Faith and politics on the foreground
Symposium hosts a broad spectrum of dialogue and guest speakers
March 12, 2008
Todd Foley
Politics and religion was the topic of Trinity Western University at “Faith Forward: Exploring Religion, Culture and Conflict,” its second public symposium. Over the course of March 12-14, four guest speakers gave keynote addresses, each discussing different aspects of the faith and politics debate. The lectures had modest attendance.
The event was organized by TWU professors Dr. John Dyck, Dr. Paul Rowe and Dr. Jens Zimmermann and funded by a partnership with CHNU Television, which granted $100,000 to production of the symposium over the next five years.
“The reason we’ve brought these people here is because these people are very clear with their ideas of religion and politics,” said Zimmermann.
Richard Kearney, the opening keynote speaker, holds the Charles B. Seelig Chair at Boston College and has taught at University College Dublin, the University of Paris and the University of Nice. He has also has written over 20 books on European philosophy and literature.
Kearney spoke on the unifying narrative of religion as it applies to confrontation with the stranger – should we be hostile to the stranger and reject them, or do we provide hospitality in the name of love? This problem, he said, can’t be solved by an economic or political solution but by hermeneutics, the study of theories of interpretation and the understanding of texts.
“Every religion is a hermeneutic battleground,” said Kearney.
Kearney then alluded to his recent time in India, claiming that through embracing and interacting with other cultures and religions, one will experience his or her own in a whole new way. He quoted a group of nuns he encountered, who opened a multi-faith dialogue with other religions in the area as saying, “We didn’t come here to convert; we came here to converse.”
Paul Gottfried, the second keynote speaker, is a professor of humanities at Elizabethtown College, and has written multiple books on intellectual history, ancient histiography and political theory. He spoke on the politics of shame that have been generated by Western Christianity. Gottfried said he was not pointing the finger only at the West, but that the West “tries to make amends for past wrongs.” His opinion was that the West views its own civilization as more sinful than the rest of the world, citing the Crusades as an example of past wrongs.
The conference also featured Father Raymond de Souza, a columnist for the National Post and the parish priest of Sacred Heart of Mary Parish in Ontario. De Souza spoke of the relationship between religion and politics. He believes the church doesn’t belong to one nation and therefore the two should not be merged. “The church was always part of something greater.”
Where then does politics fit into morality? “You can’t alienate the two,” said de Souza. In closing, he suggested that the state’s provision for the common good should be collaborated with that of the religious sector.
On the other side of the political and religious spectrum was Simon Critchley, renowned philosopher and professor currently researching the nature of ethics, religion and politics.
Critchley addressed the need for civil religion within the general populace, noting that politics are “nothing less than the self-determination of the people.”
What he calls the horror of the present time is the integration of politics and religion which leads to violence. He suggests that this be mended by fostering patriotism: teaching citizens to love their land and the law, mainly through public festivities and public education. However, even Critchley admitted that such as system must have a higher meaning to convince citizens of its value.
The symposium sparked in-depth conversation among students, faculty and guests—provoking further dialogue on these critical subjects.
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