Behind the Curtains of Fire: Religious Identity as a Traditional Core Identity of Peoples
By Fr. Eliseo “Jun” Mercado. OMI
The monotheistic faiths, particularly Judaism, Christianity and Islam, each developed integrated in hisgory religio-socio-political and ethnic orders based on the TRIADIC formulae of God, Ruler/Governance and the culture of ethnic groups.
In Judaism, much of the Hebrew Bible is about how all aspects of life are to be ordered based on the law. In addition, the prophets spoke against the excesses and idolatries of rulers, the rich and the people. Israel followed the pattern of its contemporaries where the king, the cultus, and the culture of one ethnic group ruled together as a triadic unit.
The fate of each triadic unit, whether Israeli, Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian or Roman, was to conquer or be conquered. This is the story of much of the Hebrew Bible and most of ancient history. The struggle of the Jewish people was how to survive as a people and a faith for most of their history of subjugation. The yearning for political autonomy was the driving force behind their hopes for a Messiah. This need also drove the ideology of Zionism that developed in the 19th century and culminated in the formation of the State of Israel in 1948.
In Christianity, by the time of the expansion of Christianity into the Holy Roman Empire in Western Europe and in the development of alliance of church and state called “SYMPHONIA” in Eastern Orthodoxy, such integrated religio-socio-political and ethnic orders had been established.
Vestiges of these orders survive in the State Churches of Western Europe, the Christian-nationalism in North America (Donald Trump is a clear example) and the attempts to restore "symphonia" in post-Soviet Eastern Europe. The imperial forces of the western and eastern Christian nations have conquered more than they have been conquered.
The zeal of the faith of the early church that thrived in spite of the persecution of the Roman Empire was then absorbed into the emerging ´Christian empires.’ (The Holy Roman Empire).
Many teachings of Christ were found too difficult for the State Churches to maintain or emphasize, and so they were relegated to the monastic life. This Triadic Formula was only undermined beginning with the “Enlightenment” to the age that shaped modern nation states that gave humanity the Westphalia-Paradigm that would culminate to new concepts of citizenry no longer based on religions, cultures and ethnic groups (the Secular Age).
Islam from the beginning has supported religio-socio-political unity. In the words of Manzoor Ahmed Hanifi: "The word Islam suggests more than a system of theology. It stands for a distinctive civilization and a socio-politico-economic order, based on a form of practical theology.
It has been evolving since the days of the Holy Prophet and spreading in all corners of the world"(Hanifi, p.x.). Fuad Khuri puts it this way: "Islamic jurists, especially the Sunni, consider “din” (religion) a formulation of public policy where Religion, State and Faith merge in a single form of action.
The emphasis on a religion as public policy has given rise to two related processes: the supremacy of the Shari'a (law) in Islam (Sunni), and the sovereignty of the Islamic community, the sovereignty of religion. A society, any society, becomes Islamic if it fulfills two conditions: officially recognizing Islam as the religion of the State and being governed by a Muslim" (Khuri, p.29, p.34).
The Islamic nation, which had initially conquered an area greater than the Roman Empire, was then conquered by nations of Christian Europe and Christian Eurasia. Islam has in this century been reasserting itself by reclaiming political, cultural and religious territory.
I will not argue that Islam is a threat as some do; rather, my focus is on how religious identities are both propelling various conflicts and being used by various factions in ways that are aiding a dangerous build-up of resentment.
What may be emerging on the rise is a global struggle between Secular Nationalism and a religiously-oriented worldview to determine which will be the prime shaper of state ideology. As religion becomes more prominent it will factor more significantly into national and international conflicts. This process could be seen as a re-sacralization of nation states that were themselves created by religious forces, as Fuad Khuri notes:
"Hardly any nationalistic formulation has emerged in the world without religion playing a major role in clarifying its contents. Consider the rise of English nationalism and its association with the Anglican Church; or German nationalism and Lutheranism; or the French, Italian, and Spanish nationalisms and the consolidation of the Catholic Church; or Greek nationalism and the Orthodox Church of Byzantium; or, for that matter, American nationalism and the Protestant Churches. Religious symbols are part and parcel of the total symbolic heritage in which the national pattern is embodied." (Khuri, p. 218)
These are the words of an Arab, who knows Middle Eastern politics have been shaped by religion, saying this is also so in the West.
For the American reader this point was proved when even in the early 1960's there was much debate over whether the Catholic John F. Kennedy could be president of the predominantly Protestant United States. (Former US VP Joe Biden - the leading Democratic Candidate for the President is a Catholic.)
And today among scholars devoted to Religions and Politics, in Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jing Ping and the swing to right politics in Brazil, Germany, France, Italy, etc. we are seeing the re-emergence of this triadic formula in their brand of nationalism.
Eliseo “Jun” Mercado, OMI
Institute for Autonomy and Governance
(Fr. Mercado is a Professor of Notre Dame University Graduate School; San Beda University Graduate School of Laws; and Senior Policy Adviser of the Institute for Autonomy and Governance – A think Tank in Southern Philippines pioneering study and advocacy for Peace, Autonomy and Good Governance)
