When Religion Becomes Lethal E-Book

Charles Kimball

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 506

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

A compelling look at today's complex relationship between religion and politics In his second book, bestselling author Charles Kimball addresses the urgent global problem of the interplay between fundamentalist Abrahamic religions and politics and moves beyond warning signs (the subject of his first book) to the dangerous and lethal outcomes that their interaction can produce. Drawing on his extensive personal and professional knowledge of, experience with and access to all three traditions, Kimball's explanation of the multiple ways religion and politics interconnect within Judaism, Christianity, and Islam will illuminate the problems and give readers a hopeful vision for how to chart a safer course into a precarious future. * Kimball is the author of When Religion Becomes Evil, one of the most acclaimed post 9/11 books on terrorism and religion * Reveals why religion so often leads to deadly results * The author has scholarly knowledge and expertise and extensive personal experience with the peoples, cultures, and leaders involved Readable and engaging, this book gives a clear picture of today's complex political and religious reality and offers hope for the future.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 : Christmas with the Ayatollah

The Volatile Mix of Religion and Politics

Why Is It All So Confusing?

In Search of Understanding

A Way Forward

Chapter 2 : God Gave Us This Land

Abraham, Patriarch and Prophet in Three Religions

Dynastic Rule in Israel

Who Were the Prophets of Israel?

The Religious and Political Role of the Prophets

Religion and Politics in Biblical Israel

Jewish History and the Rise of the Modern Zionist Movement

Chapter 3 : Israel

The Unstable Mix of Religion and Politics in Israel

Not All Israelis Are Jewish

Judea and Samaria, or Occupied Palestine?

The Politics of Israel and the United States

The Jewish State in the 21st Century

Chapter 4 : “Render unto Caesar”

New Testament Principles and the Early Church

Constantine and the Holy Roman Empire

The Rise of the Papacy

The Protestant Reformation and John Calvin’s Geneva

The Enlightenment: Bridge to the Modern World

Religion and Politics in Christian History

Chapter 5 : America

Pilgrims and Founding Fathers

Slavery and Manifest Destiny

In God We Trust

A Christian America in the 21st Century

Chapter 6 : There Is No God But God

The Origins of Islam

The Message of Muhammad

Medina: The First Islamic State

The Umayyad and Abbasid Dynasties

Islam in Spain and Beyond

Lessons from Islamic History

Chapter 7 : Muslim vs. Muslim

A Clash of Civilizations?

Renewal and Reform Movements in Islam

What 1.5 Billion Muslims Really Think

Moderate Muslim Voices

Chapter 8 : Iran and Iraq

Can You Tell a Sunni from a Shi’ite?

Before the Revolution

Struggles in Iraq and Afghanistan

From Revolution to Islamic Republic

The Republic of Iraq

A Framework for Understanding

Chapter 9 : A Road to Disaster

Fundamentalism and Fundamentalisms

Jewish Fundamentalists

Cocksure Christians

Militant Muslims

Confronting Fundamentalism

Chapter 10 : Hope for the Perilous Journey Ahead

A Hopeful Way Forward

Overcoming Religious Illiteracy

Reaching Out in Good Will

21st-Century Paradigms for Religion and Politics

The Next 10 Years

Notes

Selected Bibliography

The Author

Name Index

Subject index

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kimball, Charles (Charles Anthony), date

When Religion Becomes Lethal : The Explosive Mix of Politics and Religion in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam / Charles Kimball.

p. cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-470-58190-2 (hardback); 978-1-118-03054-7 (ebk); 978-1-118-03055-4 (ebk); 978-1-118-03056-1 (ebk)

1. Religion and politics. 2. Religious fundamentalism. 3. Abrahamic religions. 4. Christianity and politics. 5. Islam and politics. 6. Judaism and politics. 7. Title.

BL65.P7K5695 2011

201'.7209045—dc22

2010052515

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Unless otherwise noted, citations from the Bible are from the New Revised Standard Version. Quotations from the Qur’an are based, with revisions by the author, on The Meaning of the Glorious Koran, text and explanatory translation by Muhammad M. Pickthall (Mecca: Muslim World League, 1977).

Various perspectives advanced in this book have been shaped and modified over more than three decades. As is always the case, we all stand on the shoulders of and benefit directly and indirectly from predecessors, colleagues, friends, and people who see and interpret events differently. My indebtedness to many people is reflected in the text and notes. What I owe to a great number of others—from religious and political leaders and colleagues in religious studies and political science to people I have met in Tulsa, Tel Aviv, Tehran, and many points in between—will not be immediately visible. All have helped sharpen and refine my thinking. Among those who have offered valuable assistance and suggestions in the process of preparing this book, I am especially grateful to Chris Chapman, Jay Ford, Lee Green, Scott Hudgins, Jeff Rogers, and Cole Stephenson.

In addition to individuals, several institutions have been enormously helpful. I have enjoyed and benefited greatly from the congenial and supportive environment at both Wake Forest University and the University of Oklahoma. Several other colleges and universities have provided opportunities to present and refine what have become portions of the book. I thank the following institutions for their invitations to deliver lectures and for the constructive feedback from faculty, students, and community members: Oklahoma State University for the Converse-Yates-Cate Lecture, Bates College for the Andrews Lecture, the University of Tulsa for the William and Rita Bell Lecture, Greensboro College for the Jean Fortner Ward Lecture, Franklin and Marshall College for the Peace Lecture, McNeese University for the Banners Lecture, Illinois College for the Khalaf al-Habtoor Lecture, Georgetown College for the Collier Lecture, Stetson University for the Pastors’ Conference Lectures, Ottawa University for the Hostetter-DeFries Lectures, Oklahoma Christian University for the McBride Lecture, Southern Nazarene University for the Ladd Lecture, and Arizona State University, Franklin College, Pacific Lutheran University, Elon University, Meredith College, Drury College, and Presbyterian College for convocation and campuswide lectures. I am also grateful to many church and other religious communities throughout the United States that also have generously invited me to present lectures or deliver sermons on themes woven into this book.

Steve Hanselman and Julia Serebrinksy of LevelFiveMedia offered wise counsel, invaluable assistance, and personal friendship before, during and after completing this book. Working with Alison Knowles, Joanne Clapp Fullagar, Jennifer Wenzel, Tom Finnegan, and the other professionals at Jossey-Bass has been delightful. Most notably, I am deeply grateful to Sheryl Fullerton, the executive editor who guided my work on this book from start to finish. She has helped both to frame larger issues and fine-tune points through incisive questions and editorial suggestions. No author could hope to work with a more insightful, constructive, or congenial editor than Sheryl.

Writing this kind of book is both a solitary and a family process. Our adult children, Sarah and Elliot, along with my brother, sisters, and other close family members, have been supportive in numerous ways. My spouse, Nancy, has lived through the academic, experiential, and vocational adventures that shaped our lives for four decades. Nancy has been and remains my best friend, confidante, and loving critic.

Finally, I offer a brief word about my Jewish grandfather and Presbyterian grandmother. My paternal grandfather, Julius George Skelskie Kimball, was one of the most wonderful people I knew as a child. Despite the enormous challenges posed by a religiously mixed marriage a century ago, my grandparents remained within the traditions of faith in which they were raised. My grandparents, parents, and extended family members—both Jewish and Christian—modeled for me how religious diversity and religious commitment can illuminate and enrich our experiences as human beings and as children of God who share life in our community as well as on an increasingly fragile planet. With love and appreciation, I dedicate this book to the memory of my grandfather, whose gentle manor, love of laughter, and warm embrace helped set me on the journey of a lifetime.

In loving memory of my grandfather Julius George Skelskie Kimball

Chapter 1

CHRISTMAS WITH THE AYATOLLAH

THE VOLATILE MIX OF RELIGION AND POLITICS

Sitting less than five feet from the ayatollah khomeini in his modest home in Qom on Christmas Day of 1979, I was riveted not only by his words but also by his facial expression. In contrast to the fiery, defiant media images of the Ayatollah, his demeanor was warm and welcoming, his words softly spoken, his eyes alert and engaging. I found him both grandfatherly and charismatic. On that memorable Christmas Day in Iran, we talked about Jesus, the Iranian revolution, the U.S. hostages, and Christian-Muslim relations. On the many times after that when I saw Khomeini in person and live on television, my initial impressions were confirmed. Both inside and outside Iran, this intriguing, enigmatic man in clerical garb was fast emerging as an extraordinarily influential religious/political leader during the final quarter of the 20th century. I was not at all surprised when Time magazine named the Ayatollah Khomeini “Man of the Year” for 1979.

How had I, an American baby boomer from a middle-class family in Tulsa, Oklahoma, come to be here in Iran, in the very center of international media attention, spending Christmas with the Ayatollah Khomeini? Although I could not have predicted this scenario, it was far from accidental. A long-standing interest in and engagement with the interplay between religion and politics combined with a decade studying Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—in college, seminary, at Harvard, and in Cairo—had led to this pivotal moment.

Seven weeks earlier, on November 4, 66 hostages had been seized when student militants stormed the U.S. embassy compound in Tehran. Fourteen people were subsequently released, while 52 Americans remained in captivity for 444 days. The hostage crisis had been the dominant focus of the world’s political and media attention since that fateful day. The Iranian government was unwilling to meet directly with U.S. officials, in part because the deposed shah was in the United States at the time. Vivid memories of the CIA-led coup that had toppled Iran’s popularly elected government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq and reinstated the shah in 1953 still fueled widespread fear and distrust.

In an effort to open talks and help resolve the standoff, Ali Agah, the Iranian ambassador to the United States, invited an ecumenical group of six clergy and one former Peace Corps worker1 to travel to Iran for 10 days of meetings with Khomeini, other top religious and political leaders, and the students who were holding the hostages. Three other American clergy—led by the late William Sloane Coffin Jr., of New York’s Riverside Church—also traveled to Tehran to conduct Christmas services for the American captives.

The distinctive interplay between religion and politics in revolutionary Iran signaled that something new, powerful, and unpredictable was unfolding in one of the most volatile and strategically important regions of the world. Nestled in the soft underbelly of the Soviet Union, Iran had well-trained and well-equipped armed forces funded by abundant revenues derived from its massive oil reserves. Henry Kissinger, former national security advisor and U.S. secretary of state, had underscored the critical importance of Iran when he famously called Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi the “rarest of leaders, an unconditional ally.”

Iran was not the only country where political seismic shifts were taking place in an already unstable region. Lebanon was descending into a multisided civil war and fast becoming a proxy battleground for Israelis, Palestinians, and other regional powers; Saddam Hussein, who had just seized power in a coup in Iraq, would soon launch what would become a devastating 10-year war with Iran. In a harbinger of the deep rancor that produced Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers who carried out the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, heavily armed, militant Muslims from within Saudi Arabia stormed and then occupied the Grand Mosque in Mecca for two weeks late in 1979. Events in the new Islamic Republic of Iran added a potent and distinctively religious dynamic to the turbulent upheavals in the Middle East.