Religion and War-building
Along with my half-time pastoral position, I'm also taking classes half-time to finish up my Bachelor of Arts. A while ago, I started pursuing a Bachelor of Mathematics, and after I lost motivation for that, I switched into Religious Studies, and I'm crawling towards completion. I felt like I never quite fit within the mathematics circle, because I never quite bought into the pursuit of the high-paying career and the whole technology for the sake of technology game. Switching into the liberal arts has left me still feeling like an outsider, but for various other reasons.

One class that I'm taking this semester is called Religion and Peace-building. It is offered through the Peace and Conflict Studies department at Conrad Grebel University College. Many of the students in the class are in the PACS program, using it either as a major or minor. Everyone in the class sees peace as a good thing. What divides the class however is our various views of religion. There are a few devoted Christians, a Muslim, a Jew, and a number of people that are "not religious, but heavily spiritual."

For the last four classes, we've had various guest speakers representing various religions, and their stance on peace. People have been complaining (amongst themselves, not to the prof) that the speakers only talk about theoretical practice of religion, and how each one should be peaceful.

They are frustrated that we only talk about the ideal, and never when those religions "fail" and wars go on despite religious unity, or worse, because of religious conflict. It seems to me that many of these people are really looking for a class called "Religion and War-building". I feel like telling these people, "Look this is what we do, talk about the theoretical crap. If you wanted concrete solutions, switch out of PACS and get a real job." Much of the academic institution within our society readily blames religions for most, if not all, international conflicts (not to mention domestic violence etc.). It seems to be a strangely new idea to a lot of these folk that religions can (and should) be peaceful.

I certainly don't want to hide the historical link between the Christian church, nor do I want to hide behind the pacifist tradition of my spiritual and biological ancestors, but Christianity can and should be a peaceful religion, and I want to show that. It seems however to be an argument that is lost before it begins.

   [ posted by William @ 1:27 PM ]