Belief and Conflict

The Catholic Thing

By David G Bonagura, Jr. We hear it said ad nauseam: "Our society is so polarized." "Polar," or "related to the geographic pole," is more dramatic than "divided." To speak of things as polar opposites separates factions or ideas as far as possible from one another. Standard education these days assumes that Europe, beginning with the Reformation, became polarized between Catholics and Protestants (and, later, between Anglicans and Puritans in England) who fought bitter wars against one another over matters of religious belief. After exhaustive fighting, the religions declared a truce of sorts: ignore religious differences and get along on the economic and political levels. This truce has brought us to the present day. As the historian Christopher Dawson described it, "once men had admitted the principle that a heretic could be a good citizen (and even that an infidel could be a good man of business), they inevitably tended to regard this common ground of practical action as the real world, and the exclusive sphere of religion as a private world, whether of personal faith or merely private opinion." Contemporary society has buried religion so deeply within the private realm that invoking God in public causes some to have nervous breakdowns or file lawsuits. But if religion is private and marginal, how has our post-Christian society become so polarized? Shouldn't we all be getting along now that division over religious beliefs no longer affects our politics? Religious belief is far from the only kind of belief, which is an assertion of what a person thinks to be true. Many types of belief - political, social, professional, organizational - animate the lives of everyone to one degree or another. Some beliefs can be utterly trivial, yet they can mean the world to us. For the truth, however perceived or misperceived, compels adherence and action. Hence beliefs of any kind or size can divide us. Two executives can quarrel over the best time to begin a meeting, two friends can argue bitterly about the best sports players, husband and wife can scream over the best color for bathroom tiles. Insistence on one belief over the other can lead to damaged relationships and even violence. Belief, then, inevitably leads to conflict, which is part of human nature - not the fault of religion. What overcomes the conflict? The willingness to agree on a different belief that brings the opposites together in a new cause. Executives can move beyond their timing dispute when they join forces for the next task at hand. Friends arguing over sports "agree to disagree," and that shared acceptance brings them back into harmony. Spouses overlook the other's poor taste in home décor thanks to the love between them. And our society today, polarized over political and cultural beliefs, could, in theory, find other beliefs as the basis for a more stable union. Religion, then, of itself, cannot be a public toxin as alleged. Human beings have all sorts of beliefs and will fight to the death over them in some cases. Preserving the union was one. Making the world safe for democracy another. Protecting personal honor a third. The list is endless, from the grand belief to the petty. When it comes to politics, disagreement over political beliefs is as widespread as over religion. The ratio of political opinions to religious denominations is one-to-one. So why does religious belief still carry a public stigma as a cause of conflict? Because generation after generation has believed the lie that religion is private and irrelevant to human life. Politics, by contrast, is exalted for its immediate practicality: where to build the road or what law to pass. So society allows political polarization but rejects religious polarization, for, in a materialist society that privatizes religion, only the former kind of beliefs are considered meaningful. This lie dehumanizes, for it has silenced the religious impulse that exists within each person. Religion is natural to human bei...