:4), the Qur’an states, “Your God is one, so devote yourselves to Him” (22:34). For Muslims the oneness of God is the central belief around which all else revolves.

Prophecy How does one come to know God and His will for human life? Muslims believe that God intervenes in human history, selecting particularly righteous people to convey His guidance. The Qur’an affirms that God sent prophets to all peoples, to every nation. One Islamic tradition states that God has sent 124,000 prophets since the beginning of humanity. According to Muslim tradition, Adam is both the first man and the first prophet, whereas Muhammad is the last prophet sent to humanity. He is described as the “Seal of the Prophets.” Though previous prophets were sent to a particular people, the Prophet Muhammad is believed by Muslims to have been sent to all of humanity, bringing God’s final revelation, the Qur’an. Muslims believe that Muhammad was a special type of prophet: a messenger. Whereas some prophets are sent with a narrow mandate to warn a particular people against wrongdoing and offer moral guidance, messengers constitute a special type of prophet who brings a sacred law and revelation that has universal validity for a period of time. The Qur’an describes five such Intramural dissent on core beliefs in Islam 133 messengers, known as the “prophets of firm resolve”: Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. Muslims believe that a messenger is like a mirror with no defect, which perfectly reflects the light of God’s revelation to people. Not all prophets are messengers, as not all bring a revelation or law, but all messengers are prophets, in that they are commissioned by God to warn and guide people. The Qur’an names a variety of prophets, including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon, and Jesus.

Moral accountability Prophets and messengers are sent to guide people to the truth, but also to warn them of punishment if they fail to heed guidance and if they commit acts of evil and injustice. Like Jews, Christians, and other peoples of faith, Muslims believe we live in a profoundly just universe. Though we may not see this justice fulfilled on earth, according to the Qur’an, at the end of time all of humanity will be raised from death and brought before God to account for their actions while alive. This day is called the Day of Resurrection and Judgment. The Qur’an describes how on this day those who had faith and did good deeds will be rewarded with Paradise: a realm of bliss, happiness, and pleasure lasting for all of eternity. Those who reject faith, and whose evil deeds outweigh their good ones, will be punished in Hell: a realm of perpetual pain and suffering. The urgency of the Qur’an’s reminder to people of their moral accountability is due to this finality: on the Day of Judgment there will be no more time for repentance and no further time to make up for lost opportunities. One’s fate will be determined for all of eternity. Muslims believe that all people are born in a state of original purity or naturalness, known as the fitrah. The fitrah is the original human disposition, the state in which people were created. In this original, primordial state, people naturally acknowledge the reality of the one true God and incline toward goodness. However, people are conditioned by their social contexts to believe many different things and their original nature is corrupted. Muslims believe the teachings of Islam allow humans to restore their original state of goodness and recognition of their Lord and Creator. This recognition of God, or turning toward God is called in the Qur’an tawbah: a word that means literally “to turn around.” Sometimes translated as repentance, tawbah is the human movement away from falsehood and injustice toward God and beauti- ful character traits. For Sufis, the mystics of Islam, tawbah is the first step on the seeker’s spiritual ascent to God. As previously mentioned these are the central beliefs that all Muslims are expected to uphold. Even with all the cultural, ethnic, political, sectarian, and interpretive diversity of Muslims, one can find adherence to the spirit of these three beliefs. That said, Islam is more fundamentally a religion of orthopraxis than orthodoxy, and dissent inevitably emerges when one moves from general principles to discussion of their practical and behavioral implications. Authority to define the content of orthodox practice is contested among 134 Meena Sharify-Funk sectarian groups as well as among scholars with different interpretive tendencies, and questions concerning the authentically Islamic position on a given matter often seem to beg another question: “Whose Islam?” Just as there are many Christianities and Judaisms, so too are there many formulations of Islamic piety and politics that contend for the attention of Muslims, and that represent themselves as the only “authentic” perspective to those who do not declare themselves believers.

Priorities There is much greater unity among Muslims on core precepts and prophetic history than in discussions over how best to apply and practice Islamic principles. Theological positions such as tawhid, concerning the unity of God, are considered non-negotiable for authentic membership within the faith. In contrast, questions concerning who has authority to define a particular Muslim community’s social and (especially with respect to sectarian differences) ritual practice are a source of greater disputation. These disputes persist despite the strong priority placed on communal unity and consensus, and are often sharpened by this same value. Many ongoing debates within Muslim communities reflect tensions between authoritative tradition on the one hand, and individual interpretation and understanding on the other. In the contemporary era, for example, there is considerable friction among traditionalist, revivalist, and modernist/reformist approaches to the understanding of Islamic norms and values. Protagonists of modernizing reform tend to highlight the value Islamic sources place on reason and using one’s God-given faculties of discernment to arrive at ways of being Islamic that are coherent in the present time and context. However, traditionalists place a much stronger emphasis on communal unity and adherence to a past consensus of religious scholars. Revivalists, in turn, underscore unity and obedience to a select subset of behavioral norms, understood to have been revealed or commanded from the earliest times. Whereas Muslim advocates of progressive change and principled flexibility underscore the need for continual interpretive effort (ijtihad) to give direction to faith in ways that take special account of time and place, more assertively communitarian thinkers fear fragmentation, individualism, and imitation of non-Muslim cultures and ideologies, particularly Western liberalism. At the center of many such debates is the subject of shari‘ah. The word shari‘ah means literally a “path” and in pre-Islamic Arabia was used to refer to a path leading to a source of water. In Islam, the shari‘ah refers to the sacred law, the divine balance Muslims are to uphold and live by. In basic terms, the shari‘ah is a code of duties and principles according to which women and men should structure their lives. Besides the Qur’an and Sunnah, another traditional secondary source for codifying shari‘ah was ijma. Intramural dissent on core beliefs in Islam 135

Ijma literally means “consensus,” and within Islamic law refers to the consensus of Muslim jurists on a particular issue. In classical Islamic jurisprudence, ability to demonstrate that all of the jurists of a particular generation of Muslims agreed upon an issue in and of itself functions as a proof or determination of the law. As can be imagined, demonstrating the universal agreement of jurists is a difficult thing to do, and ijma as a result is rarely used as a legal proof, despite its 7 acknowledged validity as a principle. The famous jurist al-Shafi’iheldthatijma functioned as a proof for the five pillars of the faith: the basic practices of Islam were so widely affirmed as authentic by the early jurists that their very unanimity functioned in this case as a binding consensus. Though ijma in a technical sense was less frequently operative as a universal consensus on less fundamental guidelines for social aspects of human behavior, the larger principle of adhering to accepted communal practice has played an important role in the shaping of Muslim societies and states. Some Muslim jurists include custom as a further source of law. This does not refer to an individual’s custom, but to the custom of a collectivity, to cultural 8 practices and traditions. Cultural customs that do not contravene the shari‘ah are to be upheld within a court of law: as long as a people’s customary practice does not go against God’s commands, it can be acknowledged legally. In this sense Islam is not meant to replace a people’s culture, but rather refine it in light of the Qur’an. Cultural practices that do not contradict Qur’anic principles are to be respected and valued for their role in shaping and integrating a people’s collective life. Islamic jurists aspire to know shari‘ah as the divine law that guides Muslim life, revealed in the Qur’an and Sunnah, yet many reflective thinkers have acknowledged a distinction between divine law as a transcendent category and the always unfinished efforts of jurists to know and practically implement shari‘ah through the process known as fiqh, or Islamic jurisprudence. The word fiqh means “understanding” and refers to juristic efforts to understand and implement God’scommands.Whilefiqh and shari‘ah are frequently conflated in popular piety, knowledgeable practitioners of the discipline of fiqh within schools of legal thought have recognized the role of human agency as aspiring to derive communal norms from sacred sources. Taking human interpretive agency into account more explicitly has important ramifications for those who seek to amplify the role of constructive intramural dissent in Islamic communities.

Consequences Historically as well as in the present day, intramural dissent among Muslims has sometimes proven destructive. Less than three decades after the passing of

7 Muhammad Hisham Kamali, Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence (Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 2003), p. 248. 8 Kamali, Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence,p.369. 136 Meena Sharify-Funk the Prophet Muhammad, for example, Caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib, himself a relative and son-in-law to the Prophet, was assassinated by a member of a breakaway group known as the Khawarij, who believed the Qur’an could only be interpreted literally and without human interpretive mediation. This early conflict over the extent to which religious sources allow for flexible practice and the exercise of human judgment is comparable to debates within other religious systems, and has been evoked as a metaphor for contemporary rivalries between “mainstream” Muslims and those who manifest a more hardline variety of puritanism within which it is acceptable to denounce rivals as religiously deviant through a practice known as takfir (basically, denoun- 9 cing someone as a non-Muslim). Such inflexibility was not, however, the norm in classical Islamic jurisprudence. During the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries ce, a number of legal schools formed around particularly pious and learned scholars of Islamic law. Students came from around the Muslim world to study with famed jurists in centers of study such as Medina in Arabia and Kufa in Iraq. Some of these students spent years learning the methodology of a particular jurist, which they then transmitted to others, leading to the formation of a school of legal thought (madhhab). Most jurisprudential schools died out, leaving only four accepted by Sunnis as orthodox: the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi, and Hanbali, all named after the founder of the school. Twelver Shi‘as (see Table 7.1) follow the Jafari legal school, founded by the Sixth Shi‘a Imam, Jafar as-Sadiq (702–765). Throughout history Muslim empires lent official support and patronage to legal schools, establishing their rulings as normative in different regions of the Muslim world. Furthermore, Muslim missionaries transmitted not only the core beliefs of Islam, but also the school of law in which they practiced the religion. This has led to the present state of affairs, whereby the surviving legal schools dominate in certain geographical regions. Despite this apparent geographic fragmentation, however, the mainstream schools of Islamic law practice a form of mutual recognition within which the Islamic authenticity of other schools is accepted as valid. Despite differences in jurisprudence, the principle of a single Muslim ummah or nation remains highly salient, resulting in a widely affirmed ethos of religious cosmopolitanism. The priorities placed on maintaining unity within the ummah and on institutionalizing the various madhahib of Islamic jurisprudence have been powerful forces not only for mutual toleration, but also for cultural conservatism. Historically, the emphasis placed on building and maintaining consensus has resulted in a negative valuation of innovation (bid‘a) in matters of jurisprudence. While the need for ijtihad (interpretive effort by qualified jurists) was acknowledged by the traditional schools of law, specifically in instances

9 Ahmed Moussalli, Moderate and Radical Islamic Fundamentalism: The Quest for Modernity, Legitimacy, and the Islamic State (Gainsville: University of Florida Press, 1999). Intramural dissent on core beliefs in Islam 137 when traditional sources offered no obvious solution to new problems and historical developments, rulings which departed too far from established precedent were often rejected as inappropriately innovative and damaging to Muslim unity. While this skeptical view of new juristic thinking was intended not just to support religious authenticity but also to prevent destructive conﬂict or ﬁtnah (dissension), progressive Islamic thinkers argue for more 10 relaxed and accommodating approaches to religious reasoning.

Diversity For centuries, sectarian differences have remained far more resistant to accommodation than differences in jurisprudence. Despite contemporary voices calling for an Islamic ecumenism that embraces Shi‘a as well as Sunni practitioners, early differences over religious leadership have led to enduring intramural rivalries, exacerbated in the last decade by patterns of sectarian mobilization amidst protracted power struggles in Iraq and Syria. Past tensions among Muslim jurists, philosophers, and mystics also persist, and have been sharpened in recent generations by the rise of Islamic revival movements that challenge not only the intellectual systems embraced by Islamic philosophers and the popular piety associated with mysticism, but also the rulings of state-sanctioned jurists.

Sectarian differences Following the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 ce, existing clan tensions bubbled to the surface and helped create the trajectory for the eventual Sunni and Shiite split. After the period of the ﬁrst four Caliphs (Rashidun), a powerful, aristocratic Arab clan, the Umayyads (661–750) formed Islam’s ﬁrst dynasty. The Umayyads were widely perceived as favoring Arabs over non-Arab converts to Islam, leading to an exodus of marginalized Muslims out of the Arabian Peninsula to the fringes of the growing Islamic empire. The Umayyads saw the legitimacy of their rule in particular as threatened by the family of the Prophet and his descendants, whom many of these disenfranchised non-Arab Muslims were drawn to as carriers of the Prophet’s spiritual authority. These tensions came to a head when the Prophet’s grandson, Hussein, was killed in 680 for challenging Umayyad authority, an event that Shiite Muslims commemorate to this day with public mourning during the festival of Ashura. This festival in particular illustrates the profound guilt and nostalgia at the heart of Shiite piety, a sense of failing to protect the Prophet’s family. This mood is uniquely Shiite, with no real equivalent in Sunni theology. Eventually, opposition to the Umayyads and support for the Prophet’s family crystallized

10 Omid Safi (ed.), Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism (London: Oneworld Publishers, 2003). 138 Meena Sharify-Funk in the rise of Islam’s second great dynasty, the Abbasids (750–1258). The first Abbasid ruler was related to the Prophet, which helped him gain emerging Shiite support. Unlike the Umayyads, the Abbasids fused Arab culture with Persian learning and statecraft, creating a more cosmopolitan empire. However, despite their connection to the Prophet’s family, the Abbasids remained a Sunni dynasty, one that was increasingly challenged by a Shiite dynasty known as the Fatimids (909–1171). The Fatimids established powerful centers of learning, such as al-Azhar in Cairo, that threatened the Sunni version of Islam. In response, Sunni authorities began to establish their own centers of learning that would more precisely formulate Sunni teachings. In particular, one of the first great Turkic dynasties to rule central Muslim lands, the Seljuks, established a series of universities in cities such as Baghdad, where Sunni theology and law were standardized, in part to respond to the threat of the Fatimid theological tradition. These competing centers of learning in the Fatimid and Seljuk empires would lead to the formation of distinct Sunni and Shiite schools of thought, enshrining Sunni–Shiite differences in contrasting theologies and legal interpretations. The diverging trajectories of Sunnism and Shiism would be cemented under two of Islam’s last great empires: the Ottomans (1517–1924) and the Safavids (1501–1732). The Safavid shahs ruled Persia using the Twelver version of Shiism as the state religion. They recruited a large number of Shiite scholars from Arab nations, and governed Persia until 1732. They were often vying with the Ottomans for control of central Muslim lands. In contrast to the Safavids, the Ottomans were a Sunni empire that supported the Sunni schools of thought developed under the Seljuks. Sunnism and Shiism were solidified under these empires as two separate theological traditions that in many ways continue in these forms to this day. Although present-day Sunni–Shiite clashes in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon (as well as simmering tensions in Pakistan, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia) are by no means an inevitable consequence of the intellectual syntheses that developed during this time period, the past politicization of sectarian differences has left an imprint on communal attitudes, beliefs, and narratives. In the absence of a robust, well-developed framework for Islamic ecumenism, conflicts rooted in problems of political and economic exclusion have the potential to cascade in destructive ways, with events in one country or context impacting tensions in other regions. Table 7.1 provides a broad overview of Sunni and Shiite differences, with respect to demographics and religious authority as well as politics, jurisprudence, and ritual practice. Although Shiite and Sunni Muslims do not generally differ in their most foundational concepts of theology or in their understandings of Islam’s place in religious and prophetic history, their alternative narratives of Islamic history reflect major differences over political and religious leadership, and present different modes of Islamic practice. Whereas Sunnis advocate a more egalitarian religious ethic within which religious and political leadership are in principle open to all Muslims in table 7.1 Sunni and Shiite Muslims: understanding the two major Islamic communities Categories Sunni Shiite

Demographics * 85–90% of the global Muslim community * 10–15% of the global Muslim community. * Countries in the Middle East, North Africa, Countries such as Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, South and Southeast Asia with predominant Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Russia have Sunni populations include Egypt, Morocco, substantial Shiite populations. Iraq, Lebanon, India, and Indonesia. * Divided into three principal groups: (1) Twelvers (“The Twelve Imam Shiites” or Ithna Ashari): The largest group of Shiites. Found in Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, and eastern Saudi Arabia, and 60% of Iraq.a (2) Seveners (“The Seven Imam Shiites”): The most well-known branch of the Seveners is the Ismailis. They are found in South and Central Asia (especially in India); however, some can be found in East Africa.b (3) Fivers (“The Five Imam Shiites” or Zaydis) are mostly based in Yemen and make up about 40% of the population there.c Each of these branches has its own offshoots: for instance Alevis fall within the Shiite tradition, mostly in Turkey, while Alawites (originating from Syria) and Druzes are found in regions such as Lebanon. table 7.1 (Cont.)

Categories Sunni Shiite

Succession to the * Prophet Muhammad did not select a “religio- * To Shiites, Ali ibn Abu Taleb holds a political Prophet’s authority political” authority for the ummah (community and spiritual function alongside that of the of believers) before he died. Prophet. According to Shiite tradition, the * When Prophet Muhammad died, the leaders Prophet gave Ali preeminent, absolute right to selected Abu Bakr, who was one of the spiritual leadership. This leadership is known Prophet’s closest companions. He was also the as the imamate. Ali, therefore, is known as the Prophet’s father-in-law through his daughter First Imam. Ali was revered for his righteous Aishah. quality, knowledge, and faith. * “Adhere to Ali”–a name given to the followers and supporters of Ali and his family. * Name comes from the Arabic Shi‘at-i-Ali, meaning “followers of Ali ibn Abu Taleb,” who was the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, through marriage to Muhammad’s favorite daughter, Fatimah.

Khilafat/Imamate: first * Believe in the Khilafat (also written as * Due to the great reverence that is given to Ali, four Khilafahs caliphate) or the idea that the Khilafah is the and to his descendants, they were considered (Rashidun) supreme religio-political leader of the Islamic infallible. state after the Prophet Muhammad. * The imamate, according to Shiites, is a divinely * Revere the Rashidun, the first four righteous established office, an “exemplar” and “model Khilafahs: Abu Bakr, Umar ibn al-Khattab, of faith and political power” vested with special Uthman ibn Affan, and Ali ibn Abi Taleb. authority to explain to Muslims how the * Many Sunnis believe in a golden age of Qur’an should be applied in daily life. religious ideals from the time of the Prophet * The word “imam” is also connected to the Prophetic saying, “I am the City of Knowledge, Muhammad until 661, the end of the and Ali is its Door/Gate.” The Imam was the Rashidun era. gate to the Prophet’s way of knowing. * After the Rashidun, the Khilafat retained * This function of the Imam then was passed on legitimate political authority to rule over by designation to Ali’s descendants, who Muslims, whereas the ‘Ulama, or scholars, of would become known as the Imams. the law, retained religious authority. For some Therefore, according to Shiites, all the Imams Sunnis, the Sufi saints were also inheritors of became, like Ali, a door/gate/threshold to the the Prophet’s spiritual authority. Prophet’s understanding. * Reject the Shiite institution of imamate or the * Most Shiites consider the first three caliphs as idea that Prophet Muhammad nominated Ali usurpers and thus illegitimate religio-political ibn Ali Talib – and thereafter his male rulers of the Muslim community. descendants – on God’s command to be the * For the Ismailis the office of imamate First Imam of the Islamic state and the global continues with the current, living Imam the imamate. Aga Khan, who is revered as the 49th Imam. * The caliphate has remained an ideal for many * The Twelver Shiites await the Mahdi or the Sunnis. Hidden Imam, who will return at the end of times. Ahl al-Beit d and Sahabae * Respect all the Ahl al-Beit. * Adoration of the Ahl al-Beit is central to * Sahaba are considered to be the most Shiism. Shiites view the Sahaba as guilty of authoritative sources of information about the preventing their first Imam Ali from conduct of Muhammad and normative succeeding to the caliphate and hence morally examples in their own right, immune from culpable. major sins and beyond criticism. * Follow the Hadith and Sunnah of their * Do not follow Shiite collections of Hadith respective Imams. (reports on the sayings and actions of the * Twelver Shiites commemorate the birth/death Prophet Muhammad). of the Prophet, Fatimah, and the twelve Shiite table 7.1 (Cont.)

Categories Sunni Shiite

* Do not celebrate the birth/death of Fatimah Imams. Ismailis and the Bohras commemorate and Shiite Imams; such celebrations are often the birth/death of their Imams. strongly discouraged, especially by the followers of the Hanbali tradition. Islamic legal interpretive * Although there were many different schools of * Most adhere to the Fiqh-i-Jafariyyah of Jafar traditions legalistic thought that developed historically, as-Sadiq, who was the Sixth Shiite Imam. only four dominant schools from the Sunnite * Jafari-e-Sadiq – based on wide-ranging Hadith tradition emerged. These schools would be literature collected by the early Shiite Imams. known as madhahib, which literally means Though sharing much with the Sunni legal “orientation,”“direction,” or “movement.” schools, Jafari jurisprudence gives authority to * Hanafi – oldest, most widespread and liberal. the Shiite Imams and restricts juristic efforts, Emphasis is on the role of rationality in such as ijtihad, to applying the rulings of the jurisprudence. Most Sunni Muslims in the Imams to new situations. Indian subcontinent and Central Asia, as well * Jafar as-Sadiq also taught Imams Abu Hanifah as Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, follow the Hanafi and Malik ibn Anas, who founded the first two School of law. Sunni schools of law. * Maliki – puts emphasis on the importance of * The application of the law varies from branch public benefit in the law and the traditions of to branch: for instance Ismailis receive their the Prophet. Legal rulings can be changed if it legal authority from their Imam, currently the can be shown that they cause harm, because Aga Khan. the law exists to benefit people. The Maliki School can be found in regions such as North Africa, in countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. * Shafi – based on the integration of both tradition and reason, it is the development of Risala, the first systematic articulation of the sources of Islamic law. Most Muslims in Indonesia and Malaysia, as well as in East Africa, follow this school of legal thought, as well as in some parts of the Middle East. * Hanbali – relies solely on the Qur’an and hadith and thus remains a more conservative legal system. This legalistic school of thought has been revived by ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792) in the Arabian Peninsula. It forms the backbone of the Wahhabi doctrines, which are followed by the religious establishment in Saudi Arabia. (Wahhabism: most conservative but also the smallest in size. It exerts vast influence due to its organization, missionary activities, and funding.) Clerical establishment * No single central authority; however, ‘Ulama * Authority, especially imamate, is based on the are ranked according to their level of theological belief that the Prophet knowledge. Muhammad’s divine light was passed on to his * Although state authorities at times appointed daughter Fatimah, her husband, Imam Ali, and clerics to positions of authority, and clerics their male descendants. were sometimes representatives of the state, in * Different groups of Shiites follow different general the clerical establishment tended to Imams and their particular lineage. For function independently of state authority, with instance the Ismailis follow the Aga Khan, who their own sources of funding (usually is the voice of authority for both spiritual and endowments) and with their own power base mundane affairs. among the populace. table 7.1 (Cont.)

Categories Sunni Shiite

* Twelver Shiism is hierarchically organized with grand ayatollahs at the very apex (similar to the structure of the Roman Catholic Church). Ijtihadf * In the eleventh century ce many Sunnis * Believe that there are superior authoritative believed there were no longer any qualified individuals who are born for each age and these mujtahids. Since that time, most Sunni scholars individuals are known as mujtahids. Therefore, have produced only commentaries upon the gates of ijtihad were never closed. commentaries. * For the Twelvers, the most important * The act of independent juristic reasoning still mujtahids are called ayatollahs. These happens because of the recurrence of new individuals not only decide religious matters situations. Therefore, a tradition of different but they also control finances and taxes. This levels of mujtahid developed. For example: tradition would be developed further in modern times, as seen in the creation of the (1) Mujtahid Mutlaq: interpreters of the Supreme Council in the Islamic Republic of shari‘ah (founders of the four dominant Iran. Most follow the fatwas of the schools). marja’al-taqlid (sources of emulation) or grand (2) Mujtahid Madhahib: lead interpreters of ayatollahs (varies regionally). the school (these individuals came to the * For Ismailis, the ultimate source of law is the consensus that there will be no new codified living Imam, who is currently the Aga Khan. schools; rather they interpret the understanding of Mujtahid Mutlaq). (3) Mujtahid Masa‘il: interpreters of specific issues, who gave fatwas, which basically means “formal legal opinions.” a Twelver Shiites believe that the Twelfth Imam, Mahdi al-Muntazar, born in Samarra (869) did not die. Son of al-Askari and a Byzantine princess, Narjis Khatun (granddaughter of a Byzantine emperor), he became known as the Mahdi and the Qa’im (the permanent Imam until the end of time) or the Hidden Imam. The last Imam is considered by Twelvers to be alive and is expected to return at the end of time. b The Sixth Imam, Jafar as-Sadiq, born in Medina, was a renowned scholar, jurist, and mystic. He is accredited with originating the official Shiite School of Law. He is also seen as a great Sufi by both Sunnis and Shiites. He had two sons who competed for the Seventh Imam title: Ismail and Musa al-Qasim. Ismail, eldest son of Jafar as-Sadiq, was born in Medina, and although he died before his father, Ismailis believe that the imamate passed through Ismail to his son Muhammad. Ismailis would develop one of the most powerful dynasties in Egypt, the Fatimids (909–1171). The followers of Ismail would become known as the Seveners and many branches would develop: Ismailis, Alawis, Druzes, and Nusayris. For Ismailis, there is a strong relationship between exoteric Islam (doctrines and practices) and esoteric Islam (Gnosticism). The current spiritual leader of the Ismailis and the 49th Imam, is Harvard-educated Prince Karim Aga Khan IV. The significance of the Aga Khan is that he is the descendant of the Prophet Muhammad’s daughter, Fatimah; he is known internationally for his various charitable works and development projects. c The Fourth Imam, Ali Zayn al-‘Abidin, was born in Medina (658–712/713). Shiites believe that his mother was a daughter of the last Persian king of the Sassanid dynasty. His descendants would perpetuate the royal blood of the Persian pre-Islamic dynasties as well as influence Islam with Zoroastrian tendencies. There was controversy over who was the true Fifth Imam. Zayn al-‘Abidin’s two sons who competed for the Fifth Imam’s title were: Muhammad al-Baqir (676–731) and Zayd (d. 740). The Zaydis are known as the closest Shiite group to the Sunnis. Zaydis, unlike other Shiite branches, accept the caliphates of Abu Bakr and Umar; however, they are split over Uthman’s caliphate. They also were heavily influenced by the Mutazilites (Muslim Rationalism) and had their own school of law. d A term used for the descendants of the Prophet through his daughter Fatimah. e Those who are believed to have lived, interacted with, heard, or seen the Prophet Muhammad. f Often translated as “independent juristic reasoning” or “independent interpretation.” The technical definition of ijtihad in the context of shari‘ah is the effort expended in formulating new legal understandings. The individual who performs ijtihad is a mujtahid. Ijtihad is controversial because there is disagreement over how to interpret ijtihad and who is qualified to be a mujtahid 146 Meena Sharify-Funk accordance with piety and personal merit, Shiite Muslims accord special significance to the family of the Prophet Muhammad as a source of religious and political leadership. While the Shiites can be seen as more “elitist” in this respect, their experience is also that of a religious protest movement that often engaged the more pervasive Sunni current of Islam from a standpoint of critique and persecution.

Sufism and Salafism Another source of division among contemporary Muslims is the rivalry between Sufis and Salafis. This divide has become a major source of polarization, dramatized in major news events such as the destruction of venerated tombs and popular Sufi shrines in Libya, Mali, and Pakistan, as well as in the willingness of Sufi leaders in some countries to tolerate the use of state repression against opposition movements colored by religious puritanism and revivalism. Sufism is a thread that runs through both Sunni and Shiite communities. Known for its emphasis on mystical philosophies and charismatic ritual practices, it is historically entwined within Islamic history and culture. Still, the nature of its relationship with Islamic orthodoxy is contested among some Muslims. In a 2012 report of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 77 percent of the Muslims of South Asia and about half of the Muslims of the 11 Middle East and North Africa stated that they consider Sufis as Muslims. In regions such as South and Eastern Europe, only about 32 percent felt that Sufism was part of Islam, while 24 percent of those in Southeast and Central Asia felt the same. Many scholars date Sufism’s origins to a period shortly after the death of the Prophet in 632 ce, when some leading religious practitioners became disillusioned with the growing worldliness of the rapidly expanding Muslim polity as well as with the emergence of a more institutionalized, formal religiosity that accommodated hypocrisy and lacked the spiritual dynamism of the earliest Islamic community. Manifesting emotive dimensions of religious piety, Sufism emphasizes direct and personal experience of God, understood with a particular emphasis on divine attributes pertaining to love and mercy. Although Sufis also engage in the daily prayers characteristic of both Sunni and Shiite piety, they further engage in dhikr (remembrance) as a means of constantly remembering and invoking God, as per the Qur’an’s statement that the remembrance of God is the greatest practice. Dhikr is combined with meditation (fikr) and is carried out alone, in retreats, in a group setting (with music or in unison), or in daily practices. It involves the repetition of a Divine Name or a formula based on revelation.

11 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, The World’s Muslims: Unity and Diversity Report, August 9, 2012, www.pewforum.org/2012/08/09/the-worlds-muslims-unity-and-diversity- executive-summary/ (accessed December 16, 2014). Intramural dissent on core beliefs in Islam 147

Those who seek communion with God in a Sufi manner aspire to become “friends” of God through supererogatory forms of worship, involving a constant remembrance of the divine and not just fulfillment of required religious observances. Over time, Sufism came to develop unique ritual components observed by esoteric and mystical congregations, and emphasized the role of saints in expediting personal connection with God. Sufi popular practices include celebrating saints’ birthdays or death anniver- saries and visiting and making pilgrimages to shrines or graves; reciting poetry and singing to praise God; and devotional dancing (the most popular and widely known example being that of the Mevlevi Sufi Order of Turkey, aka the “whirling dervishes”). The historical development of Sufism resulted in the emergence and persistence of brotherhoods (tariqat,or“pathways”), ranging from loose inclusive affiliations to strict initiated orders exclusively for members only. These orders are based on master–disciple relationships. The differences between these orders or brotherhoods lay in such aspects as loyalty to the head of the order (alive or deceased), belief in a particular silsilah (Sufi chain of transmission and lineage), types of organization, methods of teaching, peculiar practices and rituals, and regional contexts. As a complement to the religious schools or madrasas of jurists, the Sufis developed the khanaqah (rest house or lodge) as a traditional Islamic religious institution and place of gathering. If Sufism is represented at one end of the spectrum as an understanding of Islam, then at the other end one usually finds groups that are now referred to as Wahhabis or Salafis. The term “Salafi” refers to salaf al-salih, or pious ancestors, and suggests an effort to reclaim and revive the pure, original Islam of the first generations of Muslims. Contemporary Muslims who proclaim this objective often take a quite critical stance vis-à-vis historically accumulated Islamic traditions, including those of the major historical schools of law and especially those of Shiites and Sufis. Embracing a puritanical approach to Sunni Islamic revivalism, they reject the medieval synthesis of Sufism and orthodoxy achieved by prominent and influential thinkers, such as the philosopher and orthodox jurist al-Ghazali (d. 1111 ce). In strongly opposing both Sufism and Shiism, Wahhabi or Salafi Muslims equate practices of both rival groups with idolatry, which is at odds with strict monotheism. Veneration of saints and of descendants of the Prophet Muhammad has been a focus of particularly strong critique, together with rituals that incorporate music and dance. Historically, Sufism was banned in Saudi Arabia, until recently when the government gave some freedom to Sufi orders to function in the kingdom. Though dating back to the mid-eighteenth century in regions of India, Nigeria, Sudan, and central Arabia, Salafism is popularly associated with the teachings of Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792). He claimed to teach a return to the practices of the Prophet Muhammad and of the 148 Meena Sharify-Funk immediate, first generations of Muslims, the salaf al-salih. Drawing on the thought of the medieval Hanbali jurist Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328), who pointedly denounced key Muslim rulers of his time for failure to properly administer Islamic law and for permitting the infiltration of Mongolian rules and practices, ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab proclaimed a desire to purify Islam of any foreign or extraneous influences. By forging an alliance with Muhammad ibn Saud family, he fostered the development of what would eventually become the official religious framework of Saudi Arabia. He denounced Sufi and Shiite forms of ritual practice and saint veneration as bid‘a (innovation) and even idolatry (shirk), and sanctioned the destruction of Sufi shrines that had become objects of popular piety. This attempt at a purification process and a return to true or “authentic” Islam corresponds with the proclaimed goals of many modern Islamist political projects. While some of these projects are decidedly moderate in their proclaimed goals and actual methods, figures such as Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri have found in the puritan impulse a rhetorical framework as well as an excuse for radical actions directed against internal and external adversaries. In such cases, the imperative of “purifying” Islam is closely associated with a belief that sweeping away deviant practices will somehow reverse a decline in worldly power and restore Muslims to their historical greatness. Wahhabi (or Salafi) views have been disseminated widely through the Muslim World League (founded 1962) and are funded through missionary activity and studies at institutions in Saudi Arabia. These missionaries are, for instance, sent out to places such as Africa (where Sufi expressions of Islam are historically dominant) in an effort to convert the Muslims there to Wahhabi/ Salafi understandings of Islam. Although not always embracing all aspects of the Salafi worldview, movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al- Muslimeen) and Jama’at-i-Islam have often benefited from connections with Wahhabi organizations and funding. Such revivalist movements reject the radicalism of groups like al-Qaeda, and often advocate for democratic participation. At the same time, their stated goal of building a more authentically Islamic state is often intertwined with a puritan understanding of Islamic law that neglects to acknowledge the de facto pluralism and complexity of traditional legal practice and arguments. This understanding tends to be inimical to Sufism, which generally upholds an understanding of Islam in which flexibility and accommodation of difference receive a stronger valuation. It also challenges the well-established, traditional schools of law, and provides a discourse of dissent for Muslim movements founded on the belief that mainstream religious establishments have been compromised by obedience to corrupt political leaders and, by extension, to a world order in which key Muslim interests have been compromised – much as ibn Taymiyya challenged religious and political leaders of his own time for allowing themselves to become instruments of an external threat to Islamic culture and values. Intramural dissent on core beliefs in Islam 149

Inculcation and reproduction A key textual passage for discussions of both dissent and faith promulgation in Islam is from the Qur’an’s second surah: “Let there be no compulsion in religion” (La ikraha fid-din)(2:255). This principle would seem to provide a clear rebuke to practices of forcing beliefs on others, or targeting adversaries on the basis of categorical identities and professed beliefs. Though the passage has been interpreted in various ways, mainstream Muslims generally recognize La ikraha as a principle of restraint and toleration. Traditional approaches to intergenerational inculcation of Islamic beliefs, of course, were formed in a pre-modern context. Within this context, notions of individual autonomy in deciding between various possible faiths and belief systems were decidedly absent. Transmitting Islamic moral teachings to the next generation was seen as a religious duty, and the “no compulsion” principle was often regarded in a descriptive manner – how could there be “compulsion” in teaching a child the path to salvation? Youth socialization was a pervasive and organic process, and there was no perceived need, for example, to give equal time to Shiite and Sunni forms of Islam, or to non-Islamic belief systems. Religious identity was a largely ascriptive phenomenon, and the established consensus (ijma) for communal norms was actively protected by the state. In traditional Islamic contexts, fidelity to Islamic traditions connected an individual both to the larger community and to their own heritage and lineage. The association of lineage and status conferred by religious belonging can be seen quite clearly in traditions that granted a special prestige to descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. Because of the immense emphasis placed on the model of the Prophet, there was great power in connecting to his lineage. For example, the tradition of “Seyyeds” or “Sharifs” (both titles that signify descent from the Prophet) is translated across cultural, ethnic, and sectarian divides. Such titles transcend tribal affiliations and dynastic empires. Additionally, the power of lineage is present in all Sufi orders in the idea of a silsilah, or chain of transmission from the Prophet. A key challenge for contemporary Islamic thinkers, felt most acutely by those living in Western liberal contexts, is how most appropriately to retain communal values linked to faith identity and proper upbringing of the young while providing greater space for individual choice and self-determination. This negotiation between Islam and cultural liberalism is likely to be prolonged and in some cases difficult (as has indeed been the case for Christianity and Judaism), yet many Islamic thinkers find in it an opportunity to revisit essential principles and to reconsider ways in which they might be enacted that create opportunities to embrace faith with heightened knowledge and awareness, but without external compulsion. 150 Meena Sharify-Funk

Authority The subject of authority in Islam is complex and often contested. As noted previously with respect to differences between Shiites and Sunnis, different sectarian tendencies within Islam have divergent notions with respect to the role of ancestry and heritage in the conferring of leadership status and authority. While Shiite Islam placed a particular emphasis on charismatic leadership linked to the family of the Prophet, Sunni Islam afforded a special respect to such status but without the same expectation of a convergence between genealogy and spiritual or political authority. Such differences notwithstanding, authority within Islam has generally been much more decentralized than in historical Christianity. Only in rare cases (for example in the religious life of Ismaili Muslims), however, have Muslims embraced models of authority in which a single office holds authority comparable to that of a Catholic pope. Although the early caliphate was intended to involve both political and religious leadership and Muslim polities have actively sought to institutionalize sources of religious legitimacy, all aspirations toward a large-scale, long-term fusion of authority in a single person, lineage, or institution have failed. With the exception of post-revolutionary Iran, the contemporary Islamic experience is marked more by a proliferation of voices claiming authority than by a convergence of these voices. Increasingly, traditional sources of authority (for example madrasa education or training at al-Azhar University) must contend with modern ones, and learned religious figures must compete with religious autodidacts trained in engineering, medicine, or education. While male gender, maturity of age, and reputation for religious knowledge still bring a degree of privilege, authority is contested as never before. This observation, of course, runs counter to much current commentary on Muslim politics, which often focuses particularly on contestation surrounding the religious legitimacy of the state. Undeniably, modern ideological notions of an “Islamic state,” as advocated by Islamic movements as well as by various existing political entities (including Iran as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan) have not excelled at cultivating an atmosphere conducive to a positive ethic favoring intellectual pluralism. The project of creating an Islamic state, however, is in many respects a reflection of deep insecurity about the stability and viability of traditional authority structures in the face of exogenously driven cultural change and growing internal diversity, as well as external political and economic influences that are perceived as hostile to Muslim interests. As the Arab Spring protests in North Africa and the Middle East have revealed, authority structures in Muslim-majority countries are both brittle and resilient. They are brittle to the extent to which they can no longer effectively contain and regulate the pluralism of Muslim societies, and resilient to the extent that few parties – Islamist and traditionalist as well as secularist – have Intramural dissent on core beliefs in Islam 151 been willing to place toleration for dissent above narrower ambitions to reconstitute traditional authority relations and reshape social norms. Thus far the Arab Spring has revealed the profound insecurity of all parties, together with a complete absence of consensus. Competing projects have not yet worked out norms for co-existence, and each retains the potential for profound intolerance toward dissent and opposition. Recent developments underscore the point that Islam is internally pluralistic, with different schools of thought, subcultures, ritual manifestations of piety, and ethical traditions, whose adherents share and negotiate a historical narrative and sacred texts and cosmologies. In this regard, notions of Islam and Muslims are fluid and are, at times, driven by political agendas or movements/organizations, which are steeped in the larger fabric of the Muslim world. To speak of a single theory of Muslim politics is simply impossible. As Peter Mandaville states, “to study Muslim politics ... is to look at the diverse ways in which people who identify themselves as Muslims in a variety of social locations – be they religious scholars, bureau- crats, intellectuals, merchants, scientists – understand, make use of, and mobilize the symbols and language of Islam around issues of social order, 12 power and authority.” This framework allows us to observe the “various ways in which people engage and draw upon religious tradition as they construct and contest social order.” Like members of other religio-cultural groups, Muslims are adapting and reacting to large-scale, transnational currents of change in economic, social, and political life. Technological advancement and ongoing processes of globalization make it impossible for any society to develop in an entirely isolated manner, and as a consequence tensions and polarities that occur in many societies often have correlates within Islam. Familiar Western debates about epistemology, interpretation, authority, and religious knowledge are by no means alien to Muslim societies, and the divergent positions taken by Muslim thinkers reflect intellectual as well as existential reactions to the same sorts of questions that have long engaged Western thinkers, colored in part by political attitudes and historical experiences with Western societies in which secular currents are more prominent. Scholars have identified a range of interpretive tendencies that have emerged to compete for contemporary Muslim identity. While there is no universally accepted typology, analysts commonly disaggregate various currents into tendencies of Muslim secularism and progressive reformism as well as mainstream Islamic revivalism, radical Islamism, and neo- traditionalism. Muslim secularists are those who demonstrate the greatest comfort with what is sometimes characterized as “Western modernity,” and though often religious on a personal basis react strongly against programs and belief

12 Peter Mandaville, Global Political Islam (New York: Routledge, 2007). 152 Meena Sharify-Funk systems that grant a prominent, substantive role to religious leaders, institutions, and ideas in public life. Having embraced an empirical-rationalist worldview within which matters of religious conviction cannot be definitively proven, Muslim secularists value Islam as a cultural heritage or set of principles while rejecting revivalist politics and efforts to elevate the status of Islam in education and law. Though generally more comfortable with intellectual ambiguity and multiple advocacy than those who seek to navigate modernity on the basis of fixed religious certainties, Muslim secularists do not invariably model the toleration they profess. The secularist position shares much in common with progressive Muslim reformism, yet reformists can be differentiated from secularists by their greater esteem for religious rituals and communal practice, and by their stronger valorization of Islam as a source of personal and collective identity. Where secularists are often indifferent to debates about religious epistemology, progressive reformists participate actively in conversations about textual interpretation and the need for fresh readings of traditional sources. Mainstream Islamic revivalists part ways with reformists through their stronger distinction between Islamic and Western cultures. Although revivalists see much in modern technology and practice that might be gainfully incorporated in Islamic societies, they believe Islam carries a unique and distinctive set of perennial values and practices that are incompatible with Western-style secularism and individualism. Religious certainties are fundamentally knowable, and though certain traditional beliefs may have to be reevaluated in light of a fresh appraisal of authoritative sources, there is no need to seek harmony between Islamic and Western practices. Islamic societies, mainstream revivalists contend, need to recapture their self-confidence and work toward an alternative modernity animated by its own social and religious values. Radical Islamists differ from mainstream revivalists in their appraisal of the extent to which Islam is threatened by Western values, practices, and politics. Where mainstream revivalists demonstrate greater confidence in the staying power and resilience of Islamic culture and values, radical Islamists believe that Islam has been gravely corrupted by hostile exogen- ous influences. Rather than a simple revival of fundamental precepts and practices, radicals perceive a need to purge Islamic societies in a revolutionary manner, displacing rulers who lack certitude and a willingness to reject neo-colonial influences. The neo-traditionalist tendency manifests a quite different understanding of what is essential in Islam, and argues against religious and secular tendencies that in their view reflect a superficial grasp of classical religious sciences. Neo-traditionalists distrust the revolutionary politics of radicals and the willingness of many revivalists to dispense with traditional authority, deep study, and respect for past religious syntheses. Against modernists, secularists, and progressives, neo-traditionalists uphold the continuing authoritative status of Intramural dissent on core beliefs in Islam 153 traditional beliefs and practices, which they regard as an indispensable bul- wark against cultural degeneration and spiritual malaise. These patterns of variation in Islamic thought reflect geography – Islam in Saudi Arabia differs in significant ways from Islam in Syria or Morocco – as well as diverse cultures of interpretation that cut across spatial boundaries. Islam, its actors, and their actions’ meanings are contested in ways that have major implications for Islamic–Western relations, and for internal debates regarding issues such as democracy and social change. These cultures of interpretation, of course, do not exhaust the complexity of Islamic thought, nor are they mutually exclusive and invariant intellectual positions. Still, the categories can sensitize analysts to different currents of thought. Observers therefore need to reflect on the following questions, before equating a given position or pronouncement with Islam as such:

* Which Islam is being invoked, by whom, and for what reasons and purposes? * How is meaning found in modern times (i.e. amidst rapid social and cultural changes) by reflecting on the past? And what frameworks are established from these meanings, which, then, lead to a particular Muslim identity and livelihood? Contrary to the beliefs of those who project a monolithic “Muslim tide,” contemporary Muslims are deeply divided on a wide range of topics. They differ in their perceptions of the West, their epistemological beliefs, and their convictions about the relationship between mosque and state. They also differ in their willingness to accept and legitimize Islam’s internal pluralism and hermeneutic diversity. While some are willing to embrace different ways in which communities of Muslims negotiate Islam,others take a more inflexible view that negates diversity. The assertion of a singular, monolithic Islam can result in an oversimplification or even purging of Islamic history – a renewal of selective Islamic philosophies and theologies, with other historical positions written off as erroneous or un-Islamic. The actual positions taken by different groups, however, are not always predictable on the basis of professed beliefs alone. Faced with opposition, secularists and reformists at times retreat into illiberal alliances with state and military institutions. Passionate revivalists, though in principle dedicated to shoring up particular forms of social morality in ways that run counter to liberalism, are at times more genuinely committed to notions of democratic legitimacy, particularly when they believe that majority opinion favors their stances.

Management options As a tradition that calls for human accountability in the face of transcendent principles, there are many aspects of Islam that encourage dissent, 154 Meena Sharify-Funk particularly in the face of social injustice. There is a rich history of Muslim disagreements, many of which have been validated, such as the recognition within Islamic law of indeterminacy on a range of contested matters. The fact that Islam has no pope or Vatican means that there is no singular figure to whom all can turn as a referee on “Islamic correctness,” yet this lack of central authority can also be framed as a strength that permits the growth and development of multiple ways of being Muslim. The challenge for contemporary Muslims is not to invent principles of pluralism and internal dissent from scratch, but rather to affirm, update, and reconstitute existing principles within a modern context. Like most traditional religious systems, Islam has often wrestled with issues such as blasphemy, heresy, and the status of non-believers within a majority Muslim community. While the Qur’an contains explicit prescriptions for the recognition of Jews, Christians, and Sabians as “people of the Book”–that is, as people who follow a divine revelation and who are entitled to special status within an Islamic polity – certain forms of internal dissent (particularly on core beliefs concerning the unity of God, the sanctity of the Qur’an, and the reverence due to the Prophet, but also on convictions concerning the boundaries of innovation and the right to exercise communal authority) have not been welcome. Traditional Muslim practices have sought to “protect” Islam from blasphemy and have linked the issue of apostasy not just to public morality, but also (historically and implicitly) to precedents set in the seventh 13 century amidst a political rebellion against the early Islamic state. In past centuries, sectarian minorities within Islam tended to seek refuge on the fringes or margins of the Muslim world, for example in the mountains of Lebanon and Syria. Contemporary Islamic reformist thinkers are trying to expand the options for legitimate dissent, both to allow more space for those who cannot assent on core doctrinal matters and to prevent the conflation of political disloyalty or dissent with offenses of a religious nature. In the face of politically exploited blasphemy laws (for example in Pakistan) as well as political discourse that seeks to render the “other” an apostate or terrorist, such reformists are calling for “thicker-skinned” and more substantively democratic Islamic responses premised on self-confidence in Islamic beliefs and reinvigoration of the “no compulsion” principle. This entails rethinking certain boundary-defense mechanisms within a more cosmopolitan and global setting, within which Islam can find common ground with various other ethical systems, secular as well as religious. It also requires placing greater weight on individual religious conscience, and developing greater awareness of the choices made as religious communities engage and interpret their religious texts.

13 Asma Afsaruddin, The First Muslims: History and Memory (London: Oneworld Publishers, 2007). Intramural dissent on core beliefs in Islam 155

Some reformists see hope in an emergent cosmopolitan ethos, according to which many Muslims (especially those living in Western societies) are afﬁrm- ing “hybrid” or “pluralized” identities in which multiple loyalties are mutually reinforcing rather than mutually exclusive. In such formulations, being European or Canadian or American need not detract from Islamic identity and vice versa. Rather, such “multiplexity” helps to transcend the bifurcation 14 of the world based purely on “Islamic” or “Western” values.

Internal criticism While it appears certain that reverence for the Qur’an and for the Prophet Muhammad will remain central to Islamic faith and practice, emergent trends within Muslim communities arguably point toward the possibility of a “medium-term” future (as opposed to short-term or long-term) within which intramural dissent and debate are recognized as valuable to the search for truth in an Islamic context. The rapid spread of literacy has made Islamic sources accessible to a far broader constituency than in past eras, and current turbulence can be viewed not just as a function of economic and political variables, but also as a process through which Muslims are incrementally – and sometimes painfully – working out new rules for managing difference and disagreement. The uncertain trajectory of the Arab Spring does not negate this projection. The present fragmentation of Muslim polities reﬂects a larger process through which Muslims are testing the practical implications of ideological convictions, within a context in which failure to bring tangible improvements on basic quality-of-life indicators must eventually lead to ideological reform and revision. A libertarian future appears unlikely, yet rising generations of educated Muslims are unlikely to settle for systems that punish dissent and distort its role in promoting general welfare. While social media can be used in illiberal as well as progressive ways, the emergence of new technological mediums for communication makes the imposition of totalizing ideology more difﬁcult than in the past, and potentially helps to normalize difference and dissent. In the defense of freer expression within a Muslim context, Islamic sources offer many potential resources. The Qur’an, for example, contains multiple injunctions for believers to use their faculty of reason. Key passages that call for “enjoining the good and forbidding evil” (amr bil maruf wa nahi an al-munkar) lend themselves not just to a conventional moral reading, but also to readings that highlight the vital importance of multiple advocacy in enabling public vigilance.

14 Meena Sharify-Funk, Encountering the Transnational: Women, Islam, and the Politics of Interpretation (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishers, 2008), p. 19. 156 Meena Sharify-Funk

Scope To an extent, traditional Islamic norms accommodate religious and moral pluralism, explicitly validating the existence of alternative systems. Passages in the Qur’an granting status to Jews, Christians, and Sabians, for example, recognize that “a law and an open way” have been given to 15 more than one people. The Qur’an states that a messenger has been sent to every nation. Such thoughts, understood within a contemporary global context, can certainly be interpreted in ways that enable and foster dialogue, while accommodating a plurality of beliefs and convictions. The Qur’an itself goes so far as to state that God could have made all people alike, but did not. While exclusivist and intolerant ways of reading this scripture are indeed possible, there are solid grounds in Islamic sources for flexibility in responses to difference. Such observations do not, of course, negate the reality that it is easier to respect others when respect is mutual and in situations when adherents to a belief system feel confident in their worldly standing. Currently, perceived offenses against Islam and Muslims committed by a “Western other” heighten the stakes of intra-Muslim debates, and Muslim minorities living in Western societies are experiencing a learning curve as they seek reasonable accommodation for religious practices while still adapting construc- tively to new situations within which differences in ethical horizons are a daily reality. The early promise of the Arab Spring has given way to a turbulence that sharpens longstanding ideological divides and reawakens latent sectarian rivalries, heightening the challenges of constructive, democratic Muslim empowerment. Within an atmosphere shaped by high stakes and bitter contestation, protagonists of divergent ideological and sectarian tendencies find it easier to overreach or to attribute blame than to engage in principled outreach that demonstrably affirms social and political space for the “other.” Transforming conflicts from zero-sum to positive-sum will require not just a shift in cost–benefit analysis, but also in deeper habits of thought and feeling. As suggested previously, much can be gained by suspending the strongly felt desire for visible unity, by reflecting more profoundly on the reality of historical and contemporary Muslim diversity, and by legitimizing new ways of voicing and accommodating dissent. Intra-Muslim dialogue that gives weight, value, and respect to different ways of being Muslim, and which honestly faces the costs of some past practices, can only benefit Muslims as they seek to engage with other moral systems on a principled basis. In turn, revisiting the subject of dissent in relation both to traditional sources and to modern democratic practices can be similarly invigorating. Textual injunctions to

15 See Sohail H. Hashmi’s article, “The Qur’an and Tolerance: An Interpretive Essay on Verse 5:48,” Journal of Human Rights 2, 1 (March 2003): 81–103. Intramural dissent on core beliefs in Islam 157 dissent with others “only in the most ﬁtting way” can be adapted to new contexts, granting new meaning and value to political participation, voice, and engagement. In the broadest possible sense, innovatively traditional Muslim responses to internal as well as external pluralism can present fresh opportunities for expression of core Islamic ideas, including the Qur’anic principle that the Creator made humanity into nations and tribes not that all differences might be erased, but rather so that the world’s many peoples – Islamic and not – might “come to know one another.” Chapter 8

Dissent and diversity in South Asian religions

Anne Murphy

Introduction I begin this chapter with appreciation, noted perhaps most famously in recent times by Amartya Sen in his The Argumentative Indian, of the “extensive and 1 ubiquitous” nature of debate and dissent in South Asia. This is a common representation of Hinduism, in particular. For example, the popular online and print magazine Hinduism Today ran a story in 2006 that declared “Hinduism has a grand diversity among its many sects” that “all spring from a single source.” Further on the author notes, Most Hindus believe in the transcendental God as well as the personal Lord or God, and yet there is within the boundaries of the faith room for the non-believer, for the atheist or for the agnostic who is assessing and developing his beliefs ... There is no such thing as a heretic in Hinduism, for there is no single right 2 perspective or belief. One might think, therefore, that we already know what we need to know about intramural dissent, at least in Hinduism. Any discussion would then only need to address other religions in South Asia that might differ from this “absolute” tolerance. Things, however, are not so simple. We can see this even in the quote above: Hinduism’s various sects “spring from a single source,” yet there is “no single right perspective or belief.” There is a contradiction in this assertion of simultaneous diversity and singular origin that suggests that the ways in which Hinduism exhibits both internal tolerance and intolerance are more complex than this assertion allows.

1 Amartya Sen, The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture, and Identity (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005), p. ix. Sen builds on earlier exploration along such lines by Romila Thapar, “Dissent and Protest in early Indian Tradition,” Diogenes 29, 31 (1981): 31–54. 2 www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/2006/10–12/pdf/Hinduism-Today_Oct-Nov-Dec_2006.pdf, page 25 of PDF (accessed June 19, 2013).

158 Dissent and diversity in South Asian religions 159

In the spirit of openness to heterodoxy, I approach the question of the management of dissent within traditions by considering its relationship to the formation of boundaries between traditions. We will see that the problem of boundary setting with the “outside” directly impacts the management of dissent within. We examine two traditions: Hinduism and Sikhism. With Hinduism, an capacious definition of the boundaries of the religion allows us to see it as tolerant, inclusive, and multi-voiced. This inclusivity also, however, constitutes a kind of violence on traditions/practices that might today be (and in the historical past certainly were) seen as distinct; caste in particular plays an important role in this kind of contestation. There are profound political ramifications of this dynamic. In the case of Sikhism, which has successfully articulated a separate identity from Hinduism but is often perceived of as doing so in narrow terms, we will see how the need to defend against the reach of “Hinduism” in its modern form has impacted both external boundary setting and the institutions and strategies that exist within Sikh tradition to manage and allow dissent. In both cases, we will see that boundary setting between traditions fundamentally shapes internal attitudes toward dissent and diversity. It is for this reason that this chapter is constructed under the rubric of “South Asian religions,” rather than a single tradition: to allow us to understand how boundaries within and between historically linked traditions are simultaneously constructed. We cannot of course cover all South Asian traditions here. Indeed to fully understand religious dynamics in South Asia, one must include Islam, which has had a broad and longstanding cultural and religious impact. Islam is covered ably elsewhere in the volume, however, and will not therefore be examined here. It is important to note, at the same time, that many of the dynamics visible in what follows, regarding the nature of boundary formation within and between traditions, are relevant to South Asian Islam as well. For example, Islam is generally represented seamlessly with reference to core texts and practices centered in the Arab world. Yet we can see the very complex and local nature of Islamic thought and practice in the Ismaili Khoja community, a group originally from Gujarat, western India, that has since the nineteenth century been identified with a broader Ismaili Shi‘a identity with the Aga Khan as religious leader. As Teena Purohit has noted in her recent study of Ismaili Khoja identity, modern efforts to trace a Persian and Shi‘a Ismaili genealogy for this community at times obscure its hybrid and South Asian vernacular traditions, as expressed in the sacred canon 3 of the Khojas, the gināns. Through the acceptance of such local articulations of Muslim identity – rather than by privileging Middle Eastern and Persianate

3 Teena Purohit, The Aga Khan Case: Religion and Identity in Colonial India (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), p. 7. For an account that emphasizes Persian connections, see Dominique-Sila Khan, Conversions and Shifting Identities: Ramdev Pir and the Ismailis of Rajasthan (New Delhi: Manohar, 1997). 160 Anne Murphy formulations – new contours of a global Islam emerge, in dynamic interface 4 with other traditions. The effort to define between religions, as well as an overemphasis on uniformity within, in short, undermines our ability to understand these traditions in full. By focusing on distinct traditions in conversation, this chapter seeks to reorient a singular preoccupation with the religious “center” and a concomitant preoccupation with dissent about that center, toward an understanding of how definitions within and outside are constructed simultaneously. The focus is on nodes of articulation, paired with the core structural units of the chapter, that provide examples of the direct relationship between boundary setting at the outside and the quest to define (and often delimit) room for dissent within. With Sikhism and Hinduism, we compare a tradition that is smaller, relatively centrally organized and defined (Sikhism), with one that is more dispersed, decentralized, and which holds a variety of textual formations as “core texts” (Hinduism). While therefore very distinctive, the two also feature similar dynamics – as do Islam and all other religions in the region – that are shaped by shared historical circumstances. Particularly important for our understanding of religion in South Asia is the encounter with colonialism and the reframing of theideaof“religion” that occurs in that period. Much of current political contestation in South Asia, both within traditions and between them, can be traced to this complicated encounter. Healthy internal debate and dissent persist in both Hinduism and Sikhism alongside less healthy forms, which can escalate into conflict and sometimes violence. To understand why and how this is the case requires both an understanding of recent political and social transformations in South Asia, as well as the historical underpinnings for those transformations.

Key tenets Speaking of “key tenets” invites us to grapple with the deﬁnition of “Hinduism” overall. A wealth of scholarship has highlighted the recent 5 provenance of the term and idea of “Hinduism.” Appearing ﬁrst in Persian and Arabic sources, the term “Hindu” was ethnic-geographic in its earliest uses, referring to the Indus River and those who lived in the region associated 6 with it. The idea of “Hindu” developed in complex ways in subsequent centuries, expanding slowly to include a cultural and religious sense. Even with such senses, however, the early understanding of the term does not match

4 Teena Purohit, “Reading Global Islam Through Messianic Renewal in Dasavatār,” in Anne Murphy (ed.), Time, History and the Religious Imaginary in South Asia (London: Routledge, 2011), pp. 55–69. 5 David Lorenzen, “Who Invented Hinduism?” Comparative Studies in Society and History 41, 4 (1999): 630–659, and Brian Pennington, Was Hinduism Invented? Britons, Indians, and the Colonial Construction of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 6 Carl Ernst, Eternal Garden: Mysticism, History and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Center (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004 [1994]), pp. 22ff. Dissent and diversity in South Asian religions 161 its usage today. Before the modern period “Hindu” was most often used in a contrastive sense along the lines of “gentile” in Western traditions with reference to non-Jews, in this case designating a group of traditions that 7 were not Muslim and not Christian. Thus, as I argue elsewhere, we can see in eighteenth-century Punjabi texts that Sikhs were sometimes contained within a sense of “Hindu” in such broad contrastive terms, at the same time that they were portrayed clearly as representing a separate religious/cultural tradition alongside other traditions that were portrayed as similarly distinct, 8 some of which are now included under the umbrella term “Hindu.” This is not just a terminological issue. If people did not historically call themselves “Hindu” in substantive terms, and certainly did not define a “Hinduism,” how do we define dissent within “Hinduism” in historical terms? Sikhism differs dramatically in this respect. We can understand this today, because it is now generally accepted as a separate religion from Hinduism. If the idea of “religion” is applicable at all in South Asia (which may not be so; see below), this rings true: Sikh tradition has a founder (Guru Nanak, 1469–1539) and a canonical text at the center of Sikh thought and practice, the Guru Granth Sahib. Such features speak strongly for the independence of Sikhism as a separate “religion” as it is conventionally understood. Lacking a single founder or canon, however, does not mean that Hinduism is not a religion in some unique way – such an argument, Will Sweetman has shown, 9 merely reflects Western biases about what constitutes “religion.” The issue I highlight here is different. Hinduism as it is construed today includes a range of traditions that were once understood as independent. Practices associated with what we can call the brahminical “imaginary,” to use Wendy Doniger’s words – for those traditions that accept a special mediating role for ritual specialists known as Brahmins and that feature major textual formations in Sanskrit or in conversation with Sanskrit sources – are clearly delineated as fundamentally different, for example, from antinomian yogic practices in the 10 same texts cited above. These were multiple traditions, and “Hindu” as an idea did not bind them all into a single one. In short, the modern broad definition of “Hindu” does not match the vague sense of the term that existed in the past as a contrastive term and cannot be used to reliably describe religious identity in the historical past.

7 See Lorenzen, “Who Invented Hinduism?” pp. 639–640. 8 Anne Murphy, “The gurbilas Literature and the Idea of ‘Religion’,” in Anshu Malhotra and Farina Mir (eds.), Punjab Reconsidered: History, Culture, and Practice (New York and New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 93–115; and Anne Murphy, “The Contours of Community: Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century Articulations in Sikh Tradition” (forthcoming). 9 Will Sweetman, “‘Hinduism’ and the History of ‘Religion’: Protestant Presuppositions in the Critique of the Concept of Hinduism,” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, 15, 4 (2003): 329–353. 10 Wendy Doniger, The Hindus: An Alternative History (New York: Penguin, 2010), p. 29. 162 Anne Murphy

What complicates this problem of naming, however, is that there is, today, very much a “Hinduism”–a product of a regrouping and reorganization of disparate traditions into an entity that became increasingly formalized over the course of the period of British rule, organized around a core of brahminical traditions and Sanskrit texts but asserting inclusion of a wide range of diverse practices and texts. This new Hinduism incorporated a diversity of traditions that were once quite distinct. Such inclusion was, as will be shown, problematic for those traditions that countered the ideological and institutional formations of the brahminical imaginary. Inclusion, in this case, became a form of denial of their content. Other traditions, such as Sikhism, were successfully positioned as separate in their rejection of not just brahminical authority, but also many of the alternative practices (e.g. yogic asceticism) that are now also included under the broader term “Hinduism.” The achievement of this articulation, however, was hard won, and the battle to achieve and maintain it in the modern period has shaped Sikhism internally in profound ways. Boundaries between, boundaries within: these are deeply connected. It is therefore both possible and necessary to deﬁne “Hinduism” in a more limited sense as a set of traditions that identify a body of ritual and related texts in Sanskrit called the Vedas as a beginning point or conceptual center – created largely but not exclusively by Brahmins and held traditionally as their special preserve – and which adhere to the social and ritual commitments embodied in later texts that develop in relation to them. This tradition maintains a strong connection to Sanskrit cultural production, although this is often mediated through other elite and/or classical languages (such as Tamil or Kannada) or expressed in vernacular languages in modes that retain associa- 11 tion with Sanskrit texts, even if only in symbolic terms. This is in fact most often the tacit operative deﬁnition in use, the implied “single source” referred to in the article from Hinduism Today cited above. These are traditions we can more accurately describe as “Hindu” in the historical past – recognizing that we are utilizing a new historically sensitive sense of the word, neither the contrastive sense used earlier nor the all-encompassing sense that has come to be accepted. This is in keeping with Doniger’s early observation that the term “heretic” was used as a “catchall for condemning anyone who challenged the religious and social status quo, that is, the authority of the Vedas and the 12 Brahmins” within Sanskrit sources from this tradition. This tradition itself was, as will be clear, multi-voiced and changed dynamically over time, and

11 Indeed, the orientation to these texts is often wholly symbolic; Jonathan Parry among many others has described how religious specialists in the renowned holy city of Benares in North India made frequent reference to Sanskrit texts, even when they had little direct knowledge of their content. Jonathan Parry, “The Brahminical tradition and the Technology of the Intellect” in Joanna Overing (ed.), Reason and Morality (London and New York: Tavistock Publishing, 1985), pp. 200–225. 12 Wendy Doniger, “The Origins of Heresy in Hindu Mythology,” History of Religions 10, 4 (May 1971): 271–333, see 280. Brian Smith discusses this definition of Hinduism, with Dissent and diversity in South Asian religions 163 never took a centralized institutional form, so the complexity at the core of 13 “Hindu” is maintained even with this narrower formulation. As will also soon be clear, such a definition does not encompass all the traditions named 14 today as “Hindu.” The core early Vedic texts themselves, however, offer little direction in understanding historical “Hindu” tradition as a lived religion (although perhaps in the modern period they have come closer to doing so, through the self-conscious revivalist activities of groups like the Arya Samaj, founded by Dayanand Saraswati (1824–1883), which embraced the Vedas as the center of Hindu tradition and eschewed later texts. As Wilhelm Halbfass put it, quite simply, “the Vedic texts contain no Hindu dogma, no basis for a ‘creed’ of 15 Hinduism, no clear guidelines for the ‘Hindu way of life’.” In terms of content, it is the Sanskrit texts called the Puranas (written from 300 to 600 CE) that are animated by the devotional commitments that evolve in the post-Vedic period. Here we see stories related to a range of deities – Shiva, Vishnu, the goddess – that are venerated by Hindus around the world today. This does not, however, allow us access to a clear definition of Hinduism, for many of these traditions might be most fruitfully seen as separate traditions: Shaivite (related to the God Shiva) traditions are of quite a different order than those of Vaishnavas (related to Vishnu). Indeed, cogent arguments have been made for seeing them as separate religions, based on rival initiation 16 ceremonies and exclusive claims to truth (as well as conflicts between them).

criticism, in Brian Smith, “Exorcising the Transcendent: Strategies for Defining Hinduism and Religion,” History of Religions 27, 1 (August 1987): 32–55, see 37ff. 13 The decentralized and diverse nature of brahmanical traditions is rightly observed by Raf Gelders and S. N. Balgangadhara, “Rethinking Orientalism: Colonialism and the Study of Indian Traditions,” History of Religions 51, 2 (November 2011): 101–128;see103–104. 14 Gelders and Balagangadhara, “Rethinking Orientalism,” p. 128. David Lorenzen has argued too for attention to the independence of “alternate” traditions, which he calls by the name “non-caste Hinduism.” But such a designation is ultimately self-contradicting, as his own data show; that such traditions bear “the clear impress” of subordination to caste Hinduism does not mean they are not outside it; no relationship of power allows for such neatness. A comparison makes this clear: we do not question the distinction between Jews and Christians, even though they are intimately connected in a contrastive relationship that has constituted for both a means of self-definition and has been hierarchically articulated in a long history of anti-semitism. They are connected, but this connection does not make them one. David Lorenzen, “Traditions of Non-Caste Hinduism: The Kabir Panth,” in Who Invented Hinduism? Essays on Religion in History (New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2006), pp. 78–101. Originally published in Contributions to Indian Sociology 21 (1987): 264–283. See also discussion in Anupama Rao, The Caste Question: Dalits and the Politics of Modern India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), p. 22. 15 Wilhelm Halbfass, “The Idea of the Veda and the Identity of Hinduism,” in J. E. Llewellyn (ed.), Defining Hinduism: A Reader (New York: Routledge, 2005), pp. 16–29. 16 See for example Heinrich von Stietencron, “Religious Configurations in Pre-Muslim India and the Modern Concept of Hinduism,” in Vasudha Dalmia and H. von Stietencron (eds.), Representing Hinduism: The Construction of Religious Traditions and National Identity (Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1995), pp. 51–81. 164 Anne Murphy

Other core tenets that develop in the late and post-Vedic period involve philosophical speculation related to the doctrines of rebirth and karmic causation that is also visible in traditions now accepted as non-Hindu – Jainism and Buddhism – because of their rejection of the authority of the 17 Veda, as well as divergent understandings of ontology and practice. It must be noted that some Hindu sources in Sanskrit have historically claimed Jain and Buddhist traditions as internal dissenting traditions; the drive to include has a long history. The idea of dharma is central to any formulation of “key tenets” in Hinduism. It too is used too broadly to define what is “Hindu”; Buddhism 18 and Sikhism utilize the term in allied (although different) ways. Even in clearly Hindu (i.e. brahminical/Sanskritic traditions that are oriented toward the Veda) contexts, dharma is multifold. Dharma is best viewed as part of the underlying vocabulary or conceptual toolkit that all religious thought engaged with in the subcontinent, particularly in the period before Islamic concepts of religion came to influence ideas of dharma in a dynamic dialogue. In brahminical traditions, dharma is that which should be done, in the broadest 19 sense. It is elaborated in a wide range of smriti or “remembered” texts, which are of a different order than those associated with revelation, the Veda (which are heard, shrūti). Texts known as the dharma-sūtras and dharma-shāstras are centrally concerned with explicating dharma as custom or ācāra, or the “norms and standards consciously and deliberately established by the elites of a given 20 group”; they do so, however, not by giving definitive answers to questions of dharma, but by providing encyclopedic responses to questions related to it. The ideals they explicate are generally encapsulated in a single term: varnāshrama-dharma, or dharma that is associated with one’s station in life (āshrama) or caste/color (varna). The stages in life are formulated as that of the student, householder, retiree, and renunciant; each has its own set of responsibilities. Varna is defined loosely in broad categories: brahmin (ritual specialist/scholar), kshatriya (political/military roles), vaishya (merchants), shudra (artisans and peasants); the first three are of a higher status ritually than the fourth, and a fifth unstated “outcaste” category accompanies these four, marginalized within the broader system. A more complicated and

17 As Lorenzen notes, many lower-caste people do not accept basic ideas about karma and reincarnation, suggesting that the ideological foundations of lower-caste religiosity can be quite distinct from those grounded in Vedic and related traditions (Lorenzen, “Traditions of Non-Caste Hinduism,” pp. 89–90). 18 Indeed, as Patrick Olivelle has argued, it was within early Buddhism that dharma became a core concept (Patrick Olivelle, “The Semantic History of Dharma: The Middle and Late Vedic Periods,” in Dharma: Studies in its Semantic, Cultural and Religious History [Delhi: Motilal Benarasidass Publishers, 2009 (2004)], pp. 69–89, 82.) 19 Paul Hacker, “Dharma in Hinduism,” in Olivelle (ed.), Dharma,p.479. 20 Donald R. Davis, Jr., “Dharma in Practice: Ācāra and Authority in Medieval Dharmaśāstra,” in Olivelle (ed.), Dharma,p.392. See also description in Hacker, “Dharma in Hinduism,” p. 486. Dissent and diversity in South Asian religions 165 regionally articulated system of caste/class known as jāti, however, represents the lived experience of what we call caste today Dharma is only one of the stated “four goals” of life, the others being kāma or desire, artha or temporal success, and moksha or liberation; these are pursued in different ways in accordance with one’s place in life. Yet, even with this detailed explication, there are no easy answers within the system as to what is the correct way to live, and the context-sensitive and complicated nature of dharma is crucial to understanding how dissent is managed with reference to these texts and traditions. As Leela Prasad has so vividly shown, the authoritative texts associated with brahminical Hindu tradition function in multiple ways. They largely act as “imagined texts,” where “injunctions” and “actions” come together in an imagined representation of the normative that is “constructed by each individual – or by a community – commingling memory and experience 21 with learning and teaching.” Dharmashastras in lived experience are thus “a nebulous but dynamic and open-ended cultural background that influ- 22 ences conceptualizations of conduct and is in turn influenced by them,” constructed around multiple and diverse opinions on right conduct and right being. The shastras in this sense are broadly cosmopolitan and inclusive. At the same time, they acted also to close down options for some members of South Asian society – mainly women and lower castes: “The Brahmin imaginary has no canon,” Wendy Doniger explains, “but if it did, that canon would be the body of shastras which spelled out the dominant paradigm with regard to women, animals, and castes, the mark at which all 23 subsequent antinomian or resistant strains of Hinduism aimed.” Indeed, the varna system defined most starkly that fifth category of those who were deemed to be outside of it, known by the English term “untouchable” but in India in the modern period by various other terms (harijan or “people of God” by nationalist leader Mohandas Gandhi [1869–1948], and as the “depressed classes” and dalits or “broken men” by nationalist and Dalit leader B. R. Ambedkar [1891–1956]). The latter term is now used by political activists, a way of converting “a negative description into a confrontational 24 identity and to become a particular sort of political subject.” Members of groups in this category were deemed by higher-caste members to be ritually 25 unclean and were therefore socially and economically marginalized. Many of the “resistant” strains Doniger speaks of – which were marginalized

21 Leela Prasad, Poetics of Conduct: Oral Narrative and Moral Being in a South Indian Town (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), p. 228. See also Anand Pandian, “Tradition in Fragments: Inherited Forms and Fractures in the Ethics of South India,” American Ethnologist 35, 3 (2008): 466–480. 22 23 Prasad, Poetics of Conduct,p.118. Doniger, The Hindus,p.305. 24 Rao, The Caste Question,p.1. 25 Christophe Jaffrelot, India’s Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Low Castes in North Indian Politics (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003), p. 23. 166 Anne Murphy by and contested the dominant paradigm – were not “part” of something defined as Hinduism, but should be seen as separate traditions entirely, as will be discussed. Accepting this does not limit us only to narrow and exclusive social formations in understanding Hinduism; caste can and has been rethought in creative ways within these traditions, as we will see. Just as we cannot limit European Christian culture to racism and anti-semitism – since there is more to this tradition than these intolerant and violent forms of exclusion, as pernicious and historically significant as they have been – brahminical traditions too have far more to them than caste exclusion. As Adheesh Sathaye has noted, “Brahminical varnạhasneverbeentheonly way of structuring Hindu society and in fact has been in continuous competi- 26 tion with other theories and models of social organization.” It is thus crucial that we not fall into the colonial habit of reading caste as essential and fundamental to South Asian lifeworlds, as Nicholas Dirks has rightly 27 asserted. It has never been the only way of organizing social life (and hierarchy) in South Asia. But it has a special staying power, as Sathaye also notes: “Still, while caste may not automatically govern the more nuanced practices that take place on the ground in Indian social environ- ments, it becomes institutionalized through cultural mediations that make it seem as if Brahmins are ‘always already’ in possession of this form of social 28 power.” It functioned by design to exclude and include, and this function needs to be taken seriously if we are to understand Hinduism historically. One can view the complexity of brahminical engagements with dharma – that is, within an evolving Hindu orientation – in the two ancient Sanskrit epics, the Rāmāyana and Mahābhārata. As Wendy Doniger puts it, “The Mahābhārata deconstructs dharma, exposing the inevitable chaos of the 29 moral life”; the Rāmāyana exposes the dilemmas that accompany the enactment of dharma, expressing shifting historical understandings of dharma over 30 the course of the text. The Rāmāyana in particular takes shape in almost endless vernacular iterations, demonstrating the strong connections among various traditions that share a sometimes tenuous connection to elite Sanskrit sources. This is exemplary of the huge range of more locally defined vernacular texts that have had real significance in lived religious experience; these also have often challenged the hegemony of core brahminical texts and ideologies. Popularizing forces spawned an orientation now known as bhakti, generally translated as “devotionalism,” a mode of engagement that took hold

26 Adheesh Sathaye, Crossing the Lines of Caste: Viswamitra and the Construction of Brahmin Power in Hindu Mythology (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming), introduction. 27 Nicholas B. Dirks, Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). 28 29 Sathaye, Crossing the Lines of Caste, introduction. Doniger The Hindus,p.278. 30 John Brockington, “The Concept of Dharma in the Rāmāyana,” in Olivelle (ed.), Dharma, p. 234. Dissent and diversity in South Asian religions 167 across all the religions of South Asia in the medieval and early modern periods. This orientation designates, above all else, a domain of immediacy and intimacy, and direct experience of the divine. Some of these traditions retained a strong connection to the texts and core tenets of the brahminical “imaginary,” such as is visible in the ecstatic and loving vision of the God Ram in Tulsidas’ sixteenth-century Hindi-language Rāmcaritmānas, which asserts the radical accessibility of God to all but maintains general acceptance 31 of brahminical social formations. We see a more challenging vision in the ca. sixteenth-century Rajasthani-Hindi poetry of Mirabai, who sang passio- nately of her commitment to the God Krishna outside of the conventions that define the life of a married woman, and among the Virashaivas, followers of Basavana, who was born a Brahmin but in the twelfth century challenged the hegemony of Sanskrit and composed in vernacular Kannada; he distributed the sacred thread worn by the upper castes to all his followers, in a sense both reaffirming and destabilizing brahminical authority. Some bhakti figures, such as the iconoclastic Kabir, who derided Muslims and Hindus alike for their inattention to the truth within, defined a new path for religious practice and experience that was not to be contained within the brahminical imaginary. The multiplicity of voices within and debate-oriented configuration of dharma itself in fact accounts for the tendency to incorporate dissent within brahminical tradition. Yet, those like Kabir who fundamentally challenged the social roles and hierarchies associated with it marked out a place outside; the Sikh, Buddhist, and Jain traditions provide other examples. None of these traditions was of course suddenly taken out of conversation with Hindu traditions; indeed, the form of the dharmashastras was shaped in the early period most fundamentally by Buddhism, as Patrick Olivelle has shown (see footnote 18). What is Hinduism then, and what are its key tenets? “Hinduism” as such did not exist in the pre-modern period; the practices and texts now included within it did, as independent and interacting traditions, texts, and practices. One of the reasons that it is so difficult to reconcile this history with the term “Hindu” today, even if we accept that its core is the range of texts and traditions related to the “brahminical imaginary,” is that this imaginary itself has been challenged and modified in fundamental ways in the modern period. Most self-identified Hindus today eschew the caste system, although many still accept aspects of the larger conceptual system associated with it, varnāshrama-dharma, and some do not fully recognize the pervasive injustice of the system. Late nineteenth-century reformer Dayanand Saraswati, for example, embraced the Vedas as the core of “Hindu” religion, but at the same time radically reinterpreted Vedic texts and beliefs and considered them open to all (not just to Brahmins, as was

31 On what he calls “caste-Hindu bhakti,” which “have arisen within the orbit of caste Hinduism” to “intensify and extend [hegemonic social groups’] social, economic and political control over society,” see Lorenzen “Traditions of Non-caste Hinduism,” p. 92. 168 Anne Murphy

32 traditional). This was a radical reconfiguration of the hierarchies previously associated with brahminical traditions. To define “Hinduism” today as fundamentally based in the varnāshrama system, as against those traditions that countered it, is therefore untenable. Many do accept aspects of the system, but “Hinduism,” most Hindus would argue, cannot be defined by adherence to it. If this is the case, how do we define “Hinduism” today? Much as we might like to think this a concern of academics and historians alone, we do so at our peril. The idea of an overarching “Hindu” identity has only illusory connections to past articulations of identity, and the effort to create a single “Hinduism” today is a major ongoing political project. The decision to consider a position as internal dissent, rather than as separate, is therefore today a deeply political act.

Priorities The priorities that are expressed within South Asian traditions – and the disjuncture between current religious formulations and those of the past – reflect a complicated history of encounter with Western understandings of “religion” that do not map to South Asian religious worlds; it was in the colonial period that the definition of “Hinduism” was formalized and shaped in accordance with Western understandings of religion as a transhistorical and transcultural phenomenon. Sikhism, too, as Arvind Mandair has described, was profoundly shaped within the colonial field in a process predetermined in meaning and effect by Western knowledge formations, denying the complex- 33 ity and relationality of pre-modern South Asian cultures. The primary vehicle for the articulation of Sikh community and personal identity at this time was the Singh Sabha movement, reflecting what J. S. Grewal has called a “new consciousness of common identity,” a time of the production of “tradi- 34 tion” in a new modern form. Harjot Oberoi has argued that in the pre- colonial period “most Sikhs moved in and out of multiple identities grounded in local, regional, religious, and secular realities ... [and] several competing 35 definitions of who constituted a Sikh were possible.” This “older pluralist paradigm of Sikh faith,” he argued, “was displaced forever and replaced by a

32 J. E. Llewellyn, “From Interpretation to Reform: Dayānand’s Reading of the Vedas,” in Laurie L. Patton (ed.), Authority, Anxiety, and Canon: Essays in Vedic Interpretation, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), pp. 235–251, 246–248. 33 Arvind-pal Singh Mandair, Religion and the Specter of the West: Sikhism, India, Postcoloniality, and the Politics of Translation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), pp. 418, 420 on South Asian heteronomy and p. 414 on premodern complexity. 34 J. S. Grewal, Sikhs of the Punjab (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 145; Tony Ballantyne, Between Colonialism and Diaspora: Sikh Cultural Formations in an Imperial World (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), p. 35. 35 Harjot Oberoi, The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity and Diversity in Sikh Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 24–25. Dissent and diversity in South Asian religions 169

36 highly uniform Sikh identity, the one we know today as modern Sikhism.” Although this in part rings true, it is also something of an overstatement; as Tony Ballantyne has since pointed out, such articulations of identity prolifer- ated at the same time that numerous new identitarian options were available 37 to Sikhs, in India and in the diaspora. As such, the Singh Sabha movement may reflect not closure, but instead the tensions created by a radical opening up of new options for Sikhs in articulating their place in the world and as Sikh, and multiple responses to these new options. It was the competitive religious environment of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that brought about the larger program to define religious identity among all religious communities in colonial India. It was in this crucible that Hinduism and Sikhism took their modern forms. Various reformist organizations, such as the Arya Samaj founded by Dayanand Saraswati, formulated and positioned representations of Hinduism in the public sphere; so too did Muslim identity take shape in the representations of diverse anjuman or religious societies, as well as within more formal institutions such as Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan’s Mohammadan Anglo- Oriental College (now known as Aligarh Muslim University). For Sikhism, prior historical articulations of membership in the Sikh community were reformulated in new terms that emphasized clear and exclusive membership. This was necessary in colonial India, where representation in new Legislative Councils in the beginning decades of the twentieth century – and before that, in committees formed by appointment rather than election – were configured with reference to religious identity. The establishment of separate electorates for Muslims in 1909 was only the most visible example of the central role of 38 religious identity in governance. In the pre-colonial period, Sikh identity was enunciated at multiple points during the period of the formation of the tradition under the guidance of ten human “embodied” Gurus, from Guru Nanak (d. 1539) to Guru Gobind Singh (d. 1708), and thereafter with reference to the guidance of the granth or text (known as the Guru Granth Sahib, as the continuing living Guru of the tradition after the death of the Tenth Guru) and the panth or community. This is clearly defined in the earliest texts to follow the death of the Tenth Guru, the gurbilās and rahitnāme.In1699, the community took clearer shape with the foundation of the Khalsa by the Tenth and final human Guru, Guru 39 Gobind Singh. The Khalsa acted to galvanize the Sikh community, to bring it together in direct relation to the Guru, and radically alter its social formations.

36 Oberoi, The Construction of Religious Boundaries,p.25. 37 Ballantyne, Between Colonialism and Diaspora,p.83. 38 See for example Kenneth Jones, “Religious Identity and the Indian Census,” in N. G. Barrier (ed.), The Census in British India: New Perspectives (New Delhi: Manohar, 1981), pp. 73–101. 39 There is some debate on the date of the foundation of the Khalsa, see Gurinder S. Mann Gurinder Singh Mann, “Sources for the Study of Guru Gobind Singh’s Life and Times,” Journal of Punjab Studies 15, 1–2 (2008): 229–284. 170 Anne Murphy

Particularly important was its denial of caste affiliation; this is visible in the mid- to late eighteenth-century Punjabi-language texts referred to earlier, as well as in the early example of Sikh historical writing, Gur Sobha or “Light of 40 the Guru,” by Sainapati, soon after the death of Guru Gobind Singh. While it is the case that there was no clear articulation of the eschewal of “Hindu” identity in such texts, to expect this is anachronistic: there was no “Hinduism,” per se, in the eighteenth century to articulate separation from. Separation, however, was immanent to the articulation of a Sikh communitarian formation: brahminical traditions were superseded by the Guru, a key indication of 41 separation, and a challenge to caste was articulated in a wide range of texts. As Purnima Dhavan has brilliantly shown, membership in the Khalsa was 42 worked out in complex ways over the course of the eighteenth century. Diversity, as we would well expect, therefore characterized the tradition, as membership and belonging were worked out. In the colonial period, such enunciations of Sikh community formation and individual participation were made more concrete and exclusive. After the annexation in 1849 of the kingdom of Lahore – the sovereign state in Punjab that had been headed by a Sikh ruler, Maharaja Ranjit Singh – many Sikh nobles and elites suffered a severe restriction in their political and economic power. They were able to redeem themselves in 1857, when members of the East India Company army rebelled. Punjabi troops helped the East India Company to regain control, and reaped the benefits; after 1858 Punjabis 43 would dominate in the armed forces. Richard Fox has famously argued that the British almost invented Khalsa Sikh identity in this period, salvaging Sikh identity from threatened absorption into Hinduism and enforcing 44 Khalsa-centric norms in a new uniform way. This is a severe overstatement; as has been noted, clear articulations of and debates about Khalsa identity pre-dated the intrusion of the colonial state into Punjab, and “threats” to Sikhism relied upon a rigid definition of participation and identity that created this perception of threat, rather than describing it. At the same time, it is the case that the enforcement of Khalsa norms through the army encouraged adherence and a more uniform articulation of identity was encouraged for all members of the army. Multiple forces in the colonial environment have thus made Sikh identity more defined than it might have been before, drawing on earlier articulations.

40 The date traditionally given for the text is 1711; Purnima Dhavan argues convincingly for a date of 1708. See Purnima Dhavan, When Sparrows Became Hawks: The Making of the Sikh Warrior Tradition, 1699–1799 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 182 footnotes 5 and 6. 41 42 See Murphy, “Contours of Community.” Dhavan, When Sparrows Became Hawks. 43 Tai Yong Tan, The Garrison State: The Military, Government and Society in Colonial Punjab, 1849–1947 (New Delhi: Sage, 2005). 44 Richard Fox, Lions of the Punjab: Culture in the Making (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). Dissent and diversity in South Asian religions 171

With the growing emergence of a single and capacious Hinduism, alongside the politicization of Muslim identity, internal dissent and diversity within came to be as much of a threat as a lack of definition from other religions; the “intra” and “inter” were deeply entwined. This accounts for the anxiety over the singularization of internal definition that characterized the Singh Sabha movement, as Oberoi points out. The continuation of this discourse can be seen today in the ways in which Sikhism continues to be described in both popular and scholarly discourses in terms of identity, rather than by the content of Sikh teachings or practices: W. H. McLeod’s well-known book in 1989 was entitled Who is a Sikh? not “What does it mean to be Sikh?” or even 45 “What is Sikhism?” The open-ended and inclusive ideas of the Sikh Gurus, and the practices that they promoted among diverse followers – focusing on the full experience of the all-encompassing, internal and transcendent Word and the destruction of the ego as a barrier to that full, transformative experience – are lost in a strictly identitarian discourse, and the need to narrowly define.

Consequences The political need for exclusive community membership and definition was real in the colonial period. Resulting dynamics permeated religious and social life on multiple levels of colonial governance, making deep and lasting the impact on South Asian religious traditions. This can be seen for example in the ways in which religious institutions were administered. The British had become deeply involved in the management of religious institutions in India in the eighteenth century, and by the mid-nineteenth century sought to limit their involvement. Briefly, the solution to this was found with the designation of managing bodies for such sites, to allow for “local” control. This was enforced through a series of acts meant to allow the British Crown Government of India to divest itself of direct control, and at the same time provide for (and indeed, enforce) machineries of governance for religious 46 institutions. The status of the owner and the rightful managing body of the religious institution was defined in strikingly different ways for different religious communities in British India, reinforcing differences and conflicts among and within communities. Arjun Appadurai has shown how the colonial state’s

45 W. H. McLeod, Who is a Sikh? The Problem of Sikh Identity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). 46 See detailed discussion in Anne Murphy, The Materiality of the Past: History and Representation in Sikh Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), Chapters 6 and 8, and Anne Murphy, “Defining the Religious and the Political: The Administration of Sikh Religious Sites in Colonial India and the Making of a Public Sphere,” Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory, 9, 1 (2013): 51–62. 172 Anne Murphy management of South Indian Hindu temples from 1878 to 1916 functioned “to 47 legally define a sectarian electorate for the temple.” Caste and sect were found to define an institution’s community within a broad definition of 48 Hinduism, allowing for local temple control. Far more restrictive definitions 49 were enjoined for Sikhism and Islam. The Sikh community was designated as a single corporate body, responsible for the management of all historically defined Gurdwaras, through a single representational governing body, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (or SGPC, discussed further below). It is no coincidence then that the Gurdwara Act of 1925 therefore also engaged in defining formally who is a Sikh, defining the limits of the community within. In the case of Islam, a homogenized and elite understanding of Islam was followed in the designation of rightful Islamic practice, marginalizing local customs (as was visible in the management of Ismaili as 50 well as other sites, returning to the example at the beginning of this chapter). Local controls would, however, be maintained for specific endowments, within this mainstream and generic notion of Islam. These administrative distinctions had a powerful effect. Hinduism was defined to allow for diversity and breadth, and Sikhism and Islam were defined in narrow terms. To put it simply, one would have to prove one were not a Hindu, as opposed to proving that one were a Sikh or Muslim; Hinduism includes, others opt out. This formulation has a far wider currency than one might expect. It directly mirrors Hindu nationalist rhetoric, such as was articulated so clearly in the understanding of Hindutva or “Hinduness” expressed by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966), as the “natural” state of India’s inhabitants, where a Hindu is clearly defined as a member of a nation sharing a homeland, a “common 51 blood,” and a common Hindu culture based in Sanskrit. This is the basis for Hindu nationalist hostility toward “other” religions, as well as its need to sustain and enforce a monolithic notion of Hinduism. Thus Bhikhu Parekh, prominent political scientist and member of the English House of Lords, highlights the “great resources” that the “Hindu religious and cultural tradition” holds for tolerance, but also recognizes the “deep-seated tendency [in the tradition] to freeze differences, to respect them by incorporating them within a hierarchical system.” In the case of those communities or traditions that “dare challenge the hierarchy and demand equality of status and respect, as is increasingly being done by lower castes, Dalits, non-Brahminic forms of Hindu religious life and non- Hindu religions, Hindu tolerance is stretched to its limits and throws up crude or

47 Arjun Appadurai, Worship and Conﬂict under Colonial Rule (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 181. 48 Appadurai, Worship and Conﬂict under Colonial Rule, pp. 188−189. 49 Murphy, Materiality of the Past, Chapter 6. 50 Gregory C. Kozlowski, Muslim Endowments and Society in British India (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985). 51 Christophe Jaffrelot, Hindu Nationalism: A Reader (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), pp. 85–96, see 90, 94–95. Dissent and diversity in South Asian religions 173

52 subtle and militant or mild forms of intolerance.” Part of the problem, indeed, is inclusivity itself; the praise of Hindu tradition by Amartya Sen with which this chapter opened thus requires further consideration.

Diversity We must always remember this dual aspect of boundary setting: it excludes as it includes, and vice versa. Brahminical tradition valued heterodoxy, compil- ing and incorporating alternative views in multi-vocal texts that, while including, also functioned to exclude. Thus while it is true that the Vedas are a reference point for South Asian traditions in general, it is also important to recognize the contrastive or dissenting forms such reference often took. In the past, instances of rejection resulted in what we recognize now as “new religions” being formed: we name these today as other “isms,” such as Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism. In the modern period, the forces of incorporation have been strong, particularly for traditions at the margins of society that lack social and economic backing and recognition. Incorporation in some senses does allow for dissent, as contrasting voices find a place within, but it also sheers off truly critical aspects of a tradition and enforces homogeneity. The problematic politics of inclusion are particularly visible, again, with reference to the thorny issue of caste. Caste developed as a normative model for social and individual life within Hindu tradition, and those at the margins of it (outside of the higher three varna) are less easily subsumed in what it means to be “Hindu.” One response to the inequities of caste has been conversion. Ambedkar advocated a rejection of a Hindu identity that culminated in his conversion to Buddhism in 1956, not long before his death, and the conversion 53 of significant numbers with him and since. Conversion was meant to circum- 54 vent caste without abandoning ties to Indian cultural identity. Another response is Sanskritization, or the adoption of higher-caste practices by the lower castes toward the goal of purification and inclusion, a move that effectively, as Ronki Ram points out, “reinforces the structural logic of Hinduism by asking Dalits to internalize the very same social system that they 55 wouldliketocontestinthefirstplace.” Ram argues that the Ad Dharm or “first religion” movement “emerged independently of the agendas of conversion to neo-Buddhism and sanskritisation” in Punjab in the 1920s to articulate an

52 Bhikhu Parekh, “Some Reﬂections on the Hindu Theory of Tolerance,” Seminar 521 (January 2003): 48–53: www.india-seminar.com/2003/521/521%20bhikhu%20parekh.htm (accessed, January 21, 2014). No pagination provided in online version. 53 Rao, The Caste Question, pp. 118–122. 54 Janet Contursi, “Political Theology: Text and Practice in a Dalit Panther Community,” The Journal of Asian Studies 52, 2 (May 1993): 320–339; G. Viswanathan, Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity and Belief (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). 55 Ronki Ram, “Beyond Conversion and Sanskritisation: Articulating an Alternative Dalit Agenda in East Punjab,” Modern Asian Studies 46, 3 (2011): 639–702, see 648. 174 Anne Murphy

56 alternative vision of Dalit empowerment. This movement claimed a separate, ancestral tradition for Dalits that was the first and primary religion of India. The formalization of this identity as a religious and cultural movement, indeed, involved all the internal regulations of membership and behavior that one would expect, and the group was successful in being recognized as a separate, 57 “non-Hindu” group in the 1931 census. This was in direct response to a corresponding interest on the part of higher-caste Hindus to “claim” untouch- 58 ablesasHindu. It would be wrong therefore to construe all forms of Dalit mobilization as movements out of Hinduism (through conversion) or within Hinduism (whether that be through the adoption of higher-caste practices and a concomitant acceptance of the center, or through the expression of dissent). Ram argues that we should see this as a “Dalit homecoming,” an already existing non-Hindu tradition that “gives expression to the native religion and heritage of the Punjabi Dalits as indigenous inhabitants of the land, without inducing them to get assimilated into the dominant regional cultural patterns or 59 to convert to another faith.” To name Dalits in these circumstances (and there are a lot of them, up to 30 percent of Punjab’s population) as “Hindu” is a misnaming, to be sure; as Anupama Rao has suggested, in the modern period “‘Dalit’ came to name an identity and a community ... most importantly an imagined community outside Hinduism – and outside religion itself – as a 60 strategy of political emancipation.” Along such lines, public intellectual Kancha Illaiah has argued that he is not a Hindu, because “Hindu” does not describe the religious and social lives of the dalitbahujan or the “Dalit-majority,” a term he uses to define both the Dalits or Scheduled Castes (the official governmental term) and “Other Backward Castes” or OBCs, who are also eligible for reservations or protected guaranteed representation in government schools and employment 61 due to their economic and social marginalization. (It should be remembered that the Scheduled Castes and Tribes represented 24.4 percent of the Indian population in the 2001 census, and a government report in 2007

56 Ram, “Beyond Conversion,” pp. 639, and 668ff. On reasons why neo-Buddhism has not succeeded, see p. 656. 57 Ram, “Beyond Conversion,” pp. 687–688, 690, 692–696. Ad-Dharmis are listed as Hindu today. On the census, see Surinder Jodhka, “Sikhism and the Caste Question: Dalits and their Politics in Contemporary Punjab,” Contributions to Indian Sociology 38, 1&2 (2004): 165–192, see 166, 180. 58 Rao, The Caste Question, pp. 21, 131. 59 For quote, see Rao, The Caste Question, pp. 14–15, see also p. 11 footnote 18; on Dalit activism in Punjab and the relationship with Hinduism and other religions see Ram, “Beyond Conversion,” p. 633. 60 Ram, “Beyond Conversion,” p.663. Rao, The Caste Question, pp. 14–15; see also p. 11 footnote 18. 61 Kancha Ilaiah, Why I Am Not a Hindu: A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture and Political Economy (Calcutta: Samya, 1996), pp. vii–ix. Dissent and diversity in South Asian religions 175

62 estimated 41 percent of the population as OBC. ) The coercive nature of inclusion is visible clearly in the battle between Ambedkar and M. K. Gandhi over the question of separate electorates for Dalits. Ambedkar had demanded separate electorates for the “depressed classes” in 1932,believing that “such electoral reform would transform his caste fellows into a solid 63 interest group.” Gandhi opposed this move, and threatened to fast unto 64 death to force British authorities not to grant them. Ambedkar was forced to acquiesce and untouchables received reservations within a greater “Hindu” majority. While perceived of as championing of the lower castes, Gandhi’s anti-caste efforts in general sought to ameliorate caste conditions, not challenge the system as a whole. Indeed, the structure of law in India today reflects this compromise: if one converts to Christianity or Islam, one loses the protections and reservations that are available for the Scheduled Castes, which are available to Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists (the latter two were added later, 65 at first only Hindus were eligible). In 2013 this is being contested in court. Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains too are included in the confines of “Hindu” in legal terms, that catchall being used for all non-Muslims and non-Christians in India (a strange echo of its much earlier, contrastive sense). This has been a continuing source of Sikh discontent, in particular. The Supreme Court of India took up the issue in 2013, calling into question the requirement that Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs self-identify as “Hindu” to do things such as file taxes. This has real personal significance: many Sikhs resented deeply being identified as “Hindu” on official documents, such as those related to marriage. It was not until May 2012 that Sikh marriages could be registered under the Sikh Anand Marriage Act, which was originally passed in 1909, instead of under the 1955 Hindu Marriage Act.

Inculcation and reproduction Concern over the reproduction of Sikhism and Hinduism to new generations today is grounded in the paired historical experiences of colonialism and racism, which engendered the need to defend South Asian religions from Christian critique. This is clearly visible in the debates that have arisen around education about Hinduism (and Indian history), as well as Sikhism, both in India and the diaspora. One commentator, Shrinivas Tilak, has asserted “Can a non-Hindu researcher carry out research on Hinduism? The answer must be

62 http://censusindia.gov.in/(S(2roltzmb3lautr55jka21j55))/Census_And_You/scheduled_ castes_and_sheduled_tribes.aspx and http://censusindia.gov.in/(S(azbrzbjt0yojz h55yjzvi145))/Census_Data_2001/India_at_glance/scst.aspx. Accessed December 13, 2014. As Anupama Rao notes, a majority of people demographically in India qualify for reservations based on “backwardness” (Rao The Caste Question,p.169). 63 64 Jaffrelot, India’s Silent Revolution,p.23. Rao, The Caste Question, pp. 137ff. 65 Rao, The Caste Question,p.192. 176 Anne Murphy

66 a qualified yes; yes, but not on his or her own.” Even internal representations need to be controlled; an extreme example of this dynamic was the persecution of Professor Harjot Oberoi, a Sikh scholar at the University of British Columbia, in the late 1980s and 1990s for his argument that many now accepted features of Sikh identity were formalized only in the late nineteenth century and that pre-colonial boundaries between traditions in South Asia did 67 not follow the exclusivist logic of Western religions. Oberoi’s thesis which is in keeping with general scholarly views on modern religious identity in South Asia, it was seen as an attack on the integrity of Sikh identity at a time when a Sikh separatist movement sought an independent Sikh state in the Indian state of Punjab and both state-enacted and separatist violence raged. Along similar lines, textbook representations of both Indian history and Hinduism have come under careful scrutiny in both India and the Hindu diaspora. Individuals associated with the RSS or Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu right-wing militant organization in the Sangh Pariwar or family of organizations that constitute the united front of Hindu nationalism, were appointed to key education positions at the federal level after the 1999 election of its sister political party Bharatiya Janata Party, in association with its allies in 68 the National Democratic Alliance. The new government initiated a full review of textbook content and a multi-pronged effort to revise the imagination of the “Hindu” past overall. As noted historian Romila Thapar notes in a personal reflection on the controversy, there was no room in the Hindu nationalist view for complex and multi-faceted histories: “Hindutva history claims a uniform, monolithic Hindu identity for Indian civilization, often defined as Aryan and upper-caste. The multiple variant and lesser cultures are either ignored or at 69 best marginalized.” This effort to “terminate history as a social science and convert it into a Hindutva catechism,” as Thapar describes it, was soon felt outside India; debate erupted in California in 2005–2006 over revisions to the treatment of Hinduism in the state’s sixth grade history textbooks proposed by 70 United States-based Hindu organizations. The diverse group opposing the

66 Shrinivas Tilak, “Hinduism for Hindus: Taking Back Hindu Studies,” in John Stratton Hawley and Vasudha Narayanan (eds.), The Life of Hinduism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), pp. 271–287, 281. For more on recent controversies around non-Hindu treatments of Hindu religious content, see S. N. Balagangadhara and Sarah Claerhout, “Are Dialogues Antidotes to Violence? Two Recent Examples from Hinduism Studies,” Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies 7, 19 (Spring 2008): 118–143. 67 Oberoi, The Construction of Religious Boundaries. The author is now the holder of the Chair previously held by Professor Oberoi, who continues to teach in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia. 68 Jaffrelot, Hindu Nationalism: A Reader, pp. 269–270. See also Sen, Argumentative Indian, pp. 63ff. 69 Romila Thapar, “The History Debate and School Textbooks in India: A Personal Memoir,” History Workshop Journal 67 (Spring 2009): 87–98, see 96. 70 Thapar, “The History Debate,” p. 96. The lead organizations in the revision effort were the Hindu Education Foundation and the Vedic Foundation of Austin, Texas. Dissent and diversity in South Asian religions 177 proposed changes, the “Friends of South Asia,” was composed of Hindus and non-Hindus as well as scholars and non-scholars. According to this group, the proposed changes would have watered down representation of some elements of Hindu history, such as the caste system, and made unsupportable historical claims about early India that were parallel to the new additions 71 to the Indian textbooks, described above. Few of them were ultimately accepted. We can see therefore that concerns over reproduction exist both in South Asia and the Diaspora. For those living outside of South Asia, a need for control is perhaps even more urgently felt. For any South Asian, living as a minority community member abroad replicates the racist structures of colonialism. For Sikhs and Muslims in the post-9/11 environment in particular, the West has become newly dangerous: a long-time home for many, it now threatens exclusion and persecution for anyone even mistakenly associated with new enemies of the state. For Hindus abroad, there is the inherent difﬁculty of minority status – a new experience for some who might claim majority status at home. At the same time, such anxiety abroad corresponds in subtle ways to that produced by the need to maintain a cohesive Hindu majority identity in the face of the diversity that stands at the core of the claim to being “Hindu.” Again we see the dynamic of the inner and the outer. How does one create a community anew in an agonistic environment? Many believe the answer lies in hardening a community’s outer boundaries, while simultaneously clarifying who belongs within. Yet, alongside intolerance aimed at internal and external regulation of the deﬁnition of Hinduism and Sikhism, one can also see an expansion of diversity and tolerance, showing that forces for tolerance persist within both traditions alongside those that foreclose it. This is evidenced for example by the proliferation of Sikh interest groups in the diaspora and in India with a range of perspectives; this has for many entailed a move away from singular Khalistani interests toward a more dispersed, diasporic articulation of being Sikh, with diverse religious and political sensibilities (some but not all of which 72 retain a commitment to a separate Sikh state). The last two decades have also witnessed the founding of numerous new Chairs in Sikh Studies in North America, featuring scholars with a range of disciplinary perspectives. Scholars

71 Deepa Ranganathan, “Hindu History Ignites Brawl Over Textbooks,” The Sacramento Bee, Thursday January 26, 2006,p.A1; Deepa Ranganathan, “State Revises Textbooks on Hindu History,” The Sacramento Bee, Thursday March 9, 2006,p.A5. Press coverage has been compiled by “Friends of South Asia” at www.friendsofsouthasia.org/textbook/ PressCoverage.html (accessed December 13, 2014). Robert Murray Thomas, Godinthe Classroom: Religion and America’s Public Schools (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007), pp. 106–107. 72 Giorgio Shani, Sikh Nationalism and Identity in a Global Age (London: Routledge, 2008). 178 Anne Murphy

73 of Hinduism, both Hindu and non-Hindu, also offer a range of perspectives. Multiplicity is visible alongside a lack of tolerance for it.

Authority Who has the “right” to adjudicate claims regarding the center and periphery, the heretical versus the tolerable? In Hinduism, there is no centralized administrative body or set of institutions, but brahminical and Sanskrit- oriented orthodoxies have a powerful hold on defining what is correctly “Hindu,” as Thapar notes. The practice of outcasting represented a severe form of regulation: those who were understood to have “crossed a line” in behavior could be expelled from their in-caste status, and in this way relegated to the lower order associated with non-caste exclusion. Such a disciplinary technique, Anupama Rao argues, “drew its force from the permanent outcasting of one community – the untouchables,” which in this way held together the caste order as a “structuring negative principle; it was Hinduism’s ‘constitutive outside’, its necessary yet excised animating 74 force.” In Sikhism, the generally open-ended nature of the thought of the Gurus as expressed in the Sikh canon, the Guru Granth Sahib, in many ways invites diversity of opinion. At the same time, there are strong centralizing forces. The main institutional body is the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee or SGPC, formed in 1925 with the passage of the Gurdwara Reform Act. It has been praised by Partha Chatterjee as an example of 75 the kind of “representative public institutions and practices” that can 76 accompany minority mobilization within a “strategic politics of toleration,” as one of the first “legally constituted public bod[ies] in colonial India for 77 which the principle of universal suffrage was recognized.” Harjot Oberoi, on the other hand, has argued against such a formulation, noting that groups claiming to represent religious and other minorities “regularly collude in suppressing rights, disrupting lives, stigmatizing bodies, and inflicting pain,” as happened within the Gurdwara Reform movement in the 1920s, when one Sikh group, the Babbar Akalis, sought an alternative and ultimately margin- 78 alized vision of the Sikh community, one which sought economic justice.

73 Consider, for example, Professor Deepak Sharma’s argument for tolerance: www.hufﬁngton post.com/deepak-sarma/censoring-ramanujans-essay-ramayana_b_1119593.html (accessed August 8, 2013). 74 Rao, The Caste Question,p.127. 75 Partha Chatterjee, “Religious Minorities and the Secular State: Reﬂections on an Indian Impasse,” Public Culture 8, 1 (1995): 11–39, see 37. See more detailed discussion in Murphy Materiality of the Past, 222–3. 76 77 Chatterjee, “Religious Minorities,” p. 36. Chatterjee, “Religious Minorities,” p. 38. 78 Harjot Oberoi, “What Has a Whale Got to Do With It? A Tale of Pogroms and Biblical Allegories,” in Christopher Shackle, Gurharpal Singh, and Arvind-pal Singh Mandair (eds.), Sikh Religion, Culture, and Ethnicity (Richmond, UK: Curzon Press, 2001), pp. 186–206. Dissent and diversity in South Asian religions 179

The SGPC has thus been both criticized and praised in its role as a central religious as well as political body within the Sikh community since its founding, with some advocating for a less comprehensive and less political place for the organization, and others arguing for the extension of its authority outside of its original domain over the historical Sikh shrines within the areas associated with the former colonial state of Punjab to encompass all Sikh shrines around the world. Sikh Gurdwara communities in Canada have for example debated its reach. In Surrey, British Columbia, conﬂict erupted in the late 1990s over whether or not tables or chairs should be utilized in the community dining area, or langar hall, of Gurdwaras in British Columbia. While in India it is traditional to sit on the ﬂoor, early Sikh immigrants to BC (present in the province since the early decades of the twentieth century) adapted to life there by installing tables and chairs in the langar. The Akal Takhat (a central authority within the structure of the SGPC)issuedarulingin1998 that this practice should not be followed, but not all Gurdwaras or Sikh Temples (as they are called in BC) complied with the ruling, challenging the power of these central authorities to shape Sikh life outside of their original mandate. This debate, however, did not take place in a vacuum, and is not only about a matter of doctrine and practice; as Kamala Nayar has pointed out, the tables and chairs issue emerged after an election in an important Gurdwara resulted in the ousting of a group sympathetic to the separatist movement for an independent Sikh state in the Indian 79 Punjab. Tolerance for internal dissent, therefore, is deeply subject to larger external and political concerns.

Management options Does Hinduism manage dissent in a fundamentally different way from Sikhism? Hindu intolerance today is most visibly expressed regarding perceived external threats. Hindu nationalist discourse in India is constructed around the perception of Hindus as victims and Muslims as perpetrators; such a characterization has been mobilized within the radical Hindu Right to justify the persecution and marginalization of Muslims and Christians. Similar dynamics can be seen internally. As Rajeswari Sunder Rajan notes, there has been a striking silence in mainstream Hindu communities regarding the acts of internal and external persecution that have occurred in recent years: thus “it is legitimate to ask why – if indeed Hinduism (religion as such) is debased by Hindutva (politicized religion), as ‘good Hindus’ have eagerly claimed – such condemnation has not been more in evidence ... Can Hindu ‘tolerance’ still possess any credibility if the Hindu religious establishment will

79 Kamala Elizabeth Nayar, The Sikh Diaspora in Vancouver: Three Generations Amid Tradition, Modernity and Multiculturalism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), pp. 164–165. 180 Anne Murphy

80 not condemn the politics of hate?” Rajan thus compares the politics of tolerance among Hindus in India with mainstream liberal discourse in the United States, as a kind of tolerance in a “hegemonic political mode,” with “connotations of prejudice, condescension, and implicitly withheld punish- 81 ment” that “lie not far beneath the surface.” As Michael Walzer has noted, this understanding of toleration in relation to power is a general feature: “it is often said that toleration is always a relationship of inequality where the tolerated groups or individuals are cast in an inferior position.” Such inequalities can be productive: “sometimes, indeed, toleration works best when relations of political superiority and inferiority are clearly marked and 82 commonly recognized.” The problem with the inclusive intolerance within Hinduism may be that differences are elided but power differentials persist. Inclusion and intolerance here go hand in hand. Remember Gandhi’scon- flict with Ambedkar, discussed above: reform in Gandhi’s approach to the amelioration of caste centered on inclusion and purification, taking “recourse to the stronger emotive language of sin, redemption, and empathy by upper 83 castes, and ...[calling for] the assimilation of harijans within the Hindu fold.” A derivative of this approach, the reformation of communities as Hindu,takesa clear political form today. In the early 2000s numerous philanthropic organizations explicitly defined their mission as “Hinduization”: educating tribals and lower-caste persons in brahminical and caste Hindu belief and practice, a new and explicitly political form of the “Sanskritization” described above. After the “Campaign to Stop Funding Hate” in the United States exposed the connection of such programs to proselytization and the persecution of Muslims and Christians, such overt religious declarations were erased from the organiza- 84 tions’ websites and they were recast in more benign terms. Such programs are effective: while it is the case that many Dalits protected Muslims, and continue to be persecuted in Gujarat and elsewhere, particularly if they convert to Christianity, recent Dalit and tribal recruits were active participants in the 85 violence against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002.

80 Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, “The Politics of Hindu ‘Tolerance’,” boundary 2, 38, 3 (2011): 67–86, see 69 and 74. 81 Rajan, “The Politics of Hindu ‘Tolerance’,” p. 75. 82 For both quotes, see Michael Walzer, On Toleration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), p. 52. 83 Rajan, “The Politics of Hindu ‘Tolerance’,” pp. 83–84. 84 The primary aim of the campaign was to prevent the matching of funds to such organizations by US corporations. Anne Murphy, “Mobilizing Seva (Service): Modes of Sikh Diasporic Action,” in Knut Axel Jacobsen and Pratap Kumar (eds.), South Asians in the Diaspora: Histories and Religious Traditions (Leiden: Brill, 2004), pp. 337–372, 363–365. 85 Rajan, “The Politics of Hindu ‘Tolerance’,” p. 84. Arrests related to the violence in Gujarat also disproportionately impacted Dalits, not the upper castes who played a leading role in the violence. See Human Rights Watch Report Compounding Injustice: The Government’s Failure to Redress Massacres in Gujarat (July 2003), www.hrw.org/reports/2003/india0703/ Gujarat-10.htm or www.hrw.org/node/12314/section/11 (accessed August 19, 2013). Dissent and diversity in South Asian religions 181

The regulation of individuals as Hindu is a corollary project. For example, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or VHP (the “World Hindu Congress,” another member of the Sangh Pariwar) has taken aim at Valentine’s Day as a foreign import into India, Christian in derivation, and inappropriate to Hindu culture. One response to the attempt to shut down celebration of the holiday was the “Pink Chaddi” campaign, whereby people sent pink underpants to VHP officials to protest such moral policing. Similarly, a recent campaign to ban the slaughter of cows in the South Indian state of Karnataka was countered by beef-eating public celebrations sponsored by local groups (including many 86 who would be called Hindu in the current general use of the term). In aggregate these individual incidents reveal resistance to the effort to impose homogeneity and a singular moral order on “Hinduism” as an emergent social and religious formation. In this way, they do reflect openness to debate within the confines of what is Hinduism today. This playful quality, however, must not mask the coercive nature of some of these efforts; those who opposed Valentine’s Day were far from playful in their public condemnation of the holiday and their campaign was initiated with a violent attack on men and 87 women at a pub in Mangalore (coastal Karnataka). In the case of Sikhism, the more centralized nature of the tradition allows us to view centralized management efforts more closely. Those who are deemed to have challenged Sikh fundamental doctrines or practices, for example, can be called before the Akal Takhat, and hukamnāme or orders issued to dictate practice and doctrine. Infractions can result in the issuance of 88 tankhāh, which we might translate as “penance.” This function acts as a mechanism through which dissent is defined and managed, and it is generally used as a way to enforce central theological or doctrinal mandates, such as the status of a controversial text or regarding conflicts with other groups, or to 89 enforce normative Sikh practice and provide clarity on identity. Other forms

86 “Statewide Protest Against Anti-cow Slaughter Bill,” Friday July 16, 2010, The Hindu (online), www.hindu.com/2010/07/16/stories/2010071651740400.htm (accessed August 8, 2013). Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed, “Beefing Up a Law,” Frontline 27, 8, www.flonnet.com/fl2708/stories/ 20100423270812100.htm; also available at www.hindu.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl? file=20100423270812100.htm&date=fl2708/&prd=fline& (accessed August 8, 2013). 87 “The ‘Talibans’ of Mangalore,” The Indian Express, January 27, 2009, www.indianexpress. com/news/the-talibans-of-mangalore/415408/ (accessed August 8, 2013). 88 Nripinder Singh, The Sikh Moral Tradition: Ethical Perceptions of the Sikhs in the Late Nineteenth/Early Twentieth Century (New Delhi: Manohar/South Asia Publications, 1990), pp. 135–136. For a compilation of hukamnāme, tankhāh, and other communications, see Hukamnāme Ādesh, Saṅdesh, Srī Akāl Takhat Sāhib (A Collection of Edicts, Orders and Messages Issued from Sri Akal Takht Sahib), Roop Singh (ed.) (Amritar: Singh Brothers, 2003). Available online at www.sgpc.net/hukamname_Aadesh_Sandesh.pdf (accessed August 19, 2013). 89 For example, a hukamnāma was issued to urge Sikhs not to visit or associate with members of Dera Sacha Sauda, a non-Sikh religious center, in response to the charismatic leader of the center’s decision to appear dressed in a way strongly reminiscent of the Tenth Guru in 2007; he later apologized. Lionel Baixas, “The Dera Sacha Sauda Controversy and Beyond,” 182 Anne Murphy of dissent occur at the peripheries, but at times pull away from the center toward separation. This again is particularly visible around caste. As Surinder Jodhka has argued, caste must be understood outside of a sole association with Hinduism as a historical and social phenomenon that has structured social life 90 in South Asia. Thus, while caste is not granted religious significance in Sikhism, Dalits have not achieved social and economic parity with Jats (the dominant caste in the Punjab) in Sikh contexts and are highly marginalized in Punjabi society. In the much publicized case of the village of Talhan in 2003, members of the Scheduled Castes protested their exclusion from the managing committee for a local shrine; conflict and ultimately violence 91 erupted in the wake of their demand for representation, as Sikhs. Jodhka argues that rather than seeing this as an example of caste “oppression,” it should be viewed as “assertion,”“a result of a long history of struggle and consolidation, which included making claims over resources available in the 92 Sikh religion.” Caste therefore challenges Sikhism to fulfill the anti-caste promise articulated within it. The failure of this promise to materialize has also pushed some members of the lower castes to other options; Ronki Ram has argued that the vibrant proliferation of alternative religious centers in 93 Punjab reflects this.

Internal criticism As we have seen, intramural dissent within South Asian religions today is deeply linked to politics and to power. While core beliefs and practices do figure in such debates and are open to interpretation and question, it is the discourse of identity and the politics of representation that stand at the center. This reflects the deep relationship between representation and religious identity constituted within colonial governance structures, as well as the majoritarian representative politics that emerged in the wake of colonial rule. Today this dynamic functions in a rapidly changing electoral field, where lower-caste mobilization has challenged high- and middle-caste hegemony, and the specter of the Muslim “other” continues to act as a tool for the creation of a Hindu

Economic and Political Weekly 42, 40 (October 2007): 4,059–4,065. There are also criminal charges pending against the leader of the Dera and subordinates: Etmad A. Khan and Anurag Tripathi, “Unholy Den: Operation Jhootha Sauda,” http://archive.tehelka.com/ story_main33.asp?filename=Ts0110807investigation.asp (accessed August 9, 2013). For hukamnāme related to the Dera, see www.sgpc.net/akaltakhat_hukum/hukumnama_dera. asp (accessed 19 August 2013). 90 Jodhka, “Sikhism and the Caste Question,” p. 167. 91 Jodhka, “Sikhism and the Caste Question,” p. 186. 92 Jodhka, “Sikhism and the Caste Question,” p. 172. 93 Ram, “Beyond Conversion,” pp. 656, 699. At times, the similarities between these religious articulations and the Sikh tradition are a source of conflict; see 697ff. See Paramjit Judge and Gurpreet Bal, Mapping Dalits: Contemporary Reality and Future Prospects in Punjab (Jaipur: Rawat Publishers, 2009). Dissent and diversity in South Asian religions 183 majority that can incorporate those who might otherwise be outsiders – and 94 competitors for resources. The ongoing critique and defense of secularism in India today reflects the complex ways in which religion has continued to play a role in shaping governance. The tolerance for diversity of opinion and dissent within Sikhism is gauged with reference to these dynamics, as well, where competition has ensued over the political representation of “Sikh interests,” and a failure in this regard is construed as capitulation to majoritarian (and therefore, Hindu) interests at the federal level. Peace has returned to the Punjab after two decades of violence, but Sikh mobilization continues around core issues, such as justice for the victims of the state-sanctioned violence against Sikhs in 1984 after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Scope There are intrinsic resources within Sikhism and Hinduism that promote interpretive freedom and the valorization of diversity of opinion and experience. We can construe, therefore, the strong mobilizations against narrow definitions of Hinduism, for example, as dissenting responses within Hinduism itself, even if secular in orientation. This is so first of all because the religious/ secular distinction is a hazy one at best, and second because the traditions now included in the Hindu frame themselves have been driven by concerns that conventionally would be defined today as secular (e.g. materialist concerns and/or a recognition of the human-bound nature of authority). Efforts are made by spokespeople for the Hindu Right to disallow speaking “as a Hindu” outside of a defensive and exclusionary mode; the discourse of the “pseudo- secular” and the “anti-Hindu” functions to stop internal critique. But it persists, and perhaps the most striking quality of public discourse in India today is its dynamic and critical nature. As Amartya Sen has highlighted, this “argumentative” aspect of Indian society (including both Sikhism and Hinduism) is perhaps its greatest strength. Efforts to critique the formation of the religious/secular divide by adherents of Sikhism and Hinduism today challenge the ways in which religions themselves are managed in our world. There is revolutionary potential in asking a different question about what it means to express dissent if there is no religious center, and if boundaries between traditions are rethought; post-colonial thinking about religion and its valences allows for the destabi- lization of those forces that seek to homogenize and disallow diversity of opinion and practice. At the same time, in the world today there is little room for traditions that do not follow the logic of Western traditions, so a defensive posture persists. Members of diaspora communities of Hindus and Sikhs are perhaps most under pressure to explain themselves utilizing Western

94 Rajan, “The Politics of Hindu ‘Tolerance’,” p. 84; see also Jaffrelot, India’s Silent Revolution and Rao, The Caste Question,p.282. 184 Anne Murphy

(particularly Protestant Christian) frames of reference, undermining alternative ways of being. This was tragically visible, for example, in the ways that Sikhs in the United States were forced to explain themselves after the violent attack on a Sikh Gurdwara in Wisconsin in August 2012 by a White supre- macist. As Sharon Chan wrote eloquently in the Seattle Times after the attacks – and which the Sikh Foundation later posted to its website – when attacks like this happen against Muslims or Sikhs, in her words “The question is not: ‘What’s Ramadan?’ The question is: What is law enforcement doing 95 to stop this?” Thus while asking questions from the perspective of South Asian traditions might result in a radical decentering and reformulation of the questions that make so much sense for Western traditions, there is still little room for these questions in contemporary political and cultural discourse and the pressure to “explain” in Western terms is powerful. This is keenly felt among adherents, and shapes the forces for dissent and tolerance within traditions forced to speak in a language not their own.

Conclusions In Amartya Sen’s meditation on heterodoxy and debate in Indian traditions, quoted at the opening of this chapter, he notes the tragic contradiction between the ways Hinduism is imagined politically today and its more generous past, where a “pride in liberality and toleration ...contrasts rather sharply with the belligerently sectarian interpretation of Hinduism which is 96 now becoming common through its politicization.” This chapter asks us to take seriously the historical roots of this transformation. These roots show that the contradiction Sen highlights and the political ramifications that follow 97 from it are at the very core of the “capacious” Hinduism that Sen describes. The quest to seek a historical continuity between what we construe in broad terms as “Hinduism” today and such an entity in the past undergirds it. There is therefore a direct logical and historical connection between the capacious- ness of Hinduism that Sen perceives, and its modern aggressive need to define. Neither is continuous with pre-modern religious traditions, and inclusivity can act as a mask for forms of internal and external intolerance. As “Hinduism” became “hardened” as a religious definition in the colonial period, encompassing a range of previously independent traditions, there have emerged strong forces to enforce the uniformity that such a name implies. This new Hinduism has come into being in relation to other traditions, defining itself in agonistic terms with some (such as Islam) and in aggressively inclusive terms in others (such as Dalit traditions); in this way, its founding has shaped

95 Sharon Chan, “Silence after Sikh Shooting is Deafening,” The Seattle Times August 20, 2012, http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2018958109_sharonsikhxml.html. Accessed August 9, 2013. 96 97 Sen, Argumentative Indian,p.46. Sen, Argumentative Indian,p.49. Dissent and diversity in South Asian religions 185 its internal features as well as external boundaries in less tolerant ways. At the same time, every religion in India today must find a place in relation to it, and Sikh concern for uniformity and clear definition is born of this need. We can see from these examples that it is imperative to understand the issue of intramural dissent in Hinduism and Sikhism in complex and interactive terms. It is not uncommon in scholarly circles to question the idea of “Hinduism”; after doing so, most then proceed as if the question had never been asked. We cannot understand religious dynamics within India today without understanding the nature of this problem and its multiple effects. Intramural dissent within each of these traditions depends on the tension between them, and with other traditions, and cannot be understood outside of this broader and highly political field. Chapter 9

Confucianism and dissent on core beliefs

Richard Madsen

What the West calls “Confucianism” is not really an “-ism,” and throughout most of its history it has not had walls or clear boundaries separating it from society as a whole. To extend the topic “intramural dissent” to encompass “Confucianism” we have to expand our intellectual horizons to a point where concepts based on a Western historical experience must take on new and deeper meanings. “Confucianism” is a Western name, first coined by the Jesuit missionaries of the seventeenth century and then further refined by European scholars of comparative religion in the nineteenth. The Jesuits found that their Chinese scholar-official interlocutors considered Confucius (551–479 BCE) to be the preeminent sage. The Jesuits thus called the beliefs and practices of such officials “Confucianism” and, based on the somewhat misleading perspectives of the Chinese elites, they thought that Confucianism could be used to characterize Chinese culture as a whole. But the Chinese themselves had no word for Confucianism. The beliefs and practices the Jesuits were referring to were mainly those associated with a class of people the Chinese 1 called the ru. 2 The ru were people who carried out rituals and education. The term pre- dates Confucius, but his disciples were considered an exemplary kind of ru and in the third century BCE Han Feizi (c. 280–233 BCE), a philosopher opposed to much of Confucius’ vision, called Confucius “the highest figure of the ru 3 tradition.” Henceforth it was the ru who became identified as the carriers of the tradition of thought stemming from Confucius. But there were different, though interconnected aspects of the ru identity. The Chinese spoke of the

1 David Mungello, Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1989) and Paul Rule, K’ung-Tzu or Confucius – The Jesuit Interpretation of Confucianism (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1986). 2 Yong Chen, Confucianism as Religion: Controversies and Consequences (Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 26–29. 3 Chen, Confucianism as Religion,p.29 citing the chapter “Xuan Xue” in the Han Feizi.

186 Confucianism and dissent on core beliefs 187 rujia, the “family” or lineage of the ru; the rujiao, the teaching of the ru; and 4 ruxue, the learning of the ru. The rujia was the extended community of people who had carried the tradition down from the time of Confucius. They did this by teaching, studying, and serving as officials in the imperial bureaucracies. Over two millennia, their scholarship generated an extremely rich and varied tradition of ideas and values and their teaching spread these throughout Chinese society. The Jesuits were not totally wrong. If the ru could be called Confucian, then Chinese civilization as a whole could fairly (but incompletely) be called Confucian. What was the content of the teaching of the ru? There were indeed continuities with the original teachings of Confucius himself as written down by his disciples in the Analects. For its time in the fifth century BCE, these were quite radical: societies should be governed not by hereditary rulers but by people of virtue. In principle anyone could aspire to learn these virtues through proper teaching and self-cultivation. The content of the virtues, 5 however, was quite conservative. Two of the main virtues were ren and li. The former is variously and inadequately translated as “goodness,”“benevo- lence,” or “humanness at its best” and refers to acknowledgment of and respect for the hierarchically structured relationships, especially in the family but also in the polity, that define one’s place in the world. The li are the intricate rituals and practices of etiquette through which one acknowledges those important relationships. The heart of the Confucian vision, therefore, is not a metaphysical system, but a social ethic. The classic formulation of this ethic is the five relationships outlined by Mencius (fourth century BCE), who lived a century after Confucius: Between parent and child there is to be affection Between ruler and minister, rightness Between husband and wife [gender] distinctions Between older and younger [siblings] an order of precedence Between friends, trustworthiness 6 Mencius 3A:4 The ru were dedicated to propagating this ethic, to elaborating its implications, and to explaining its basis in the constitution of the cosmos. Centuries of their scholarship produced an immense body of often contradictory commentary about these matters, but constant in all of this was

4 Chen, Confucianism as Religion, pp. 29–37. 5 I follow the argument of Robert Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), pp. 411–423. This follows a consensus of scholars about the centrality of ren and li, although there are those who would also want to argue for the importance of yi (righteousness). 6 Translation from Wm. Theodore de Bary, Asian Values and Human Rights: A Confucian Communitarian Perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), p. 17. 188 Richard Madsen an affirmation of the bedrock importance of the basic social ethics and the virtuesrequiredtoenactthem. The community of the rujia themselves was brutally persecuted by the Emperor Qin (260–210 BCE), the great unifier of China who followed the legalist philosophy of realpolitik elaborated by Han Feizi, but in the subsequent Han dynasty (206 BCE– 220 CE), the rujia were exalted to become the chief educators and ritual specialists of the dynasty. To meet the needs of establishing a strong state, Han-dynasty scholars intertwined some principles of Legalism with Confucian teachings. For example, the Mencian Five Principles, which stressed the mutual obligations of people to each other within hierarchically structured relationships, were replaced with the Three Bonds: ruler/minister, parent/child, husband/wife. These are authority relationships, with the authority of the state taking precedence 7 over all. In subsequent dynasties, the rujia had to compete with Daoists and Buddhists for the dominant role of ministers of the state, but by the fifth century CE, the ru teaching was integrated with the teachings of the Dao and the Buddha to form the “three teachings,” an intertwined set of beliefs and 8 practices that eventually pervaded the lives of most Chinese. By the Ming (1353–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties, the rujia had regained their position as the primary educators and political advisers of the state. The imperial bureaucracies were staffed by scholar-officials who had gained their positions by passing rigorous examinations based on the teachings of the rujia. In imperial-sponsored academies, the rujia continued to develop scholarship to expand their intellectual traditions to take account of changing realities. The ru teaching also became the common teaching of scholar-officials in Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. In the Ming and Qing, the ethics propagated by the rujia so deeply permeated society that Confucianism could “be regarded as a ‘fuzzy set’ in the sense that its concepts, values, precepts, and norms are manifested in social 9 dimensions in a graded fashion.” That is, one could not really make a clear distinction between dimensions of society that were Confucian and those that were not. One could only say that some dimensions were more or less Confucian than others. For example, one could say that the main rituals that expressed the solidarity and continuity of the Chinese family were basically Confucian, although these were usually intertwined with rituals deriving from Daoist and Buddhist traditions. But as one ascended to elite levels of ru scholars who devoted their lives to studying and teaching the classical

7 De Bary, Asian Values and Human Rights, pp. 124–125. 8 Chen, Confucianism as Religion,p.32. For an example of how these three teachings were institutionalized in the Ming-Qing period, see Kenneth Dean, Lord of the Three in One: The Spread of a Cult in Southeast China (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998). 9 Chen, Confucianism as Religion,p.115. Confucianism and dissent on core beliefs 189 tradition one might see such people as more Confucian than people at the grass roots. In late imperial China, as in contemporary Vietnam, Korea, and Japan, the enforcer of orthodoxy was the imperial state; but a more useful term for this 10 orthodoxy would be “orthopraxis.” Although the rujia scholars often engaged in vigorous debate about the meanings of classical ideas, very few, if any, were ever prosecuted for heterodox thinking as such. Emperors were, however, very concerned with practices that violated Confucian social ethics, especially practices that deﬁed the authority of parents and elders, promoted the egalitarian commingling of genders, and resisted political authority. Such deviant practices could bring severe punishments, including torture and death. By the beginning of the twentieth century, however, the Qing dynasty was on the verge of both political and moral collapse. To strengthen the nation, some scholars advocated the uniﬁcation of the society under a clearly institutionalized national religion, as seemed to be the case in powerful Western nations. For a while the preferred candidate for this unifying religion was “Confucianism,” now called by its Western name and organized like Western religions into congregations with systematic doctrines. Inspired by what seemed to be the most modern forms of Western Christianity, which saw Jesus as an exemplary moral philosopher rather than someone who performed miracles, rose from the dead, and sat at the right hand of God, many Confucian reformists described their tradition as a pure moral philosophy that from its very beginnings eschewed anything supernatural. This did not stop would-be creators of a Confucian church from being rigidly dogmatic, willing to excommunicate those who did not accept what they took to be Confucian core 11 beliefs. In 1896, for example, in a “betrayal of his future liberalism,” the young reformer Liang Qichao (1873–1929) denounced the ritual devotion to the “spirit of literature” that had become popular in Confucian academies and “demanded that its outstanding devotees suffer the legal penalties of members 12 of heterodox religions who deluded the masses.” But in 1911, the old imperial state collapsed, and there was no political agency to enforce orthodoxy. Moreover, during the “May 4th Period” of nationalistic intellectual ferment between 1915 and 1925, the most progressive intellectuals rejected Confucianism as a relic of a “traditional” past that had to be overcome to bring China wealth and power in a modern world.

10 Kwang-Ching Liu (ed.), Orthodoxy in Late Imperial China, Introduction (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2008), pp. 1–24. 11 Ya-pei Kuo, “Redeploying Confucius: The Imperial State Dreams of the Nation, 1902– 1911,” in Mayfair Mei-hui Yang, Chinese Religiosities: Afﬂictions of Modernity and State Formation, pp. 65–84. See also, Mayfair Mei-hui Yang, “Introduction” in Yang (ed.), Chinese Religiosities: Afﬂictions of Modernity and State Formation (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2008), pp. 11–19. 12 Alexander Woodside, “State, Scholars, and Orthodoxy: The Ch’ing Academies, 1736–1839,” in Liu (ed.), Orthodoxy in Late Imperial China,p.184. 190 Richard Madsen

Finally, the social upheavals of the twentieth century destroyed the agents and institutions that had transmitted the Confucian tradition. The old rujia were destroyed and the old rujiao (teaching) was no longer the basis for a Chinese education. The imperial civil service exam system had been eliminated in 1905, and the new universities were devoted to teaching Western natural and social science. Urbanization and industrialization began to undermine the old extended families that had formed the sociological foundation for the practice of Confucian virtues. New political institutions, whether Marxist-Leninist, quasi-fascist, or liberal democratic were based on different principles than those that had been advocated by the old rujia. Modernized versions of ruxue, Confucian scholarship, have survived and become the basis 13 in China for a Confucian revival in the past several decades. But the Confucian tradition has become, as the distinguished Chinese scholar Yu Ying-shih has said, a “wandering ghost,” an ancestral spirit separated from its home, still able to cause mischief or, if properly placated, to do good, but 14 elusive, erratic, and inconsistent. Proponents of the twentieth-century “new Confucianism” have often been good at building walls and engaging in intramural as well as extramural battles, such as those between Confucian “fundamentalists” and “modernists.” We will discuss the differences between this new Confucianism and historical versions of the ru tradition in the sections to follow in this chapter.

Key tenets The Analects, the main text attributed to Confucius (most of it actually written by his disciples, some chapters close to the actual time of Confucius and some perhaps several generations removed), is short and aphoristic. Confucius lived at the end of the “Spring and Autumn” period, a time of transition when the old bonds of loyalty that had tied local ﬁefdoms to the rulers of the Zhou dynasty (1122–255 BCE) were falling apart. The subsequent Warring States period was one of political disintegration and constant warfare, but also a time of philosophical ferment when a “hundred schools” of thought prevailed. The Confucian rujia was one of those schools, and one and two centuries after Confucius, thinkers like Mencius and Xunzi (310–215 BCE) developed more systematic elaborations of the Master’s ideas, albeit elaborations that tend to go in different directions, which indicate ambiguities in the Confucian vision that have continued to frame debates down to the present day. As noted above, the two central virtues in

13 Kang Xiaogang, “A Study of the Renaissance of Traditional Confucian Culture in Contemporary China,” in Fenggang Yang and Joseph Tamney (eds.), Confucianism and Spiritual Traditions in Modern China and Beyond (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 33–73. 14 Chen, Confucianism as Religion,p.173. Yu Ying-shih, Xiandai Ruxue lun (Shanghai: Renmin chubanshe, 1998), p. 5. Confucianism and dissent on core beliefs 191 the Analects are the ren (humanness-at-its-best) and li (ritual, etiquette), but it is not always clear which should take priority. In any case, the ren seems to refer to the internal attitude, the spirit of structured creativity that should animate the external practices of the li. At issue is how one develops the ren and the li and how one balances them. Mencius famously starts from the premise that human nature is good and he believes that one’s natural internal moral sentiments can be cultivated to produce the proper spirit for acknowledging and animating the performance of the proper rituals of mutual respect and super- and subordination. Xunzi says that human nature is bad and he emphasizes the importance of external training in the rituals 15 that can then inculcate the proper interior attitudes. Over the centuries, through many learned debates, the rujia developed these different lines of argument. One key issue was whether to stress more the construction of social institutions, such as a correctly ordered family and state, that would socialize people into the proper attitudes, or to stress an interior process of cultivating the mind-and-heart. These were, however, never seen as mutually exclusive. The Ming and Qing dynasties based the imperial civil service exams on the philosophy of Song-dynasty (960–1278 CE) “neo-Confucian” thinkers like Zhu Xi (1130–1200 CE), who followed Mencius and synthesized his teaching with aspects of Buddhism to emphasize the importance of interior cultivation of the heart-mind. This emphasis helped tip the scales toward the side of another ambiguity in the teaching of the original Confucians. Confucius wanted to cultivate a moral elite – the “gentlemen” or junzi who would be ﬁt to rule. But could the Confucian virtues only be realized by a small elite? After all, Confucius thought that anyone was capable of learning them although the learning was hard and would require proper education. But insofar as the moral virtues welled up from the heart-mind of people who were by nature good, then a more democratic vista might open up. One could be more optimistic that Confucian virtues were really for everyone. The Ming-dynasty thinker Wang Yangming (1472–1529) extended this line of thought and emphasized how the proper virtues came ﬁrst and foremost from interior insight not 16 external learning. In the “new Confucianism” of the twentieth century, we see a continuation of these lines of debate. After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, leading Confucian intellectuals went into exile, in Taiwan and Hong Kong. New Asia College at the Chinese University of Hong Kong became a center for new intellectual elaborations of

15 Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution, pp. 459–480. 16 Wm. Theodore de Bary, “Individualism and Humanitarianism in Late Ming Thought,” in Wm. Theodore de Bary (ed.), Self and Society in Ming Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976); Tu Wei-ming, Neo-Confucian Thought in Action: Wang Yang- ming’s Youth (1472–1509) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976). 192 Richard Madsen

Confucianism. The most famous scholars of this generation were Mou Zongsan and Tang Junyi. They tried to revive the Confucian tradition by connecting it with main currents of Western continental philosophy and political theory. Especially they tried to “transmit the [Confucian] Way” (daotong) from the philosophy of mind-and-heart developed by the Song- dynasty neo-Confucian Zhu Xi. Interpreted through the lens of Kantian philosophy, this was taken to mean that the Confucian way was a matter of noumena, an interior spirituality developed through the will, while modern science and democracy were part of the phenomena, which could be studied 17 through empirical research. In this formulation, Confucianism was an attitude toward life that could be the basis of many kinds of political systems, 18 especially democracy. A new generation of scholars, such as Tu Weiming (who was a student of Mou Zongsan) have carried on, creatively adapted, 19 and more widely disseminated this way of thought. Other contemporary scholars criticize these new Confucians, however, for being too intellectualistic, too focused on elite academic debate rather than creating a version of Confucianism that could be disseminated to ordinary people. In the past decade the media personality Yu Dan tried to develop a popular version of Confucianism through a hugely popular series of television lectures on the Analects that was turned into a book that sold 20 millions of copies throughout East Asia. Predictably, Yu Dan came under fierce criticism from academic scholars who claimed that her approach was 21 superficial, a Chinese version of “Chicken Soup for the Soul.” An alternative contemporary attempt to build a foundation for a widely influential modern Confucianism comes from “fundamentalist” Confucians, who instead of extending the legacy of Song-dynasty heart-and-mind philosophers, go back to texts from the Han dynasty that justify a set of hierarchical institutions in terms of Confucian ideas. The best-known of these new Confucian thinkers is Jiang Qing, who calls for the creation of a Confucian political system with a tri-cameral legislature – a house of hereditary aristocrats, a house of scholars, and a house of popular representatives. This supposedly is based on Han-dynasty conceptions of the integration of heaven, earth, and humans – heaven represented by the wise, far-sighted,

17 This position is somewhat similar to the late nineteenth-century Catholic “modernists,” who were condemned by Pope Pius X. 18 Sebastien Billiound, “The Hidden Tradition: Confucianism and its Metamorphoses in Modern and Contemporary China,” in Vincent Goossaert, John Lagerway, and David Palmer (eds.), Modern Chinese Religion: Value Systems in Transformation: 1850–Present (Leiden: Brill, 2015). 19 See Tu Weiming, The Global Signiﬁcance of Concrete Humanity: Essays on the Confucian Discourse in Contemporary China (New Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilization, 2010). 20 Yu Dan, Confucius from the Heart: Ancient Wisdom for Today’s World (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2009). 21 See Sheila Melvin, “Modern Gloss on China’s Golden Age,” New York Times, September 3, 2007. Confucianism and dissent on core beliefs 193 meritocratically selected scholars, earth by the hereditary notables, and humans by the popular assembly. This political program would be institu- 22 tionalized by a reformed Chinese state, true to its classical roots. There are similar versions of Confucianism being espoused in Japan by scholars who 23 unfortunately are connected with right-wing nationalism.

Priorities Throughout all these debates, however, the affirmation of the fundamental Confucian social ethic remained constant: families should be bound together by filial piety, proper gender relations, and deference of younger siblings to the older; and, analogous to the filial piety owed to one’s parents, subjects should have respect and loyalty for their rulers. The ethic of loyalty was extended to the relationship of student to teacher, so that scholarly schools formed lineages whose members were bound together and constrained by the tradition passed down from a particular founder. These loyalties to one’s predecessors gave rise to many different styles of thought represented in different academies. In the Qing dynasty at least, the diversity of academies made it impossible for emperors to implement the kind of centralized control over schools that contemporary European kings and popes aspired to achieve. What standardization was achieved was that needed to prepare students for the civil service exams. Beyond that, however, there was great variety in the ideas different academies had about how to understand the cosmos, how to integrate Confucian, Daoist, and 24 Buddhist ideas, and how to respond to the challenges of a changing society. There were vigorous debates among scholars, for example, about whether the Jesuit version of Christianity could be accepted as part of the orthodox Chinese tradition, and these were ultimately resolved by decisions of the emperor, who combined in his person the roles of king and pope. But the emperor usually intervened only when a way of thought was leading to practices that seemed to contradict the ethical norms of familial piety and 25 loyalty to authority. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with the breakup of the traditional extended family under the pressures of urbanization and industrialization, people who still self-consciously maintain the Confucian tradition have

22 Billiound, “The Hidden Tradition”; Chen, Confucianism as Religion, pp. 175–180. 23 Nakajima Takahiro, “Contemporary Japanese Confucianism from a Genealogical Perspective,” in Philip Ivanhoe and Sungmoon Kim (eds.), Confucianism: A Habit of the Heart (New York: SUNY Press, 2015). 24 Alexander Woodside, “State, Scholars, and Orthodoxy: The Ch’ing Academies, 1736–1839,” in Liu (ed.), Orthodoxy in Late Imperial China, pp. 158–184. 25 Jacques Gernet, China and the Christian Impact: A Conflict of Cultures (London: Cambridge University Press, 1985); George Minimiki, S. J., The Chinese Rites Controversy: From its Beginnings to Modern Times (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1985). 194 Richard Madsen had to struggle to find ways to make it relevant to modern circumstances. The problem is exacerbated because in the absence of an emperor or accepted arbiter, there has once again been a “hundred schools” of thought, including various versions of Confucianism, contending with no one to arbitrate the debate. The Communist government of China unified the country under a version of Marxist ideology, and under Mao the party suppressed any study of Confucianism. Now, however, with a moral vacuum having been created by the collapse of Marxist ideology, some elites in the PRC government are open to a revival of Confucianism as a basis for cultural nationalism. They also see the spread of Confucianism as an antidote to Christianity, which is seen as potentially more destabilizing to authority. Since the government’s priorities are to maintain “stability” it will favor those versions that promise such support. There are no Confucian groups in China that I know of that advocate any kind of dissident activity. But some, such as those associated with Jiang Qing, might be more reliable pillars of support for the government and might receive more favorable patronage. As always, the main criterion is the social- ethical import of the teaching rather than its intellectual doctrines. This is the case in contemporary Vietnam and Singapore as well as China. In other Asian societies, like Taiwan and South Korea, Confucianism flourishes in a variety of voluntary associations, often commingled with Buddhist and Daoist teachings. Some of these associations have been impressive sources of philanthropy, sometimes with a global reach. To various degrees, they try to reformulate Confucian ethics to fit the circumstances of modern family life, and they instill a cosmopolitan Confucian ethic in pluralistic civil societies. Democratic governments have encouraged them as instantiations of the best in traditional culture and as creative agents of social harmony. Such groups offer somewhat different versions of the Confucian tradition and are to some degree in competition with one another. But they are like “mainline” denominations in Christian-majority societies, competitive 26 within an ecumenical spirit of cooperation. Some sociologists argue that modern versions of core Confucian values have served as a kind of “Protestant ethic” to bring moral discipline to East Asian capitalism.

Consequences Imperial China certainly had its share of conﬂict, but hopes for a stable cultural foundation rested on widespread acceptance of basic Confucian family and political ethics. The consequence of this acceptance was a high degree of political stability and continuity. Rebellions against the state came from sectarian Buddhists and in the nineteenth century from the quasi-

26 Vincent Goossaert and David Palmer, The Religious Question in Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), pp. 91–121, 271–313. Confucianism and dissent on core beliefs 195

Christian Taipings who were outside the Confucian tradition. Until the twentieth century, even when dynasties were overthrown, the successor dynasties maintained institutional continuity by continuing to recruit ofﬁcials through the Confucian examination system.

Diversity Thus, until the twentieth century, there was remarkable consensus, at all levels, on basic Confucian familial ethics and political ethics. This did not include consensus about whether any particular emperor was sufficiently living up to Confucian principles and it did not preclude debate on how to reform political institutions to better conform to the Confucian way. In the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, there were important debates among intellectuals seeking to interpret the tradition in ways that would allow for institutional changes in the Chinese state in response to the challenges of demographic explosion and foreign aggression. The late Ming- early Qing philosopher Huang Zongxi (1610–1695) indeed advocated for quasi-democratic institutions within something like a constitutional 27 monarchy. Such scholars were criticized by more conservative Confucians but the criticisms did not lead to anything like excommunication. Elite Confucian scholars saw their highest calling as service to the state, which included remonstrating with the emperor if he was acting in a way contrary to Confucian principles. The strategy for scholar-officials to improve the government was to convince the emperor that the scholar’s new interpretation of the tradition was correct. This inevitably led scholar-officials into engagement with imperial court politics, with accompanying political perils. Some principled scholar-officials paid with their jobs and even their lives for their remonstrance. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Chinese state was in such crisis that reformist Confucian scholars like Kang Youwei (1858–1927) were proposing radical reforms while seeking a national cultural unity around a reinterpreted Confucian tradition. In 1898 they convinced the emperor to enact major reforms, but these were then overturned by the Empress Dowager and the proponents were forced into exile. After the regime collapsed in 1911, intellectuals turned against the Confucian tradition and advocated building the Chinese nation based on Western philosophies, Marxism-Leninism in the end being the most popular. Even under these circumstances, however, Confucian family values have persisted. But the challenge facing many families has been how to reconcile those values with the social pressures of a modern society. With the destruction of Confucian academies and of Confucian scholars as a class, the role of adapting Confucianism has often fallen to syncretistic religious

27 De Bary, Asian Values and Human Rights, pp. 98–109. 196 Richard Madsen associations –“redemptive societies” like the Unity Way (yiguandao). In the 1930s the total membership of such societies exceeded membership in the Communist Party. Today, they have been suppressed in the People’s Republic of China but ﬂourish in Taiwan and in the Chinese diaspora 28 throughout Southeast Asia. Other important new groups carrying on and adapting the Confucian ethic are “Humanistic Buddhist” associations like the Ciji (Tzu Chi) Compassionate Relief Association based in Taiwan. A common refrain in the testimonials of people who have joined Ciji goes like this: I grew up in a village, but went to university and now have a professional job in the city. I live far away from my parents and have a completely different lifestyle. I want to be ﬁlial to my parents, but didn’t know how until I joined Ciji and realized that by helping to make the world a more loving and caring place I am being true to the 29 deepest desires of my parents. In addition to these religious associations that are the primary carriers of Confucianism today, there are the scholars whom I have mentioned above, based in academic institutions or, in the case of Jiang Qing, having established their own study centers. There are sharp disagreements among them as to whether Confucianism should be treated as a form of spirituality or whether it should be embodied in new political institutions, and if so exactly what kinds. Senior scholars develop their own networks of loyal students and these constitute schools of thought that cast barbs at one another. But there is no overarching authority structure to resolve such disputes.

Inculcation and reproduction There is moral pressure to maintain loyalty to one’s teacher. People who violated this might face disapproval from their peers and feel shame. There are practical reasons for loyalty as well. Funding and other resources tend to ﬂow from the person on top. Thus there are inculcated lineages of scholars who carry on the general vision of the master. At the non-elite level, basic Confucian ethics are carried on through family socialization and through examples of exemplary Confucian ﬁgures celebrated in local temple rituals and performances of the traditional operas that are such an important part of local festivals. Recently, in China, some of the scholars attempting to lead a Confucian revival have established “four books academies” for children. There are different opinions based on different parts of the Confucian tradition on how children should be taught. The approach taken by Jiang Qing assumes

28 Goossaert and Palmer, The Religious Question, pp. 271–313. 29 Richard Madsen, Democracy’s Dharma: Religious Renaissance and Political Development in Taiwan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007). See Rebirth: Transformations in Tsu-chi (Taipei: Buddhist Compassion Relief Association, n.d.). Confucianism and dissent on core beliefs 197 that children are very good at memorization but not at understanding, so children should be taught by memorizing the classics, and when they get older it will be time to strive to understand the texts. Other scholars, with support from other parts of the Confucian tradition, say that understanding should be inculcated from the youngest age. Other proponents of new Confucianism revise classics to make them relevant to children today. For example, there has recently been issued a revision of the Twenty Four Tales of Filial Piety (a Song-dynasty text) to include such examples of ﬁlial piety as a 30 young child helping his parents learn to surf the internet.

Authority In imperial China (and Korea and Vietnam), the emperor had supreme authority to determine orthodoxy and heterodoxy. The rujia were oriented toward serving the state and they accepted this authority even though in principle individuals could remonstrate against what they considered misguided actions by the emperor. Emperors were served by imperial academies and government ministries who could advise them on matters relevant to orthodoxy, but the emperor by virtue of his position had the ﬁnal word. As discussed above, decisions about orthodoxy were based on the practical implications of a teaching rather than the teaching itself. Since the collapse of imperial governments, not only in China, but also Korea, Japan, and Vietnam in the twentieth century, there has been no central authority to deﬁne Confucian orthodoxy. Communist governments in China and Vietnam make authoritative decisions about orthodoxy of course, but this is Marxist orthodoxy. Until the 1980s in China, in fact, Confucianism was denounced as a remnant of the feudal past. In 1972 the Chinese Communist Party under Mao launched an ideological campaign to “Criticize Confucius” along with a campaign to criticize the traitorous leader Lin Biao. In this case, criticizing Confucius was a proxy used by Mao’s supporters for criticizing Zhou Enlai (1898–1976), the revered premier who had tried to soften the most fanatical behavior of Mao during the Cultural Revolution. Zhou was seen as excessively “Confucian” in his effort to remonstrate with emperor 31 Mao. This shows how some Confucian ethics have persisted despite all efforts of the modern state to eradicate them. Although space has opened up for the explicit promotion of Confucianism in China in the past two decades, would-be promoters must contend with the authority claimed by the state to determine any form of

30 Billioud, “The Hidden Tradition.” 31 Roderick MacFarquhar, “The Succession to Mao and the End of Maoism,” in Roderick MacFarquhar and John K. Fairbank (eds.), The Cambridge History of China, Volume 15, The People’s Republic of China, Part 2, Revolutions within the Chinese Revolution (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 343–345. 198 Richard Madsen orthodoxy. None of the current promoters of Confucianism in China has taken part in dissident activity. However, insofar as the Chinese state continues to proclaim that it is Communist, it only has political ability rather than moral authority to define Confucian orthodoxy. In liberal democratic polities such as South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, proponents of Confucianism are part of a free, pluralistic conversation about the meaning of life, while at the same time, there seems to be widespread consensus (even among Christians) about the importance of Confucian ethics in family life. In Singapore and Malaysia, authoritarian governments have made an authoritarian form of Confucianism a quasi-official ideology for their Chinese populations, and they claim “Confucian values” as a justification for their forms of corporatist authoritarianism.

Management options Emperors who wanted to suppress heterodox practices could use all means possible, including lethal force. Certain privileges were accorded to scholars who had obtained imperial degrees through the Confucian exam system. Degree-holders were spared physical torture and the normal forms of execution. However, if an emperor thought that a scholar-official had crossed the line from remonstrance to disloyalty, he could present the official with a silk rope to commit suicide. One option for a scholar-official who could not accept service to an emperor would be to withdraw into private life, often following the path toward inner harmony taught by the Daoists. Although the emperor had absolute authority in imperial China his ability to exercise that power was practically limited by the size and diversity of the empire. There were many spaces for thinkers of all kinds to carry on their activities. The organizational systems and technologies of the twentieth century, however, make the power of the state more oppressive. One tactic that can be drawn from the broad Confucian tradition for survival under such circumstances is to play on the distinction between the li, external rituals, and ren, internal attitude. One can outwardly comply with the displays of deference demanded by the state while inwardly withholding dissent. This can be done not only by individuals, but by groups such as the family or political factions as well. One of the most insidious forms of violence during the Maoist era was the attempt of the government to use political campaigns to “touch people’s souls” and create a “new socialist person.” Politically organized violence was used to cleanse citizens of “bad thoughts.” In practice, one could be persecuted for even being suspected of disloyal ideas. Especially during the Cultural Revolution, this led to some of the worst atrocities of the 32 twentieth century.

32 Tu Weiming, “Destructive Will and Ideological Holocaust: Maoism as a Source of Social Suffering in China,” in Tu, Global Signiﬁcance, pp. 130–160. Confucianism and dissent on core beliefs 199

Internal criticism The blame for Maoist atrocities cannot be laid on Confucianism. But like all major actors in modern Chinese politics, the Maoists drew, perhaps uncon- sciously, on bits and pieces of a shattered Confucian heritage. For example, they attacked Confucian family ethics, but they retained the Confucian assumption that individual identity was defined by one’s status within a family. This led to the persecution of people because of their “bloodlines.” For example, if one’s parent had been a capitalist, one would be given a “bad class” status, even though one had been born after capitalism had been abolished in China. If a spouse or parent had allegedly committed a political crime, the whole family could be punished. After the death of Mao, the practice was abolished of holding a whole extended family responsible for the faults of an individual (at least officially, but informally even now innocent family members can suffer for the misdeeds of a close relative). But during the Reform era, leaders have used other bits and pieces of the Confucian legacy to suppress dissent. For example, a central policy for the regime of Hu Jintao over the past decade was to create a “harmonious society”–a reference to Confucian ideals. Yet the word for “harmony” (he) was explicitly contrasted by Confucius with the word for “uniformity” (tong). The Analects affirms harmony as the goal of a good ruler but says that “harmony is more difficult 33 than uniformity.” By “harmonious society,” however, the current Chinese regime means a uniform society. Critical Chinese Confucian scholars have pointed this out – but generally in polite enough ways not to bring the wrath of the state down upon them. Throughout Chinese imperial history, the rujia almost never dissented from the notion that an emperor ought to persecute actions that violated Confucian ethics. They could disagree of course about whether a specific action had been properly characterized as a violation. The rujia were generally politically conservative – they supported existing regimes. When the corruption and incompetence of a dynasty led to rebellions and dynastic collapse, Confucian scholars could then draw upon an old fundamental principle in the Confucian tradition, the Mandate of Heaven. Heaven gives kings the mandate to rule, for the benefit of the people. When rulers are not promoting the people’s welfare, heaven can withdraw the mandate. The rujia, however, almost always made this judgment retrospectively, after a dynasty had fallen. They did not initiate rebellions.

Scope The rujia saw their tradition as constituting the very essence of civilization and conﬁned not to the Han Chinese but available to anyone willing to learn it.

33 Analects 13:23. 200 Richard Madsen

They saw it as a comprehensive ethic, regulating political, social, and economic life (which were not clearly differentiated). They did, however, allow for the mixing of the Confucian way with other traditions. Imperial China was a multi-ethnic empire with considerable practical autonomy given to non-Han peoples, who were expected to seek civilization by adopting basic Confucian ideas, but were also expected to synthesize these with their own cultural traditions. Imperialist aggression and political collapse rudely introduced China to the modern world of nation states. Modern nationalist leaders like Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) envisioned a China knit together under the hegemony of the Han ethnicity. At the beginning of the twentieth century, some Confucian reformers proposed making Confucianism into a state church, modeled after state churches in Western Christian countries. This would have made Confucianism a national religion distinguishing the Han people from other races. The criticism of Confucianism during the May 4th Period destroyed that vision. But it is now being revived. In recent years, new Confucian reformers like Jiang Qing want China to adopt Confucianism as a state religion, replacing Marxist universalism with cultural nationalism. There has been sympathy for this project from some elites in the Communist Party, but, for now, there is not enough elite support for it to be implemented. There are other Confucian scholars, like Tu Weiming, who do believe that Confucianism can and ought to be a truly cosmopolitan philosophy. There are scholars in the United States, such as the so-called “Boston Confucians,” who believe that Confucianism could 34 enrich American culture. However, Confucianism does not seem to travel well. Outside of small circles of academic scholars, Confucian philosophy has not been embraced and indigenized by Americans – in the way that Buddhism and Daoism have been accepted into American popular culture. The problem seems to be, on the one hand, that Confucianism goes too much against the grain of American (and Western) individualism; and, on the other hand, that actually existing Confucianism in Asia appears, rightly or wrongly, to be too closely connected with authoritarian government, patriarchal gender relations, and nationalistic ambitions. It does not to have to be this way, but despite the sincere efforts of those seeking a cosmopolitan Confucianism, adapted to modern forms of government and gender relationships, the short-term prospects for a globa- 35 lized Confucianism seem dim.

34 John Berthrong, “From Beijing to Boston: The Future Contributions of the Globalization of New Confucianism,” in Yang and Tamney (eds.), Confucianism and Spiritual Traditions,pp.131–147. 35 Richard Madsen, “Obstacles to the Globalization of Confucianism,” in Ivanhoe and Kim, Confucianism; Stephen Angle, “American Confucianism: Between Tradition and Universal Values,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, San Diego, March 2013. Chapter 10

Intramural dissent in Buddhism

Peter Nosco

Introduction: four case studies The non-Buddhist world outside Asia has until relatively recent times been little interested in Buddhism, and despite the great antiquity of Buddhism and its founding figure Gautama Shakyamuni (died c. 483 BCE, though even on this there is significant disagreement), discussions of Buddhism in English are 1 little more than two centuries old. Perhaps all religions as understood today are offspring of an Enlightenment mentality, but this may be more so with Buddhism, which has a distinct appeal for the modern rationalist. One watershed moment in terms of the introduction of Buddhism to a European and North American world occurred during the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago, when Buddhism impressed many for its potential as a religion without gods. In this relatively short time, we have grown accustomed to conflicting images of Buddhism. On the one hand we imagine alms-accepting monks in saffron robes, standing silent and still; or perhaps Buddhist adepts using Zen-style meditation in the pursuit of peace and even happiness in a turbulent world; or the charitable activities of socially engaged Buddhists such as those in Tzu Chi (Ciji), providing relief into the hands of the distressed; or the trance-like Buddhist resonance of Nichiren-style chanting to save oneself and the world; and of course the reassuring appearances of the Dalai Lama preaching compassion and tolerance to packed audiences hungry for deeper meaning. These are all accurate and representative of major strains within the contemporary Buddhist world. On the other hand, at the moment of this writing, one is confronted with the equally representative

1 The Oxford English Dictionary dates the earliest English reference to Buddha (“Buddou”)to 1681 in Robert Knox’s An Historical Relation of the Island of Ceylon, but the earliest references to Buddhism and Buddhists (“Boudhism” and “Boudhists”) date from the 1808 issue (Vol. VII)ofAsiatik Researches.

201 202 Peter Nosco images of Burmese Buddhists on anti-Muslim rampages, the political activism of Sinhalese Buddhists in Sri Lanka, self-immolating monks in southern Thailand, and internecine violence in China over who speaks for six million Tibetan Buddhists. Of these conflicting images, the benign ones generally prevail in Europe and North America, where many profess to be secular Buddhists intellectually and even spiritually but with little commitment to a specific Buddhist community, and where many more are generally sympa- 2 thetic to Buddhism. One of the reasons for this appeal is that relative to such religions as Judaism or Islam, there is exceptional latitude regarding the definition of who or what is (or is not) Buddhist. Contemporary Buddhism has been remarkably elastic in several ways. One notes its ability to incorporate within its spiritual tent such attractive notions as tolerance and happiness, neither of which was prominent in Buddhism before roughly the last century. Buddhism has also succeeded in popularizing spiritual practices like meditation and chanting, giving them something of a Buddhist brand, and also in incorporating local beliefs including science into its worldview. Indeed, other than sharing the universal initiatory vow to take refuge in the three jewels or treasures of the Buddha, the dharma, and the monastic community, considerable flexibility has traditionally devolved upon Buddhists and their host associations in terms of which writings, teachings, and practices to emphasize, and thereby to fashion into their own dharma. Buddhism seems historically less bellicose than other major religions, and what in other religious and ideological traditions would typically be represented as conflict, argument, dissent, and schism is often reconstituted in Buddhism so as to appear natural, evolutionary, dialogic, and unproblematic. So, which is the more accurate? Buddhism in a sense has its origins in dissent over a host of spiritual matters including the questions of whether the performance of rituals is sufficient to bring about release from rebirth, as taught by the Vedas; whether fasting or enduring pain help one to rein in the passions, as many holy men professed; whether recognizing the identity of one’s innermost self with the cosmos will suffice, as taught in the Upanishads; or whether the caste-based understanding of selfless devotional action, as expressed in the Bhagavad Gita, is appropriate. Buddha’s teachings dissented from the prevailing Brahminic wisdom on all of these matters, but how are we to interpret this dissent, which in the Buddhist tradition recedes into a kind of amnesia regarding origins? This is where just as with other religions, history might be expected to provide a context for understanding Buddhism’s dissonant images, but the first thousand years of Buddhist history following the Buddha’s death are frustratingly poor in verifiable data, and so to answer the questions of

2 See Stephen Batchelor, “A Secular Buddhist,” in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review (Fall 2012): 44–47, 99. Intramural dissent in Buddhism 203 origins – where did we Buddhists come from and how did we get here? – Buddhists instead look to an early mytho-history that provides the closest equivalent and fills the gap until more historical accounts prevail. We will do the same, and in order to understand the nature of intramural dissent within Buddhism, and how this dissent has at times resulted in differentiation, we begin with four brief “case studies” of contentious moments in Buddhism’s rich and complex past: first, the schismatic division of an originally Indian Buddhism into the three major variants or “vehicles” (yana) of Mahayana, Hinayana (Theravada), and Vajrayana, each with its own differing traditions and strategies for managing dissent; second, the mitosis-like fracture within the Chinese Chan (Zen) tradition into competing denominations upon the passing of the mantle of leadership from the fifth to the sixth Patriarch; third, the ninth-century competition in Japan between two highly catholic denominations, Tendai and Shingon, each of which made universal truth claims in pursuit of aristocratic patronage and political advantage; and, fourth, the intensely familial differences between fundamentalist and accommodationist streams within Japan’s Nichiren denomination over the question of how far one can legitimately go in one’s interactions with an unbelieving/otherwise- believing world. To begin, then, with the division into yana or vehicles, Buddhist tradition tells us that shortly after the Buddha’s passing or final transition to nirvana (parinirvana), his disciples gathered in the first of three Councils to determine the contents of the core scriptures, and that it was from this Council that the Tripitaka or earliest scriptures emerged. A century later a second Council followed at which disagreement emerged as to whether one could become a Buddha by following a strict code of moral and spiritual conduct such as the Eight-fold Path, or whether Buddhist enlightenment involved animating something later styled the Buddha nature that knowingly or unknowingly we 3 already possess. The tension between these opposing views can be seen as the genesis of Buddhism’s Theravada and Mahayana variants, though the Mahayana does not formally emerge until the first century CE. Yet a third Council a century-and-a-half after the second concentrated on the suppression of brahminical heresies, which were apparently already a serious issue. Buddhism’s dominant Mahayana has represented this early history as unproblematic and essentially evolutionary, but, in its historical context, 4 there lies a story of schism and persistent concern with orthodoxy. Notoriously, even during Shakyamuni’s lifetime, his cousin, Devadatta, is

3 The Noble Eight-fold Path (Having right views, intentions, speech, conduct, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration) is summarized in the phrase “to refrain from evil, to do good, and to purify the mind.” The Buddha nature is the dharma within all creatures with consciousness. 4 For an excellent analysis of these schisms, see Alan Cole’s “Schisms in Buddhism,” in James R. Lewis and Sarah M. Lewis (eds.), Sacred Schisms: How Religions Divide (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 204 Peter Nosco said to have fomented schismatic activities, and by the time of the chakravartin (Enlightened Ruler) Ashoka in the third century BCE some eighteen streams are said to have emerged within Buddhism. Tradition has it that the internecine strife between these eighteen was so intense that it proved fatal for all but one, the Theravada. The Theravada tradition regards the Mahayana as overly liberal, and Theravada’s more conservative teachings and monastic traditions continue to hold sway in Sri Lanka, Burma, and non-Vietnamese Southeast Asia. These are also where present-day Buddhists have been the most conspicuous gen- erators of violence against others or themselves. The Mahayana variant, in turn, views the Theravada as overly narrow, rigid, and even self-centered, though the boundaries between the vehicles have become increasingly porous 5 in recent years. Mahayana variants spread throughout the rest of Asia and came to include a broad range of spiritual practices including the quiet sitting of the meditative (dhyana) strain best known as Zen, and the Pure Land variants that preach salvation through chanting as an expression of faith in Amitabha (Amida) Buddha. These Mahayana denominations are enjoying a remarkable resurgence throughout much of East Asia today, as well as new popularity in Europe and North America where Buddhism’s initial appeal is as often intellectual as it is physical. New examples of Mahayana teachings continue to arise and attract new followings, showing how differentiation at the local level results in something of a mosaic of Buddhist activity in the contemporary world. Vajrayana, a third tantric variant that sought to tap cosmic powers in everyday life, emerged last among the three vehicles in northern India as Buddhism embraced elements identiﬁed with Tibetan spirituality. Vajrayana continues to enjoy an allure that requires little explanation. The second of our four case studies concerns the story of Chinese Zen’s rupture into Northern and Southern branches. Here again, the narrative is weak in historically veriﬁable detail and varies substantially according to who is doing the telling. Nonetheless, this malleable property of the tradition has 6 served Zen sectarian interests well. By legend, Buddhism’s ineffable esoteric transmission on meditation (dhyana in Sanskrit, translated with the character 禅 and pronounced chan in Chinese, son in Korean, and zen in Japanese) began at the historical Buddha’s last sermon and arrived a thousand years later in China in the person of Bodhidharma, who meditated so fervently while facing a cave’s inner wall that his legs atrophied. Bodhidharma refused all who came to him seeking instruction until he was convinced of one student’s

5 Consider the example of Thich Nhat Hanh (b. 1926), who was trained in a Mahayana variant of Zen, but has espoused Theravada-style monastic celibacy. See Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy and Liberation (Berkeley: Broadway Books, 1998). 6 Philip Yampolsky examines all the major variants of the legend in the Introduction (pp. 1–121) to his translation of The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967). Intramural dissent in Buddhism 205 unique sincerity by the student’s amputation of his own arm. Bodhidharma is said to have accepted the student named Huike and to have transmitted the entirety of his dharma to him. This dharma of meditation is then believed to have been transmitted intact but also updated from supreme master to supreme master, with Bodhidharma as the first of these Patriarchs, Huike the second, and so on until this dharma reached the Fifth Patriarch Shenhui. The rupture was provoked by the arrival of Huineng (638–713)to Shenhui’s temple in 661 CE. One side of the legend has it that Shenhui, disappointed with all of his many students, immediately recognized Huineng’s spiritual merits and secretly transmitted the dharma as well as its symbols – the Patriarchal robe and insignia – upon him. Shenhui urged Huineng to flee to south China to avoid what Shenhui expected to be the murderous wrath of his other disciples. Huineng is said to have remained “underground” in the south for sixteen years before finally coming out of hiding and revealing himself as the authentic Sixth Patriarch, whose teachings are recorded in his Platform Sutra. The other side of the legend has it that the Patriarchal succession proceeded unproblematically within an entirely Northern transmission through Shenhui to an alternative line of Patriarchs who embraced alternative sutras. History suggests that the monasteries that taught this northern transmission fared better in the first hundred years following the transition to the Sixth Patriarch than their Southern rivals, but in the long term most today would recognize Huineng’s teachings, with their emphasis on spontaneity, as more representative of the essence of Zen. The issue around which the two transmissions crystallized concerned the question of whether enlightenment (悟 Jpn. satori) came gradually after a long period of sitting in meditation (座禅 Jpn. zazen), or suddenly in a flash of intuition that could just as effectively be triggered by beating with a stick, shouting, or solutionless riddles (公案 Jpn. kōan). The competition between these two interpretations hardened into formal denominations in Japan, where they were institutionally represented by major mountain monasteries that either cooperated or competed according to what better served their interests at the time. The third of our case studies concerns the antagonism between the Tendai and Shingon denominations in early Heian (794–1185) Japan, a rivalry that began with the competition between their remarkable respective founders, 7 Saichō (767–822) and Kūkai (774–835). Saichō and Kūkai traveled to China in the same mission but aboard different vessels in 804, Saichō staying for some eight–nine months, and Kūkai for more than twice that. In China they studied

7 The dispute between the two is described in my colleague Jinhua Chen’s Crossfire: Shingon– Tendai Strife as Seen in Two Twelfth-century Polemics, with Special Reference to Their Background in Tang China, Studia Philologica Buddhica Monograph Series xxv, (Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 2010). 206 Peter Nosco under different masters in very different denominations: Saichō was instructed by Daosui in the Lotus-Sutra based Tiantai school, which was called Tendai in Japan; and Kūkai was taken under the tutelage of the esoteric master Huiguo, who initiated him into the exalted esoteric teachings and practices later called Shingon in Japan. During Saichō’s lifetime, he enjoyed the favor and patronage of the Heian Court with the younger Kūkai in his shadow, but after Saichō’s death in 822,Kūkai’s esoteric teachings became all the rage and proved especially alluring to Court aristocrats. The relationship between Saichō and Kūkai soured for several well- documented reasons. Saichō understandably sought access for his monastic library on Mt. Hiei to copies of the esoteric sutras that Kūkai had brought back from China. No less understandably, Kūkai, believing that truth came not through texts alone but through the kind of hands-on instruction characteristic of esoteric transmissions, insisted that this tradition be honored and that the sutras only be studied on-site. Saichō’s response was to send a handful of his favorite students to learn Shingon esotericism from Kūkai and to bring the 8 secret teachings back with them to Mt. Hiei. When the requests for esoterica continued, Kūkai eventually insisted that if Saichō truly wished to learn more about esotericism, then like any other adept, he would need to travel to Kūkai’s monastery on Mt. Kōya and to study there for three years under the master’s personal instruction. Saichō and his denomination never forgot this perceived insult, and for their part Kūkai and his immediate Shingon followers never relented in their condescension toward Tendai. In later generations both the distinctions and the acrimony between the two denominations eased, as esotericism grew increasingly prominent within Tendai, but the fundamental issue that separated the two remained how does one best embark and advance on the path to becoming a Buddha? Does one do so through advancement in one’s moral life (sila), concentration (samadhi), and wisdom (prajna), as in the classical formulation of Tendai? Or, does one become Buddha through contact with a power-charged master from whom, after appropriate preparation, one learns the ultimate mysteries of how to tap cosmic powers in everyday life? Phrased slightly differently, are the salvific properties of the truth best served through exotericism, that is, making these truths freely and openly accessible as in the Lotus Sutra, or by esotericism requiring a process of preparation and “hands-on” instruction? Our fourth and final case study in Buddhist dissent is also the most historically verifiable and concerns the Nichiren (Lotus) denomination. In the long history of Japanese Buddhism, Nichiren (1222–1282) is unusual for several reasons of which the most prominent has been his and his follower’s zealous intolerance of all other Buddhist teachings except those based on the Lotus

8 This too posed a problem when one of these students is said to have professed his wish to remain on Mt. Kōya and not return to Saichō and Mt. Hiei. On Mt. Hiei the suspicion was that he had been either brainwashed or otherwise coerced into staying away. Intramural dissent in Buddhism 207

Sutra. Nichiren went so far as to condemn those who gave priority to other sutras as “dharma slanderers” (hōbō) who in his eyes were spiritually indistinguishable from heathens and were beyond any hope of redemption. It was and remains arguable whether Nichiren intended them to do so, but after his death a number of his disciples insisted that the late-master’s wish was that his followers would challenge and eventually overcome an unbelieving world by neither receiving alms from (fuju) nor giving alms to (fuse) these non-believing dharma slanderers outside the Nichiren fold. The issue of how strictly to interpret the fujufuse principle festered unresolved for centuries within the Nichiren denomination until it came to a head during the time of the warlords Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–1598) and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616). This coincided with the decades when Japan experienced what was the most intense struggle between church 9 and state in 800 years, with the decisive triumph of the early modern state. Ignoring longstanding precedents that excused Nichiren priests from inter- denominational activities out of respect for the fujufuse principle, Hideyoshi in 1595 insisted that the Nichiren denomination join nine other denominations in monthly gatherings over a meal provided at a new Buddhist hall he commissioned to house a massive new statue of the Buddha (Daibutsu) in Kyoto. This provoked an intense debate within the Nichiren denomination between accommodationists who argued that as offensive as it might be to worship alongside Buddhists who follow other sutras and dharmas, it would nonetheless be prudent to participate on a one-time-only basis, and fundamentalists who upheld fujufuse as a core belief and viewed participation in inter- denominational gatherings and meals as akin to apostasy. The accommodationists had their way in this initial round, but their dispute with the fundamentalist faction did not recede and ﬂared anew during the time of Ieyasu, who sought to resolve the issue by the time-tested format of a “debate” between the opposing factions. The predetermined outcome of the debate again gave victory to the accommodationists, but despite the state’s efforts to proscribe fujufuse along with the despised Christianity, the movement survived well into the nineteenth century concealing itself underground within the labyrinthine network of Nichiren temples that, despite repeated requests from the state to do so, made no effort to disclose the illegal presence of those who were otherwise their brethren in the faith. Here in this fourth and last of our case studies, we have an example where the dissent centers on the interpretation of what from the outside would seem a minor point but which when viewed from the inside magniﬁes in that ironic

9 I discuss this struggle between the Buddhist church and the nascent early modern state in Japan in “Keeping the Faith: bakuhan Policy toward Religions in Seventeenth-century Japan,” in Peter Kornicki and Ian James McMullen (eds.), Religion in Japan: Arrows to Heaven and Earth (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 136–155, especially, pp. 136–142. 208 Peter Nosco and narcissistic way characteristic of small differences. Accommodationists and fundamentalists could each point to precedents and texts that supported their respective positions, invoking passionate arguments on both sides of the fujufuse divide. For proponents of the radical and illegal principle, secrecy and concealment became defensive strategies, but solidarity within the larger host association of Nichiren Buddhism precluded allowing this internal and essentially familial issue to be aired externally. It is also in this example that one sees most graphically how the state’s interest in religious order transformed a relatively innocent eccentricity into a form of deﬁance with potentially lethal consequences. These will be our four case studies, but please note a word of caution before proceeding further. When referring to denominational differences in the following analysis, I will make most frequent reference to these developments in Japan, where sectarian differences were likely more sharply drawn than at corresponding times in either China or Korea. Throughout East Asia, Mahayana Buddhism has typically embraced syncretistic perspectives that rank the truths of different denominations or sutras rather than distinguish some as true and others as false. It was during the ninth to sixteenth centuries in Japan that a Buddhist worldview became hegemonic, and the distinctions between Buddhist denominations sharpened. During the same centuries in China, by contrast, Buddhists sought ways to reconcile their dharma with Confucianism and Daoism, while in Korea the major Buddhist denominations pursued syncretic agreement with each other. It can thus be argued that I have overstated divisiveness in the Buddhist tradition, but it is hoped that doing so will sharpen our historical understanding of critical fracture-points within Buddhism as a whole, and how Buddhism has with uneven success sought to address intramural dissent. Let us now turn to the topic questions that will structure the remainder of this chapter, recalling these four case studies whenever helpful.

Key tenets As noted at the outset, the effort to deﬁne Buddhism is at once both quite ancient within the tradition and quite recent outside of it, and as we shall see this effort is implicated in the construction of a menu of ideas some of which would surely appear strange and even out of place to a Buddhist of a thousand years ago. Buddhism’s worldview is summarized in the Eight-fold Path’sopening dictum to embrace “right views,” that is, to see things as they really are, and one does this by recognizing the three deﬁning characteristics of life (Buddhism’s Triple Truth), that: life is impermanent, transient, and endlessly changing (anicca); it is fundamentally sorrowful (dukkha); and there is no permanent self or soul (anatta). The three are obviously related: if everything, including our very selves, is constantly changing, then it is a folly to crave or cling to anything, any condition, or anyone, even a misguided notion of oneself, and trying to do so will inevitably bring only disappointment and more sorrow. Intramural dissent in Buddhism 209

In Buddhist ethics and the doctrine of karma, intentions generate actions that have either beneficial or harmful consequences, with the most important element in this automatic process being the intention behind an action: beneficial actions inspired by good intentions produce the best karma; harmful actions inspired by bad intentions generate the worst; and unintentional actions generate no karma at all. Good karma is of course to be preferred to bad karma, but either way it is karma that ties us all to the cycle of birth, death, and new birth known as samsara, and which thus inevitably returns us to this sorrowful existence. The situation is not without hope, however, for if one can put an end to attachments and extinguish existing karma, then liberation from samsara and entry into nirvana, that is, becoming a Buddha or enlightened one, is possible both here and now and through all eternity. Taken together, these beliefs constitute the core of the Buddhist dharma or law of the universe, and note that “law” here includes moral law and doctrine, as well as the laws of nature. This dharma together with the Buddha and the monastic community (sangha), came to be known as Buddhism’s “three jewels” or treasures, and, for some two millennia and more, the way in which one becomes a Buddhist has remained the public vow that one will hereafter take one’s refuge in the Buddha, his teachings (dharma), and the priestly community. Indeed, one of Buddhism’s civilizational contributions to Asian religious life has been the concept of a church, in the sense of a community of believers under the guidance of spiritual professionals. Becoming an ordained Buddhist priest has formally required both virtue and understanding, but in practice it has most commonly followed a prescribed period of monastic training under the tutelage of a master. It has also been common over the centuries for the master of a monastic community to refer to his own “dharma” or interpretation. The sources for the core beliefs are the earliest sutras, which purport to be authentic utterances of one or another Buddha. The most ancient of these documents are called the Tripitaka or “three baskets,” the contents of which, as mentioned, were determined at the first Council soon after Buddha’s parinirvana. There is no formal ranking of these sutras, and different denominations tend to emphasize different sutras or sets of sutras. Nonetheless, if one were pressed to choose one sutra as exemplary of the creed, it would most likely be the Mahayana Lotus Sutra, which contains a number of well-known parables as well as core Mahayana teachings. Nonetheless, it is important to note that many if not most practicing Buddhists would draw their primary inspiration from other sutras and commentaries. The question of how far Buddhism or Buddhists can properly go in accommodating these core tenets to local conditions or preconceptions is addressed in the Mahayana doctrine of expedient means (upaya), as represented in the Parable of the Burning House in Chapter 3 of the Lotus Sutra. There the question is posed in terms of how far a loving father (the Buddha) will go to trick or deceive his children (us) into leaving the house that they do not 210 Peter Nosco understand to be burning lethally all around them? This parable has provided considerable latitude to Buddhism by allowing the assimilation of local spiritualities within comprehensive Buddhist teachings that have over centuries time and again proven their elasticity. That there continues to be active discussion nowadays regarding what is or is not properly Buddhist is simply the most recent iteration of a very ancient question, and one that has been much affected by Buddhism’s leading contemporary spokespersons 10 in the global competition for hearts and minds. Thus for over 2,000 years, it has been the sangha that has traditionally defined Buddhism’s key tenets and texts, and disagreement has tended to arise over the institutional question of who speaks for this sangha, and the doctrinal question of what are the means to salvation or enlightenment. The question of sangha is thorny, in much the same way as the question of who defines or speaks for the secular academy today. It would not be an exaggeration to state that in traditional times there were as many Buddhisms as there were dharmas taught by masters in monasteries and temples, but equally on streets, or in forests and caves, and so on. Buddhism’s broad division into vehicles reflects a disagreement over the means of salvation, though the division of the Asian Buddhist world into Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana realms has generally and for most of Buddhism’s history also followed geographic lines 11 that have only recently begun to break down. Throughout most of Asia and at most times, one suspects that the typical Buddhist believer has embraced a particular dharma because it is what one has been taught since childhood, and that this dharma has fundamentally conditioned one’s worldview. To be sure, new dharmas were always appearing in monasteries, and some of these might find their way to transformation into full-fledged denominations, as in the case of the fracture of Zen at the time of the Sixth Patriarch. Instances of denominational selection by an individual Buddhist have traditionally been exceptional and represent a mostly modern phenomenon. This is borne out by the example of Buddhism in Tokugawa Japan (1600–1867) where in an otherwise culturally liberal early modern intellectual world with intense competition in private academies for minds as well as hearts, it ironically became near impossible to change one’s temple 12 affiliation, even in the grossest instances of priestly misconduct. The reason for this extreme rigidity lay in the fact that in the seventeenth century

10 I discuss this competition in my “Buddhist Perspectives on the Globalization of Ethics,” in William M. Sullivan (ed.), The Globalization of Ethics, Ethikon Series in Comparative Ethics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 2007), pp. 75–92. 11 The fact that the Vajrayana has also appeared within otherwise Mahayana settings has led some to think of it as a subset of Mahayana rather than a separate vehicle or variant. 12 By contrast with the relatively more dynamic spiritual realm of medieval Japan. See Tamamuro Fumio, “Local Society and the Temple–Parishioner Relationship within the Bakufu’s Governance Structure,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 28:3–4 (2001): 261–292. Intramural dissent in Buddhism 211

Buddhist temples became where one formally registered household births, marriages, deaths, religious affiliation, and so on. In this respect the Buddhist church became an extension of the early modern Japanese state, which prized stability and stasis over all else. Tokugawa society exhibited high levels of convergence and standardization in Buddhist funerary rituals, commemora- tion of holy days, and so on, even when doctrinal interpretations might conflict. This begs the question of, to what degree did Buddhism’s core beliefs or teachings matter outside its formidable network of monasteries, even when there were radical differences in spiritual practice, as for example between Zen meditation and Pure Land chanting? There is little evidence to support the notion that Buddhism’s Noble Truths were central to any of the core beliefs of villagers in the Japan of a thousand years ago, and it appears that most of these villagers likely believed in: some version of karmic causation (the belief that what goes around comes around); a more intimate link between dream and everyday reality (reinforcing the notion that there is more to life than what one can see with one’s eyes); and the sense that by behaving (rather than believing) appropriately, a better world awaited them in the future. Over time, the central issue for the vast majority of non-samurai commoner Buddhists in Japan became whether one should place one’s faith and trust in the salvific power of the Amida (Amitabha) Buddha or in the Lotus Sutra. Recalling our case study of the Patriarchal succession within Chinese Chan Buddhism, note that the competition was between monasteries and their masters, who drew their inspiration from different sutras. Their differing understandings of the nature of enlightenment – that is, sudden versus gradual – dictated different but still analogous strategies for its attainment, and these in turn were grounded in different textual (sutra) traditions. Even for Nichiren Buddhists, there would have been broad agreement on the denomination’s core principles, but contention was intense on a few areas of disagreement. Some outside the tradition would argue that this points to a contentious strain within the denomination itself, an adversarial tendency reflective of its founder, and an antagonism that continues to the present day in the struggle between Nichiren Shoshu and Soka Gakkai as to who best represents the true voice of the founder and thereby deserves control of the denomination’s historical assets.

Priorities The core tenets outlined above are a historical given within Buddhism, and it is difficult to imagine a Buddhist today who would disavow them. The selfless values behind the Triple Truth, or the initiatory Oath of Three-fold Refuge, have remained stable across the Buddhist world, including all the major vehicles or variants. At the same time, the vehicles have their own subsidiary 212 Peter Nosco beliefs and emphases. For example, a Theravada Buddhist will aspire ultimately over many transmigrations to become an arhat or “worthy,” a concept with ancient but generally not contemporary relevance for most Mahayana Buddhists. Similarly Mahayana Buddhists would universally accept the doctrine of the Triple Body of Buddha, as well as the concepts of the Buddha nature and bodhisattva, which are comparably alien to Theravada understandings. In this sense, internal cohesiveness across the three major vehicles reflects the fact that each believes its understandings and praxes to be superior – the best, in fact – but they each do so without repudiating the other two. The same can be said for the Chan tradition in all its monastery-based varieties in China, as well as for the Tendai/Shingon rivalry in Japan. In Chan, despite subtle differences over whether enlightenment comes all in a flash or gradually over time, the shared emphasis on meditation was sufficient to sustain high levels of solidarity. Similarly, in Japan one finds that the totalizing aspirations of Tendai and Shingon did not inhibit the two rivals from finding common cause whenever mutual interest dictated. This suggests that in both China and Japan, intramural Buddhist competition – especially at the monastic level – has often been intense but generally not vituperative or adversarial, and in matters of Buddhist church versus Buddhist state, erstwhile rivals were generally able to find common cause. Not so with the Nichiren denomination, however. The Tokugawa Bakufu cracked down on the fujufuse movement not because their religious ideology was somehow pernicious or seditious like the despised Christianity, but because the fujufuse defiance of Bakufu law was potentially contagious. During the first decades of the seventeenth century when the Bakufu was seeking to establish and consolidate its control of religious institutions, it required each denomination to construct its own comprehensive main temple/branch temple network for internal communication and mutual responsibility in the enforcement of Bakufu directives. Because of the Bakufu’s use of temples as community registries, one might even argue that everyone in Japan during the Tokugawa period was officially Buddhist. One consequence of this state oversight was that major denominations like Tendai, Shingon, Pure Land, True Pure Land, Zen, and Nichiren became highly structured and cohesive organizations, together constituting a kind of spiritual arterial system for the body politic. This in turn meant that the underground fundamentalist fujufuse movement was only able to survive intact for over two centuries thanks to the tacit complicity of their above-ground accommodationist brethren, making their intramural squabble essentially fraternal. It was not just difficult but potentially lethal for Nichiren Buddhists to practice the proscribed fujufuse principle – no less a crime than practicing Christianity – and one was as culpable as an actual believer/practitioner if it could be demonstrated that one had deliberately concealed one’sknowledgeoffujufuse adherents, or even indirectly aided Intramural dissent in Buddhism 213 and abetted their cause. If self-preservation was a priority for Nichiren Buddhists, then fujufuse practitioners tested the limits of such forbearance on the part of their accommodationist brethren, whose principal doctrinal offense was behaving in a manner intended to avoid the wrath of the state.

Consequences Churches, no less than states, seek to fill and even expand the space available to them, and, to do so, solidarity and consensus can be useful tools. At least in theory, consensus should provide: consistency of doctrine across the host association; an advantage in the transmission of the tradition from one generation to the next; a measuring rod against which one can reckon the degree of fidelity to core beliefs; and presumably a degree of agreement on core values that might be expected to reduce the potential for conflict. In its infancy it was essential for Buddhism to distinguish itself definitively from the preexisting brahminical tradition, and, as noted at the outset, Buddhism has its genesis in dissent over a host of key issues. Thus, it was important to the early Buddhist movement to have consensus on its core teachings and values. Tradition shows a concern with orthodoxy coursing through the first three Councils, where one can already discern the contours of disagreement on how to escape samsara. Similarly, during the early and most intense years of their competition, it was important for both Tendai and Shingon to maintain doctrinal integrity and differentiation, but as this competition matured into a longstanding rivalry, various forms of convergence arose in response to their shared concerns. For at least the last thousand years, and except in the most extreme cases, it is difficult to see what Buddhism might have gained through even higher degrees of consensus. Some elements are obvious and most likely common to any faith-based organization, but one of Buddhism’s greatest strengths – and part of its enduring appeal – has been its capacity to adapt to its social, intellectual, and cultural surroundings, giving it both a degree of reassuring familiarity as well as an attractive measure of difference and diversity. Indeed, through most of its history, Buddhism has responded with moderation and doctrinal liberality when considering how rigorously to insist on conformity, always recognizing that spiritual alternatives – lesser truths – are acceptable to accommodate local exigencies. For example, Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana have traditionally not sought to convert each other through the compelling force of their respective dogma and practices, suggesting a sympathetic understanding of the vagaries of faith, as well as a practical acknowledgment of the power of geography and local tradition in these matters. At the same time nonconformity can be an issue, as for example within a local community or particular monastic tradition, or when the state enters into the fray by transforming nonconformity and defiance into a criminal matter, as 214 Peter Nosco was the case with the underground fujufuse. One can easily imagine the benefits of doctrinal conformity to the spiritual life within a monastery, where such cohesion would be a paramount concern. Rigid internal enforcement of doctrine similarly becomes understandable as a defensive strategy in the extreme case of fujufuse, where falling away from either the faith or the faith-community was never an option.

Diversity Many of the same arguments apply when one considers the remarkable elasticity of the Buddhist tradition. One is struck by the apparent indifference of the international spiritual movement called Buddhism to even minimal enforcement of a set of core values and beliefs. In this chapter, I have pointed to the Triple Truths and the initiatory vow as representative of core beliefs that would be difficult for any self-styled Buddhist to reject. At the same time, contemporary Buddhism’s core values and beliefs at times seem so empirical and psychological as to render them essentially unarguable and uncontrover- sial. For example, does anyone seriously believe or wish to argue that things and persons do not change, or that attachments do not generate their own disappointments? Can one point to an organ as the seat of the soul, or quarrel with the proposition that life necessarily entails moments of hardship? This essential rationalism enables Buddhism at the local level to move beyond this consensus and focus on other appealing propositions, as for example in the emphasis by figures such as the Dalai Lama on happiness, tolerance, and compassion. Again, this has only strengthened Buddhism’s hand in the global competition for hearts and minds. In India Buddhism’s ecclesiastic structure of temples and monasteries emerged early on and spread to radically diverse settings, where it necessarily adapted to local circumstances but nonetheless replicated the monastic rivalries of its originally Indian setting. Within individual Buddhist mountain monasteries, and in a manner akin to that of specific Orders within the Catholic Church, discipline and doctrinal agreement were fundamental. They were also malleable, to be sure, but their strength was inevitably in their cohesion and coherence. In this respect it is easy to understand how a member of any level of Buddhist host institution today might without reserva- tion imagine her/his beliefs and practices to be the very best, while at the same time regarding it as spiritually uncivil to assert such superiority in any kind of public manner. Further, everywhere Buddhism went – and everywhere it still goes – Buddhism has had to contend with challenges from preexisting beliefs. In China, Buddhist monastic celibacy initially conflicted with Confucian filial piety, requiring Buddhism to explain how having one’s son enter a monastery to pray for his family and ancestors could be regarded as the height of filial piety. In Korea, it was necessary to reconcile Buddhism with certain widely Intramural dissent in Buddhism 215 embraced indigenous dragon myths. In Japan, there was great reluctance to forsake traditional beliefs in local kami (deities), and so most Buddhist denominations – but especially Tendai and Shingon – found ways to incorporate kami into their cosmologies as emanations of primordially Buddhist substances. It is at these local levels that Buddhism’s skill at managing diversity and internal dissent becomes most striking. Internally, the degree of diversity and differentiation within the contemporary Buddhist world is far greater than that within either Judaism or Islam, and there is little evidence of antipathy toward those with conflicting interpretations, emphases, or practices. This may help to explain why for most of its history and wherever it has gone, Buddhism has been an ally of the state, and it has generally suffered state persecution only when the state itself is controlled by a rival religion.

Inculcation and reproduction The content and manner of transmission of Buddhist tradition will of course vary according to the circumstances. Until relatively recent times wherever Buddhism has been the dominant tradition, the worldviews of the Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana vehicles were easily reproduced and propagated because they were themselves the prevailing worldviews of their locales. One learned these doctrines by learning about the world, and vice versa. Tendai and Shingon mountain monasteries were major centers of learning in Japan, and were the best places for a talented commoner to make a name for himself. Both of these denominations did an excellent job of preparing a priesthood capable of stafﬁng monasteries, as well as training the next generation of priests, administrating large landholdings, and heading local temples, but the task of bringing the teachings of these denominations to the village level fell largely to itinerant mendicants. It was the Zen schools in Japan that of all denominations of Buddhism did the most to bring educational opportunities to the countryside through temple-schools (terakoya), and despite its high degree of individualism and use of wordless transmission, Zen as a whole managed doctrinal inculcation and reproduction of its teachings at least as well as any of Japan’s traditional denominations. Because of their unique circumstances, considerable effort was of course also expended by fujufuse proponents on the faithful reproduction of the tradition in each new generation and within the labyrinthine network of above-ground Nichiren temples. However, in contemporary Japan, and indeed through much of the rest of the world, it has been the Pure Land and Nichiren denominations that have done the best at sponsoring high schools and universities where their doctrinal subtleties are reproduced and debated. In more recent times and outside Asia, Buddhism has made its way on the one hand through the compelling attractiveness of such spiritual practices as meditation or chanting, and on the other hand through the intellectual appeal 216 Peter Nosco of its core teachings. At the same time, one senses that outside of Southeast Asia or Tibetan portions of China, that is, outside the core Theravada and Vajrayana realms and wherever conditions of industrial (post)modernity prevail, Mahayana Buddhists are a body in transition. I know of any number of self-professed Buddhists who have taken the initiatory vow privately and have a deep commitment to spiritual self-cultivation, but have no compelling interest either in the inter-generational transmission of their personal faith or in participating in a community of the spiritually like-minded. These secular Mahayana Buddhists may be undermining the traditional ecclesiastic Buddhist structure of monasteries and temples, and at the same time contemporary Buddhism may be transforming itself with internet and other networks centered on preaching celebrities for whom inculcation and reproduction at times reﬂect principles honed in the marketplace.

Authority The question of authority returns us to the question and definition of the sangha or Buddhist monastic community, for it is in or to the sangha that one pledges to take one’s refuge as a lay Buddhist. In Theravada and Vajrayana Buddhism and in Buddhist societies generally, the priesthood is its own social stratum with prerogatives and privileges of a distinctly medieval cast. In these more traditional Buddhist communities, the ultimate authorities in doctrinal and practical matters will be professional religionists who are themselves organized in clearly understood hierarchies. Within the Mahayana denominations as well, including all of the “new religions,” host associations have traditionally had clear structures for authority in doctrinal matters. In Tokugawa Japan this was represented by “main temple–branch temple” relationships within denominations, where Mt. Hiei was headquarters for all Tendai temples, just as Mt. Kōya was the equivalent for Shingon, and so on with all of the ten major denominations, but this basic structure with minor modification can be found throughout the Buddhist world. Once again, fujufuse practitioners are the extreme example, since their exceptional requirement of secrecy made a clear and strong sense of authority essential to the maintenance of internal discipline. In most Mahayana communities today, priests live lives that do not differ markedly from those of lay persons – driving cars, using the internet, shopping, participating in the raising of a family, and so on. This redefinition of the sangha expands it and makes it more inclusive of the concerns of the community of believers, and this in turn allows for the continuation of Buddhism’s remarkable elasticity under the doctrine of expedient means. That Buddhism in these (post)modern times will be increasingly pulled along by the preferences of individual Buddhists seems inevitable, at least outside of the most conservative Theravada and Vajrayana communities, and this in turn is likely to weaken the authority of host institutions. Intramural dissent in Buddhism 217

Management options Intramural dissent in Buddhism was managed in different ways depending principally on the nature of the host association. When alternative spiritualities acquire sufficient gravity, they typically spin off into new vehicles or denominations, and this differentiation can be amicable, adversarial, and even violent. One example in Japan of the relatively collegial emergence of a new denomination is Jōdo Shin (True Pure Land), which emerged out of Shinran’s (1173–1263) radical interpretations of a number of important issues in Pure Land (Jōdo) Buddhism, such as how often one needed to invoke Amida Buddha’s name to ensure one’s rebirth in the paradisiacal Pure Land (just once), whether good people have an advantage over wicked people (they do not), whether priests are required to be celibate (no), and how to manage succession in the headship of temples (by heredity). A more violent example occurred when Nichiren shared with the Tendai leadership on Mt. Hiei his conviction that in this last degenerate age of mappō (末法 or “end of the dharma”) it was sufficient for salvation for one to recite the sacred title of the Lotus Sutra. Nichiren was driven from the mountain and soon thereafter began proclaiming the exclusive efficacy of his dharma, maintaining that if the Bakufu did not order conversion en masse to recitation of the sacred title, Buddha would withdraw his angels and their protection from Japan. This so 13 incensed the Bakufu that it ordered Nichiren’s execution. Within Buddhist monasteries when masters and their students disagreed, students were expected to defer to masters, but when masters disagreed among themselves, debates were the method of choice for deciding which interpretation to follow. The most extreme form of monastic discipline was expulsion from the monastery – a kind of tough love – as when Linji (d. 866) left his Chan monastery in China when he failed to realize that his master’s slaps and scolding were intended to trigger his enlightenment and were thus consummate acts of kindness. In most instances, however, there would have been little else a monastery or even a temple could do to compel an individual Buddhist’s spiritual allegiance, although not even expulsion was a realistic option in the case of the fujufuse movement, where expulsion might invite inquisition.

Internal criticism Buddhism has historically been so elastic and inclusive that internal criticism has resulted for the most part in a kind of Spenserian evolutionary growth, in which the “ﬁttest” ideas and practices survive in their respective contexts and others do not. When internal criticism has focused on the relationship of the

13 Nichiren was spared when a bolt of lightning miraculously intervened, and, more popular than ever, he lived another eleven years. 218 Peter Nosco host association to the state or to other host associations, as in the case of fujufuse, the consequences of such criticism were often severe, with the understandable effect of muting dissenting voices. With this exception, however, a measure of intramural criticism within Buddhism would generally have been regarded as healthy and productive. The analogy is imperfect, but centuries ago Buddhist monasteries were not unlike contemporary academic departments in the sense that innovation was welcome so long as it stayed within understood boundaries. If that innovation were deemed transgressive, there was always the exit option, and this in a nutshell is the history of Buddhism: when managed well, innovation generates intra-denominational reﬁnement, but when mismanaged or poorly managed, it will generate the more radical innovation of a new denomination and attendant inter-denominational rivalry.

Scope The Buddhist tradition of chakravartin – the enlightened Buddhist monarch – has implications for how far a Buddhist might envision applying Buddhist ways of managing dissent at the level of the state. Whatever ruthlessness one might ﬁnd in their past, chakravartin like Ashoka in third-century BCE India, Empress Wu (r. 685–705) in China, or Shōmu in eighth-century CE Japan, are historically represented as so admirable and worthy that their management of great projects on behalf of Buddhism appears in the hagiographic record as effortless and blessed. Great Buddhist metropolises could be cosmopolitan and spiritually diverse like Changan in eighth-century China, or isolated and spiritually homogeneous like Kyoto in tenth-century Japan, but in both settings Buddhism’s worldview was the dominant one. The same could be said for Tibet, which is the best-known example of a Buddhist theocracy. Remarkably, core aspects of Buddhism’s worldview including the principles of change, compassion, and karmic retribution seem comparably dominant in much of today’s world. But if we ask whether Buddhists today would wish to see their distinctive patterns of governance and dissent management extended beyond their current spiritual boundaries, I suspect that only Tibetan-style Vajrayana Buddhists in Asia or certain Bhutanese-style polities would even entertain such a prospect. Perhaps because much of Buddhism’s appeal in the current marketplace of religious ideas has been essentially philosophical and psychological, most Buddhists today seem to prefer a world that will simply let them follow their faith without interference by the state. Ironically, this was the same wish of their fujufuse Buddhist brethren of two centuries ago. We began this chapter by noting that Buddhism today invokes conﬂicting images that at the moment of this writing include anti-Muslim violence by fundamentalist Buddhists in Myanmar. Buddhism has traditionally upheld the state wherever it has traveled, so that today’s politically engaged Intramural dissent in Buddhism 219

Buddhism seems out of place. Centuries ago in Tokugawa Japan, the mere perception of insubordination was sufficient to brand fujufuse fundamentalists as equally subversive as underground Christians, a group that lacked even an acknowledged priesthood. As we have seen, Buddhism’s strategies for managing dissent have included debating differences internally, invoking the authority of the master, and even appealing to the state to act authoritatively on its behalf. When these efforts have been unsuccessful, differentiation has been the most common outcome, and again in general this appears to have been a good thing. Host institutions have a right (of sorts) to define themselves, and their members have an option (of sorts) to leave. And when this latter option is invoked, all, at least in theory, should benefit: the host institution or denomination by greater cohesion; the departed member by the opportunity to exercise spiritual agency and choice; and the Buddhist world as a whole by enriched diversity and options. Chapter 11

Afterword

Michael Walzer

I We are all liberals now. William Galston’s chapter effectively sets the criteria for dealing with dissidence. Everyone else in this book writes with those criteria in mind – this is clear in all the descriptions of all the traditions, both when they are defensive and when they are critical. The case will be the same in this Afterword. We all believe in free speech; we all believe that opposi- tional ﬁgures – from religious heretics to ideological deviationists – should not be persecuted; we all believe that disagreements should be tolerated and dissidents accommodated. There must be, as Galston says, “maximum feasible scope for diversity and dissent.” But it is important to recognize that liberalism also allows for refusals of accommodation and even for the expulsion of dissidents. This is true for an obvious reason, which is nicely illustrated by a story that I remember from the 1960s. A group of students at a major American university organized a branch of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). They believed in open admissions; they welcomed everybody; so the Young Republicans joined en masse and voted SDS out of existence. If you want to have a political organization, a religious community, or an ideological grouping of a particular sort, you have to be able to select members, and you have to be able to expel people who don’t share the principles that brought all the others together. What liberalism requires in such cases is that the individuals who are rejected or expelled are free to organize their own groups, defend their own principles, and live in accordance with them. “Enforced uniformity of belief is antithetical to the liberal creed” at the level of the state (more about that later), but liberalism can accept the enforcement of uniformity, and other illiberal practices too, in the associations of civil society – so long as there is an exit option for individuals. If all the writers in this book are liberals, at least with regard to the accommodation of dissent, it is also true that all the traditions discussed here have a long history of dealing with dissenters. There are many examples

220 Afterword 221 of cruel persecution (even unto death), but there are also many examples of accommodation – sometimes by tolerating a range of opinions within the group, sometimes by establishing a kind of friendly coexistence with dissidents who separate themselves from the group or from its core, but don’t move very far away. In most of these traditions, accommodation isn’t the work of people we would call liberals, but it often mimics (or anticipates) contemporary liberal arrangements. As I have just suggested, one can imagine two different versions of this liberalism or quasi-liberalism: one favors latitudinarian and inclusive associations whose leaders don’t claim doctrinal authority or who leave a lot of room for internal disagreements; the other favors a plurality of tighter associations, hence division and separation rather than inclusion, and after that peaceful or even friendly coexistence. Probably the clearest example of the first of these arrangements is the liberal state itself: even a centralized liberal state will, in principle, claim no authority over individual or group belief and practice with regard to religion or ideology – with this one exception: it will claim the authority to organize a system of public education to inculcate liberal principles, including the principle that states have no further religious or ideological authority. Hence it both represents the first version of liberalism (latitudinarian inclusiveness) and makes possible the second (pluralist separatism). Another example of the same duality is the contemporary university, at least insofar as it defends the academic freedom of its professors and students – both as individuals and as members of different sorts of associations. The university allows a wide scope for dissent, and so do many of its internal intellectual groupings, like the ones described in several of these chapters: philosophers of natural law, academic Marxists, neo-Confucian professors. Members of these groups are free to disagree among themselves, subject only, as Andrew Levine says, to the established rules of argument and evidentiary standards in their discipline. Let the best arguments prevail. There should be no need in these academic associations to fix a creed or establish a hierarchy, though I have no doubt that “correct” positions are sometimes militantly defended. Theological seminaries and sectarian colleges, where creed and hierarchy already exist, can require a more extensive subjection to religious authorities. But heretics and dissidents in these settings are likely to find a welcome elsewhere in the academic world (Peter Steinfels and Tom Angier provide some recent examples). Contemporary natural law philosophers and Marxist economists and sociologists may criticize their colleagues, even very sharply, for failing to adopt this or that ideological position; they will nonetheless defend each other’s academic freedom. One can find similar examples of intellectual latitudinarianism in some traditional religions – as in Alan Mittleman’s account of the “rebellious elder” in rabbinic Judaism, who is barred from serving on a religious court but allowed to teach his dissident doctrine alongside other teachers with 222 Michael Walzer other doctrines. I doubt that contemporary orthodox Jews would be similarly tolerant, but the exit option would certainly be available for any rebellious elder (or youngster) – as the case of Louis Jacobs, described by Mittleman, makes clear. What the disciplinary mechanisms might be, or what the options are, for the Muslim equivalent of a rebellious elder in Cairo’s al-Azhar University, say, or in the Islamic academies in Qum, Iran, I don’t know. There are rival schools of legal interpretation in Islam, but the rivals may be accommodated, as Meena Sharify-Funk suggests, on the model of separation and coexistence – different “legal schools dominate in certain geographical regions”–rather than of latitudinarian inclusion in a single place. This seems to be the way things worked historically in Buddhism, where particular monasteries defended particular doctrines – but there were many monasteries and also many local adaptations of indigenous “spiritualities.” The contemporary result, Peter Nosco writes, is that “differentiation within the contemporary Buddhist world is far greater than that within either Judaism or Islam.” Traditional Hinduism (at least, before the historical revi- sionism of Hindutva militants) may allow for an even greater degree of differentiation than any of these religions, though on a very different model. Hinduism seems to fit the latitudinarian version of liberalism: it was (and mostly still is) generally inclusive, with no one defending a singular orthodoxy or insisting on discipline and doctrinal agreement, not even in a particular intellectual or regional setting. But the reason for this openness may be that Hinduism was not thought of, even by Hindus until modern times, as a “religion” on the model of Christianity and Islam, neither of which are similarly – I have often heard this word used about Hinduism –“fuzzy.” Indeed, “religion,” as Anne Murphy argues in the case of South Asia, is a fairly recent invention; the word suggests a certain degree of unity and uniformity, and so it fits some of the traditions discussed in this book better than others. The second version of liberalism or quasi-liberalism is probably best illustrated by Protestant denominationalism. The early Protestant churches, in Geneva, for example, or in Scotland or Massachusetts, aimed at theological uniformity and had fairly strong disciplinary mechanisms – which included an appeal to the coercive power of the civil authorities. But the fissiparous character of Protestantism, what Edmund Burke in his speech on Conciliation with the Colonies called “the dissidence of dissent,” made for repeated splits and separations. Eventually, the different groups learned to live with one another within a liberal and neutral state – since none of them wanted the state to act on behalf of any of the others – and the result was and is denominational pluralism. American Jews have also formed coexisting denominations, but Israeli Jews have not – adifferencethatsuggeststhat denominationalism may depend on a liberal surround or at least on a disengaged state. In the United States, it wasn’t only a particular religious orientation that made peaceful coexistence possible but also the orientation of the surrounding society and the encompassing state. Afterword 223

Peter Nosco describes Buddhist denominations in Japan whose coexistence was organized and occasionally policed by the imperial state. “Fundamentalists” who rejected denominational pluralism were proscribed by the regime but managed to survive “within the labyrinthine network of Nichiren [one of the recognized denominations] temples.” This is an unusual case of coexistence at two levels: above ground, as it were, with ofﬁcial state support, and underground, without it. The religious culture of Islam is highly pluralist (whether it is more or less pluralist than Buddhism I leave to experts on the two religions). As Meena Sharify-Funk makes clear, global Islam encompasses not only rival sectarian groupings – Sunni and Shiite sects, with Suﬁsm as an intellectual/ mystical current alongside the two – but also the divergent schools of legal interpretation that I’ve already mentioned and a number of breakaway sects, like the Alawites and the Druzes. But for reasons that I don’t fully understand, none of this has made for denominational pluralism. Perhaps the “emergent trends” that Sharify-Funk writes about may move in that direction. But right now, members of the different groups are killing each other in large numbers for what seem to be religious reasons – to extirpate heresy, enforce Islamic law, restore the caliphate, or, alternatively, to resist religious extre- mism and terrorism and sustain a “moderate” or reformed Islam. The different groups are competing for state power – in states some of which have been secular, at least in recent years, but none of which has been liberal. Is it the political illiberalism that causes the violent religious competition or the religious competition that causes the illiberalism? As always, I suppose, things work both ways. In any case, Muslim diversity is real enough in countries like Iraq and Syria, but there don’t seem to be any peaceful management mechanisms. In the past, different kinds of authoritarian regimes – empires, monarchies, and military dictatorships – have made for a kind of religious peace though not for a genuinely open religious pluralism. Think of the absolute monarchs of early modern Europe who “managed” and eventually ended the religious wars and persecutions of Christendom. England’s Queen Elizabeth famously said, “I would not make a window into men’s souls, to pinch them there” (mixing her metaphors in a good cause). Other strong but less admirable rulers have acted with similar restraint, using force only against political rebels, but allowing religious diversity and even dissent, so long as it was quiet. The Muslim world has seen many rulers of this sort in recent decades; all of them are in trouble in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, and exactly what alternative management mechanisms are likely to emerge is radically unclear.

II Liberalism classically aims at setting limits on the power of the state and, therefore, on the ability of religious or ideological groups to use that 224 Michael Walzer power to discipline their own members – or anyone else. So this is a critical question, perhaps the most important question: How ready or how eager are these groups to use state power? Most of the writers in this book celebrate a declining eagerness. I am less confident about that, given the revival of fundamentalist and ultra-orthodox religion and the political militancy of religious zealots in many parts of the world. It is certainly true that Marxist intellectuals no longer seek to seize state power. Andrew Levine sees this as a recognition of defeat, but there may be other reasons for the renunciation of their illiberal history. The story is obviously very different for Hindu nationalists in India, militant Buddhists in Sri Lanka, messianic Zionists among the post-1967 settlers in Israel, and radical Muslims across the Islamic world from Pakistan to Algeria – all of whom are eager to make use of the coercive power of the state. Christendom today seems largely free of such zealots, though they have figured significantly in its history, and Protestant fundamentalists who speak of the United States as a “Christian republic” are also aiming to use state power – though only for moral purposes, they would say, not to enforce doctrinal uniformity. Religious zealotry focuses first of all on external enemies, and so it doesn’t immediately raise questions about intramural dissent. But as Anne Murphy argues in her chapter on South Asian religious traditions, the business of setting and defending the boundaries of a religious or ideological group has important effects inside those boundaries. Zealots who draw the line between “us” and “them” most firmly, and who are most hostile to “them,” are also likely to insist that a tight unity and uniformity is necessary among “us.” So they will wage war against heretics inside the group (and also against liberal or secular-leaning members) in order, they will say, to fight effectively against infidels outside. And they will seek the help of the state in both these campaigns. Many religious and ideological groups seek to use state power; it is also the case that states seek to use religious and ideological groups for their own political purposes. So here is a second critical question, which is raised in a number of these chapters: How ready are these groups to be used by the state, to serve state interests? Confucianism has historically been a doctrine friendly to rulers. Confucian scholars in office were supposed to remonstrate with emperors who deviated from the right path, but they were nonetheless deeply committed to imperial and, more generally, to authoritarian rule – and they still are: “None of the current promoters of Confucianism in China,” Richard Madsen writes, “has taken part in dissident activity.” Buddhism, too, “has traditionally upheld the state wherever it has traveled,” but in this case there has been some change in recent years, manifest in new forms of political zealotry, which seem strange to people who hold conventional views about Buddhism and political passivity; Nosco says only that they would seem out of place to a Buddhist of a thousand years ago. Afterword 225

Christianity has both challenged and upheld state power. Sometimes the challenges came from the peak institutions of the religion, as in the centuries of conflict between popes and emperors; sometimes the challenges came from dissidents within the church – as with the liberation theologians of Latin America, for example – or from radical Protestant groups such as the Quakers. Of course, when Christian dissidents challenge the rulers of the state, more established Christians are likely to defend them. Marxist intellectuals found it much too easy to support (and apologize for the crimes of) communist states, but the fall of those states has set them free. Some of them, to be sure, set themselves free earlier on, becoming Marxist dissidents. For the most part, religious and ideological groups have supported the state only when they can use it. So what are the legitimate uses of state power? I don’t think that any of the writers in this book would object to a liberal state establishing a compulsory public education system, whose goal, as Galston says, is to mold liberal citizens. The US constitution rules out an established church, but we do have an established state, and that is legitimate in liberal eyes so long as the political establishment is secular or religiously non- partisan. But all of us would object to a “Christian republic” organizing a compulsory school system to mold religious Catholics or Protestants – and we would have similar objections to an Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, or Jewish state using its coercive powers, or allowing its coercive powers to be used, to shape the religious life of its citizens. Debates (in India, for example, and also in the United States) over the textbooks studied in state schools illustrate the dilemma here. Liberals argue for textbooks that reflect serious and “objective” academic research and freewheeling debate; they oppose the efforts of partisan religious or ideological groups to write their own orthodoxies into the texts. Members of these partisan groups claim in turn that liberalism is just one more, particularly insidious, orthodoxy. The argument is ongoing. Liberals can, however, make their peace with private and voluntary schools that are organized by religious groups and that use religious textbooks. These schools can demand conformity from their teachers (some of them will make room for moderately dissenting views), without violating liberal principles – given that their students, and their teachers too, can always go elsewhere. There is also a question about funding: Should these schools receive state money? Liberals have two different answers to this question, which correspond roughly to the two versions of liberalism that I described earlier. The first is that parochial schools should get no money from the state, which means that all orthodoxies, and all dissident doctrines too, must be inculcated on a voluntary basis, in civil society, with whatever money can be raised from private donors. The state is radically inclusive by virtue of being radically disengaged. The second answer is that all the groups should get state money for their schools on an equal, presumably per-capita, 226 Michael Walzer basis. But then the state has to define the criteria that make a “group” into a group of the relevant kind. In America, this last issue arises even in the absence of state funding for religious schools, because of the tax-exempt status of church (or synagogue or mosque) property. What is the difference between Baptists, Jews, and Muslims, who get the exemption and Scientologists, who don’t? I doubt that what is going on here is a refusal to accommodate dissidence, but why isn’titthat? The coercive power of the state can be used for other purposes than the education of the young. The corporal punishment of heretics is no longer an option even in illiberal states, though the punishment of blasphemers and of writers who “insult” the local religion is still on the agenda in many countries. But it is probably the state enforcement of religious law, at least with regard to marriage, divorce, and inheritance, that looms largest in the demands that religious groups make on the state today. Since liberalism is committed above all, as Galston says, to individual autonomy, this is a demand that liberal states can’t meet. They can allow only voluntary submission to religious law (though it is often questionable how voluntary submission actually is in segregated orthodox or fundamentalist communities of the sort that are tolerated and even accommodated in liberal societies). Historically, feudal monarchies, mercantile republics, imperial regimes and their successor states often allowed (and some still allow) different religious groups to run their own court systems, with varying degrees of coercive authority – sometimes extending all the way to capital punishment, but mostly not. This is certainly an example of the accommodation of diversity; the Ottoman millet system is perhaps the clearest and best- known case. Any system that allows a plurality of religious courts might be called an enactment of liberalism, except that the accommodation works at the level of the group, not of the individual. Dissident individuals have often been treated harshly by their own courts, sometimes with the whip or the branding iron, sometimes only with excommunication – asinthecaseof Baruch Spinoza, judged by the Bet Din (rabbinic court) of Amsterdam. In fact, excommunication was a pretty harsh punishment so long as there was no place for the excommunicated member to go, short of joining another religious community. But Spinoza found, or created, secular space for himself and for people like himself and so ended the harshness. Of course, Spinoza never attempted to get married in secular space. That still isn’t possible in any country where the millet system is working. Consider the modern state of Israel, where Israeli Jews who don’t want a religious marriage must fly to Cyprus. The case is the same for Israeli Arabs, both Muslims and Christians, who have only their own religious courts to deal with. Cyprus marriages are recognized in Israel, so this is another version of accommodation. How these matters are handled in Muslim countries where family law follows Shari’a, I don’t know. In India, members of the Muslim minority are subject to Islamic law in all family matters. A uniform civil code exists for Afterword 227

Hindus; efforts to extend it to Muslims, which is what liberalism presumably would require, have so far been unsuccessful.

III There is one important form of contemporary dissidence, alluded to in some of these chapters but not extensively treated in most of them (the two exceptions are those on natural law and Christianity), that I want to address here. I mean the dissidence of feminists and gay activists, which is a central issue today in almost all the religious traditions – and might be an issue for Marxists, too, if they still held state power, for their views about gender and sexuality were (mostly) conventionally bourgeois. With the exception of some Protestant and Jewish denominations, all the religious traditions were and still are fundamentally patriarchal. In Anne Murphy’s chapter on South Asian religious traditions, Wendy Doniger is quoted describing “the dominant paradigm with regard to women, animals, and caste” at which “all subsequent antinomian and resistant strains of Hinduism aimed.” Imight add: and are still aiming, without a great deal of success. According to Richard Madsen, any practices “that violated Confucian social ethics ... [and] promoted the egalitarian commingling of genders” were severely punished in imperial China. Even today, the commitment to “patriarchal gender relations” works against all efforts to create a cosmopolitan and globalized Confucianism. We have no descriptions here of contemporary feminists or gay activists in Hindu, Confucian, or Buddhist society and no hint of how they are or might be accommodated. Of course, to be accommodated as dissidents is not exactly what radical feminists and gay activists want. They want their dissidence to become conventional doctrine. The secular feminism of 1960sand1970s America and the gay activism of the last two decades might well be described as a kind of dissent from the liberal-state-as-it-was, which has triumphed at least to this extent: that opponents of gender equality and gay rights now think of themselves as the dissidents. Religious feminists and gay activists seek similarly to transform their own religions, but here the difficulties are greater and triumph is likely to be long in coming. The difficulties are especially acute in Islam and orthodox (and ultra-orthodox) Judaism, where the subordination of women is central to the religious tradition. Indeed, the fierceness of religious revivalism in these two religions (and in Hinduism too?) is probably to a large extent a reaction to liberalizing tendencies in the secular world with regard to gender and sexuality. Consider the case of the dissident organization called Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), which is active in many Muslim majority countries and has extended its reach to India, where Muslims are a (very large) minority. Members of WLUML insist on the plurality of Muslim “laws” and argue that some versions of these laws are consistent or at least compatible with gender equality. Their dissidence is tolerated in most of the countries in 228 Michael Walzer which they are active, though it is revealing that their central offices are in London: they can work most comfortably in a liberal democracy. Similarly, religious feminists in the Jewish world are more comfortable and more effective in the United States than in Israel, which is a democracy but not, or not yet, an entirely liberal one. Feminists and gay activists in all the religious traditions are often accused of importing foreign or “Western” ideologies, and there is certainly a sense in which dissidents in many non-Western societies are Western or Western- educated liberals. But much of the dissidence on gender and sexual issues is in fact internal, and many feminist and gay dissidents are also religious women and men, extremely well educated in the law and lore of their tradition and working very effectively (it seems to me) to reinterpret classical texts. Since it isn’t only the doctrine of (most of) these religions but also their authority structures that are profoundly patriarchal in character, learned feminists pose an especially serious challenge to contemporary religious leaders. Until these feminists win, as I think they eventually will, they are probably the leading dissidents in each of their religious communities, and the leaders of these communities will have to figure out how to deal with them. After they win, they will have to figure out how to deal with the recalcitrant and defeated patriarchs. Selected bibliography

Liberalism Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969). Thomas Hill Green, Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation, Paul Harris and John Morrow (eds.) (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986). John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government, in Peter Laslett (ed.) (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1960). Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred D. Miller, and Jeffrey Paul (eds.), Liberalism Old and New (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007). John Raz, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).

Marxism Jon Elster, An Introduction to Karl Marx (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Andrew Levine, A Future for Marxism? Althusser, the Analytic Turn and the Revival of Socialist Theory (London: Pluto Press, 2003). Steven Lukes, Marxism and Morality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). Robert C. Tucker (ed.), The Lenin Anthology (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1975). Robert C. Tucker (ed.), The Marx Engels Reader, second edition (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1978).

Natural law Jacqueline A. Laing and Russell Wilcox (eds.), The Natural Law Reader (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013). David S. Oderberg and Timothy Chappell (eds.), Human Values: New Essays on Ethics and Natural Law (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). John Keown and Robert P. George (eds.), Reason, Morality, and Law: The Philosophy of John Finnis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 230 Selected bibliography

Nicholas Bamforth and David A. J. Richards, Patriarchal Religion, Sexuality, and Gender: A Critique of New Natural Law (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Christopher Wolfe, Natural Law Liberalism (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Judaism Leora Batnitzky, How Judaism Became a Religion (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011). Daniel Frank and Matt Goldish (eds.), Rabbinic Culture and Its Critics: Jewish Authority, Dissent, and Heresy in Medieval and Early Modern Times (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2008). Menachem Kellner, Dogma in Medieval Jewish Thought: From Maimonides to Abravanel (Portland, OR: Littman Library, 2004). Menachem Kellner, Must a Jew Believe Anything? (Portland, OR: Littman Library, 1999). Michael Walzer, Menachem Lorberbaum, and Noam J. Zohar (eds.), The Jewish Political Tradition, Vol. II (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003).

Christianity Adrian Hastings, Alistair Mason, and Hugh Pyper (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). Richard P. McBrien (ed.), The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995). Diarmaid MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (New York: Penguin Books, 2011). Jonathan Z. Smith (ed., with the American Academy of Religion), The HarperCollins Dictionary of Religions (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995). Robert Louis Wilken, The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012).

Islam Mohammad Arkoun, The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought (London: Saqi Books, 2002). Peter Mandaville, Global Political Islam (New York: Routledge, 2007). Muhammad Khalid Masud, Armando Salvatore, and Martin van Bruinessen (eds.), Islam and Modernity: Key Issues and Debates (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009). Pew Research Center: the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, The World’s Muslims: Unity and Diversity. August 9, 2012. Available online www.pewforum. org/2012/08/09/the-worlds-muslims-unity-and-diversity-executive-summary/ (accessed August 27, 2012). Pew Research Center, The Future of the Global Muslim Population: Projections for 2010–2030. January 29, 2011. Available online www.pewforum.org/2011/01/27/ the-future-of-the-global-muslim-population/ (accessed on August 27, 2012). Selected bibliography 231

South Asian religions Wendy Doniger, “The Origins of Heresy in Hindu Mythology,” History of Religions 10, 4 (May 1971): 271–333. Arvind-pal Singh Mandair, Religion and the Specter of the West: Sikhism, India, Postcoloniality, and the Politics of Translation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009). Bhikhu Parekh, “Some Reﬂections on the Hindu Theory of Tolerance,” Seminar 521 (January 2003): 48–53. Brian Pennington, Was Hinduism Invented? Britons, Indians, and the Colonial Construction of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). Ronki Ram, “Beyond Conversion and Sanskritisation: Articulating an Alternative Dalit Agenda in East Punjab,” Modern Asian Studies 46, 3 (2011): 639–702.

Confucianism Yong Chen, Confucianism as Religion: Controversies and Consequences (Leiden: Brill, 2013). Wm. Theodore de Bary, Asian Values and Human Rights: A Confucian Communitarian Perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998). Anna Sun, Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013). Tu Weiming, The Global Signiﬁcance of Concrete Humanity: Essays on the Confucian Discourse in Contemporary China (New Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilization, 2010). Fenggang Yang and Joseph Tamney (eds.), Confucianism and Spiritual Traditions in Modern China and Beyond (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

Buddhism Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening (New York: Riverhead Books, 1997). Alan Cole, “Schisms in Buddhism,” in James R. Lewis and Sarah M. Lewis (eds.), Sacred Schisms: How Religions Divide (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 61–82. Michael Jerryson and Mark Juergensmeyer, Buddhist Warfare (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). Donald S. Lopez, Jr., The Story of Buddhism: A Concise Guide to Its History & Teachings (New York: Harper Collins 2001). Jonathan A. Silk, Riven by Lust: Incest and Schism in Indian Buddhist Legend and Historiography (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009). Index

Abbasids, 138 authenticity, 3–5, 100–101. See also abortion, as moral absolute, 61 essentialism Abrahamic traditions, 3, 51–52, authority 132–133 of bishops, 112 accommodationists, 207, 208 within Buddhism, 216 Ad Dharm movement, 173–174 in Christianity, 112–114 adoption, by same-sex couples, 74 under Confucianism, 197–198 Adorno, Theodor, 37 Episcopal leadership and, 112 AIPAC. See American-Israel Public of halakha, 92 Affairs Committee Hinduism and, 178–179 Akin, Todd, 31–32 institutional, 65–66, 68–74 all vows. See Kol Nidre within Islam, 150–153 Althusser, Louis, 37, 46 within Judaism, 91–93 Ambedkar, B. R., 165, 175 under liberalism, 30–31 Ambrose of Milan, 120 Magisterial teaching as, 65–66 American-Israel Public Affairs under Marxism, 47 Committee (AIPAC), 88 with natural law theory, 65–67 Analects (Confucius), 190–193. See also of papacy, 112–113 Confucianism rabbinic, 92 analytical Marxists, 38–39, 46 autonomy, in rabbinic literature, 91 analytical philosophy, 38 Angier, Tom, 11, 221 Balibar, Etienne, 37 apostasy, 2 Ballantyne, Tony, 169 Appadurai, Arjun, 171–172 Batnitzky, Leora, 77 Aquinas, Thomas, 54–55, 120 BDS movement. See Boycott, Arab Spring, 150–151 Divestment and Sanctions The Argumentative Indian (Sen), 158 movement Aristotelianism, 99 Beinart, Peter, 88 Arya Samaj organization, 163, 169 beliefs, 77. See also creedal beliefs; Athanasius, 115 religion Augustine of Hippo, 116–117 ben Gamla, Joshua, 90 Index 233

Benedict XVI (Pope), 62, 103–104 Cahill, Lisa Sowle, 61, 65 bhakti (devotionalism), 166–167 capitalism, Marxism and, 51 bin Laden, Osama, 148 C.A.R.P. See Collegiate Association for bishops, 100–101, 112, 113 the Research of Principles Bolshevik Revolution, 35–36. See also caste, within Hinduism, 165–166, Russian Revolution 173–174, 175. See also dalits Bolshevism, 42 Castellio, Sebastian, 120 bona ﬁde natural law reasoning, 56 Catholic Church Bon-odori, 11 Congregation for the Doctrine of Book of Knowledge (Maimonides), 87 Faith, 8 Boston Confucians, 200 Curran and, 8, 62 boundaries, 7, 159 Declaration on Religious Liberty, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions 111–112, 115 (BDS) movement, 88 dissent within, 8, 63–65, 122–123 Brahmin, 161 Fourth Lateran Council for, 105 brahminical imaginary, 161, 162, 165, in Japan, 11 167 under liberal philosophy, 33–34 brahminical tradition, 161, 162, 166, 213 moral absolutes and, 61 Buber, Martin, 80 natural law theory and, 63–65 Buddhism, 3, 9 Second Vatican Council and, 113, 115, accommodationists within, 207, 122 208 Catholic Theological Society of authority within, 216 America, 121 chakravartin tradition, 218 CDF. See Congregation for the Doctrine contemporary, 202 of Faith dharma and, 209, 210 the center, religious, 160 diversity within, 214–215 Chabad Hasidim, 82 fujufuse movement in, 207–208, 212, chakravartin, 218 213–214 Chan, Sharon, 184 inculcation of, 215–216 Chappell, Timothy, 55, 56 intramural dissent within, 201–208, Chardin, Teilhard de, 64 213–214, 217–218 Charles V (Emperor), 115 karma and, 209 Chatterjee, Partha, 178 key tenets of, 208–211 Chomsky, Noam, 88 Mahayana, 211–213 Christian faith. See pistis meditation sermons, 204–205 Christianity modern inﬂuences on, 6–7 apostolic aspects of, 100 Nichiren, 13, 206–207 authenticity of scripture in, 100–101 nonconformity and, 213–214 authority in, 112–114 privacy and, 216 bishops and, 100–101, 112, 113 rivalry between denominations of, community as facet of, 108 205–206, 223 Council of Constantinople and, 101 Theravada tradition in, 204, creedal beliefs in, 10–11, 104–105 211–213 damnation and, 119, 126 yanas in, 203–204 as default religion, 99 Burke, Edmund, 222 dissent within, 4, 108–109, 114–120 Butler, Judith, 88 diversity within, 109–110 234 Index

doctrinal disputes within, 11 communism Episcopal leadership within, Bolshevism and, 42 112 Confucianism and, 194–195 evangelical, 121–122 Marxism and, 36–37, 46, 51 excommunication within, 115 Reigns of Terror under, 48 foundations of, 98–99 as revolution, 36 freedom and, 111 socialism and, 49 heresy and, 107, 108, 117–118 Third International Marxism and, 42 heretics within, 101, 117–118 The Communist Manifesto (Marx and homosexuality and, 109, 123–126 Engels), 36 inculcation of, 110–112 Communist Party, 36–37, 43 the Inquisition and, 117–119 community, within Christian faith, 108 intramural dissent within, 99–100, comprehensive doctrines, 40 102, 109–110, 114–126 Concerning Heretics (Servetus), 120 Jesus as central figure in, 104–105 confessions, 48, 105, 106, 115 key tenets of, 103–107 Confucianism, 3. See also legalization of, 101–102 neo-Confucianism; new “life and death” questions in, 11 Confucianism; ru Lutheranism and, 115, 125 authority under, 197–198 moral codes in, 105–106 communism and, 194–195 orthodoxy in, 102 consequences of, 194–195 papacy and, development of, 112–113, cosmopolitan ethic in, 194, 200 115, 122 diversity within, 195–196 persecution of, 101 etymology of term, 186 pistis and, 80 fundamentalism in, 192–193 population demographics of, 98 inculcation in, 196–197 priorities in, 107 key tenets of, 190–193 Protestant, 114, 126–127 legalism principles in, 188 reform movements in, 102, 110 Maoism and, 199 reproduction of, 110–112 modern influences on, 6–7 schisms within, 99 orthopraxis in, 10, 189 stoicism and, 99 priorities within, 193–194 Thirty-Nine Articles in, 115 privacy and, 198 violence as result of, 102–103 reform movements in, 195 churches, 8. See also Catholic reproduction of beliefs in, 196–197 Church Confucius, 190–193 civil associations, 33–34 Congar, Yves, 65 Clinton, Bill, 26 Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith clubs, 6, 68 (CDF), 8, 62, 66–67 Cohen, G. A., 38 conscience, 49, 66–67, 82, 91, 93, 111. See Cohen, Hermann, 86–87, 96 also freedom Collected Works (Lenin), 41 consensus. See ijma Collegiate Association for the Research Conservative Judaism, 81, 93, 95 of Principles (C.A.R.P.), 9 contestation, within Islam, 150 colonialism, 168–173 continuity, 2, 6, 10, 51–52, 131, 184, 188, commandments, 95. See also 194–195 mitzvah contraception, 61, 68–69 Index 235 core beliefs, 134–135, 182, 209–210 difference of opinion, 1, 85 cosmopolitanism, 194, 200 differentiation, 203, 204, 215, 219, 222 dialogic, 16 Dirks, Nicholas, 166 Council of Constantinople, 101 disagreement, 1, 2, 5 Council of Trent, 105 discontinuity, 131 covenant, for Jews, 77–78 dissent. See also apostasy; contestation; Cranston, Maurice, 24 difference of opinion; differentia- creedal beliefs, 10–11, 29–30, 79, tion; disagreement; dissidence; 104–105, 163 diversity; doctrinal disputes; creeds. See also beliefs ex-communication; exit-option; confessions and, 48, 105, 106, 115 heresy; heretics; intramural dissent; liberalism as, 10 non-conformity; schism Crescas, Hasdai, 80–81 appeals to conscience and, 66–67 The Critique of Political Economy within Catholic Church, 8, 63–65, (McLellan), 49–50 122–123 cultural nationalism, 194, 200 in Christian tradition, 4 Cultural Revolution, in China, 48, 197 within Christianity, 4, 108–109, 114–120 cultures of interpretation, 153 de-legitimization of violence and, 6 Curran, Charles, 8, 61, 62–63, 67, disagreement and, 1, 2 116–122 group relation to power and, 13 host institutions’ management of, 8 da Costa, Uriel, 86 in Israel, management of, 12 Dalai Lama, 201, 214 within Judaism, 93–95 dalits, 165, 173, 174, 180 liberalism and, 31–32 damnation, 119, 126 under Marxism, management of, 48 Davis, Joseph, 82 in modern universities, 9 debate, 11, 21, 29, 68, 88, 109, 134–135, under natural law theory, 61–62 156, 190, 207, 217, 225 natural law theory and, 67–68 Declaration on Religious Liberty, terror as form of control, 43 111–112, 115 violence as management tool against, democratic centralism, 45–46 11–13 denominational entities. See churches; dissidence, 5, 86, 227–228 synagogues; temples diversity, 1 denominationalism, 16, 18, 95, 222 within Buddhism, 214–215 denominations, 125, 126–127, 194, within Christianity, 109–110 205–206, 223 within Hinduism, 173–175 Buddhist, 203, 204, 205–206, 207, 208, within Islam, 137 209–210, 214–215, 216, 223 within Judaism, 86–89 Christian, 16, 35, 98, 116, 123 liberalism and, 28–29 Jewish, 222, 227 Marxism and, 46 devotionalism. See bhakti Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and dharma/dharam, 164–165, 209, 210 the Practice of Toleration in Early dharmashastra, 164, 165, 167 Modern Europe (Kaplan, B. J.), Dhavan, Purnima, 170 108–109 dialogic cosmopolitanism, 16 doctrinal disputes, 10, 11 Dialogue on Heresies (More), 120 doctrines, comprehensive, 40 Diaspora, 85–86, 169, 177, 183–184 Documentary Hypothesis, 92 236 Index

Doniger, Wendy, 161, 165, 166, 227 Gaillardetz, Richard R., 121 Donum Veritatis: Of the Ecclesial Galston, William, 3, 220 Vocation of the Theologian (CDF), Gandhi, Mohandas, 165, 175 66–67 gay activism, 227 Dulles, Avery (Reverend), 122 gender, 227 Dworkin, Ronald, 30 gender equality, liberalism and, 32 George, Robert, 73–74 The Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach, 39 The German Ideology (McLellan), Elster, Jon, 38 49–50 emunah (Jewish faith), 76, 80 al-Ghazali, 147 Engels, Friedrich, 36 Girgis, Sherif, 74 the Enlightenment, 7, 44–45 gnosticism, 99 Episcopal Church, 112, 125 Gramsci, Antonio, 37 equality, liberty and, 21 Great Britain, 39, 81 Erasmus, Desiderius, 120 Grewal, J. S., 168 essentialism, 3–5, 55–56. See also Grisez, Germain, 55, 57–60 authenticity Guesde, Jules, 35 ethical pluralism, 1–2 The Guide of the Perplexed ethical traditions, 6, 62–63 (Maimonides), 87 Europe, Marxism in, 37–38, 39 Gurdwara Act, 172, 178–179 European Union, 31 euthanasia, as moral absolute, 61 hadith, 130 evangelical Christianity, 121–122 Haggadah, 80 Evangelical Lutheran Church, 125 halakha, 78, 79, 81, 92, 95 excommunication, 5, 86–87, 96–97, Halbfass, Wilhelm, 163 115 Häring, Bernard, 62–63 executions, of heretics, 117–119. See also Hartz, Louis, 22 persecution, religious Hasidim movement, 87 exit-option, 2–3 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 43 Henry VIII (King), 99, 117 Farley, Margaret A., 61, 63, 67 heresy, 2, 82, 107, 108, 117–118 Fatimids, 138 heretics, 82, 101, 117–119 Feuerbach, Ludwig, 49–50 hermeneutics, viii Finnis, John, 57–58 heterodoxy, 2, 184 ﬁqh (understanding), 135 Hideyoshi, Toyotomi, 207 Fitch, David, 67 Hindu Marriage Act, 175 Foot, Philippa, 55 Hinduism, 3, 9 Fourth International Marxism, 42 authority and, 178–179 Fourth Lateran Council, 105 boundaries of, 159 Fox, Richard, 170 brahmanical tradition in, 162 freedom, 6, 111 caste within, 165–166, 173–174 French Revolution, 41, 43, 113 creedal beliefs in, 163 Friedrich III, 115 deﬁnition of, 162–163, 168 fujufuse movement, 207–208, 212, development of, 160–161 213–214 dharma in, 164–165 Fuller, Lon, 55 diversity within, 173–175 fundamentalism, 13, 79, 192–193 heterodoxy in, 184 Index 237

inculcation in, 175–178 Ieyasu, Tokugawa, 207 intramural dissent within, 179–183 ijma (consensus), 135 key tenets of, 158, 160–168 ijtihad (independent juristic reasoning), modern influences on, 6–7 139–146 non-caste, 163 Iliah, Kancha, 174 reproduction of beliefs in, 175–178 Imams, for Shiite Muslims, 144–145 Sikhism and, 159 imperialism. See liberal imperialism tolerance within, 180 independent juristic reasoning. See Veda/Vedic texts in, 162–164, 167–168 ijtihad Hinduization, 180 Index of Forbidden Books, 116 Hindus, in diaspora, 177, 183–184 innerantism, 126 Hindutva, 172, 176–177, 179–180 the Inquisition, 117–119 history institutional authority, 65–66, 68–74 historicist forms, 69 intramural dissent. See also schisms sacred, 3 within Buddhism, 203 Hittinger, Russell, 55 within Christianity, 99–100, 102, Holy 67 109–110, 114–126 homosexuality. See also same-sex under colonialism, 171–173 marriage within Confucianism, 198–199 Christianity and, 109, 123–126 excommunication as result of, 96–97 Episcopal Church’s response to, 125 within Hinduism, 179–183 under natural law theory, 63, 73–74 within Islam, 135–137, 153–155 Presbyterian Church’s response to, within Judaism, 95–96 124–125 within Marxism, 42, 48–49 Horkheimer, Max, 37 over institutional authority, 68–74 host institutions/associations, 8–10. See over natural law theory, 68–74 also churches; mosques; synago- within Sikhism, 179–183 gues; temples Islam, 9. See also Muhammad; Salafism; civil associations, 33–34 shari’ah law; Shiites; Sufis; Sufism; liberalism and, 22, 23 Sunnis management of dissent through, 8 Abrahamic tradition and, 132–133 Hu Jintao, 199 Arab Spring and, 150–151 Huang Zongxi, 195 authority within, 150–153 Humanae Vitae, 67, 122 contestation within, 150 Hus, John, 117 core priorities of, 134–135 cultures of interpretation for, 153 ibn Abdul Wahhad, Muhammad, diversity within, 137 147–148 inculcation of, 149 ibn Abi Talib, Ali, 135–136 intramural dissent within, 135–137, ibn Paquda, Bahya, 90–91 153–155 ibn Saud, Muhammad, 148 key tenets of, 128, 132–135 ibn Taymiyya, Taqi al-Din Ahmad, Khawarij group and, 135–136 147–148 legal traditions within, 139–146 identity monotheism and, 132 Islamic, 149, 151 moral accountability in, 133–134 Jewish, 94–95 neo-traditionalist, 152–153 identity politics, 7 orthopraxis and, 133–134 238 Index

prophecy in, 132–133 Chabad Hasidim and, 82 Qur’an and, 128–129 classical, 77 religious identity within, 149, 151 Conservative, 81, 93, 95 religious pluralism within, 151 development of, as religion, 76–77 reproduction of principles, 149 dissent within, 93–95 revivalist tradition in, 152 dissidence within, 86 sectarian differences within, 137–146 doctrinal disputes in, 10 secularist position within, 151–152 etymology of term, 76 Shi’a Muslims, 129 excommunication in, 86–87 Suﬁs and, 133 factors for identity within, 94–95 Sunnah and, 129–131 fundamentalism within, 79 toleration as principle within, 149 halakha and, 78, 79, 81, 92 Ismaili Khoji community, 159–160 Hasidic movement, 87 Israel, 12, 88, 89, 95. See also heresy in, 82 Zionism heretics within, 82 historical overview of, 76–79 Jackson, Robert, 28–29 inculcation of, 90–91 Jacobs, Louis (Rabbi), 6, 92, 221–222 intramural dissent within, 95–96 Jama’at-i-Islam, 148 Jewish Christians, 78, 87 Japan, Catholic Church in, 11 Kabbalah movement within, 82 jāti, 164–165 Karaite movement in, 84 Jefferson, Thomas, 108, 109 key tenets of, 79–82 Jerusalem (Mendelssohn), 96 Kol Nidre and, 83, 84 Jesus, role in Christianity, 104–105 lack of creedal beliefs in, 79 Jewish Christians, 78, 87 Maimonides and, 77, 82 Jewish faith. See emunah Mishnah Torah and, 85, 93–94 Jews Orthodox, 81 BDS movement, 88 orthopraxis in, 10 as Christians, 78 Pentateuch and, 83–84 Conservative, 81, 93, 95 pluralism within, 84–86 covenant with God for, 77–78 political dimensions of, 78 criticism of Israel, 88 priorities of, 83–84 in Diaspora, 85–86 rabbinic, 82, 83–84 Haggadah and, 80 Reconstructionist, 93 Law of Return for, 95 Reform, 81, 93 messianic, 87 as religion of reason, 96 Reconstructionist, 93 religious diversity within, 86–89 Reform, 81, 93 reproduction of, 90–91 Jiang Qing, 192, 196–197, 200 Second Temple sect of, 83 Jodhka, Surinder, 182 synagogues and, 8, 81–82 John Paul I (Pope), 62 Just Love: A Framework for Christian John Paul II (Pope), 103, 122–123 Sexual Ethics (Farley), 63, 67 John XXIII (Pope), 71, 122 Johnson, Elizabeth, 121 Kabbalah movement, 82 Judaism. See also Jews; Talmud; Torah Kang Youwei, 195 authority within, 91–93 Kaplan, Benjamin J., 108–109 belief structures within, 77 Kaplan, Mordecai M., 93 Index 239

Karaite movement, 84 historical development of, 20 Karl Marx Selected Writings (McLellan), host associations and, 22, 23 49–50 inculcation of, 29–30 karma, 209 individual agency and, 21 Kateb, George, 90 as intellectual movement, 30 Kautsky, Karl, 47 internal criticism of, 32–33 Khalsa, 169–170 liberty as core principle of, 19 Khawarij group, 135–136 marriage equality and, 32 King, Martin Luther, 29 parliamentary systems and, 23 Kol Nidre (all vows), 83, 84 as party ideology, 29–30 Korsch, Karl, 37 priorities under, 24–27 Kruschev, Nikita, 37 public reason and, 25–26 Kuhn, T. S., 46 religion and, 20 Küng, Hans, 116 reproduction of, 29–30 sexuality and, 32 Lafargue, Paul, 35 in social contract tradition, 30 law, 85–86. See also shari’ah law toleration as part of, 4 The Law of Christ, 62 trans-nationality of, 20–21 Law of Return, 95 Universal Declaration of Human Lawler, Michael G., 61, 63, 72 Rights and, 20–21 Lee, Patrick, 73–74 in U.S., 22 Lefebvre, Marcel, 64 welfare reform and, 26 the Left, 25, 44, 47, 88 libertarianism, 25 legalism, 85–86, 139–146, 188–190 liberty legalistic thought, 139–146 equality and, 21 Lenin, V. I., 36–37, 40–41 liberalism and, 19 Leninism, 36–37, 40–42, 43–44, 51–52 negative, 27 Bolshevism and, 42 positive, 24 terror as form of control under, 43 republican definition of, 24 Levine, Andrew, 221 Lin Bao, 197 li, 187, 190–191, 198 Lincoln, Abraham, 29 Liang Qichao, 189 Lukacs, Georg, 37, 46 liberal imperialism, 21 Luther, Martin, 115 Liberal International, 23–24, 31 Lutheranism, 115, 125 liberal paternalism, 21 liberalism MacIntyre, Alasdair, 56 authority under, 30–31 Madison, James, 22 Catholic Church and, 33–34 Madsen, Richard, 7, 10, 224, 227 civil peace as core principle of, 19 Magisterial teaching, 65–66 consequences of, 27–28 Mahābhārata, 166 as creed, 10 Mahayana Buddhism, 211–213 in creedal beliefs, 29–30 Maimonides, 77, 82, 85–86, 87, 93–94 defined, 19–20, 223–224 Mandair, Arvind, 168 dissent and, management of, 31–32 Maoism, 42, 199 diversity and, 28–29 Marcuse, Herbert, 37 exceptions under, 33–34 marriage, 72–73. See also same-sex gender equality and, 32 marriage 240 Index marriage equality, 32 minorities, 89, 154, 178 Martin of Tours, 120 Mishnah Torah, 85, 93–94 Marx, Karl, 35, 36, 41, 42, 45–46, 47, Mittleman, Alan, 10, 221–222 48–49 mitzvah, 90 Marxism, 3, 9. See also Leninism modernity, 5–7 Abrahamic tradition and, 51–52 Buddhism and, 6–7 analytical, 38–39, 46 Confucianism and, 6–7 authority under, 47 ethical traditions influenced by, 6 classical, 35–36 freedom as value of, 6 Communist Party and, 36–37, 46, 51 Hinduism and, 6–7 defined, 35 pluralism as value of, 6 diversity and, 46 religious traditions and, 5–6 during the Enlightenment, 44–45 tolerance as value, 6 in Europe, 37–38, 39 Mohammadan, Sayyid Ahmed Khan, evils of capitalism and, 51 169 Fourth International, 42 monasticism, 110 Golden Age of, 36 monotheism, 132 in Great Britain, 39 Moon, Sun Myung (Reverend), 9 historical development of, 35 Moore, Gareth, 72 inculcation of, 46–47 Moore, Michael S., 55 key tenets of, 44–45 moral traditions, 2, 105–106 laws of motion under, 36, 44 More, Thomas, 117, 120 management of dissent under, 48 mosques, 8 political consequences of, 45–46 Mou Zongsan, 192 political legacy of, 50–52 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, 27 priorities of, 44–45 Muhammad (Prophet), 128–131 reproductions of, 46–47 Murphy, Anne, 7, 224, 227 role of proletariat within, 36 Murray, John Courtney, 115 schism within, 48–49 Muslim Brotherhood, 148 Second International, 35–36, 41, mysticism, 137 42–43, 46, 50 as secular religion, 45 nation states, 200, 221 Third International, 42 National Secular Society, 68 as tradition, definitions of, 4 nations. See nation states Western school, 37–38, 39 Natural Law and Natural Rights Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (Finnis), 57–58 (Lenin), 41 natural law theory, 9, 75. See also McCormick, Richard A., 61, 65 Aquinas, Thomas McLellan, David, 49–50 alternative traditions of, 55 McLeod, W. H., 171 authority with, 65–67 Melanchthon, Philip, 105 biologism in, 69, 71 Mencius, 187, 190 bona fide, 56 Mendelssohn, Moses, 77, 82, 96 Catholic Church and, 63–65 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 37 contraception under, 68–69 messianic Jews, 87 determination in, 57 Methodist Church, 125–126 development of, 53–55 Mill, John Stuart, 21, 27 dissent under, 61–62 Index 241

essentialism and, 55–56 papacy, 112–113, 115, 122. See also homosexuality under, 63, 73–74 speciﬁc popes inculcation of, 63–65 Parekh, Bhikhu, 172 intramural dissent over, 68–74 parliamentary systems, liberalism key tenets of, 55–60 and, 23 Magisterial teaching and, 65–66 Parry, Jonathan, 162 management of dissent under, paternalism. See liberal paternalism 67–68 Paul III (Pope), 118 moral absolutes under, 61 Paul IV (Pope), 116–122 NNLT, 57–60 Paul of Tarsus, 100 normativity in, 56 Paul VI (Pope), 122–123 physicalism in, 69, 71 Penn, William, 120 political consequences of, Pentateuch, 83–84 62–63 persecution, religious, 101, 180 political issues under, 60 personality cult, 37, 40 primary precepts of, 57 The Phenomenology of priorities in, 60–62 Spirit (Hegel), 43 proportionalism in, 70–71 pistis (Christian faith), 80 reproduction of, 63–65 Pius IX (Pope), 119 same-sex marriage under, 60, Pius X (Pope), 119 73–74 Pius XII (Pope), 64, 69 for Stoics, 53–54 pluralism. See also religious pluralism theological approach to, 55 ethical, 1–2 Thomism and, 54–55, 70 within Islam, 151 Nayar, Kamala, 179 Jewish Diaspora and, 85–86 negative liberty, 27 within Judaism, 84–86 neo-Confucianism, 191 as modern value, 6 neoplatonism, 99 political associations. See host new Confucianism, 190, 191–193 institutions new natural law theory (NNLT), 11, Porter, Jean, 55 57–60, 73–74 positive liberty, 24 New York Review of Books, 30 Prado, Juan de, 86 Nichiren Buddhism, 13, 206–207 Prasad, Leela, 165 NNLT. See new natural law theory Presbyterian Church, 124–125 non-caste Hinduism, 163 Priscillian, 116 nonconformity, 213–214 privacy, 11, 26, 27, 66–67, 198, 216 Nosco, Peter, 7, 8, 12, 13, 222, 223 prophecy, in Islam, 132–133 Novak, David, 55 proportionalism, in natural law theory, 70–71 Oberoi, Harjot, 168–169, 176, 178 Protestant Christianity, 114, 126–127 Oderberg, David, 60 Punjabi, 174 Olivelle, Patrick, 167 Purohit, Teena, 159 oral Torah, 83–84 Orthodox Jews, 81 Qur’an, 128–129, 132–133, 156 orthodoxy, 10–11, 102, 107 orthopraxis, 10–11, 133–134, 189 rabbis, 82, 83–84, 92 Oxford Manifesto, 24 radical feminism, 227 242 Index

Rahner, Karl, 71 Salafism, 146–148 Rajan, Rajeswari Sunder, 179–180 Salzman, Todd A., 61, 63, 72 Ram, Ronki, 173–174 same-sex marriage, 32, 60, 61, 73–74. See Rāmāyana, 166 also marriage equality Rao, Anupama, 174, 178 Sangh, Rastriya Swayamsevak, 176 Ratzinger, Joseph, 62, 103–104 Sanskrit, Vedas/Vedic texts in, 162–164, Rawls, John, 25, 32, 40 167–168 Reconstructionist Judaism, 93 Sanskritic tradition, dharma as, Reform Judaism, 81, 93 164–165 reform movements, 26, 81, 93, 102, 110, Sanskritization, 173, 180 195 Saraswati, Dayanand, 163, 167–168, 169 religion. See also Catholic Church; Sartre, Jean-Paul, 37 Christianity; churches; Judaism Sathaye, Adheesh, 166 boundary-setting for, 7 Sattler, Michael, 117 during the Enlightenment, 7 Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar, 172 liberalism and, 20 Schiffman, Lawrence, 78 religious center, 160 schisms, 2, 48–49, 99 religious pluralism, 84–86, 151 Schnerson, Menachem religious traditions, 2, 5–6 Mendel (Rabbi), 82 religious war, 102–103, 223. See also Second International Marxism, 35–36, violence 41, 42–43, 46, 50 ren, 187, 190–191, 198 Second Temple sect, 83 Renaissance humanism, 99 Second Vatican Council, 113, 115, 122 repression, religious, 118 secrecy, 208, 216 revolutions. See also Bolshevik secret societies, 13 Revolution; Cultural Revolution, in sectarian differences, 137–146. See also China; French Revolution; Russian Salafi; Shia; Sufi; Sunnis Revolution secular traditions, 2, 45, 151–152 Marxist, 40–41 secularism permanent, promotion of, 49 in Islam, 151–152 sexual, 122 Marxism and, 45 the right, 25 in state traditions, 2 Robespierre, Maximilien de, 48 Sen, Amartya, 158, 173, 183, 184 Roe v. Wade, 32 Servetus, Michael, 117, 120 Roemer, John, 38 The Sexual Person (Salzman and Roman Catholicism. See Catholic Lawler), 63 Church sexuality, 32, 61. See also gender; Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 48 homosexuality ru, 186–187 SGPC. See Shiromani Gurdwara rujia, 187, 188–189, 190, 197, 199–200 Parbandhak Committee rujiao, 187, 190 Shakyamuni, Gautama, 201 ruxue, 187, 190 shari’ah law, 130–131, 134–135, 139–146 Rumi, Jalaluddin, 129 Sharify-Funk, Meena, 6, 222, 223 Russian Revolution, 41–42, 49 Shi’a Muslims, 129 Shiites, 137–138 sacred history, 3 Imams for, 144–145 Sahib, Granth (Guru), 161, 169 Sunni Muslims and, 138–146 Index 243

Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Sunnah, 129–131 Committee (SGPC), 172, 178–179 Sunnis, 12–13, 129, 138–146 shrūti, 164 Sweetman, Will, 161 al-Siddiq, Jafar, 136 synagogues, 8, 81–82 Sikh Anand Marriage Act, 175 in Great Britain, 81 Sikhism, 3, 9 brahmanical tradition in, 162 Talmud, 10, 77, 90 colonial influences on, 168–171 Tang Junyi, 192 development of, 161 temples, 8 Gurdwara Act and, 172 terror, as form of control, 43, 48 Hinduism and, 159 terrorism, 43 inculcation of, 175–178 Thapar, Romila, 176–177 intramural dissent within, 179–183 Theodosius, 101 key tenets of, 160–168 Theories of Surplus Value (Marx), 47 Khalsa identity for, 169–170 Theravada tradition, 204, 211–213 reproduction of beliefs, 175–178 Third International Marxism, 42 Sikhs, in Diaspora, 169, 183–184 Thirty-Nine Articles, in Christianity, 115 Singh, Gobind (Guru), 169 Thomism, 54–55, 70 Singh, Ranjit, 170 Tilak, Shrinivas, 175–176 Singh Sabha movement, 168 tolerance Slifkin, Nosson (Rabbi), 92–93 within Hinduism, 180 Smith, Rogers, 22 within Islam, 149 Smith, Wilfred Cantwell, 76 within liberalism, 4 smriti, 164 as modern value, 6 social contract, as tradition, 30 Torah, 76, 81, 85, 93–94 socialism, 49 oral, 83–84 Society of Pius X, 64 traditions, 1. See also liberalism Soviet Union, 36–37, 40–42, 43–44. See Abrahamic, 3, 51–52, 132–133 also Lenin, V. I.; Stalin, Joseph; changing nature of, 4 Trotsky, Leon ethical, 6 Spinoza, Baruch, 86, 226 history of, 3 Stalin, Joseph, 37, 49 moral, 2 state traditions religious, 2 religious, 2, 5–6 secular, 2 secular, 2 social contract, 30 states. See nation states Trotsky, Leon, 42, 48–49 Stein, Gertrude, 5 Tu Wei-ming, 192, 200 Steinfels, Peter, 5, 10–11, 221 Tzu Chi, 201 Stoics, 53–54, 99. See also Aquinas, Thomas Umayyads, 137 Strauss, Leo, 55 ummah, 136 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions understanding. See fiqh (Kuhn), 46 Unification Church, 9 Sufis, 133 United Church of Christ, 125 Sufism, 129, 146–148 United Nations, 31 Summa Theologiae (Aquinas), 54 United States (U.S.), 22, 121 Sun Yat-sen, 200 Unity Way, 195–196 244 Index

Universal Declaration of Human West Virginia v. Barnette, 28 Rights, 20–21, 31 Western Marxists, 37–38, 39 universities, dissent in, 9 What Is To Be Done (Marx), 41 Wiles, Maurice, 107 vanguard parties, 36–37, 45–46 Williams, Roger, 120 varna, 164, 165, 166 Wise, Isaac Meyer, 96 Veda/Vedic texts, 162–164, 167–168 Women Living Under Muslim Laws VHP. See Vishwa Hindu Parishad (WLUML), 227–228 violence Wright, Erik Olin, 38 Christianity and, 102–103 de-legitimization of, 6 Xunzi, 190 dissent managed through, 11–13 Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), yi, 187 181 Young, Don, 31–32 von Hildebrand, Dietrich, 66–67 Yu Dan, 192 Yu Ying-shih, 190 Wahhabis. See Salaﬁsm Walzer, Michael, 180 al-Zawahiri, Ayman, 148 Wang Yangming, 191 Zhou Enlai, 197 Weber, Max, 80 Zhu Xi, 191, 192 welfare reform, 26 Zionism, 88, 89