Religion: Instrument or Objective

Our life has been haunted by anxiety about terrorism. The global coalition fighting against terrorism and led by the United States post 11 September 2001 has not shrivelled up the terrorist’s hearts. Their successful agenda – since then in Indonesia had been successfully completed twice (Bali’s and J.W. Marriot’s blast). Anyone, anywhere is now a potential victim. 

Up to this point, Islam has been “accused” as a religion which has produced these terrorists though the Muslim community has also criticized the terrorists as barbaric, atheistic and uncivilized. But the facts are that the terrorists claim that their action is based in the doctrinal legitimacy of Islam. They understand their actions to be the highest form of religious devotion and a form of revenge towards their cosmic enemies. Their actions are said to be noble, honorable, and admirable. What else is the highest glory within a religion besides an ‘infinite devotion’ to the religion itself?

Many religious communities are amazed and horrified. But if we honestly admit both the defects and importance of religion, basically violence is an integral part of the history of religion. It is an unavoidable implication of the religious existence itself.

Born to be an instrument

When we look at the history of religion, the main spirit espoused is the aim to create social orders that are harmonious and just and which honor humanity. For example, Moses was born with the mission to liberate the Jews from oppression under King Ramses II. Jesus came to the world in order to bring about love for the Jews suffering under the supremacy of the despotic Roman empire. Muhammad’s task was to reform moral degeneracy in Arab society and to bring about a more just society. Each prophet successfully carried out their mission. In doing so they were supported by the people’s confession that each was a messenger of the sacred word from God. Without relating themselves to the Supreme being, the prophets would have found it difficult to institutionalize their teachings.

The question arises, why did their leadership require religion? Wouldn’t it have been enough for instance to prove that the prophets were an intelligent, honest and good man and hence the relevance of their regulations respected? This is a matter of the effectiveness of legitimacy. Legitimacy (or legitimating formulations) refers to Peter L. Berger’s use of the term (Langit Suci, 1991), that socially objectified science explains and justifies the social order.

Each community depends on sanctioned legitimacy. Legitimacy is needed to regulate social life which is inherently susceptible to disorder because of individuals with competing interests and objectives. Thus self interest and foolishness often destroy the peaceful social order wished for by the majority of people.

Basically, all socially objectified knowledge provides legitimacy whether or not such knowledge originated from profane or sacred knowledge. To Berger, the effective legitimacy supporting the social order is legitimacy that creates a symmetry between definitions of subjective realities (how individuals understand the world within their own awareness) and objective reality (how they relate to other humans). This is the essence of Berger’s argument, that the main objective of legitimacy is the maintenance of reality both at the objective and subjective level.

The history of world civilization has proved that religious legitimacy is the most distributive and effective instrument of legitimacy. Religious ‘superiority’ as instrument of legitimacy as compared to others can be understood in respect to two points. First, legitimacy without religion would only serve to maintain reality at the objective level, but it wouldn’t be effective on a subjective level. Second, religious legitimacy connects the construction of empirical social reality with the perfect reality of the sacred. Hence social reality derives its legitimacy from a mysterious and fascinating power (to use Rudolf Otto’s terms- from misterium tramendum fascinan). This is what gives it its increasing force.       

In the context of legitimacy, we can say that God’s objective behind revealing religion to humanity is as an instrument, a tool needed for the maintenance of objective and subjective reality. From a more extreme position, one might say that if social life was not so susceptible to disorder then God would not have needed to reveal religion to humans. If only profane legitimacy was sufficient for maintaining social order, the presence of prophets announces themselves as the bearers of God’s sacred mission would be unnecessary.

Religion as the Objective.

If a disciple understands that the objective behind the revelation of religion is to be an instrument of God’s will, then people like A.N. Wilson (Against Religion: 1992) would have not any reason to argue that “religion is a human tragedy”.  If a disciple understood religion as an instrument, a religious view which places humanity at the highest level would be born, religion being used to serve humanity. In that case, every action that humiliates and violates principles of humanity would be observed as a humiliation for religion and Indonesia should be grateful for such a principle since that kind of religious view is developing here now. Thus we recognize Liberal Islam, Inclusive Islam, and Transformative Islam among other emergent forms of Islam.

The question is this, what is wrong with religion that delivers disciples who bring forth disaster for humanity, actions that are intrinsically opposed to the most basic objective of religion?

Nothing is inherently negative with the nature of religion. Total faith in God is noble. The religious community’s honoring of humanity cannot be denied as the realization of his submission to god. The problem appears when religious disciples are incapable of understanding the spirit of the presence of religion and of the prophet’s struggle to disseminate religion. They understand and show their loyalty toward religion according to the written doctrines but they cannot explore the deepest substance of doctrine nor understand why such doctrines were revealed by god.

The fatal risk of this weakness is the birth of a vision in which religion is understood as objective. Humans should be understood to live for religion and not religion for mankind. Such a reversal makes humanity secondary to religion. Herein, for the sake of religion, humanity would be sacrificed. This is fundamentalism.

Religious communities which observe religion as an objective will submit their whole lives to defend their religion’s superiority. They feel that the highest honor is the capability to show the highest defense of their religion by defending it from its enemies.

Total submission toward religion by subjugating humanity results in a situation in which religion becomes the source of human tragedy. Each individual who is observed as tainting, destroying, or ‘humiliating’ religion, would be positioned as enemies by defendants. Subsequently the defendants feel an infinite pride when accomplishing the mission of paying back the enemy. Since humanity is positioned below religion, the individuals’ life is seen as unimportant. The defendant will sacrifice their own life, and the lives of the victims, for the sake of a religious mission. This is what occurs when terrorism is based in religion. The world should be worried as long as disciples of religion as an objective reality believe that their religious enemies should be killed. Nauzubillahi min zalik.

(Translated by Lanny Octavia, edited by Jonathan Zilberg)