Apocalypse Now?: Reflections on Faith in a Time of Terror

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Exclusive web offer for individuals. Reflections on Faith in a Time of Terror. Add to Wish List. Toggle navigation Additional Book Information. Summary How may people of faith respond wisely, constructively, and courageously to the challenges of a time of terror? How might religious reasons in public debate be a force for reconciliation rather than violence and hatred? In a world in which religious arguments and religious motivations play such a huge public role, there is an urgent responsibility for interpreting what is happening, and engaging with religious views which are commonly regarded as alien, threatening or dangerous.

Moving between two times of terror - the early Centuries of Christianity, and today - Forrester asks how religious motivations can play a positive role in the midst of conflicts and disasters. Reading the 'signs of the times' to try to understand what is happening in today's age of terror, Forrester argues that there are huge resources in the Christian tradition that can be productively deployed for a more constructive and faithful response.

We are at a turning point - this is a book which should be read. Table of Contents Contents: He is now Emeritus Professor. The encounter with Marxism after the Second World War was particularly significant. The Marxist—Christian dialogue deeply influenced Liberation Theology, articulating and supporting its passion for justice, its confidence in the historical process and its emphasis on structural sin. Yet all the while compelling evidence was accumulating not only that things under Stalin in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe had gone dramatically wrong, but that the Gulag was as awful a structural evil as the Holocaust.

Disillusion with the Marxist project spread fast, as people realized it was not in practice good news, but the very opposite. Yet the Marxist variant of the Enlightenment critique of religion to the effect that it was the opium of the people that made the masses resigned to their lot because they lived in a fantasy world continued to reinforce the general belief in the West that religion was a largely malign relic of the past, like the state in Marxist theory doomed to wither away.

But to many today it is Marxism which seems to be the fantasy which obscures rather than revealing reality, and gives little help in understanding the world in which we now live. With the end of ideology for much of the world the winds have gone out of the sails of utopia, and as a consequence the ideologies that claimed to be in some sense good news, able to interpret and assess today through the lens of hope for a better tomorrow, have all but disintegrated. Radical theology is left looking for new dialogue partners that operate in similar ground to that of theology.

And liberal democracy has been shown in Britain and the United States, and many other democracies as well, as a system which can be manipulated by irresponsible forces, and where wealth rather than debate wins the day. Since the Peace of Westphalia, world politics has been dominated by relations between states and balances of power.

In addition, as Bernard Lewis has forcefully argued, Muslims commonly see themselves as belonging primarily to a religion subdivided into nations, rather like some understandings of the old Christendom. And almost universally liberal democracy is said to be essentially secular, or at lest demanding a clear barrier between the spheres of politics and those of religion. As we have seen, in the West there has been, especially among intellectuals, an increasing suspicion of religion, combined with a strange confidence that religion is rapidly declining and is indeed on the way to public oblivion.

Sometimes these secular intellectuals give the impression of dancing on the grave of religion. But others believe that religion is far from dead, and indeed in some places is experiencing a resurrection.

Holy War and Unholy Terror, London: Pennsylvania State University Press, p. It is impossible responsibly either to applaud or to deplore such a development. It is full of actualities and possibilities of good and of evil. But any considered response should take into account the reality of what is happening rather than what the observer wishes were happening.

Hope and Social Critique What much of the world sees today is not the end of history but the replacement of the restraints and constraints of the old balance of power, and especially the balance of terror of the Cold War times, with a single superpower, and the almost unchallengeable hegemony of the West. Ironically Fukuyama predicted that the consequence of would be not only the end of ideology, but also the end of religion as a significant player in the public arena.

He could not have been more wrong. If we indeed stand at the end of history, as Francis Fukuyama proclaims, there is nothing left to hope for. The absolute moment is now. All that is left is to fine-tune heaven. We are better off without them. Lyotard , Postmodern Fables, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, p. Hart eds , Hope Against Hope, London: Darton, Longman and Todd, p. The next chapter will examine the extraordinary resurgence of religion around the world that secular thinkers like Francis Fukuyama and many other secular theorists find hard to understand and take into account.

There are a variety of interpretations of this development. This is perhaps true of the United States more markedly even than the Middle East and the southern hemisphere, where to some extent societies were immune to the Enlightenment, and were seldom as dominated by secular ideologies as the West.

Religion there has always been a major player in the public arena.

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Those, on the other hand, who agree with Fukuyama that we stand at the end of history tend to see the worldwide resurgence of religion as a wild and desperate protest against the modern world and all modernity stands for. For some, resurgent religion is the only way of opposing American Empire and its supportive ideologies. Others again see liberal democracy, especially as exemplified in the United States, as itself offering a vacuum of values under a thin veneer of Christianity, in which immorality, faithlessness and irreligion flourish without restraint.

Sexual torture and degradation in Abu Ghraib prison, and other horrific incidents, confirm such opinions. And it is easy to argue that religion, meaning in this case right-wing conservative Christianity, has never been as influential in American politics as it is today in the presidency of George W. Kepel argues that, since the s, not only has there been a massive recrudescence of the great world faiths, but this has taken a new form: Apocalyptic Religion and American Empire, London: A new religious approach took shape, aimed no longer at adapting to secular values but at recovering a sacred foundation for the organization of society — by changing society if necessary.

Expressed in a multitude of ways, this approach advocated moving on from a modernism that had failed, attributing its setbacks and dead ends to separation from God. Thus the theological debate within particular religious systems, and dialogue between religions assume a vast importance, for their fruits may do great good or wreak havoc with the social order. These religious discussions are far more important than the self-consciously secular discussions in the western public forum, with John Rawls and his like as the gatekeepers.

This scenario that Huntington and Kepel depict makes a clash, or clashes, of civilizations highly likely, if not inevitable. And Huntington is now quite specific: These Muslim wars have replaced the Cold War as the principal form of international conflict. It is true that there is a deep sense of grievance among many Muslims and it is not hard to appreciate at least some of the roots of this. There are certainly economic and political foundations for Muslim fears and anger, but most Muslims would affirm that the single most important factor for them is Muslim faith, as variously interpreted.

The Public Voice of Resurgent Religion 37 and authoritative sacred writings which may incite, or discipline, surges of anger and encourage the faithful either to hit back, remorselessly seeking vengeance and vindication, or with quiet faithfulness and even resignation leave the issue in the hands of God. The debates about theology and holy books, and about apocalyptic are thus important, for they can deeply influence behaviour for good or ill, and they are arguably more influential in the politics and economics of the world today than any secular ideology or theory.

Competing Religions What we face today, for better or for worse, is a world dominated by diverse religions, competing political theologies and radically different understandings of God and the world, of what faith means, and of the kind of practice which is appropriate for believers. The diversity, conflict and suspicion is both within and between these competing and very different religious traditions.

We have all now experienced religion as justifying and motivating radical evil. The world religions on the whole share a deep suspicion of modern western secularism, although to be sure some expressions of Christianity have sought an accommodation with secularism, or have even, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer or Harvey Cox, felt that as Christians they should celebrate secularism and the new possibilities for faith that it offers.

The encounter over recent centuries of Christianity and Judaism with secularism may have lessons, positive and negative, to teach other religions which have more recently engaged with secularism. But secularism as such is widely regarded outside the West as effectively another religious system, or a quasi-religious outcome of Christianity. Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, even Buddhism have shown themselves frequently to be aggressive, intolerant and arrogant.

Modern history is full of conflicts, atrocities and crimes which have been at least in part religiously motivated. One thinks of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, the continuing spiral of violence in Israel and Palestine, the bitter communal conflicts between Hindu and Muslim in India, to say nothing of Northern Ireland, or the long agony of Afghanistan.

Even if some of these conflicts can be seen as primarily political or economic, we must not dodge the fact that they are commonly seen by those at the eye of the storm as essentially religious. And at this point it is worth remembering that certain forms of secularism, such as Communism and Nazism, have wrought in the twentieth century at least as much evil as any explicitly religious system. Religion can be, and often is, a very evil thing, but modern attempts to eliminate religion, say in the Soviet Union, not only were markedly unsuccessful, but in many ways appear to have backfired.

Religion seems not only to survive, but often to flourish, under persecution of one sort or another: We have to learn how to cope constructively with the modern manifestations of religion, in all their moral ambiguity and their moral magnificence. There is not nearly enough real and realistic dialogue between religions, and many religions are at pains to silence internal critical and questioning voices. We need, for example, more prominent Muslim voices questioning the view of Islam and the eschatology of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

In the real world, things are never black and white, but always in shades of grey. And if there is to be real dialogue between religions about the state of the world and what should be done, the conversation has to be attentive, serious, engaging with the subtext as well as the text, attempting strenuously to understand the other. And religious believers should be peculiarly qualified to enter sympathetically and with understanding into religious positions, attitudes and practices that they do not themselves share.

But it is sadly only too common for religious people to affirm arrogantly that they possess the whole truth, and to show in consequence huge resistance to learning from those of other faiths, or of none. In all the great religions there are major internal conflicts, and varying attitudes to modernity and post-modernity. And these same Muslims may suggest fairly enough that Christianity in some of its forms has capitulated too easily to the Enlightenment. All the resurgent religions have a public voice which they hope to make powerfully heard throughout the world through actions, through the modern mass media and through personal contacts and conversations.

These voices are often strident, angry and threatening. Almost always they claim to be rooted in fundamental theological truths, and regard the theological expression as indispensable. There is a serious problem in seeing how religious discourse may be constructive and unifying rather than destructive and divisive.

Almost the only thing that most of the public and conflicting voices of religion have in common today is a conviction that theology matters, that theology is a, or the, bearer of truth and that theology should have a central place in public debate. In such a confusing and conflictual situation, a number of ways forward have been presented, and need to be examined. No world peace without peace between the religions.

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It has become increasingly clear to me in recent years that the one world in which we live has a chance of survival only if there is no longer in it any room for spheres of differing, contradictory and even antagonistic ethics. This one world needs one basic ethic. This one world society certainly does not need a unitary religion and a unitary ideology, but it does need some norms, values, ideals and goals to bring it together and to be binding on it.

We are then left simply with the law of the jungle. But neither Declaration mentions God — apparently at the insistence of the Buddhist participants in the discussion and formulation of the Declarations. Religion thus remains a possible or necessary foundation for ethics, and a global ethics can only be founded on the great world religions, which have, he argues, a great amount of moral belief in common. To be specific, anyone in the prophetic tradition who truly believes in God should in practice be concerned with human wellbeing.

In all these instances human wellbeing and dignity as the basic principle and goal of human ethics is brought out with unconditional authority — in a way that only the religions can and may do it. That means human life, integrity, freedom and solidarity in quite specific instances. Human dignity, human freedom and human rights can thus not only be stated in positivistic terms, but also given a basis in an ultimate depth, a religious basis.

Harvard University Press, His book starts with two chapters on politics and economics, using Kissinger, Richelieu, Bismark, Woodrow Wilson and Hans Morgenthau as representatives of varying traditions of theory and practice. The political section concludes with a chapter on world peace and the role of religion in peacemaking, with examples and warnings from Yugoslavia and elsewhere. The economics section likewise covers a lot of ground, from the crisis of the welfare state to the principles of business ethics, by way of discussion of neocapitalism, the market economy, sustainable development, and other matters.

Much of it is moralizing rather than rigorous reflection on ethical issues and, when it turns to deal with really complex developments such as the Rwanda genocide, or the break-up of Yugoslavia, it is clear that good intentions and vague moral principles are not enough. And this is laudable and important. But the really interesting and difficult questions such as why the world religions find it so hard to work together beyond the pronouncement of pious generalities and ethical platitudes, and why religion is so often at the root of oppression, injustice and violence, and what can be done about these things, are hardly addressed.

Deep-seated differences between religions, and within religions, about theology and ethics are passed over almost without a mention. But he hardly goes any distance in spelling out what an ethic of responsibility would actually involve. But the real problems arise, not so much at the level of general principle, but rather when one is attempting to resolve concrete and complex issues on the ground, where there are various views on what is at stake, conflicting interests involved, and no clear-cut and agreed resolution in sight.

In such situations, in the muck and grime of the real world, agreement on general principles often falls apart. It is intended to help us to understand what is going on in the world better, and respond more effectively. Perhaps this might go some way towards avoiding the Clash of Civilizations that Samuel Huntington predicts.

There is therefore a major place for serious and honest interreligious dialogue, as well as for debate within Islam. And, in this debate, Christians may offer lessons that have been learned from the experience of Christianity with the complex and enticing notion of Christendom. The Public Voice of Resurgent Religion 43 development of the ancient idea that there is a common morality which is shared by most or all human beings and is accessible to, and binding upon, all rational beings independent of their religious belief, or lack of it.

This position takes two principal forms today. The first suggests that, in western societies, Christian values have penetrated so deeply into the culture that a major task for the churches and theology is to affirm and strengthen these implanted moral values, which at heart are Christian, but may well be supported by those of many faiths, or of none.

Despite secularization, the decline in Christian practice and the increase in the number of adherents of other religions who live in Britain, Britain is still a basically Christian nation and culture, so the argument runs. The task is to affirm these values of decency and basic morality, on which there is already a widespread consensus. The Church may proclaim more loudly the good the world already knows; but not the good that comes to the world as news.

But this language is limited and circumscribed. We also need a richer, and necessarily more controversial, language of the good if we are to be able to handle complex issues effectively. And what if the assumptions that the operative common morality sustains are seriously mistaken, and need to be challenged? Harvie , By What Authority? While Yoder recognized the need for some common language of morals, he argued that this common morality is limited and needs constantly to be challenged and enriched by insights from Christian discipleship.

Christians need in discussion with non-Christians to decide what is the right thing to do. Scarce resources cannot be spent everywhere. But sometimes through our ethics and our behaviour we have to witness to the truth of the gospel, the truth of our theology. The other approach to common morality has a distinguished ancestry. It is natural law. This forms the backbone of Roman Catholic moral teaching to this day. It is universal, valid everywhere and binding on everyone.

This account of natural law has been challenged by John Howard Yoder in a remarkable passage: But the way to affirm our respect for others is to respect their particularity and learn their languages, not to project in their absence a claim that we see the truth of things with an authority unvitiated by our particularity. University of Notre Dame Press, p.

The Public Voice of Resurgent Religion 45 gospel. Karl Barth, for instance, launched a frontal attack on the notion of natural law as part of his repudiation of natural theology. It was, he held, based on the frail foundation of fallen human reason, and denied the specificity of the divine command, while Stanley Hauerwas and his disciples reject any universalising ethic. And confidence in natural law as traditionally understood seems to be weakening even in the Roman Catholic Church.

Furthermore there has been an increasing use of biblical motifs alongside natural law arguments, as if to suggest that natural law reasoning has its limits, and requires supplementation or correction by more confessional language. This debate is not only important in itself, but it has some perplexing features and ironies.

In the first place, the way it is outlined and pursued reflects the rapid and radical secularization among liberal American intellectuals in the last few decades. We now have predominantly sceptical or agnostic intellectuals in a society in which, unlike Western Europe, most people profess religious belief, and religious observance continues to flourish exceedingly — some would say excessively.

Their consensus is that only rational arguments which do not rely on any other source of wisdom than the human reason may be admitted. Rationality is often left rather loosely defined. Behind this there lies, of course, a host of assumptions about religion as something primitive which is doomed to disappear with the advance of enlightenment, and religion as a malign, divisive and threatening form of irrationality. John Rawls is perhaps the most open and influential of the social theorists I have in mind at this point.

It has been argued that Rawls has moved from a position where he regarded religion in all its forms as simply divisive, arbitrary and irrational, and thus to be excluded as far as possible from the public realm and confined to private life. Now his view seems to be slightly more sympathetic, or realistic, in relation to religion. In recent writings he seems to be saying that religious views may be admitted to the public forum provided they meet the commonly accepted criteria of public reasoning, and can be expressed in secular, non-religious terms.

He instances the Roman Catholic understanding of natural law as just such a transposition of religious views into secular form to qualify them for admission to public debate. In a democratic society, he argues, there will be a variety of reasonable world-views which however converge in supporting a common understanding of justice, and the fundamental principles of social order.

There are two important issues here. Is the introduction here of the criterion of reasonability a way of excluding from the discussion overconfident religious or ideological systems that wish to reshape the society, or which challenge the existing order of things, or indeed which ask fundamental critical questions? Such systems are often only too reasonable and intellectually coherent! Is it possible that comprehensive positions which modern secular western intellectuals find peculiarly difficult to understand and appreciate are, on that ground, dismissed as unreasonable, almost out of intellectual laziness?

Harvard University Press, p. Is it not possible that the most interesting, challenging, distinctive and important things that the believers in a reasonable comprehensive doctrine feel they have to offer in the public sphere may be resolutely relegated to the private and ecclesiastical spheres by Rawls and his ilk because they do not lie in the consensual overlap?

In the public sphere one should refrain from using religious language, or references to the distinctive resources of a particular tradition. Beyond that, Rawls now recognizes that religion is a part of civil society which may, or may not, strengthen the civic virtues and encourage attachment to democracy. In America, we have a very religious country, in which religion increasingly clearly shapes political thought, policy and behaviour, and yet it has an increasingly aggressively secular intellectual establishment which nurtures suspicion, misunderstanding and sometimes hostility towards religion, and often regards religion as such as primitive, divisive and dangerous.

Religious arguments may be admitted by these secular gatekeepers to the public realm only if translated without remainder into secular language. The secular view is thus privileged, and the gatekeepers are self-appointed in a society that is deeply religious. Furthermore the whole debate seems strangely parochial, and isolated from what is happening in the rest of the world, let alone in the heartland of America. In a world that is so full of strongly held and powerful religious beliefs, we surely need a far broader and more hospitable forum if religious views are to be challenged and positive religious insights enabled to contribute to public debate, and enrich the life of society.

Rawls and his ilk are apparently in fundamental agreement with Fukuyama about the place of religion in the public sphere. Neither appears to have much sympathy with, or understanding of, a typical Muslim, or a right-wing evangelical Christian, for that matter. The haunting suspicion persists that we are now talking of different and incompatible understandings of the right and the good, resting on radically different theologies. These differences must be confronted directly. But what a dull and petty public forum Rawls would leave us with. Common morality, including natural law thinking, may be important, useful and even necessary — or it may be trivial or even idolatrous.

But surely the task of the Church is to offer its distinctive insights and challenges rather than jumping on the bandwagon and announcing the moral truths that everyone is affirming anyway? Social Ethics as Gospel, Notre Dame: It shook to their foundations all sorts of assumptions about politics, culture and religion. It suggested that we were all living in an apocalyptic age and that we need a new language — or an old language revived — if we are to understand and respond appropriately and faithfully to what is happening.

The conventional forms of language and of political and religious discourse in the secular West seemed inadequate to the new task, understanding and responding to this turning point in history. Everyday ordinary language seems quite incapable of fulfilling this task. It is part of the argument of this book that, if we turn back to examine again the type of apocalyptic thought and language which is closest to us — particularly Biblical apocalyptic — we may be able better to understand and respond to what is happening in this age of terror, and the strange and sometimes terrible forms of discourse which are used, on both sides, to explain, to exhort and to justify.

Back in the s, for instance, there was another gigantically significant turning point in history, when the first atomic bomb was tested in the New Mexico desert. This made even leading scientific protagonists in the development of the bomb at a loss for words, and often enough they fell back on classical religious forms of discourse.

Ordinary words were quite inadequate to describe what had happened and its significance. Oppenheimer found that 49 50 Apocalypse Now? If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky, that would be like the radiance of the Mighty One. As he watched the mushroom cloud rise ominously above the desert, another line from the Gita came to mind: The driver had a radio on, and told me what was happening as we spoke.

My immediate reaction was that this was unreal, a fantasy generated by a diseased mind, a rerun, perhaps, of the broadcasting of H. Such things do not happen in our secure and ordered world. We have become accustomed to imagining that we are invulnerable; the horrors happen far away, or on our television screens. But quickly it became clear that this time the horrifying events in New York and Washington were real. The twin towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were, of course, immensely powerful symbolic edifices, shrines of economic and military power.

That was precisely why they were chosen for attack by assailants who were well aware of the language of symbolism, and saw their actions as communications which were part of a cosmic religious drama, and indeed which were justified as acts of obedience to the command of God. Garrison , From Hiroshima to Harrisburg, London: Garrison, From Hiroshima to Harrisburg, p.

They have been telling the world falsehoods that they are fighting terrorism. In a nation at the far end of the world, Japan, hundreds of thousands, young and old were killed and this is not a world crime. To them it is not a clear issue.

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A million children in Iraq, to them this is not a clear issue … As to America, I say to it and its people a few words: I swear to God that America will not live in peace before peace reigns in Palestine, and before all the army of infidels depart the land of Muhammad, peace be upon him. We have now the final instructions to the hijackers of 11 September. Rather than outlining the tactics for taking over the planes and flying them into their targets, the hijackers were enjoined thus: Purify your soul from all unclean things. Be happy, optimistic, calm because you are heading for a deed that God loves and will accept … Smile in the face of hardship, young man, for you are heading toward paradise … Remember this is a battle for the sake of God … Either end your life while praying, seconds before the target, or make your last words: Muhammad is his messenger.

Thinking about Religion after September 11, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. Not one stone will be left here upon another, all will be thrown down. When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed, this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines.

This is but the beginning of the birth pangs … As for yourselves, beware; for they will hand you over to councils; and you will be beaten in synagogues; and you will stand before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them. And the good news must first be proclaimed to all nations … Beware, keep alert, for you do not know when the time will come. They come from the heart of the New Testament, and were clearly believed to be a way of communicating gospel — good news. But they did not speak of the day-to-day world I inhabit, and much of this apocalyptic scenario in the Bible I found, and still find, inaccessible.

This little passage of Christian apocalyptic makes some points very clearly. The permanence, solidity, finality of the temple as the sign of the religious and political order is denied. It will not last; we should not put our trust in such passing symbolic structures, or in what they signify. Faithfulness will be very hard, for false messiahs and false ideas will crowd around. The temptation to recognize the pretensions of the powerful, and live in peace in a world that is dominated by lies will be compelling.

Northcott , An Angel Directs the Storm: The Rebirth of Apocalyptic 53 Violence and wars will abound, along with vast natural catastrophes. These are not signs of the impotence or the absence of God, but they are the context in which God is working out his project for good. They are, paradoxically, signs of hope, the beginning of the birth pangs of the new order which God will establish.

In the midst of all this turmoil there are the faithful ones. Somehow, strangely, in the midst of all this devastation and rage, the Good News is to be proclaimed to all nations. They watch and they witness. They do not fight, or seek to destroy their persecutors. They wait in faith and hope, with great courage. In this little passage and its parallels we see already some of the characteristics of apocalyptic in general, and also some of the distinctive features of Christian apocalyptic.

Disciples are to wait in hope and love. They are not to attempt to take things into their own hands. Above all, they are not to turn to violence. This is for disciples a time of testing, and many will fail that test and stray from the ways of truth. Passages like the one from Mark seemed that day and since both to be challenging to me as one who tries to be a disciple, and to take the Bible seriously, and also to provide some kind of clues to the thought world that the hijackers, and bin Laden, and millions of American born-again Evangelicals, and many other religious believers today, as in the past, inhabit, and how they express their fury, their despair and their hope.

My puzzlement and horror was surely part of the more general problem for us of understanding and relating to forms and expressions of religion that we see as bizarre and dangerous, and often deeply offensive: There was thus a great deal of unabashedly and irreducibly apocalyptic religious language used about the events of 11 September, on both sides. We saw the rebirth of apocalyptic images, for good and for ill. Both sides embraced a Manichaean polarization between the absolute good — us — and the absolute evil — our antagonists.

The hijackers, as we have seen, received a kind of perverse spiritual discipline as they prepared for what they 54 Apocalypse Now? But perhaps this language in the long run is at least as important as the more strident tones that dominate the world. Rowan Williams points to the contrast between the two kinds of language: University of Chicago Press, p. Reflections on 11th September and its Aftermath, London: Hodder and Stoughton, pp. The Rebirth of Apocalyptic 55 last book of the New Testament, which is a classic and sustained example of apocalyptic literature, is known as Revelation, or as the Apocalypse.

And, beyond the canon, there are numerous instances of apocalyptic themes in the religious literature of early Christianity and of Judaism, and rather later in Muslim literature. Furthermore there has been an extraordinary and almost continuous and sustained engagement with apocalyptic literature in Christianity, which has had a major revival in our times, both at the scholarly and at more popular circles. This revelation or unveiling is commonly associated with despair about the condition of the world, and the expectation of its imminent destruction.

The earthly powers and their claims of permanence and finality are consistently challenged. It challenges and relativizes the claims of the Powers, and accordingly gives solace and encouragement to the faithful. The straining for the recovery of old keys for the interpretation of what is radically new and threatening has its dangers, of course.

A turning to religious language and religious symbols may indicate a recognition that the issues are grave, and that unusual resources are needed to cope with 14 John J. Collins , The Apocalyptic Imagination: Eerdmans; also Duane F. Religious symbols may inflame rather than illumine, and religious rhetoric excite rather than clarify. This is precisely the point at which a major intellectual responsibility comes into view: But we have our problems, too, the most relevant of which is how we can analyse and describe religious symbolic structures from the outside, as it were.

Modern liberal intellectuals and believers are more or less excluded from the realm of apocalyptic. We find it hard to understand why and how people inhabit such structures, and allow them to shape their faith and life, for good or ill. And we presume, perhaps too quickly, that apocalyptic is primitive and perhaps inherently evil. Yet we live in a world in which secular liberal rationalists are a small minority, and huge numbers of people understand their world in the light of religious symbolic structures that sometimes seem bizarre to others.

They find in apocalyptic religion their public and political motivation and solace. It can all be dismissed as pathological fanaticism, or the manipulation of religion and religious people for sordid political ends, but the task of understanding is the precondition for intelligent and effective response. And so far the efforts at understanding have not been particularly impressive or illuminating.

There is a long and sad history showing how western secular failure to understand particularly radical Islam has led to ill-advised and sometimes disastrous action in many 16 Suleyman tells me he grew weary of his non-religious upbringing: The Rebirth of Apocalyptic 57 contexts. In my view, this tension between the secular and the religious was a major contributing factor to the failure of both Iranians and Westerners to recognise the revolution in its early stages and to gauge properly its actual course and eventual outcome.

We are all prisoners of our own cultural assumptions, more than we care to admit … The participation of the church in a revolutionary movement was neither new nor particularly disturbing, but the notion of a popular revolution leading to the establishment of a theocratic state seemed so unlikely as to be absurd. Before his own kidnapping it seemed that Terry Waite was better able than the formal diplomats to understand the radical Islamic forces and negotiate with them, precisely because he was himself a religious man, and the representative of a major religious leader.

Although neither of them claimed to be an observant Christian, their captors automatically provided them with Bibles, assuming that they would read and meditate on their holy book each day. The possibility of atheism or agnosticism was not conceivable to their captors. And some American actions and policies are best explained by the influence of a certain kind of apocalyptic thought on the inner circles around President Bush. And perhaps a question for us is not so much why people fall victim to, or embrace, a pathological apocalypticism, but rather why many people in the West who are themselves believers have difficulty in understanding or appreciating or engaging with an apocalyptic faith.

It exposes the idolatry which from top to bottom infuses and inspires the political, economic and social realities in which its readers live, and calls them to an uncompromising Christian witness to the true God who despite earthly appearances is sovereign. Oxford University Press, pp. The Rebirth of Apocalyptic 59 Apocalyptic, as it were, comes to life, or is reborn, in times of crisis. In the first place, apocalyptic claims to reveal, unveil, make manifest the inner reality of what is actually happening in the world today. It is concerned to understand things as they are now, not simply to predict the future.

The powers of evil and the forces that have presented themselves as angels of light are unmasked, and believers are enabled to discern what is really happening. Apocalyptic denies the finality and acceptability of the existing order of things pace Francis Fukuyama. The pretensions of rulers and dominant authorities are cut down to size and relativized.

An alternative order, in which the faithful, the weak and the excluded will have an honoured place, is not only possible, but it is promised, and it will break in and disrupt the existing order. Apocalyptic thus nourishes a confident hope not only that things can be different, but that they will be different, for, if believers are faithful, God will bring out of the present disorder a new era which will be characterized by peace and justice and the vindication of the oppressed. In much, perhaps most, apocalyptic, as in the book of Revelation, alongside a radical political critique, there is much imagery of a holy war.

In this war, the weak, despite appearances and expectations, are the real victors. The holy war may be a spiritual or a real conflict; God may take the initiative, or call on the saints to wage war on his behalf. But the Christian nature of authentically Christian apocalyptic is represented by the centrality in the Book of Revelation of Jesus, the triumphant Lamb that has been slain and who is praised by the faithful, singing a new song. There are, of course, specific problems associated with a lively apocalyptic world-view.

In the first place, the dualism of Jerusalem and Babylon in the 22 23 24 25 H. Rowley , The Relevance of Apocalyptic, London: Rowland , Open Heaven, pp. Christopher Rowland , Open Heaven, p. Book of Revelation or their equivalents in other systems of apocalyptic thought presents as central to its radical political critique a polarization between absolute evil and absolute good, which is at the least a colossal simplification of any actual situation in the world.

It can breed a very dangerous and unqualified self-righteousness. And these distortions can have a malign effect on political judgments and political action, as can a relativism which hesitates to make any clear distinction between good and evil. But apocalyptic, for the most part, is not written for the rulers who wrestle with the ambiguities of politics, but rather for the powerless and oppressed, to give them hope.

But time and again in history, as still today, rulers and the powerful have used apocalyptic imagery and language to justify and explain their purposes. A second major problem is that, while much apocalyptic encourages the saints to be patient until God brings their deliverance, other forms encourage the faithful to take things into their own hands, so that they understand themselves as saints combating and destroying unqualified evil in the name of God and at the direct command of God. In all forms of apocalyptic there tends to be a stress on the imagery of the holy war, often a spiritual rather than an actual war.

Those who perish in that war are regarded as virtuous martyrs and saints. For him the faithful are to wait, holding fast to truth, and being willing to suffer, while the decisive action has already been undertaken by Christ, the Lamb. Its message to the powerful, the prosperous and the complacent is a word of judgment, and a challenge to hear the uncomfortable word that the Spirit is saying to the churches and to the world.

And, for us, this demands careful attention to questions such as why young men will blow themselves to death and destroy multitudes of innocent lives in the process, believing that this is the will of God, and that their act is heroic. I will return to these issues in the next two chapters. Apocalyptic language is commonly, but certainly not always, the discourse of people who feel themselves weak, marginalized, oppressed and 26 Richard Bauckham a , The Climax of Prophecy: Studies in the Book of Revelation, Edinburgh: The Rebirth of Apocalyptic 61 forgotten.

It is language that motivates powerfully, for good or ill, and it is language which polarizes between Jerusalem and Babylon, the good and the evil, the saints and the wicked in a quite Manichaean way. This kind of polarization is always, of course, a huge simplification at the very least. In the real world we have much of the time to deal in subtle shades of grey rather than a contrast between black and white.

But sometimes we need to highlight the awfulness of evil or the mystery of goodness. The mythology of the IRA and of al-Qaida alike promises to give your life and death the most immense significance — heroism, martyrdom — you take control of your destiny by pledging it to a cause that is beyond moral question, even beyond the possibility of ultimate failure. You will not die meaninglessly; that is reserved for your victims. They now sing a new song in honour of the Lamb who has been slain and has absorbed into himself and overcome the rage and fear and violence of the world.

Williams , Writing in the Dust, p. Jesus has achieved on the cross. The image of the Lamb evokes Passover memories: It also evokes and interprets the event of cross and resurrection, for then and there, in an event in time, the determinative victory has been won. The saints do not withdraw from economic and political involvement. They are not passive but publicly challenging. They are called to expose and denounce the idolatry of Babylon, the arrogance of power and wealth. There shall be an end to death and to mourning and crying and pain, for the old order has passed away! But the city of God is not a refuge for the saints from the sinful world.

It is of cosmic and universal significance: By its light shall the nations walk, and to it the kings of the earth shall bring their splendour. The gates of the city shall never be shut by day, nor will there be any night there. The splendour and wealth of the nations shall be brought into it, but nothing unclean shall enter, nor anyone whose ways are foul or false. The Rebirth of Apocalyptic 63 its members a new understanding of virtue, but that is the subject of the next two chapters.

Who is our enemy and what can we fight him with? Where are our allies? Where was God on September the Eleventh? He was begging in old clothes in the subway beneath the World Trade Center. He was homeless in Gaza, imprisoned in Afghanistan, starving in Somalia, dying of Aids in an Angolan slum, suffering everywhere in this fast-shrinking world: When the time came he stretched his arms out once again to take the dreadful impact that would pierce his side.

Apocalypse Now?: Reflections on Faith in a Time of Terror

His last message on his fading cell phone once more to ask forgiveness for them all, before his body fell under the weight of so much evil. We line our weapons up: The complete poem may be found at www. Used here by kind permission. We now turn to discuss some of the ways in which an apocalyptic expression of the Christian gospel, which takes sin and evil, and forgiveness, with profound seriousness has been worked out down the ages, and may be constructive and challenging in the public sphere today.

Chapter 6 Conflicting Virtues: Why is a discussion of virtues and vices and the conflicts between them important in a book that is primarily concerned with trying to understand and respond to the present world situation, in a time of terror, particularly in its religious and political dimensions? Part of the answer should be that there is already a vigorous debate about virtues and vices taking place, with the American neoconservative thinker, Robert D. Kaplan, writing a book, Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos,1 in which he argues that the traditional Judaeo-Christian understanding and practice of virtue is enervating in the public sphere, and makes effective political leadership and military action in times of crisis impossible.

Hence, in the present situation, he argues that we should return to the old heroic pagan virtues of the ancient world, and their modern presentation by such as Machiavelli, if we are to hope to achieve anything effective in a time of terror. Why are the virtues — and the vices — still important? One may answer this question in terms of contemporary academic debates. But it is also true that a great deal of collective and individual behaviour today is shaped by understandings of what virtue is, understandings that are often wildly at variance with one another.

Ideas of virtue and of vice are incorporated into patterns of behaviour which they shape but which are often profoundly controversial. The present chapter will examine some of the basic continuing tensions in the understanding and the practice of virtue. Most modern moral philosophy and discussion of ethics centres on specific concrete decisions, and suggests guidelines such as duty, or the pursuit of the greatest good of the greatest number, as providing guidance for determining what actions are good.

We need, however, to be concerned with more than concrete moral decisions, and we should recognize that the choice before us is frequently not a matter of choosing quite simply between 1 Robert D. Kaplan , Warrior Politics: In a fallen world it is often necessary to discern and choose the lesser evil, and pursue a course of action which is not in itself good, and may indeed be sinful. Virtue ethics, however, affirms that a good person is one who is highly likely to do good actions without calculation or hesitation; for her doing good is a natural expression of who she is, a virtuous person who unconsciously is inclined to do the good.

And there are praiseworthy actions of a sort which cannot be understood as duties or as demanded by some kind of moral calculus, but are indubitably virtuous. It is a virtuous act of the sort that comes naturally to a virtuous person because virtue has been imbibed from her upbringing and personal convictions. Virtues are important; every culture and society recognizes virtues and vices, and presents virtues as commended and praised models of behaviour.

Characteristically an understanding of virtue is shaped by religion, but any society, social institution or army depends on having some commonly accepted standards of virtue and of vice which are constantly inculcated reviewed and debated. But above all, perhaps, models of virtue and of vice are tried out in the practices of life, in the choices we make, in the ways we understand ourselves as moral agents.

What we have today, he declared, is a set of totally incompatible 2 See J. University of Washington Press, pp. Such fundamental moral incompatibilities about the virtues were for MacIntyre central to his despairing attitude towards what he saw as the moral and ideological fragmentation and disintegration of western culture. But perhaps he underestimated the extent to which there has always been, in every culture and society, and between cultures and societies, significant disagreement about the virtues, about what actions are virtuous, and about the characteristics of the virtuous person.

The world is fuller than we once thought of conflicting and mutually unintelligible understandings of the virtues, which sometimes are death-dealing and bitter. The Enlightenment hope of producing a universal, rational and godless image of virtue has failed. Religion in a variety of forms is still robustly active in shaping a diversity of understandings of virtue. When we speak of ethical fragmentation we are not dealing with a unique expression of modernity or post-modernity. And in many ways the past is very much alive today.

So we look back before we look forward in the hope that the past may yield some helpful insights for today. A Study in Moral Theory, London: The Goddess Virtus or Arete was seen as the personification of the manly public virtues. The iconography presented her as bearing a sword in her right hand and a spear in her left. On her head was a helmet, and under her right foot there lay the helmet of a defeated adversary.

This icon clearly affirmed the centrality of military and aggressive excellence in the popular and officially sponsored understanding of virtue in the GraecoRoman world. The image of the virtuous warrior hero was rooted in the Homeric epics, and was solidly military. Socrates taught that virtue was a science: But the key issue for him and for most of the Greek philosophers was not so much to know what the virtues are, but rather how to be virtuous.

Such knowledge, when put into practice, ensures that our actions are virtuous. Guthrie , Socrates, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.

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Alastair MacIntyre , After Virtue, p. In many ways he appears to be an arrogant and self-confident aristocratic warrior. Poor people, according to this tradition, could not be expected to be virtuous in the true sense. All that was open to them, in terms of virtue, was obedience, conscientious fulfilment of their lowly tasks, and a proper humility, recognizing and accepting their lowly status.