Corruption of Religion, Corruption by Religion (Book Notes: The Case for Religion)

Many people in society look to religion not only for some sort of eternal salvation, but also for temporal assistance: they believe that without religion, everything from families to whole societies will fall apart. Religion is regarded as the key to social and personal survival. They ignore the fact that even though religion may help at times, it can harm just as much.

In The Case for Religion, Keith Ward writes:

[E]ven the great monastic communities of western Europe, such as Cluny Abbey, founded on renunciation of the world and denial of the flesh, quickly became owners of vast estates and wielders of enormous political power. They no longer protested against the world. They were the world, in all its pageantry and power, and they validated the dream of empire, which they consecrated as Crusades to destroy the infidel.

That is why people should not look to religion for salvation or for a solution to the ills of the world. Failure to see the possibilities for corruption and destruction in religion is a failure of spiritual perception of the first order. Few people fail to see the destructive possibilities of other people’s religions, but they can be remarkably blind to their own.

It is interesting that the above passage was written as part of an attempt to argue that religion continues to be good and relevant in today’s society. Keith Ward is a defender of religion, not an opponent, but even he can see these things and recognize just how dangerous religion can become.

Of course, what he describes here is quite unremarkable. Sure religion can become corrupt and destructive — but so can any other philosophy. Ward makes a point of noting this as well, so why focus on religion? The difference between religion and other philosophies is the fact that other philosophies don’t pretend to be holy or creations of a perfect God.

Religions make total and absolute demands on adherents; other philosophies generally do not. Religion is not inherently evil, but it is not immune to all of the problems which afflict people generally and human organizations in particular. Unfortunately, those problems can easily become magnified in religions, leading to worse problems than might otherwise occur.

 

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