On Religion and Rigidity

I'm listening to CBC's "The Current" this morning, and one of the topics is a debate over the women leading a mixed-gender prayer session.

I won't profess to understand a great deal of the Q'ran and the other bits of cultural history that have driven Islam, and in particular the practice of Islam that has been described in many Arabic countries. In fact the topic of the debate was rather interesting for its commonalities with the rise of radical feminism in the 1960s and through the 1970s.

The traditionalist on the CBC interview was arguing that Islam does provide for equality of the sexes, but it does so by assigning different roles to the genders. It is rather interesting to note that similar arguments were made both during the sufferance movement in the early 20th century, and again later in the 1960s to continue to justify the existing social structure.

No surprise, the argument from the other side is along the lines of "extreme needs, demand extreme changes". This is very typically North American view of things. It will be very interesting to see whether the greater body of Islam simply rejects its North American followers it will find that a new form of Islam will simply emerge.

The Christian Church is a perfect example to examine. Time and again, when the greater body of the church has become too rigid, it has cracked and a new group has splintered off from the body of the church. Whether it is King Henry VIII's formation of the Anglican church, the emergance of the Lutheran church, or the relatively recent rise of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

In the United States, the ascension of so-called Evangelical Christians to political power has shown the early signs of calcification. Through a combination of policy and law, these people are codifying a particularly harsh, rigid interpretation of biblical scripture. In many ways, steps are being taken to undermine the various civil rights gains made since the 1950s - whether that is re-introducing segregation in schools in some southern states or the nomination of hard-line "conservatives" to the senior courts.

This codification of a religiously centered, rigid policy threatens to fracture the entire body of North American politics along religious lines.

Similarly, Islam, particularly in the form that often is expressed from the various Middle Eastern countries, suggests a rigidity of thought and belief that is going to have a great deal of difficulty with the notion of a westernized notion of gender equality coming to bear. It seems to me quite possible that Islam will see a new "tribe" emerge in North America that is a fusion of Western European cultural values with Islamic scripture. This will mean the shedding of a great deal of cultural baggage that is currently bound up with Islam.

Ultimately, no religion can be rigidly codified. As soon as that happens, the religion is guaranteed to rapidly become irrelevant to all be the most fervent of its followers. The argument can be made that the Roman Catholic Church refutes my assertion. I disagree. At the level of individual congregations, the Church remains a useful social anchor for a lot of people. The hierarchy of that Church, as it becomes more remote, and bound to the edicts of the Vatican in Rome, is increasingly irrelevant to the average follower. (Consider how many Roman Catholics actually pay attention to the Church's prohibitions on birth control)

The more rigid the system of beliefs, the more likely that the rigidity is driven not by honest spirituality, but rather by a need to maintain either political or economic power. When faith becomes twisted around power, it goes horribly wrong.