What turns an idea into an ideology? If we take a broad sweep of history we get the impression that religion is more likely to be the cause of war and bloodshed than to bring harmony amongst peoples. For many years now the conflict between Palestine and Israel has unsettled the Middle East, and many of the threats we claim to see come from societies with a different, and often proselytising, religious culture.
We may like to feel that Christianity – essentially a religion of peace – is the exception. But only for a moment. The history of Europe has largely been a story of interdenominational Christian conflict. Vatican II had inspiring teachings about the rights of everyone to worship as they see fit, and clarified the value of denominations outside the Catholic Church. But this was in the 1960s – so about 1960 years too late. Indeed today’s orthodox views about human rights and ecumenism would have merited bell, book and candle – to say nothing of the stake – not so long ago. Historically, Christianity has not been an answer to the problem of conflict, it has been a major source.
We are aware that, in the lifetime of many of us, conflict has arisen from ideology rather than religion. Thus Nazism was emotionally inspired by the ideology of Aryan superiority, while Communism was bred out of Marxist materialism. And a study of both of these suggests a similarity to religion in that they required a strong enough emotional commitment to the sacredness of the central idea to ensure the initial consent of the population to a comprehensive authoritarian structure of state control.
From which I conclude that the contribution of Christianity to conflict has not been the doctrine it teaches, or the way of life it inspires – but its tendency to become an ideology. After all, it was well suited to this. A fundamental belief was that man could only be saved from eternal salvation by committing himself to the Church (extra ecclesiam nulla salus). It followed that any measure however extreme was justified in bringing souls to salvation. By the same token those who led souls away from the Church not only deserved the fiercest punishment but such punishment was actually an act of love in inducing the heretic to return, and warning others not to follow him. And invasion, subjugation and massacre took place under the holy banner of God’s love in the form of a cross.
We notice, too, that secular ideologies had a powerful command structure. They worked best with a dictator at the head, surrounded by a system of senior authorities who owed their present position and their likely futures to the dictator’s favours. And their junior authorities were found at local level. You do not need me to spell out parallels here. But remember that I am only writing about structure; it is indeed possible to have benign totalitarian systems – even if they are the exception rather than the rule.
So I would invite you to explore the difference, if there be any, between the marvellous idea of the Son of God offering himself to his Father so that we may all have eternal life, and the ideology which has led our religion in the past to be prominent in repression and cruelty. It is only when we have rooted out the latter that we can properly aspire to the former.
What turns an idea into an ideology? And how do we prevent it?