Oliver McTernan on "Religion, Politics and Conflict"

The following article is based on a speech Oliver recently gave at the Kennedy Institute, National University of Ireland Maynooth, on the subject of "Religion, Politics and Conflict." For more information about the Kennedy Institute please visit: http://kennedyinstitute.nuim.ie/welcome A video of Oliver's speech can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6AxC76p2xc&feature=youtu.be&aSix years ago I was invited by New York Public Library to debate with Sam Harris, his book, Letter to A Christian Nation.  In this book Harris exposes what he claims to be the danger that religion now poses to modern societies. Harris argued that much of the violence in the world today comes directly from people willing to live and die by sacred religious texts.  He is so consumed by the belief  that science is the only way to truth and that all religions are equally deluded and destructive , a belief shared by  Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, that it was impossible, I found,  to have a rational debate.I share this experience with you as we have only to take a quick glance at the headlines on any day of the week to appreciate the enormous importance of our topic ' Religion, Politics, Conflict' and the urgent need therefore to have an informed, rational, and broad-reaching debate on the  interplay, real or perceived, between these three important aspects of human life.What's happening today in Tunisia, from where I have just returned, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Somalia, Nigeria, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Israel/Palestine, and dear I say on our own shores, in Northern Ireland underscores the immediate relevance of the issue.The seriousness of the subject was underlined by the Turkish President, Abdullah Gul, speaking at the Istanbul Forum at the beginning of October, when he warned that "ethnic and sectarian identity politics that are based on shallow geopolitical interests will usher in a period of medieval darkness in the region". He was referring to the standoff between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the sectarian conflict that is being played out in the towns and streets of Syria and Iraq. "It is a scenario," he claimed, "that will lead to a ‘clash within the civilization’ that will be more detrimental than a ‘clash of civilizations’ [and] is the disaster scenario where everybody loses.”  The only alternative', he declared, is  "to transform their region into a space of peace, stability and welfare by meeting along common values and interests.”It is argued, especially by those who uphold a totally secular worldview, that progress and pluralism took root  in Europe only when, after years of religio-political conflict, the Treaty of Westphalia removed religion from the international agenda and the Enlightenment drew a clear division between the realms of religious and political authority.  In contrast Muslim scholars argue that in many Muslim societies progress and pluralism advanced furthest when religion and politics were deeply integrated, and that tyranny and injustice arose largely as a result of the sidelining and subsequent exploiting of religion for social and political purposes.I believe there is an element of truth in both these positions but the relationship between religion, politics and conflict is much more complex than represented by either of these arguments.Religion can be a cause of conflict but equally it can be an important tool for the prevention, management and resolution of conflict. It can be a powerful force for integration or a cause of segregation and marginalisation of others. This is true regardless of the theological or ethnic differences that exist at the global, regional or local levels. Religion for most believers, whatever their particular faith tradition, imbues the whole of their lives and, either consciously or unconsciously, helps  shape their human response to the moral, social and political challenges they encounter each day. If religion could be confined the sanctuary, or contained solely to the practice of  rituals within the temples, synagogues, churches and mosques, generations of believers in the former Soviet bloc could have co-existed comfortably with the regimes that saw no place for religion in the public sphere but, having failed in their efforts to eradicate religion, were willing to tolerate its presence within society provided it were practiced private and without  public manifestation.The question we need to explore further is whether or not I am right in claiming that religion can indeed be a causal factor of conflict?  In his book the Clash of Civilisations, Sam Huntington's  answers yes   - religion can be a cause of conflict. He argues that in the post Cold War era, cultural and religious differences replace ideology as the more probable cause of conflict. The old divisions of the first, second and third worlds, which were drawn up along ideological lines, gives way to new civilisation differences that could prove to be even more menacing. Nationalism and communism are essentially artificially constructed belief systems, whereas culture, the defining factor in a civilization, Huntington argues, is about identity itself; it shapes the basic perceptions that people have about life and their understanding of their relationships with god, with each other, with authority, and with the state. The differences between the major cultures, that are re-emerging as key players in the reshaping of the contemporary world, are more profound than those created by the discarded ideologies of the twentieth century.He accepts that people can and do redefine their identities, but his basic premise is that ‘Civilizations are nonetheless meaningful entities, and while the lines between them are seldom sharp, they are real’. This is particularly true of religion, which Huntington regards as  ‘possibly the most profound difference that can exist between people’.His second premise is that globalization created greater opportunity for interaction among these diverse civilizations, making people conscious of their differences, and, as a consequence, people have become more anxious about where they fit into this new global design. His conclusion is that the possibility for conflict, and especially along what he describes as the ‘fault lines’ where different civilizations meet and have to compete for resources and influence, is greatly enhanced.Huntington gives particular attention to the role of Islam in the remaking of world order.  He refutes the argument that the West does not have a problem with Islam itself, but only with violent Islamist extremists. Relations between Islam and Christianity, he maintains, have often been ‘stormy. Islam is the only civilization, Huntington argues, that has twice threatened the survival of the West. The cause of what he sees as an ‘ongoing pattern of conflict’ is deeper than any transitory phenomena and is rooted, he believes, in the nature of the two religions, Christianity and Islam, and the civilizations based on them. Missionary in nature, both these religions aim to convert nonbelievers to their version of ‘the one true faith’. ‘From its origins', Huntington argues, 'Islam expanded by conquest and when the opportunity existed, Christianity did also’.In sharp contrast to the Huntingdon theory that religion matters, the American political scientist Ted Gurr argues that the single factor explanations that focus on what he calls 'ancient hatreds' or cultural differences should be avoided, Gurr argues, as their significance lies solely in the fact that they are invoked by contemporary ethno political leaders seeking to mobilize support. For him there is a clear causal link between grievance and rebellion. ‘Discrimination and repression against national and minority peoples are a pervasive source of poverty and resentment and provide strong incentives for ethno political mobilization, protest and rebellion’. He acknowledges though that religious and ethnic identities are none the less real and can provide the bases for mobilization and action to redress grievances or to protect self-interests. Their salience at a given time depends upon a group’s social and political circumstances, he argues. ‘Treat a group differently, by denial or privilege, and its members become more self-conscious about their common bonds and interests. Minimize the differences, and communal identification becomes less significant as a unifying principle’. The greater the competition and inequalities among groups in heterogeneous societies, he contends, the greater the salience of ethnic identities and the greater the likelihood of open conflict. When conflict erupts, the opposing groups, he claims, become even more conscious of their differences and at the same time more aware of the common interests of their own group.Paul Collier, former Director of the Development Economics Research Group at the World Bank, offers a radically different analysis for the causes of conflict. He claims that conflicts are far more likely to be caused by economic opportunities, the chance to get rich, than by grievance or religious divisions. He draws this conclusion from the research that he and a team of fellow economists have done on some 160 countries and 78 civil wars between 1960 and 1999. Testing what they call their ‘greed theory’, which focuses on a group’s ability to finance rebellion and to benefit from it, against a ‘grievance theory’ , which looks at ethnic and religious divisions, political repression and economic inequality, they conclude that the greed motive for rebellion considerably outperforms grievance.It is the presence of  “lootable” commodities, large quantities of natural resources, he found, that provide the best opportunity for financial viability and increase substantially therefore the risk of conflict. The fact that these commodities are tied to a single spot, a diamond mine or a coffee plantation, makes them an easier target for rebels to commandeer. It is this ability to seize, loot and to export such resources that explains for Collier many of the current and former civil conflicts.The fact that civil wars create economic opportunities for a minority to get rich quick and often at the expense of the majority leads Collier to conclude that the main motivation behind rebellion is simply greed. The claim that they are fighting to right grievances Collier sees as providing rebel organizations with a convenient cover for their true motives. It allows them to recruit more easily and to enjoy a better public image at home and abroad. ‘Hence, even where the rationale at the top of the organization is essentially greed, the actual discourse may be entirely dominated by grievance.’Jack Snyder, the American political scientist, offer yet another alternative when he argues that it is the rush to democracy that is the main causal factor of many of the conflicts we are witnessing today. American foreign policy of the 1990’s, he writes, was shaped by the belief that, since no two democracies have ever fought a war against each other, democracy was the antidote to war and civil strife. To promote democracy was to promote peace. What the policy failed to recognize, Snyder argues, were the risks involved in the process itself. Consequently, the 1990’s turned out to be ‘a decade of both democratization and chronic nationalist conflictThe greatest risk in a period of transition from autocratic to democratic rule, according to Snyder’s theory, comes from the old military, social and cultural elites who feel threatened by the loss of power and who seek to harness popular nationalist sentiments to thwart the process.These elites commonly seek to exclude their political opponents, the working classes, rival elites, ethnic minorities, by alleging that these groups lack ‘the proper national credentials’ and are a threat to national security because they are in league with foreign powers. They therefore justify the suppression of democratic rights and the freedom of speech on the grounds that they are protecting the nation from its ‘enemies within’.  This exclusionary nationalism, Snyder maintains, is most likely to prevail in poor countries where people lack the skills to participate in the political process and where political institutions and the standards of journalism are weakest. In such circumstances, threatened elites find it easier to use the nationalist ticket to hijack the political discourse and to hold on to power.Both Gurr and Snyder acknowledge that there is a religious factor in many conflicts, but like Collier, none of them consider religion as a serious enough actor to merit particular interest in their research. Their paradigms reflect the reductionist approach to conflict that prevails within the social and political sciences. Reductionists always seek the simplest explanation for conflict.As religion is considered to be a redundant factor in life, an epiphenomenon that is incapable of having its own independent impact on the social and political level, it does not merit, therefore, to be taken seriously as a real cause. In sharp contrast, Huntington over emphasizes the potential of religion to shape contemporary culture and therefore to be a primal cause of conflict. In applying the creed, greed and grievance theories to contemporary civil conflicts it becomes clear that no one theory in itself is capable of providing a convincing explanation for the root of cause of these conflicts. Each theory provides an important insight, a piece of the jigsaw that needs to be kept in focus as we navigate the complexities of causes and the interplay of motives that make so many of these contemporary conflicts appear to be intractable. Economic and political discrimination, injustice, scarce and unequal access to essential resources are ‘all factors that make people more receptive to ethnic and nationalistic appeals’.The promotion of democracy, power sharing and economic growth will undoubtedly help to lessen the likelihood of ethnic or religious conflict in a multiethnic religiously diverse society. These factors in themselves are insufficient though to guarantee against the kind of violence that is motivated solely by religious conviction that justifies killing in the name of a higher cause.The history of all our religious traditions demonstrates that religion has always demonstrated a propensity for violence, regardless of the social and political conditions of its devotees.Given then the secular reductionist approach to the understanding of the causes of conflict and the ambivalence, past and present , of the world's different religious traditions towards the use of violence it should come as no surprise to us that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 we witnessed a coming together of liberal commentators, religious leaders, and politicians, all of whom were keen to exonerate religion from any form of responsibility for what had happened. At the time it reminded me of the response to the first outbreak of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. In 1970 church leaders were united in declaring that, whatever might be the causes, religion was not to blame. Liberal and academic opinion endorsed this view, pointing to Britain’s colonial record in Ireland as the real explanation for the conflict between Catholics and Protestants. It took several hundred deaths before an inter-church working party finally acknowledged that religious identity and centuries of unchallenged sectarianism were, and for that matter still are, a real issue in Northern Ireland. The liberal endorsement of the claim that faith is not to blame for any of the current day atrocities stems from a deeply engrained conviction that religion by itself is incapable of inspiring such actions. To focus on religious motives, many political and social scientists would argue, is to risk masking over the real cause, which they would claim is more likely to be a mix of grievance and political ambition.The eagerness of religious leaders to repudiate and disclaim atrocities committed by their co-religionists is no doubt prompted by an understandable fear that violence linked to religion portrays a distorted image of their faith. The scapegoating of the perpetrators by labelling them as political criminals or misguided fanatics has become a common mechanism used by leaders of all faiths to protect what they believe to be the purity and integrity of their religion. The denial that there is a problem, whether it be consciously or unconsciously, is in itself part of the problem. It allows religious leaders to circumvent the fact that all the main faith traditions have a violent and bloody record that needs to be acknowledged and addressed to avoid the risk of repetition. Today’s faith identity linked violent activists, have numerous exemplars within their own faith traditions that provide the kind of religious sanction they need to justify their own use of violence.  Reactions that either over exaggerate or underplay the role of religion in conflict fail to do justice to the complexity of faith-associated violence.  Claims that we were witnessing a rejection of modernity and globalization or the pursuit of a kind of ‘apocalyptic nihilism’ are partial truths that fail to address the core of the problem, which lies within how faith inspired militants perceive their religion, and in particular how they understand the process of revelation that lies behind their sacred texts.Whatever their particular religious beliefs and customs, today’s faith inspired violent activists hold in common the belief that their scriptural or foundational texts were dictated verbatim by a divine authority and as such are beyond interpretation. The word as it is written must be obeyed. The fact that they are always selective in their choice of texts and tend to focus on passages that underscore their exclusive claim to truth and superiority over others whilst ignoring passages that stress the universal nature of divine love and compassion seems not to perturb them.The social and political mileu can and often does provide the trigger for sectarian violence, but these are not necessarily the fundamental causes for religious intolerance and violence in the world today.The contemporary mindset of political and academic world of conflict analysis and resolution sees no role for religion because it has been shaped by the belief that the 17^th century Treaty of Westphalia combined with the Enlightenment, which I referred to previously, had banished religion once and for all from the international agenda. The ‘secularisation thesis’ that dominates today’s political thinking is based on the premises that the decline in religion is an irreversible process. Secularists, like Harris and Dawkins, argue that the Enlightenment challenged the old religious certainties, making science the new paradigm of understanding the world. Religion lingers as a comforting myth providing support in times of personal crisis but in effect, they argue, it has been relegated from ‘the mainstream to the backwaters’, and it has ceased to have impact on the social or political life of modern society.Thinkers like Marx, Freud, and Durkheim who helped to shape modern political and social theory were greatly influenced by the projection theories that saw the gods as nothing other than an objectification of human needs and desires that had assumed an authority and control over the original subject. Religion, they and others argued, is a social construct, the product of particular social conditions, which when changed will eradicate the need for religion.  Marx looked upon religion as an economic tool, an ideology that legitimised social oppression.Freud regarded religion as a psychological illness, a neurosis that dehumanised people because, among adults, it was rooted in the wish to be able to feel the same sense of security against external threats that a father provided in childhood.  Durkheim saw in religion nothing other than ‘society worshipping itself’- the reality behind religion was not god but society.The thoughts of Marx, Freud and Durkheim remain influential in shaping contemporary political and social theory, especially on the question of religion. Their psychological and socio-economic explanations still hold sway. The belief that secularisation is the inevitable consequence of modernization, despite growing evidence that it may be in retreat, is still used to support the ‘reductionist’ argument that seeks to reduce what appears complex to something more simple. When this theory is used to analyze conflicts, religion is measured to be nothing more than a surrogate for political power and ambition, an effective mobilizing force that can help to gain the advantage over rivals in the competition for land or loot, but not in itself a cause for conflict.The 17th century Treaty of Westphalia may have succeeded in putting an end to pitch battles over beliefs that had marred interstate relationships in Europe for most of that century.  The claim that it removed once and for all the influence of religion from international politics is more questionable. It could be argued that by domesticating or nationalizing belief, the motto being that the faith of the ruler was the faith of the realm or the state, Westphalia in fact turned religion into a powerful social agent that was used to enforce the cultural identity of the colonisers as European princes and governments expanded their rule to embrace the countries of Africa and Asia.  Sinhala Buddhists in Sri Lanka and the BJP Hindu nationalist party in India argue that the British colonial policies that favoured one group over another, a practice aimed at restricting the religious hegemony that they enjoyed prior to colonization, ultimately sowed the seeds of their present conflicts.The impact of the Enlightenment may also have been over exaggerated in the sense that secularist argument seems to confuse religious practice with faith. In an age when people are no longer obliged to conform to the cultural norms and expectations of society, the phenomenon of believing without feeling a need to belong to a community or to practice a particular faith makes it more difficult for social scientists to evaluate the real impact of religion on community or tribal life. To quote Alan Aldridge the author of  'Religion in the Contemporary World, a Sociological Introduction'  "Latent religiosity survives as a resource to be mobilised at times of crisis in the lives of individuals or the history of the society’.If time allowed we could look at a number of modern day examples that would illustrate this point and demonstrate how one religious identity has acted as a mobilising force to consolidate one's own position or to gain advantage over the other. Let's look at just one.In the conflict that led to the NATO intervention in Kosovo, the Serb forces were deliberately targeting Islamic religious institutions. It is estimated that 218 mosques and the homes of 302 imams as well as several Islamic libraries and achieves were destroyed.  Two of the main protagonists in the earlier Balkan wars, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, both of whom were subsequently indicted by the international tribunal in The Hague for war crimes, were honoured by the Orthodox hierarchy as examples of those who had chosen to follow ‘the thorny path of Christ’. Karadzic was decorated by the Greek Orthodox Church as ‘ one of the most prominent sons of our Lord Jesus Christ working for peace’.  High-ranking Orthodox officials also exalted on several occasions Arkan, the leader of the Serb paramilitary group responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the Balkan conflict.Given that religion can be a causal factor in conflict the question we need to explore is whether or not religion can play the reverse role and help to manage if indeed not resolve conflict?Starting point for me is to acknowledge that theological differences rooted in firmly held dogmas are irreconcilable. We have to learn to co-exist with the cracks. At one level inter-faith dialogue that fails to openly acknowledge these fundamental differences can be as much part of the problem as part of the solution. We have to learn to co-exist with the cracks and not be tempted to paper over them.  My own Lisbon experience of living with a crack caused by the 1755 earthquake thought me this lesson. There is a risk of looking back; but there never has been a golden period; people of different faiths were tolerated so long as they knew their place within the established order.  An unwritten social contract existed between Christians and Muslims in the Middle East where Christians were allowed to practice their faith and carry out works of charity provided they did not proselytise.To  learn to live with our differences and not to see the other as a threat or competitor calls for a real mindset shift - a profound change in understanding of ourselves and those who are different: we need to learn to think differently about the other and to actively promote a climate that allows for a real interaction and the development of a genuine respect despite our differences in belief and practice.We need to move beyond the sectarianism that can be engrained within religious communities. I recall meeting with Dr Peter Shirlow of the University of Ulster to discuss research he had carried out  in 2003 in neighbourhoods that are divided by so called ‘peace lines’- physical barriers erected to keep neighbouring communities apart and have increased in number since then. His research indicated that, since the peace process began, the gap between the two communities is growing wider, and especially among the younger generation.  He found that prejudice was so engrained on both sides that 68 per cent of the 18 –to- 25- age group claimed that they never had a meaningful conversation with anyone from the other community. His findings also revealed that 72 per cent of all age groups refuse to use health centres located in areas that are dominated by the other religion, and 62 per cent of unemployed people refuse to sign on in their local social security office if it is located in what is seen to be the other’s territory. He told me that one of the main problems facing Northern Ireland is that everyone sees himself/herself as a victim of the other side and is unable to recognize that self as a perpetrator of violence and intimidation. The challenge he believes is to help people on both sides to see that they are both victims and perpetrators in the current divisions.Some of you may be familiar with The Irish School of Ecumenics report, Moving Beyond Sectarianism, published in 2001 which describes the pervasiveness of sectarianism at every level of Northern Ireland society. It underlines the need to think about sectarianism as a systemic as well as a personal problem. ‘Sectarianism,’ they write, ‘ has become a system so efficient that it can take our sane and rational responses to a situation which it has generated and use them to further deepen sectarianism.’ The example given is how people have responded to the violence over the years. The tendency has been to move from mixed residential areas to live ‘exclusively among our own’. The authors recognize that this is a perfectly understandable and blameless response but the unfortunate effect, they claim, is to reinforce sectarianism still further. what applied then in Northern Ireland is still applicable today in many parts of the world facing strife.People find the approach sectarianism by drawing lines between themselves and others, and because they always can find people whose actions are worse than their own they can point to them as the real problem. The consequences of the dynamics of systemic sectarianism the report claims is that no one is ever responsible – ‘the buck never stops passing’. Sectarianism can also feed on what the authors call ‘ religiously motivated boundary maintenance’.People they found approach sectarianism by drawing lines between themselves and others, and because they always can find people whose actions are worse than their own they can point to them as the real problem. The consequences of the dynamics of systemic sectarianism they claim is that no one is ever responsible – ‘the buck never stops passing’. Sectarianism can also feed on what the authors call ' religiously motivated boundary maintenance’. People worship, educate, and marry almost exclusively in their own communities with the intention not to be sectarian but to build strong communities. The result nonetheless is, according to the report, the ‘strengthening the sectarian divide’.A sectarian mindset is not a monopoly of the street or disadvantaged neighbourhoods: it is also pervasive, even at the highest level of religious leadership.Commenting on the meeting of more than 2,000 religious leaders that was held in the United Nations building in New York, the former chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, says he found it easy to understand ‘why religion is as often a cause of conflict as it is of conciliation’. He criticized his fellow participants for their failure to rise above ‘the narrow loyalties of faith’. The peace spoken of was too often ‘peace on our terms’. The general massage, he writes, was: ‘ Our faith speaks of peace; our holy texts praise peace; therefore, if only the world shared our faith and our texts there would be peace’. John Stuart Mill’s arguments that diversity should be nurtured and not merely endured on the ground of it leading to truth and human progress appear to have been overshadowed by the climate of theological particularism – the belief that one group has exclusive possession of truth, knowledge and goodness that are universally applicable – that still shapes the outlook of many of today’s religious leaders.In 1864, Pius IX published his  ‘Syllabus of Errors’ in which he condemned the proposition: ‘ Everyman is free to embrace and to profess the religion which, by light of reason, he believes to be true’.  A hundred years later, John XXIII published his encyclical letter ‘Peace on Earth’ in which he declared the belief that ‘ Every human being has the right to honour God according to the dictates of an upright conscience, and therefore the right to profess his religion in private and in public.’ His argument in the letter is based solely on the nature of the human person and his or her right to seek truth by free enquiry. To obey conscience, he maintains, is to obey God.  In 1965, the Second Vatican Council overwhelmingly approved of this new direction, which John XXIII had given to church teaching on matters of freedom and conscience. The Council declaration on ‘Religious Liberty’ argues that people are endowed with ‘reason’ and ‘freewill’ and are therefore morally obliged to ‘seek to truth’. It would be impossible, however, to do this unless, the document states, they ‘enjoy both psychological freedom and immunity from external control’. The protection and promotion of these inviolable human rights is, the Council declared, ‘ an essential duty of very civil authority’ Whilst upholding the traditional Catholic belief that only in the Catholic Church could one find the fullness of truth, the Council recognized that other faith traditions may contain ‘some truth’ and therefore recommended all forms of dialogue as a means of seeking moral and spiritual enrichment. A small concession but a significant shift in mindset.A number of factors contributed to this fundamental change of attitude in the Catholic psyche that led to the abandonment of the traditional doctrine of intolerance towards what was perceived to be ‘error’. The horrors of two world wars and the emergence of fascism and totalitarianism obliged the church’s authorities to reflect on issues of human dignity and freedom. The signs of shift in official thinking became apparent in 1943 when Pius XII condemned the use of force or coercion on people. In the intervening years Catholic writers like John Courtney Murray prepared the way for further development when he argued that the Church should avoid promulgating policies that were likely to lead to social conflict. Another significant factor was that by the time of the Vatican council over, 60 million Catholics were living under Communist rule and many were victims of severe repression. The vacant seats reserved in the council chamber for those who were not allowed to attend by their totalitarian governments provided a constant reminder of this fact throughout the debates. I suspect that it was the consciousness of being ‘victim’ once again, after enjoying in general over sixteen hundred years of privilege, that prompted more than anything else a return to the Tertullian emphasis on conscience and freedom, those fundamental principles that had been almost completely overshadowed by internal doctrinal concerns. The cycle from being victim to perpetrator to victim once again helped Catholicism to rediscover the precious truth of the sacredness of the human conscience in the search for truth.Some would claim that religion can promote peace and co-existence in so far as it promotes tolerance of the other. The word tolerance for many today defines a positive attitude towards diversity, calling for respect and acceptance of people who think and act differently from oneself. The Latin roots of the word meaning to endure or to put up with the objectionable indicate that tolerance, as it was originally defined, had more negative overtones. Far from embracing diversity and pluralism, Aquinas and others saw it as the lesser of two evils: the willingness to permit or to concede the practice of a religion judged to be false as to act otherwise could possibly involve a greater evil. Even Locke endorsed ‘toleration’ only because he considered the ‘consequences of intolerance are a greater evil than the evil that is tolerated’. The original concept of tolerance prevails today and especially in religious circles. The 2003 edition of the New Catholic Encyclopaedia distinguishes between ‘personal’ tolerance – ‘permitting others to hold and to put into practice views that diverge from one’s own’ – which it endorses, and ‘doctrinal’ tolerance – ‘permitting error to spread unopposed’ – which it judges to be ‘reprehensible’.The traditional concept of tolerance, even with its negative connotations, that allows for would be warring communities to co-exist side by side without violence should not be undervalued. The achievement of ‘mere co-existence’, as it is sometimes disparagingly referred to, is no mean achievement, especially in communities that have been marred by inter-ethnic or inter-religious strife. The real threat to human existence, presented by the face of intolerance today, underscores the urgent need for religious communities, in particular, to re-evaluate their own attitudes towards diversity and pluralism. The French Catholic existentialist philosopher, Gabriel Marcel, believed that far from embattling people with negative attitudes towards others, a genuine religious experience or conviction mandates a person to be pro-active in defending the right of others to believe differently. He maintained that the ‘intense conviction’ a religious person experiences and which is so much part of who he or she is, should enable that person to empathise with another’s convictions that are different but equally intense. This ability to identify or empathise should enable believers to move beyond that state of passive acceptance that is usually referred to as tolerance.To uphold and to defend actively the right of others to make truth claims, different from our own, and to act upon them, provided that these are not detrimental to the rights and well being of others, would be an important first step that takes people beyond ‘the sectarian mileu’ in which their own convictions have been formed. Robert Putnam judged education to be the key to counterbalance to the drift towards intolerance, which he found in American communities that were more religious in their makeup. I would agree that education could help to dispel the myths that allow others to be looked upon as outcasts or ‘demons’, but it is equally true that indoctrination in the form of religious dogmatism based on absolute claims can reinforce separatism and an intolerance of what is judged to be false. Respect for others and their conscientious beliefs and opinions is the framework for dialogue that allows for an honest exchange of conflicting ideas. High on the agenda of such exchanges should be a willingness to test truth claims that authorize a sense of exclusiveness or superiority over others.Equally high on that agenda should be the willingness to consider the reordering of that hierarchy or canon of beliefs that determine the faith and practice of each tradition. The affirmation of human life as a sacred experience or gift should take priority over what name we give to God or how we define our understanding of the divine. For the first time in our history, human beings have it within their power to extinguish the whole of life, and, in the process, cause grotesque disfiguration to the face of the globe.This awesome fact places a special responsibility upon those religious traditions that regard the whole of creation as a sacred gift that needs to be cherished and who believe that humans will be held accountable for their stewardship of the earth. The present is undoubtedly a defining moment in human history that calls for an exceptional and imaginative response from the world faiths. Whether the world’s religions will be capable of responding to that challenge depends on the quality of religious leadership within the diverse traditions. The top down approach is not sufficient: religious leaders need to have a depth of knowledge and spiritual maturity to engage their own faith communities at every level in order to challenge the risk of the sectarian mindset that sees the other as less worthy of respect and therefore dispensable.