Patrick Anderson, editor
While I was a doctoral student in criminology at Florida State University, I was invited to speak to the religion department on the subject, “God and Crime: The Intersection of Social Sciences (Criminology) and Religious Studies.” At the time, both the School of Criminology and the Department of Religion at FSU were among the most highly regarded graduate programs in their respective fields of study. The lecture was very well attended. Students and professors of religion outnumbered the criminologists by a lot. It seemed that only two of my criminology professors were interested in the subject.
The organizers of the event had not informed me beforehand that one of my professors, Ted Chiricos, had been invited to attend and make a “response” to my presentation. Professor Chiricos was a well-published young sociologist with whom I had an antagonistic relationship, especially in a seminar he had led on “Critical Criminology” which sought to assign the root of crime and delinquency to the structural conditions within a capitalist society. The critique of capitalism by Marx and Engels was a primary source. I was intrigued by the subject, especially as I was familiar with the writings of liberation theologians who also criticized the unbridled capitalism which stemmed from colonialism and greedy U.S corporations in Latin America, causing the unrest and injustices endemic to people living under the governments in the region.
As a seminary graduate and juvenile justice practitioner, I was very attuned to the structural injustices in U.S. society that, in my experience in the criminal justice system, exacerbated the inequities and problems in our society. I was disappointed by what I understood to be the failure of my Baptist religion to understand and address the issues of crime and delinquency. So, in my address, I set about the task of informing the religion folks about what I understood to be the common themes between theology and criminology. I sought to entice the scholars of religion, primarily Christianity, to join the struggle to understand the roots of criminal behaviors and to recognize and reform the terrible injustices found in the juvenile and criminal justice systems in the U.S.
When I had finished speaking, Dr. Chiricos took the microphone. As I remember it, his opening line was: “The last thing we need is for religion to get involved in crime and justice.” He went on to outline the horrors of the Eight Crusades of medieval Christian wars to dislodge Arabs from Jerusalem, the doctrine of discovery by which the New World was violently claimed by Europeans in the name of Jesus Christ, the Puritans’ stated intention to make America in their image of biblical law, the religious justification for westward expansion and eradication of indigenous populations, defense of slavery by southern preachers, the wars between the nations of Islam and Judaism, and on and on. A hush fell over the place.
Years later, before he died, Ted and I shared a drink at a criminology convention and discussed that day in the department of religion. He told me that he had reached the conclusion that the Christian religion may have more to offer than he had expressed that day. But now, I must say that Professor Chiricos was probably more correct than he was wrong. We religionists sure do have a lot to answer for. Especially now.
Now we are engaged in an undeclared, unauthorized war against Iran which has spread throughout the Middle East and is pitting the three major religions of the region (Islam, Christianity and Judaism) against each other. To make matters even worse, the theology of each religion is represented by its most intransigent, far-right, fundamentalist adherents: In Islam it is Shia nationalism; in the Jewish State of Israel it is the ultra-orthodox Zionists; and in the USA it is Christian Nationalist policy-makers in the White House, Congress, and the halls of government, along with some commanders in America’s military leadership. In each side of the war the desire is for government to strictly embody the most literal interpretations of the original texts of their religion. That theology expressed by war leaders of each religion is considered to be uninformed, incorrect, or heretical to a large proportion of non-fundamentalist adherents of each religion.
Christian Ethics Today, along with a host of other publications, has been sounding the alarm bell for years about the threat posed by Christian Nationalism. Many fellow Christians have either not paid attention or considered the warnings to be alarmism, exaggeration, or too partisan. But the evidence of the harm done by the toxic mixture of religious fundamentalism and politics is unmistakable. I believe that Ted Chiricos and I would find ourselves in agreement today about evil that can be wrought by religious militarism but also accept the efficacy of the best teachings and practices of these three religions in social policy.
A major war that is premised on fundamentalist theology of three major world religions, each disinclined to negotiation or compromise, each believing they are following their God Almighty’s divine will, will not end well. I believe that most Muslims, Jews, and Christians know better, and wish to work together to live out the best practices espoused by tenets of their own faith, or no faith at all.
