Religion, Human Rights and Development Cooperation: Some New Wineskins*

Introduction
In the face of the resurgence of Hindu nationalism, an Indian writer puts to words the central concern pressing upon us : “There is now a peculiar double-bind in Indian politics: the ills of religion have found political expression but the strengths of it have not been available for checking corruption and violence in public life.” 1

This about sums up the task before us.

By way of moving forward, let me outline some perspectives already surfaced in this conference and reframe them, hoping that in doing so we can look at these things afresh and find some answers.

Some perspectives
The rise of political religions: imagining the past as future. The rise of fundamentalisms, -- whether Muslim, Christian or Hindu – is perhaps best seen as a reaction to the perceived decadence of western liberal democratic values. The Two-Thirds World, particularly, feel the threat of homogenizing forces from today’s global centers. In the face of these we are rediscovering the power of the old religions as a buttress against unwanted modernizing forces. The more reflective elements in these societies do not wish to be trapped in the ‘iron cage of modernity’ – with its impersonal rules and bureaucratic systems and the social costs of unbridled economic rationality.

Most of these societies, while linked to the global economy, remain, at bottom, traditional. Culture pride and identity often supersedes the desire for material wealth. This can be seen particularly in those with memories of a lost civilization and feel a sense of present humiliation, like the Arab world with its history of the Ottoman Empire and its splendid caliphates in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The past is re-imagined and projected as a goal for the future.

Secularism as ideology and secularization as a cultural development process. We need to make a distinction between secularism, which relegates religion to a corner of life, and secularization, which is a process of cultural elaboration and differentiation from the once dominant hold of religion as an institution. Both are historical products of the Protestant Reformation, issuing from Calvin’s idea that the whole earth is ‘theatre of God’s glory.’ The sciences, politics and the arts were freed from the dictates of the church, gaining what the statesman Abraham Kuyper calls ‘sphere sovereignty.’ Unfortunately, in the two hundred years after the Age of Reason or the Enlightenment, it broke away from these moorings. It came to mean that religion is to be kept in the private realm, without relevance to public life.

In contrast, most of the cultures of the world are still religiously-based. The western concept of religion as a private and separate compartment in life does not exist in any of my indigenous languages nor in Indian and Chinese languages. All of life is lived within a religious worldview. There is no divide between the secular and the sacred. It is only the modern West which has secularized and is an exception to this.

This wholism is consistent with the biblical understanding that all of life is religion. Jesus’ command to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and Luther’s doctrine of the ‘two swords’ does not mean that the church is separate from society. Augustine’s civitas dei and civitas terrena are both realms where God acts and is sovereign.

But then history tells us that the higher the degree of influence of religious institutions in civic life, the less progressive they tend to be. Orthodoxy and conformity are rewarded, whether in medieval papacy or in regimes ruled by ayatollahs. Hence secularization, the idea of the separation of powers between church and state, is a necessary and desirable evolution in political thought.

Minority rights within a context dominated by a majority religion. There is no escaping the fact that in any one culture, there is always a majority religion. This is due to the historical fact that all cultures are, at bottom, religiously based. As the missiologist Stephen Neill once put it, “There has never yet been a great religion which did not find its expression in a great culture. There has never yet been a great culture which did not have deep roots in a great religion.” 2

In today’s global village, what this means is that migrant communities whose ethnic and religious identities are different from that of the mainstream culture will find themselves always at risk and vulnerable. In spite of all the talk about tolerance and civility, those in the majority religion will tend to press their entitlements or sense a threat to their culture and history, whether they be in pluralistic megasocieties or in multi-ethnic countries. In both pre-modern and post-modern worlds, identities are shaped, not by the sense of nation, but by more primal self-definitions based on ethnicity or religion. Where I come from, our Muslim minorities no longer identify themselves as ‘Filipinos’. They are, I am told by one of their scholars, ‘Malays’, this ethnicity being synonymous with ‘Muslim’ in Southeast Asia.

Social integration in multicultural societies has always been a problem. What gives it a sharper edge in our day is that political conflicts are now seen as civilizational and given force and power by underlying religious convictions. Modernity once prophesied that religion will be replaced by science, tribes by individuals. Today, not only does religion persist, it has re-tribalized societies even as it goes global.

The question that now confronts us is this: how do we maintain cultural diversity and respect for minorities when a dominant religion tells us that its truth claims are universal and ought to be believed and lived by all ?

Democracy and human rights. Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat sent by his government in 1831 to investigate the prison system in the US, traveled for seven months all across America with this research question: why had the French Revolution led to the Reign of Terror and the rise of Napoleon, while the American Revolution led peacefully to constitutional democracy ? The simple answer is that in the small townships and church congregations of Puritan settlements in New England, respect for individual freedom, supported by social and economic equality, nurtured the roots of what we now know as democracy. ‘It was not democracy that paved the way for the freedom of worship, but freedom of worship that made democracy possible.”3

The Christian idea that all are made in the image of God, that there is something about each of us that is utterly valuable and precious and can not be violated, was the seedbed for the Bill of Rights. This much is acknowledged even by those who have difficulties believing in God. Says Jeffrie Murphy: ‘the liberal theory of rights requires a doctrine of human dignity, preciousness and sacredness that can not be utterly detached from a belief in God or at least from a worldview that would be properly called religious….’ 4

It is this kind of religious sense which in modern times had been lost and which had led to the massive erosion of human rights in those societies where the state had been apotheosized. Much earlier, the novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky had already foretold what happens when we push human autonomy to its logical conclusion: with the downfall of the altar of God, we are left with the anthill, -- that humless social machine where an individual is valued only in so far as he is part of the collective, an abstract human being defined as ‘a multitude of one million divided by one million’ as Arthur Koestler once put it -- or the myth of the superman who becomes a law unto himself, to whom, as Raskolnikov argues, ‘everything is permitted.’ Past the experience of authoritarian states, we know where this kind of language leads us.

To me, religion is important not mainly because it contributes to the common good or fosters respect for law and order or can support the nation-building projects of the state. More critically, it relativizes Caesar. There is a Lord higher than Caesar. That the Vatican, for instance, is a sovereign state stands as a sign that there exists a realm outside the rule of temporal powers. There is the sphere of individual conscience, where the human spirit, against all constraints, asserts its will to be free.

Some proposals
Focus on faith and economic values. It has been a while since Max Weber linked a faith value – the ‘Protestant work ethic’ – as a causal explanation for the rise of capitalism in the West. Picking up from this are some studies like the Soul of Development which documents improvement in well-being and economic conditions among mostly poor Pentecostals in Latin America.5 While it is quite sweeping to stereotype whole cultures as either ‘development-prone’ or ‘development-resistant’,6 there is some empirical evidence that a genuine faith awakening leads to better life conditions.

Within the Christian tradition, this phenomenon has often been seen and documented and goes by the name of ‘redemptive lift.’ In a research our Institute did on the coming of American Protestantism in the 1900s, we noticed that many families of early converts climbed from poor to middle class in one generation. Today we see this again among urban and rural poor people who come to faith. A woman in an Indian village was asked what her newfound faith now means to her. She replied, “one brick at a time.” What she meant was that now her husband no longer drinks; the money saved goes to buying one brick at a time for the house that she was building. There are plenty of such stories about the economic gains from no alcohol, no gambling, and ‘righteous living’ that issues from a conversion experience. In a microfinance institution where I sit in the Board, scores of women report that because of their faith they have better relationships with their husbands, and their business gets better and more sustainable because of the consequent family support. Faith-based development organizations that are very intentional in their value formation are often able to do much good that is far in proportion to their resources.

While there is no evidence that spirituality necessarily leads to economic success, there is at least substantial witness that genuine faith transforms people into becoming more just and honest and better stewards of resources. This leads to a degree of social wellness over the long haul.

What this means is that donor organizations ought to pay a bit more attention on identifying and strengthening values within faith traditions that make for development, particularly those related to wealth creation. Some cultures may need to have changes in their mental sets regarding time and their attitudes towards the future, the use of resources, risk-taking and other such values needed for more efficient stewardship.

Engage the informal and deep structures of the culture. Development efforts seeking structural changes often deal only with the formal systems and structures – matters of governance, peace talks that mostly have the local elite and government leaders talking, official development assistance for roads, telecommunications and other such large investments on physical infrastructure. The fact is that in many of these initiatives, the level of engagement stays on the level of the elite, whether local or national. Also, only the surface structures are engaged. A law or policy may be put in place, but it is rendered unenforceable or dysfunctional for want of the necessary supportive norms that will make it work. We may, for instance, tie up funding to policy changes in gender practices. But if the culture has no ‘software’ of values to support those changes, but instead continues to have a compelling metanarrative that justifies, say, female circumcision, laws prohibiting this will simply die a natural death.

Changes in systems and policy structures must be backed up by a corresponding change in values. Mere ‘institution-building’ will not do without the appropriate infraculture. A country may have a democratic structure in place but the ‘software’ of totalitarianism may continue.

This means that we must engage the deep structures of the culture, and not just impose conditionalities. As Daniel Etounga-Manguelle puts it, what Africa needs is a ‘cultural adjustment program,’ not just structural adjustments. “Culture is the mother; institutions are the children.” 7

Also, we need to look out for what actually works in the culture on the informal level, and simply formalize it. We have found, for instance, that a great deal more peacemaking happens when people work together. In our southern part of the country where most of our Muslims are, there is an organization called Al Hayat where Muslims and Christians discover each other as human beings as they organize communities together. Similarly, there is a common experience of bonding among those of us who belong to different faiths and yet work together for justice and other such concerns. On this note a remark made to me by a Catholic nun may be relevant: “It seems that we have no trouble working together for a cause. It is when we talk theology that we divide and break into conflicts. Why is this ?”

Name the idols of our time. A perplexity that disables many of us is the reality that while there is no lack of religion in today’s world, this has not issued in justice nor a deeper ethical life in our societies. There are many complex reasons behind this. One helpful lead is to grasp that religion, when it is true to the best of what it believes, is liberating. When it is not it is most oppressing. The reason for this is the phenomenon of what in anthropology is known as ‘extension transference’ ( ET ). There is a tendency in all of us to confuse the Creator with the creature, to transfer our ultimate loyalties from an invisible, transcendent God to a visible and immanent representation of him. The old term for this is idolatry. In the place of God we erect a golden calf, and this is seen in a variety of contemporary social behaviour. It is seen in our tendency to absolutize our extensions, our cultural elaborations, of what God is all about. We absolutize our theologies, such that they become ideologies. We then sacrifice human beings to the altar of a fixed idea. Dogma and dead orthodoxy replaces a living and growing relationship with a God whose thoughts are not our thoughts, and whose ways are not our ways. Those of us who are not particularly religious idolize economic wealth or the state, or the tools, systems and procedures that give us a measure of control and order in our lives. This is particularly true with the West. Those of us in Asia tend to surrender all autonomy to authorities or the pull of social ties and clan loyalties.

How then do we engage these idolatries ?

First, I think we must begin with the recognition that there has to be some critiquing element in all of our societies. Some things are universally bad and some things are universally good in whatever culture we find them. The caste system is bad, and so is materialism, authoritarianism or female genital mutilation. Cultural respect does not mean that we tread softly and do not engage each other on the roots of our failure as societies. This is paternalism. A genuine conversation begins with the mutual recognition that both sides have truth claims that may or may not be shared by the other. A theologian says that what we need is an ‘ecumenism of conviction, not an ecumenism of accommodation.’ 8

Having said this, it is really quite wonderful that in spite of our differences, we do have common values. The right to life, for instance, is a value shared by most religions, finding justification from the Christian idea of the image of God in men and women or the Buddhist concept of ahimsa or non-violence towards all beings. We need to identify and discover those areas of ‘overlapping consensus’ that are critical to public order.

At the same time, we may need to ask if it is necessary to have a uniform civil code that should apply to all citizens of a country. We may need to allow a ‘plurality of secularisms’ to flourish, the look and shape of which should emerge, not from the influence of globalization or western-educated elites, but from dialogue with the defenders of tradition in our grassroots communities.9 Societies in transition must be accompanied, not towards the beaten path of western modernization as articulated by the likes of Walt Rostow, but towards their own development according to the peculiarities of their historical, cultural and political context.

We need to have a plural sense of the ‘good life.’ What is the people’s concept of development ? Often, the people’s notion of the good life is not merely economics-driven. In my context, people define this as freedom from poverty within a context of social harmony. I suspect this is probably true with many cultures that put a premium on a high relational quotient. Capitalism and its excesses is not human nature as neoliberal economists believe.

Secondly, we need to name precisely the idols of our time, including the way our organizations are shaped. One of the ironies of the post-Marxist era is that we are now much more determined by economics. Donor agencies, simply by specifying their preferred projects, coopt the agenda of those in the South. I am told by bible scholars that Jesus talked more about money than about the Kingdom. I suspect that the reason is that of all possible idols, Mammon is the most seductive, most comprehensive rival to God.

Also, in a time when there is increasing conflict between human rights and citizenship rights, particularly in global centers, development agencies will need to serve as culture brokers. Most of you have experienced the vulnerabilities and complexities of living in other cultures. There is need to articulate, both theologically and sociologically, the rights and plight of the stranger and sojourner who has come to live among us.

Related to this is the difficult task of widening access to opportunity of minorities. Conflict begins when religious identity becomes synonymous with social status – in my country, to be Muslim is to be poor. I do not think that political mechanisms such as affirmative action is the answer to this. Those of us who live in soft states do not have high expectations from government in this regard. What should drive this is not politics but economics, an economic development that has at the center of its vision the poor and the just distribution of resources.

This was brought home with renewed force to me when an election commissioner told me that violence and vote-buying in our Muslim south and other such pockets of deprivation can not be stopped. The people are too poor. It is a perfectly rational choice to sell votes. Our Abu Sayyaf bandits recruit from among young people there who have no skills and no future. The only real industry in the area is the making and selling of home-made guns. Solve the problem of poverty and you solve as well the problem of political dynasties and bad governance.

Studies show that when people have no means for achieving the goals desired by a society, like wealth or success, people reject the rules of the game. They innovate or break the rules. Countries with a high achievement motivation but also a high level of inequality and narrow options, like Russia or the Philippines, tend to be corrupt and unstable. In these countries, there is a critical mass of highly educated and culturally sophisticated people who get frustrated and turn to crime and mayhem because they have no access to opportunities, either for leadership or the flourishing of their careers and gifts. It is not an accident that the latest suicide bombers are British in nationality.

Make a space for grace. By now, most of us who have been in development work for quite a while will have learned that it is not primarily structures, policies, or programs that spell change. There is a growing consensus, -- from management gurus to grassroots community organizers, -- that all change begins from the inside. It begins when something happens to people, in that place where God alone can go and where we move from resignation and helplessness to a sense of power, from despair to hope. Quite beyond our making, things come together and surprise us.

This, to me, is grace, -- that margin of mystery where all our calculations collapse and we come face to face with something altogether wonderful and unexpected. These are movements of the Spirit that we do well to tune in and follow. We must keep the door open for unexpected outcomes, for processes outside our logframes and our usual measures of success or failure. We need to come up with new wineskins, new benchmarks for capturing the fresh work of the Spirit among us.

Through the years I have become convinced that a genuine work of transformation is often higher and deeper and messier than what can be contained within three-year projects. I have often wished that donor agencies would partner with us over the long term towards the kind of change that begins with movements of the small – those moments when ordinary people wake up to their own sense of purpose and potential and pull in their weight towards the growing good of the world – mustard seeds that take years to grow into trees. The yeast as metaphor for the Kingdom tells us that it works in quiet, hidden ways. Unlike conflicts and disasters, it rarely gets into the papers. Yet silently, steadily, it does its work in human society such that one morning we wake up and find that things have changed.

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Maggay, Melba Padilla, Ph.D. ( President and CEO, Institute for Studies in Asian Church and Culture ). Conference on “Religion and Spirituality as Source of Human Rights and Development Cooperation”. Soesterberg, Holland,a Sept. 6-8, 2005. Read on September 8, 2005.


Notes
1. Ashish Nandy, quoted by T.N. Madan, “Secularism in its Place”, Journal of Asian Studies, 46.4, 1987, p.757.

2. Stephen Neill, “Religion and Culture: A Historical Introduction,” The Gospel and Culture, John RW Stott and Robert T. Coote, eds., William Carey Library, Pasadena California, 1979, p.1. Copyright by Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization.

3. Vinoth Ramachandra, Faiths in Conflict ? Christian Integrity in a Multicultural World, London Lectures in Contemporary Christianity, Inter-Varsity Press, Leicester, England, 1999, p.157.

4. Jeffrie Murphy, “Afterword: Constitutionalism, Moral Skepticism and Religious Belief” in Alan S. Rosenbaum, ed., Constitutionalism, the Philosophical Dimension p.248, as quoted by M. J .Perry, The Idea of Human Rights, Four Inquiries, Oxford & NY, Oxford University Press, 1998, p.41.

5. A.L.Sherman, The Soul of Development: Biblical Christianity and Economic Transformation in Guatemala, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999.

6. Mariano Grondona, “A Cultural Typology of Economic Development,” in Culture Maters, How Values Shape Human Progress, Lawrence G. Harrison and Samuel G. Huntington, eds., Basic Books, NY 2000.

7. Daniel Etounga-Manguelle, “Does Africa Need a Cultural Ajustment Program ?” Culture Matters, ibid. pp.65-77.

8. Dr. Timothy George, Dean of Beeson Divinity School and executive editor
of Christianity Today, commenting on the declaration, Dominus Jesus issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as quoted by Richard John Neuhaus, “The Public Square”, First Things, November 2000 No.107, p.69.