Belief and politics can be a volatile mix. They can bring order to a society and enable people to be their best selves; they can turn a society against itself and delude people into mistaking their personal prejudices for God’s will. King Herod of Judea, we are reminded this Christmas season, ordered the massacre of young toddlers around Bethlehem just because he believed the star of a new king had risen in the east.
If religiously inspired violence comes with an Islamic tinge in the west these days, in Southeast Asia it takes all sorts of religion to get twisted in politics to produce violence. In Myanmar, for example, exclusionary Burman-centric politics and misguided worries about the future of Buddhism in the country have led to the displacement of the majority of Muslim Rohingyas. For many in Myanmar, however, it is about driving out an impending threat against their ethnicity, religion, and nation.
Our first Spotlight article this week looks back at an opinion piece that appeared after a 2016 terror attack against a church in France. The article explores, from a humanist perspective, what it is about religion that makes some believers prone to violence, and under what circumstances. One main argument is that Islam and Christianity diverged in their current propensity for violence because Enlightenment criticism of Christianity in Europe had a taming effect on it.
And a wild beast the Enlightenment tamed. Christianity before the Age of Reason was an establishmentarian thought system that dominated western society and brooked neither dissent nor criticism: the one true church worshiping the one true God. Political power further exacerbated these tendencies by lending muscle to the controlling impulses. But is it right to demand that other religions submit to the same historical process that tamed Christianity? Are other religions a wild beast to begin with? Do outsiders have the right to tell believers to change?
Our second Spotlight article this week brings a perspective on how religion and politics can calmly interact in a Southeast Asian context: Catholicism in Buddhist Thailand. This article outlines the process in which Catholicism, normally seen as a western religion, attempts to put down roots in Thailand. This Thai-fication of Catholicism necessarily means adjusting to local conditions and behaviors, but what does that look like?
In conservative Southeast Asia, the religious permeates everything, including politics. Since belief is central to the majority of Southeast Asians, it is a powerful blade for those who wish to take over or maintain power. This blade has two sides and those who wield it take on a great responsibility.
