Surmounting the Wall: Religion and Conflict

Since democracy accommodates a plurality of interests, opinions, and ideologies, it must be secular. The "wall of separation" between church and state, or, more generally, between religion and politics, needs to be maintained. This secularism, however, does not in itself make Western systems intellectually superior to polities that accord a central place to religion in public life. Indeed, attempts to open dialogue between "Islam and the 'West" are inherently condescending, because they imply an unbalanced encounter between a less-than-"rational" religious milieu and a more sophisticated worldview that has embraced secularism. A balanced dialogue can scarcely be restored until "the West" comes to terms with its own Jewish and Christian foundations of liberty, equality, and solidarity. In particular, the substantial elimination of religion from the public square in the West leaves the field open to narrow versions of Judaism and Christianity that are not ashamed to use force in pursuit of sectional interests: witness the righteous assaults on the "axis of evil," an "axis" associating two Muslim states with one communist state. Therefore, the conceptual wall of separation must be maintained, but attempts, particularly by intellectual liberals, to exclude religious influence from public discussion and decision making are demonstrably self-defeating. Unless the West faces the decisive religious influences in its own history and brings them to the table in dialogue with Muslim countries, the encounter is unlikely to be mutually respectful and balanced. This chapter argues that the cherished democracy of the West owes much to historical religious encounters with the agents of power, and that the exclusion of religious dialogue from the public square is counterproductive in any attempt at meaningful discussion with religiously based polities.