Religion, Peace and the Post-Secular Public Sphere

Religion is often cited as a source of conflict and violence, but it also serves cause of peace in significant ways, including its calls for non-violence, unselfishness, forgiveness, reconciliation, and just war theory. The European Enlightenment caused many to discount religion's role in public affairs, but this is changing for multiple reasons, including fact that attempts to build a good society without religion have been unsuccessful.This article draws attention to more recent thought of Jurgen Habermas, a leading intellectual dedicated to the Enlightenment project. He represents a significant post-secular development in social theory with his awakening to religion's significance in his ideal of public sphere. The United Nations, too, is reassessing role of religion. Approaches to peace that remain religiously illiterate will fail to yield either accurate assessments or fruitful outcomes.If we consider quest for peace throughout history, we should not ignore role of religion. While religion is often cited, quite accurately, as a frequent contributor to conflict and violence, it has also, and more substantially served to advance cause of peace in many profound and substantial ways, including its calls for practices such as non-violence, restraint of acquisitiveness, forgiveness, reconciliation, and just-war theory. The human aspiration for peace has roots in religious ideals that are widely shared among world's religions, and which long pre- dated modern secular movements or ideologies.There are two good reasons to recognize religion's role in matters of peace and security. First of all, it is simply more truthful and scientific to acknowledge power of religion in world affairs. Secondly, by recognizing and understanding religion's role, one is better positioned to mitigate religion's negative impact and, at same time, encourage its positive potential.If we attribute discounting of religion's role in public affairs to European Enlightenment, and that intellectual and social movement's legacy, as expressed in Marxism, Darwinism, scientific reductionism, positivism, methodological atheism and secularization theory, it may be said that widespread denial of religion's significance is a fairly recent phenomenon, dating back only a few hundred years.Moreover, recent trends, since end of Cold War Era, have been precisely moving in a direction that acknowledges religion's ongoing role in human affairs. This new emphasis has multiple causes; two are obvious. First of all, perspectives which attempted to build good society without religion have been unsuccessful, or at least equally as unsuccessful as attempts by religious believers. Secondly, there is obvious empirical fact that religion continues to be a major force in lives of individuals and, taken in aggregate, in world affairs. Statistics show that there arc aPProximately 2 .2 billion Christians, 1.6 billion Muslims, 1 billion Hindus and 400 million Buddhists in world. One would have to live in a state of serious denial to fail to observe this reality. Moreover these believers are active in world as citizens, government leaders, scientists, educators, intellectuals, artists, and more. They impact social, political, and economic world.Stated a bit differently, predictions of withering away of religion as a necessary consequence of rise of science and rationality have not proven to be prophetic. In fact, post- Cold War classics such as Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations1 are illustrative of formidable presence of religion in fabric of ordinary life. For billions of people, religion continues to shape social, cultural, ethnic and national identities; as well as moral values and, in turn, human practices in world. Consider also Francis Fukuyama's recent study of Origins of Political Order. Fukuyama underscores religious origins of rule of law in West. …