The Clash of Civilizations
Since's last week's bombings, the reality of the clash between civilizations can now longer be talked about in an abstract, academic way. The plurality of major belief systems in the world today, codified most famously by Huntingdon, doesn't simply produce interesting anthropological theses or an extended curator's explanation of the Taj Mahal or Angkor Wat's Buddhas or the Golden Palace at Armistar. The clash of civilizations is just that - a clash. And don't be fooled that Islam is the only civilzation which suffers from dubious hermeneutics; witness Buddha's warriors wreacking havoc in Sri Lanka, militant Hindu's waging war in India, the anarchists on the streets of Genoa, and even Christianity's later day fighters in Northern Uganda.
Western Europe is no longer immune from the turbulence, now measured in lives and lims lost, caused at the fault lines of ideology. Suicide bombers are no longer confined to the streets of the West Bank or Gaza; they live in our midst, and bomb in our midst. We have not experience such a fundamental clash of ideology since the superpowers of the Cold War faced off against each other. Even then the conflict was played out not on the streets of London, but in Angola, Korea, Indo-China and Cuba. Before that Hitler and his ideologues ensured that many of our city ccentres have a modern look about them. These conflicts and clashes were fundamental and intractable but arose out of the same heritage. Hitler and Churchill would have read the same classics, learnt the same history, listened to the same composers. They were the flip sides of the same coin. Nietzsche and Russell are least shared the same cultural soil. This produced a faternal squabble that sucked in big brothers who would reap untold havoc and destruction for six years.
But today we are confronted with the what Fukuyama has called the end of history. Liberal democracy has won the ideological battle we are told. Really? Has the cultural output of the West so dazzled the rest into friendship? Or doesn't the rest hate the west for its denegration of women into objects of lust, its captivity to the market?
And in the face of people undaunted by the Western baubles of money, women and power do we possess the resources - philosophical or religious - to offer a viable alternative to what Blair calls an evil ideology? The challenges that we face are not familiar to us and are not accents readily understandable. But as Christians we must start to delve into what we actually believe. Not what our culture has lured us into thinking we believe but what God's revelation in Jesus actually mandates us to do and believe. Otherwise, we will remain silent looking at each other and just hoping that sheer numbers and tabloid invective might cow the bombers into hiding. We live in a period in which our deepest held beliefs and institutions are being challenged, on every level and here is the chance to tell again the story of Israel chosen and elected and her Messiah, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, the peace child who brings shalom to the world.
Western Europe is no longer immune from the turbulence, now measured in lives and lims lost, caused at the fault lines of ideology. Suicide bombers are no longer confined to the streets of the West Bank or Gaza; they live in our midst, and bomb in our midst. We have not experience such a fundamental clash of ideology since the superpowers of the Cold War faced off against each other. Even then the conflict was played out not on the streets of London, but in Angola, Korea, Indo-China and Cuba. Before that Hitler and his ideologues ensured that many of our city ccentres have a modern look about them. These conflicts and clashes were fundamental and intractable but arose out of the same heritage. Hitler and Churchill would have read the same classics, learnt the same history, listened to the same composers. They were the flip sides of the same coin. Nietzsche and Russell are least shared the same cultural soil. This produced a faternal squabble that sucked in big brothers who would reap untold havoc and destruction for six years.
But today we are confronted with the what Fukuyama has called the end of history. Liberal democracy has won the ideological battle we are told. Really? Has the cultural output of the West so dazzled the rest into friendship? Or doesn't the rest hate the west for its denegration of women into objects of lust, its captivity to the market?
And in the face of people undaunted by the Western baubles of money, women and power do we possess the resources - philosophical or religious - to offer a viable alternative to what Blair calls an evil ideology? The challenges that we face are not familiar to us and are not accents readily understandable. But as Christians we must start to delve into what we actually believe. Not what our culture has lured us into thinking we believe but what God's revelation in Jesus actually mandates us to do and believe. Otherwise, we will remain silent looking at each other and just hoping that sheer numbers and tabloid invective might cow the bombers into hiding. We live in a period in which our deepest held beliefs and institutions are being challenged, on every level and here is the chance to tell again the story of Israel chosen and elected and her Messiah, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, the peace child who brings shalom to the world.
posted by chris at 4:32 PM
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