Religion In Europe – Fighting For Or Against Social Inclusion

Religion in Europe – fighting for or against social inclusion?

Cristina Pop, West University of Timisoara Assignment on “Visions of Europe” “Social Inclusion in Europe” Master Programme 2005-2007

Religion in Europe – fighting for or against social inclusion?

Ask any statesmen in contemporary Europe and they will tell you we are all equal in front of the law. Ask any Christian churchmen and they will tell you we are all equal in front of God. At this first glimpse, our society has good premises to be an inclusive one. But does reality confirm it? Hundreds of years ago, human life – both private and public – was organized depending on the law of God. In today’s Europe, the state and the church are formally separated. What I will present in this essay are some of the points where these two institutions influence each other regarding social inclusion, sometimes working for the same purpose, other times taking colliding positions on social matters. The purpose of this brief analysis is to find in which way religion can (and maybe even should?) still play a part as a social actor with a benefic influence on society. Considering that the development of European cultures is closely related to Christianity ([Die03]) and that a large part of Europe’s population is Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant ([Hal05]), Christians thus being a majority of the religious population, I will refer here to the Christian traditional belief systems and institutions. The essay is based not only on the mentioned reference, but also on an interview with two priests from the Orthodox Cathedral from Timisoara. It was interesting and surprising for me to see their reaction when I explained why I was asking for their help. One of them looked at me in a suspicious and rather biting manner and gave me a quick reply saying “There is nothing to discuss here”. The other priest waited until I finished the explanation, made sure he understood the topic and then engaged in a conversation showing both enthusiasm for his beliefs and a good cultural background to support the information he gave. I decided to present this episode here as a metaphor of how I perceive the image of the church: on one hand, a tendency to be closed and unyielding; on the other hand, dedication for the enlightenment of humankind. Looking back in time, we can see that religion (as a general term, not referring specifically to Christianity) has had many social functions, besides the manifest one which addresses salvation. As presented in [Wil81], these so-called “latent functions” include: giving meaning to natural phenomena, justifying human actions through a set of ethical norms, assuring social cohesion, expressing and adjusting emotions. To a great extent, these functions are nowadays covered by other entities in the Western civilization – science explains more and more of the universe in all its aspects, the state sets the rules for what is acceptable and what isn’t, many kinds of associations create communities based on shared characteristics of their members, arts and entertainment give the setting for manifesting and refining emotions. One important role still taken by the church belongs to the social services area. Be it the elderly, the poor or the ill, they will find spiritual and, as much as possible, material support from the church. The priest I interviewed mentioned several programmes developed by the Romanian Orthodox church in order to help orphans, the elderly, the severely ill or the victims of natural disasters. However, as he explains, much of these activities are not promoted as interventions of the church, mostly because of the Christian spirit of doing good without seeking praise or other reward for it. The function of guiding believers to salvation still remains irreplaceable. When confronted with the major (and usually frightening or painful) questions of life, science can give us some answers which may be satisfying, as long as we are asking these questions in a rather detached manner. But when confronted with their own suffering,

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Religion in Europe – fighting for or against social inclusion?

many people still feel the need of a response from a higher authority. The interview revealed that a great number of the ones coming to talk to a priest at the Cathedral are facing major difficulties in their lives and are asking for guidance or, even more, for an immediate divine intervention, mediated by the church. Also, there are a large number of people who, even if they are not usually practicing their religion, call for a religious service for moments like births, marriages or deaths (this is shown in figures in [Hal05] and was confirmed in the interview). Related to this matter, we must also look at the presence of priests in hospitals, which can also be seen as part of the social services assured by the church. [Hal05] shows that, contrary to the wide spread impression of religion losing its importance in contemporary Europe, religious beliefs are not weakening, they are just becoming a more private matter, thus somehow separating from the church as we know it. Because of this reason, I chose to focus more on the influence of religion and the church on the ethical systems of their believers, therefore seeing them as a source of education (informal and, in some countries, even included in the formal education). In [Wil81] it is argued that the present Western civilization, tending to be rationalized in all aspects of its organization, cannot give proper answers to the needs coming from the irrationality of the human being. Moral values taught today are justified more by their practical utility than by their intrinsic meaning. For a person searching for a deeper meaning of life, religion may very likely turn out to be a better place to look in than the secular education. However, now when church is no longer such a strong presence in the relationship between the European citizen and his or her God, what one learns about Christianity relies more on voluntary study of the theological texts or the history of religions (in some countries, like Romania, these subjects are taught in pre-university schools) and the information got through mass media (not only documentaries but also interviews with churchmen or news about the implication of the church in current social matters). So we must first look at the texts of the Bible, as it is the primal source of explicit teachings about the Christian values. When reading the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, it is easy to see that it corresponds very much to one of the most well known quotes from the Bible: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28). Yet, one of the biggest issues in the criticism of traditional Christianity is the gender differentiation that, in some points, suggests that woman is inferior to man. When asked about this topic, the Orthodox priest explained that, although women and men are seen as different given their natural differences that make each of them more suitable for certain roles, this does not mean one is in any way better than the other. Even more, the worship of Virgin Mary places her in one of the most important positions among the central figures of Christianity. On one hand, valuing the woman predominantly as a mother can be seen as an attempt to direct women to a certain kind of choices in life and this is not exactly consistent with the equality between genders as promoted by secular laws. On the other hand, one cannot deny that gender differentiation is a fact of nature, so “equal” cannot have here the meaning of “identical roles”, but rather that of “identical value” in the context of

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Religion in Europe – fighting for or against social inclusion?

complementary roles. My personal view on this is that even feminism, in its not extreme forms, accepts gender differences and fights against discrimination of women, not for creating a common identity for both genders; in a world where I so often hear about the woman manager, the woman scientist, the woman police officer or, at the opposite end, the woman victim of abuse, and at the same time in a world where divorce rate is rising and more and more children can’t spend much time with their career driven parents, I find it quite necessary to sometimes be reminded of the woman mother. Still, there are some passages in the Bible that very explicitly set the woman under the control of the man or suggest the impurity of women as greater of that of men: - “Wives, submit yourself unto your husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their husbands in everything" (Ephesians 5:22-24) - "The head of every man is Christ, and the head of every woman is man." (I Cor. 11:3) - "Speak to the children of Israel, saying,'If a woman conceives, and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as in the days of her monthly period she shall be unclean." (Leviticus 12:2) "When a woman gives birth to a girl, she will be unclean as in her monthly period. However, she will be unclean for two weeks. Then she must stay at home for 66 days in order to be made clean from her bleeding." (Leviticus 12:5) As a response to these quotes, one can bring many others in which gender equality is clearly stated or the husband is also given responsibilities towards his wife: - “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Ephesians 5:21) - “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.” (Ephesians 5:25-28) Moving from the theoretical aspect of religion to its practice, there are two more issues about women’s discrimination. One of them is not accepting the ordination of women – with the exception of the Anglican church (and other religions not relevant here as they are part of the new ones). Arguments against ordination of women are based mainly on continuing the tradition (all 12 apostles of Jesus were males) and sometimes on other passages from the Bible which show the man as the proper one to lead or teach others. I was quite shocked to hear, during the interview, that physical reasons are also mentioned, meaning that the woman is still consider impure during the menstrual period. From my point of view, all these arguments relate very closely to the image of a closed, not flexible church; it is, of course, not always positive to be flexible, especially when moral values are at stake, but I believe that in this case traditional Christianity somehow fails in delivering its core message by stumbling on technicalities. A second issue is that of women not being allowed access to Mount Athos, those who break the rule being punished by imprisonment up to two years. This is considered by some as discriminating towards women and there have been two demands from the EU parliament to the state of Greece to abolish this rule; both demands were rejected. The arguments regarding monks’ avoidance of temptations and the (more secular) reason

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Religion in Europe – fighting for or against social inclusion?

that the territory is property of the self-governed "Monastic State of Aghion Oros" (thus breaking the rule can be assimilated to violating private property) are convincing enough for me. Still, for both of these last two issues, my main concern is not for the rules themselves. After all, today’s European woman is free to choose her religion and is not forced to remain in a religious community where she feels discriminated (although in more traditional societies such a change might also have some negative impact on her social status). Furthermore, I believe that if there is ever a change to happen regarding these two rules, it must come from inside the chruch and not imposed by secular authorities. In [Nak86] it is shown that, out of the approximately 120 new religions born after the Second World War, 48 were started by women, which gives a clear sign that women were already taking their life, including their religious beliefs, in their own hands. What does this say about the future of traditional religions, which are seen as “profoundly patriarchal” by all feminist scholars of religion, according to [Vou02]? My interlocutor keeps a positive mind, saying that the chruch has resisted many and difficult threats and has survived so far. I myself can’t help wondering if survival is enough for such an institution. What could (and my view is that it should) be changed is the way of presenting these two matters to the wide public. For the common modern believer, “comfortably spending all free time in front of the TV” – as the priest described, not reading much theology and being constantly bombed by various information from various fields, it is very easy to justify negative attitudes through religious ideas (usually ideas taken out of context, incomplete or misinterpreted), Not only a misogynist can claim that Christian beliefs and practices show man’s superiority on woman, but I have also met young women who, on the basis of the Christian tradition they have been brought up in, considered themselves as inferior human beings. To add some more examples of misinterpreted religious concepts, I will name a phrase I keep hearing from antisemitic Christians: “they have killed our Lord, Jesus Christ”. The Orthodox priest assured me that this has nothing to do with the official position of the church, even if the two religions, both monotheistic, can be seen as rivals. Another sensitive spot is the one regarding homosexuality. Fortunately, homosexuals nowadays do not have to face punishments based on religious or secular laws. The church does not exclude them, but, as the priest said, tries to help them – meaning that their sexual orientation is seen as a disease that can be cured. From a sociological perspective, this attitude is integrating, which differs from including – it says the homosexual is not “normal”, but can become “normal” by changing themselves. While science is still debating about the factors causing sexual orientation, homophobia takes part of its substance from the conviction that homosexuals could very well be “straight” if it were not for there refusal to change, sometimes taking it further to the idea that some persons become homosexuals by their own will, in order to draw attention upon themselves or “be in the fashion”. What I see as a potential important contribution of the traditional church to a more inclusive society is not changing its values and habits, but making the central Christian message, that of love for God and for our fellow beings, more visible than those related to tradition and, like already said, dogmatic technicalities; also, very clearly promoting its

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Religion in Europe – fighting for or against social inclusion?

positions on topics as those mentioned above, in order to reduce discriminant attitudes falsely based on religion. Besides, as an institution that supports morality, I think it is important for the church to set visible examples. Social services assured by the church are one of the many and I believe they should be made more visible to the wider population (without crossing the lines of decency, of course, but there is still a long way to that point). Also, given the individualism and exclusivism favoured by any monotheistic belief system in its earlier stages, the present ecumenical movement sends a benefic message of reciprocal acceptance (on this matter, we can observe the influence of the secular world’s development on the church as an inclusive institution; as stated in [Tur06], multicultural environments are making religions more aware of each other’s value and more tolerant towards each other). Since the believer’s relation with the church shows to be weakening, the public discourse of the church gains more weight in transmitting its message and this depends a great deal on the relation of the church with mass media, as the present rush for sensational news brings high odds that the message will be transmitted incompletely or incorrectly, or even intentionally biased in order to sell well. Teaching religion in schools is also a good way to promote the Christian values. In Romania, pupils may choose between studying their own religion and studying the history of religions, so religion based discrimination in schools does not get encouraged. At this point, it is maybe interesting to mention the recent debate about getting icons off the classroom walls, seeing them as offensive for non-Christian pupils. In the end, icons were not removed, as they were not present in schools as objects of worship but rather as a cultural element. Of course, Romania is still a country with a great majority of religious population, but similar conflicts have shown up in the more secularized Western Europe – as, for example, the discussion about prohibiting Muslim female students to wear their specific clothes when attending classes. These and many others are proof that religion still plays an important part in the life of Europeans – and what better way to prevent these kinds of conflicts than by education to provide objective knowledge and understanding of others’ as long as our own traditions. To conclude, my view is that the current Western civilization, based on pragmatism and efficiency, can very much benefit from the active role of the church as a provider of spiritual values; in fact, I see the presence of such institutions necessary and don’t find any secular ones being able to fully cover this function. A society that has all the needed legal, institutional and physical framework will not become truly inclusive unless there is a higher motivation to accept “the other” as an equal. And religions that teach love as a supreme value seem to be the best answer here. However, if this role is to be played in the future by the traditional Christian churches or by others (Eastern religions or new ones), depends a great deal on how the traditional church will respond to the social changes of our times.

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Religion in Europe – fighting for or against social inclusion?

References [***]

“The Bible” (both a Romanian edition and the English translation found at http://www.biblegateway.com)

[***07]

*** (2007), “European Values Study” http://www.europeanvalues.nl http://www.jdsurvey.net/web/evs1.htm

[Die03]

Dienel C, Wisch F.-H. (2003), “Visions of Europe”, text book for the “European Perspectives on Social Inclusion” Master study programme, 2003

[Hal05]

Halman L., Luijkx R., van Zundert M. (2005), “Atlas of European Values”

[Nak86]

Nakamura, H. (1975, 1986), “Orient si Occident: o istorie comparata a ideilor” (Romanian translation of “A Comparative History of Ideas”), Bucharest, Humanitas, 1998

[Tur06]

Turner B.S. (2006), “Religion”, SAGE Publications – “Theory, Culture & Society”, 2006 http://www.sagepublications.com

[Vou02]

Voula E. (2002), “Remaking Universals?: Transnational Feminism(s) Challenging Fundamentalist Ecumenism”, SAGE Publications – “Theory, Culture & Society”, 2002 http://www.sagepublications.com

[Wil81]

Wilson, B. (1981), “Religia din perspectiva sociologica” (Romanian translation of “Religion in Sociological Perspective”), Bucharest, Editura Trei, 2000

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