| Politics
and Religion; An Interview With Huston Smith an
interview with the world's leading author on world religions discussing
Jihad, the rapture, the Left Behind Series, and the use of religion to
influence politics
Interview by Rob Kall
OpEdNews.com
It's difficult to miss encountering Huston Smith if you do a search on
world religions, if you go to college and get textbooks.... he's the one
who wrote the books. So it was a great honor and pleasure to meet him and
interview him at the first mythic
journeys conference. Here's a more complete bio from his website hustonsmith.net
Huston
Smith is Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion and Distinguished Adjunct
Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, Syracuse University. For fifteen years
he was Professor of Philosophy at M.I.T. and for a decade before that he
taught at Washington University in St. Louis. Most recently he has served
as Visiting Professor of Religious Studies, University of California,
Berkeley.
Holder of twelve honorary degrees, Smith’s fourteen books include The
World’s Religions which has sold over 2 ½ million copies, and Why
Religion Matter which won the Wilbur Award for the best book on religion
published in 2001. In 1996 Bill Moyers devoted a 5-part PBS Special, The
Wisdom of Faith with Huston Smith, to his life and work. His film
documentaries on Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Sufism have all won
International. awards, and The Journal of Ethnomusicology lauded his
discovery of Tibetan multiphonic chanting as “an important landmark in
the study of music."
Rob: I publish a news and opinion website. What I wanted to talk
to you about is the connection between religion and politics that’s
happening now. Before I ask you any specific questions have you had any
thoughts or observations on what’s going on with this.
Huston Smith: I get asked that all the time since 9-11, so it’s
uppermost in my mind. Let me lead into it with a true anecdote.
One of my friends-- I’ve been very blessed with the friends I’ve
had, is Saul Bellow, and I brought him to Syracuse University, where I was
teaching, in the seventies and Saul Bellow is a big fish and Syracuse
University is a kind of small puddle, so the press corps in Syracuse
mounted a press conference with him. And since I was his host for his
visit, I was there.
The spokesperson for the press corps said, "Mr. Bellow, we’re
all writers here. You’re a writer. What’s the difference between
us?"
And without batting an eye, Saul Bellow said, "Reporters are
concerned with the news of the day, novellists, if they are worth their
salt, are concerned with the news of eternity."
Now that gives me a lead in for this, because when we’re talking
about religion and politics we have to make a slight between between the
news of eternity religion and the news of the day. By the news of
eternity, that’s my short phrase for what the great founders of the
religions taught and lived. Now let’s just take CHristianity. Jesus, the
"price of peace" as he’s often referred to, taught that we
should love even our enemies. And you can go just right down the line. I
could put on my historian of religions cap and go through all the major
religions and the founders all teach that in their own idiom.
I’ll give one more example-- Islam-- because jihad is used so much to
denigrate Muhammed and Muslims. But it’s not true that Muhammed himself
or the Koran-- the Jihad-- this word which those who want to downplay and
scurrilize the Muslim, used so often, literally, it means holy war. They
pick up the war part. But they take it out of context because in the ten
year skirmishes that Muhammed in Medina fled and escaped from Mecca
because they wanted to do him in because of his message of justice, and so
they were fighting for a toehold in history and they came back from one of
these skirmishes and Muhammed said that "we have returned fromt he
lesser holy war to face the greater holy war-- the battle that is the evil
that is in the heart of every one of us.
You wouldn’t know that from reading the newspapers and so-on. So I’ll
rest my case for this round by saying that in their founding revelation
they all preach peace.
Now, let’s go to the news of the day, and there religion comes in, in
terms of violent enmity and things like that. But there’s an axiomatic
formula for that. Because in a war, each side has to win. That’s what it’s
going out for. And that takes power. Theyhave to outpower the enemy. Well,
what is the greatest power in the universe? God or Allah. And so they want
to lasso God and bring him down to our side, because if god is on our
side, then victory is assured. As I say, you can almost put this,
certainly in syllogistic form, almost in terms of an equation, becvause
allthroughout history the equation remains the same. Okay we’re in a
war, god is on our side and the corollary of that is that the oponent is
the devil.
Demonizing the enemy is the corollary of this and that just monitors
the news of the day. Columnists, if they’re good may nibble a little bit
and blow the whistle on exagerations, but the formulation is like a
stereotype and the language is identical on both sides. All you have to
do, is, like in a crossword puzzle, is fill in the blanks. There was a
cartoon a few weeks ago, I forget where, and there was a drawing of
someone giving the nightly news and it said, well the news today is that a
small band of viscious militants did major damage to a large group of
ordinary people. Now the point of the cartoon is it doesn’t say who the
small group was and who the big people who this was inflicted on. You can
just put it in the way you want it. In short, that is the story of the
relation between religion and politics. It’s the same story throughout
history. We’re just living through it in its current form. .
Rob Kall: Well what have we learned from this?
Huston Smith: Well let’s hope. I don’t know that we’ve
learned a darn thing. One can hope to defuse this vicious polarization and
war is to puncture the stereotype and that’s what I’ve tried to do, we
each try to do it in our own way. I understand that you are mounting a
website to deal with vital issues and clue the public in on some things
that they don’t get from USA TODAY, and I try to do it in granting
interviews and the innumerable talks, because I’m still on the circuit,
when I’m asked to address the issue.
Rob Kall What about the use of religion to polarize elections, what
about this whole rapture story-- the LEFT BEHIND novel series and how that
ties with the Middle East.
Huston Smith Now, let me think about that, I don’t recall
anybody. Okay, now I’m going to fumble a little bit because I have to
think out, talk out loud off the top of my head, so I’m going to just be
asking myself how does it sound when I speak it.
People are scared. I think that’s a fair statement. For innumerable
reasons, I mean you can list them. Our planet is in danger through global
warming and other things. One think tank gives our planet only a fifty
percent chance of surviving the twenty first century. That’s our planet,
And then we have the growing gap between the haves and have-nots and what
that’s going to do to our whole economy. You know I’ve been a teacher
and the humanities are just dwindling in Universities, but I don’t blame
the students, because they’re scared. We have our daughters are well
enough along, they’ve got their own homes. But our grandchildren-- will
they be able to float themselves so that they have a roof of their own to
be in. And civil liberties are in jeopardy. People are scared. Okay. Now
if you are scared, you reach for straws. And I think what’s basically
behind this huge stampede is, okay, this world is scary, let’s be sure
we have eternity on our side. And that points them in the direction of the
more conservative religions that promise them happy eternity if they just
sign on with born again.
Now I haven’t read any of the left behind series. I’ve read some
reviews, but you know them firsthand. Does that address the series’
dominant motif?
Rob Kall: It makes sense what you’re saying. The LEFT BEHIND
series is a series based on the idea that the biblical predictions that
the antichrist is going to come to the middle east, that the messiah is
going to come and show up in ISrael, conquer the Antichrist and all the
people who believe in Jesus are going to go into the rapture and be taken
up into heaven-- that’s the rapture-- and everyone else is going to die.
I think and other people think that this is why Bush supports an
unfettered, uncontrolled Israel, giving basically approval to do anything
they want in the Middle East because it accelerates the conflict and moves
people further along on the clock towards reaching the rapture.
Huston Smith: Alright you know more about that than I do. I had
assumed that Bush’s seemingly inflexible p[olicy to support Sharon was
for political reason s of his getting elected. But as to whether he really
believes his actions are going to hasten the day of the final conflict, I
do not know.
Rob Kall: Neither of us can know that, but the speculation is that
by taking the policy approach to Israel, he buys the approval of the
fundamentalists who believe in the rapture.
Huston Smith I think that’s right. I can’t look into his heart
enough to know how sincere he is in this appeal to the conservatives and
the fundamentalists, but I’m sure at some level of understanding, he’s
not going to overlook secure his base-- hhis political base to get
re-elected. It’s come out from various sources, when he has his cabinet
meetings, that he’s not much interested. His first point that’s
dominant is "how can we secure our base?’ meaning, to get
re-elected.
Rob Kall So, where does this kind of a relationship between the
president and religious groups, how does it compare historically, with
other presidents in the past?
Huston Smith I’m not enough of an American historian. I don’t th
ink it’s ever been as gross as this. I have looked into the case of
Abraham Lincoln who is one of the greatest and profoundest theologians in
American history. With malice and charity towards all, with malice towards
none, I mean, there is statesmanship. But I can’t give you a rundown of
this and that. President Carter some say he was too indecisive to be a
great president, but there seems to be unanimity that he’s the greatest
ex-president we’ve ever had in terms of setting up the Carter foundation
and just he’s right in there. You know, he would never have stooped to
this sort of thing.
Rob Kall What sort of thing?
Huston Smith Well, the kind of thing that Bush is doing, in
appealing and saying our first job, to his cabinet, is to secure our
base-- to get re-elected.
I don’t know how the concensus comes out, but he (Carter) lost the
second turn because he refused to go in militarily to try to free the
hostages. Now, my recollection of that may be a little bit imprecise, but
I do know that he said, in his memoirs, when he entered the presidency,
his top resolve was to keep the United States out of war. And I think he’s
the only one in this century that succeeded. Bu tit hmayhave cost him the
second term. Now, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, at least you
have to honor the integrity of that. I think we’re seeing the opposite
of that in Bush, in this administration. I mean, look at the difference--
keep our nation out of war-- and launch a war unilaterally...
Rob Kall Declaring "I’m a war president."
Huston Smith Yeah. You know, in the claim said that th is will
protect us, but it has inflamed the world’s fire. The world is on fire
today and it’s poured oil onto that passion rather than cooling it down.
Rob Kall What about the way that Bush is looking... he just sent
out a letter, just in the state of Pennsylvania alone they attempted to
contact 1600 churches. looking for contact people in each church to work
on the Bush campaign. Just the close enmeshment of the politics with
religion seems like something never seen historically before.
Huston Smith The bottom line of this relationship is, and the news
of the day, is that politicians hijack religion for their purposes.
Rob Kall What happens to religion when it gets hijacked?
Huston Smith Terrible! It just turns over and becomes demonic. But
not all, and by and large, the liberal churches won’t go for that and
they are very adverse to what’s going on.
Rob Kall The churches that do go for it... how do they become
susceptible to this? Are they bad people?
Huston Smith No... I don’t know them, and I don’t know. THey’re
just misguided, if I use crude language.. they’re stupid and they get
blandishments for throwing their weight around and having influence and
"we put a third of the congressmen into office" and that makes
them feel important. But these are the weaknesses in human beings that are
coming out in their move.
Rob Kall It’s almost as though, if you’re going to follow the
rapture story and the anti-christ, it’s almost like Bush could be the
antichrist.
Huston Smith Well, I would think that could be if you want to set
it up that way. I don’t think that scenario works and you can’t just
flip it over, I think everything should work and probably, well, who
knows, I can’t prophecy, with nuances and compromises and let’s see
what we can do here and there and the other to move things in the right
direction. But there’s polarization, which the LEFT BEHIND SERIES is a
diabolical example is just wrong.
Rob Kall What do you mean it’s wrong.
Huston Smith Mistaken I mean unless you want to look at it as
getting the political ends they want, but that would mean they are using
this deliberately, self consciously for political ends. If you want to say
that they’re sincere in believing that there’s going to be a final
showdown, well we can’t tell if there’s going to be a final showdown
in Israel in the forseeable future.
Rob Kall One last question, about Kerry. There have been two
bishops who have said they are not going to give communion to politicians
who approve of abortion. This is an I ntrusion of the Catholic church into
politics that’s never been seen before, that I can recall.
Huston Smith I think it’s terrible. I am very disturbed about that.
In fact I wrote a piece for the religious news service to get the other
side across, faulting the pro-life people for the way they are going about
this.
I just think this is a very ominous sign.
www.hustonsmith.net
Rob Kall rob@opednews.com
is editor/founder of OpEdNews.com.
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