Haim Gordon is professor in the department of education, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.
Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence
by mark juergensmeyer
Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000. 316 pages
Hardback: UK £17.50, US $27.50
Mark Juergensmeyer’s book, which is an attempt to link late twentieth-century religious terrorism to religious life and thought, has many faults and few merits. The question therefore arises: Why review this book in Global Dialogue? I have two answers. First, because this book is an example of pseudo-science masquerading as scientific writing in the area of global dialogue. Exposing the failings of pseudo-scientific writing can strengthen our quest for the truth. Second, because this book is a vivid example of the severe misrepresentation of spirituality that is promoted and supported by some adherents of postmodernism, deconstructionism and other contemporary trends. But global dialogue, as I understand it, must deeply respect spiritual traditions. Hence, exposing this failing can also contribute to better dialogue between people and cultures.
I want to discuss a number of basic faults that repeatedly recur in Juergensmeyer’s book and which underlie the above failings. First, and probably most important, Juergensmeyer has little respect for fact. Second, he writes about major religions and religious traditions without understanding them, with no inkling of their spiritual quest, and also without consulting leading theologians or religious leaders. Third, he makes baseless claims about religion in general that might have been avoided if he had respect for facts, or even a minor acquaintance with the religions and the religious traditions that he compares. I will deal with these faults in the above order. However, I should mention that they often intermingle in Juergensmeyer’s text.
Factual Errors
Throughout this book there are probably hundreds of instances where Juergensmeyer fails to respect facts. In this short review I can only present three examples; they are representative of his anti-scientific method in relation to facts.
Juergensmeyer interviewed Mike Bray, who set fire to several abortion clinics in the state of Delaware. Bray was caught, convicted, and served a jail sentence. In the interview, Bray spoke on behalf of himself and his friend, Paul Hill, who, for supposedly religious reasons, shot and killed a medical doctor who performed abortions, Dr John Britton, and his escort. Paul Hill was still in prison at the time of the interview. Juergensmeyer describes Bray as a rather likeable person who “talked knowledgeably about theology and political ideas” (p. 21). He gives an example of Bray’s so-called knowledgeable discussion of theology and political ideas:
Bray found support for his position in actions undertaken during the Nazi regime in Europe. His moral exemplar in this regard was the German theologian and Lutheran Pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who abruptly terminated his privileged research position at Union Theological Seminary in New York to return to Germany and clandestinely join a plot to assassinate Hitler. The plot was uncovered before it could be carried out, and Bonhoeffer, the brilliant young ethical theorist, was hanged by the Nazis. His image of martyrdom and his theological writings lived on, however, and Bonhoeffer has often been cited by moral theorists as an example of how Christians could undertake violent actions for a just cause and how occasionally they are constrained to break the law for a higher purpose. (P. 24)
In this cited paragraph, only the first sentence is probably true. Here are only some of the facts that Juergensmeyer ignores. Bonhoeffer visited New York in June 1939 and returned to Germany in July 1939. During that month in the United States he was not employed in a “privileged research position at Union Theological Seminary”. (How a person can be employed for a few weeks in a privileged research position is beyond my comprehension.) Nor did Bonhoeffer terminate the research position which he did not have. Nor did he return to Germany in July 1939 to join the plot to assassinate Hitler. The plot to assassinate Hitler—as has been well documented—was uncovered in April 1943, and probably initiated some months before. Bonhoeffer had nothing to do with the plot until a few months before April 1943. He returned to Germany to undertake educational and religious activities in Germany and Europe against Hitler and Nazism. Among these activities was the saving of Jews. He spent at least three years engaged in these educational and religious activities before joining the plot against Hitler.
Hence, it is quite evident that neither Mike Bray nor Juergensmeyer is knowledgeable about Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life, which they cite as an exemplar. Juergensmeyer failed to undertake the minimal research to check whether what Bray told him about Bonhoeffer was true. Nor is Bray or Juergensmeyer knowledgeable about Bonhoeffer’s theological writings. Anyone who has read these carefully would immediately grasp that, only as a last resort, and only against an evil person such as Hitler, would Bonhoeffer have sanctioned violence. I want to add that I have not yet read a published paper or met anyone who says that Bonhoeffer would have sanctioned burning abortion clinics and killing doctors who perform abortions. Juergensmeyer gives no factual support for his last sentence concerning Christian moral theorists, except the false and perverted statement of Mike Bray.
Let us now look at another example. Juergensmeyer often cites Dr Baruch Goldstein as an instance of Jewish religious terrorism. Goldstein massacred twenty-nine Palestinians and wounded many more on 25 February 1994, on the Jewish festival of Purim. Early that morning, Goldstein entered the Muslim section of the Tomb of the Patriarchs (there is also a Jewish section where Jews pray) and opened fire on the praying Muslims, massacring twenty-nine people before other Muslim worshippers succeeded in halting the carnage and beating him to death.
There was general outrage in Israel at Goldstein’s deed, except for a very small number of right-wing fanatics. All major rabbis and Jewish religious leaders condemned Goldstein’s deed. There was also a very detailed inquiry. No evidence was found to explain why Goldstein, a dedicated medical doctor, had committed such a crime. He left no note, his wife provided no information that might explain why Goldstein decided to act as he did and his friends had no inkling that he would become a mass murderer.
But why should Juergensmeyer worry about these widely published facts? He already knows what happened in Goldstein’s mind, without ever meeting Baruch Goldstein, without interviewing his wife and without speaking to any of his friends. This privileged insight allows Juergensmeyer to present the following description of what happened:
On the night before the celebration of Purim ... Goldstein went to the Jewish side [of the Tomb of the Patriarchs] where worshipers were gathered to listen to a reading of the Scroll of Esther, as is traditionally done on Purim Eve. But his meditations were interrupted by boisterous voices outside, and again the terrible words were shouted—itbach al yahud [kill the Jews]—this time by a band of Arab youths. Goldstein turned and saw that the armed guards that the Israeli government had stationed at the site were ignoring the commotion. They did nothing. Dr. Goldstein was outraged and felt that both Judaism and the Jewish people had been deeply humiliated.
Goldstein had had enough. (Pp. 49–50)
I have already mentioned that there are no facts to support any sentence in the above description. Nobody knows what Goldstein supposedly meditated, nobody knows what he supposedly saw, nobody recorded his supposed feeling that Judaism and the Jewish people had been deeply humiliated. Nobody said that Goldstein had had enough. No statement in the above citation has a shred of factual evidence to support it. It is most likely false. Juergensmeyer, who has forty-five footnotes in this chapter, gives no footnote to source what he reports happened in Goldstein’s mind. I would also challenge the so-called facts about the Arab youths, about the words that they supposedly shouted, about the behaviour of the Israeli guards. They are also, most probably, a fiction in Juergensmeyer’s mind.
Note also that Juergensmeyer is unaware that Jewish holidays start in the evening. Consequently, even the first phrase of the citation is false. There is no night before Purim during which the Scroll of Esther is read. That night is Purim. Furthermore, Jewish people do not come to pray on Purim night in order to meditate, as the citation suggests, but to express joy and make noise. Again, Juergensmeyer has not done his homework.
Juergensmeyer writes much about the Palestinian Hamas movement that arose in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel and that is especially powerful in the Gaza Strip. He bases his knowledge of Hamas on a sole interview with its leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in 1989, on a sole meeting with another leader, Dr Abdul Aziz Rantisi, on 1 March 1998, and on material he has gathered from other sources, such as videotapes that Hamas bombers made before they embarked on their suicide missions. On the basis of these scant sources of information he states far-reaching conclusions, to which I will return. Here I just want to cite two short statements as examples of “facts” concerning Hamas that Juergensmeyer states and that are false.1 The first example is:
Hamas as a movement began in the late 1980s when the urban, organized strategy of the PLO had floundered, and a new struggle emerged from the poorer rural segments of Palestinian society: the intifada, backed by the Hamas. (P. 75)
Here are the facts. Hamas as a movement was established in the early 1980s. The intifada was organised by the Fatah people of the PLO under the leadership of Tawfiq Abu Khoosa and others. They set up the popular committees of the Shabab who were the battalions of youth that fought the Israeli soldiers with rocks and burning tyres. Hamas backed the rebellion after it had already erupted and been organised. Abu Khoosa worked, with other Fatah activists, for around eight years building the Shabab structure that became the foundation of the intifada. All these facts are well known in the Gaza Strip, and have been published in studies of the intifada—studies that Juergensmeyer evidently didn’t consult.
Before presenting the second example, I should perhaps explain that Hamas, according to its own leadership, has a hard core of supporters who constitute, at most, 5 per cent of the population of the Gaza Strip. Fatah has a hard core of around 30 per cent. In moments of great popularity, support for Hamas can reach 15–17 per cent. These are the figures that Hamas leaders state. Hamas at first refused to participate in the elections that took place in Palestine in 1996. Finally, it did support a few independent candidates who were affiliated with Hamas. Three Hamas-supported candidates were elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council, which numbers eighty-one members. None of these facts concerns Juergensmeyer, who writes:
One of their [Hamas’s] concerns [about the election] was political: they knew that although they might have won in Gaza, their level of support in the West Bank was not sufficient to rout Fateh [sic] and other parties that supported Arafat’s Palestinian Authority. (P. 235)
Not one leader or activist of Hamas ever claimed that it had a chance of winning the elections in Gaza. Remember, Arafat himself received 83 per cent of the vote. The entire sentence is false, another figment of Juergensmeyer’s imagination.
To refrain from tiring the reader, I will only state that Juergensmeyer again disregards facts when he states on page 153 that Hamas views its struggle with Israel as a “cosmic war”. No Hamas leader has ever made such a statement.
Ignorance Concerning Religion
To add insult to injury, Juergensmeyer also writes about religion without understanding its spirituality and without consulting any of its spiritual leaders or theologians. He only consults the terrorists that he quotes, or the books of the pseudo-theologians upon whom the terrorists rely to justify terrorism.
Anyone even partially acquainted with the history of the major world religions would immediately ask: Hasn’t Juergensmeyer forgotten that there are false prophets in every religion? These false prophets are among the worst sinners because they themselves sin and they lead others to sin. Juergensmeyer’s discussion, which evades any linkage to spirituality, steers away from such considerations and from the historical facts upon which they rest.
His apparent belief that the criminal deeds of religious terrorists may be the result of true religious commitment, and not an expression of religious charlatanism, causes him to raise inane and false questions, such as: “Why does religion seem to need violence, and violence religion, and why is a divine mandate for destruction accepted with such certainty by some believers?” (P. 6.) This question is on a par with a question doubting the validity of scientific truths put by someone who has made a broad study of the papers and actions of scientific quacks.
Someone of Juergensmeyer’s persuasion might still ask, How do you distinguish between true and false prophets? How do you know when someone is a religious charlatan? Great twentieth-century religious leaders, such as Desmond Tutu, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Pope John XXIII, Dom Helder Camara and others can help in answering this question. Juergensmeyer, however, did not bother to learn from any of these. The opposite is true. For example, he decided not to examine in any depth Mahatma Gandhi’s interpretation and understanding of Hinduism. Gandhi’s key term satyagraha (soul-force or Truth-force), which the Mahatma believed was a key to spiritual existence and true Hinduism, does not appear in the book. But Juergensmeyer does give his readers the religious interpretation of Hinduism presented by Gandhi’s assassin. I should add that Gandhi would have answered the above question by saying that the true religious leader practises and teaches satyagraha, one of whose demands is non-violence. The charlatan refuses to even grapple with the idea of satyagraha.
Contemporary theology (ignored by Juergensmeyer) can also provide much assistance in answering this question. Most of the major Western theologians of the twentieth century have presented key terms and valuable ideas that firmly reject religious violence. I will mention only three thinkers from a long list of such theologians. Nicolai Berdyaev, who often based his thoughts on Dostoevsky, discussed active love and human creativity as central to a true religious existence. Martin Buber discussed dialogue and the I–Thou encounter as crucial for a true religious life. Paul Tillich discussed a person’s ultimate concern for the Being of beings as central to the dogmatics of any true religion, especially Christianity. A deeper understanding of the terms and ideas of these three thinkers, and of the writings of other great twentieth-century theologians, would have shown Juergensmeyer that his book concerns the thoughts and deeds of religious charlatans and not of the true members of a faith.
Baseless Claims
One of the wild concepts that Juergensmeyer presents has already been mentioned: cosmic war. He devotes a chapter of his book to cosmic war, trying to show that religious terrorists agree that this basic concept describes the situation in which they must act violently so as to sustain their religious belief. His evidence is flimsy, at best. But more important is that he maintains that this concept, as presented by the religious fanatics and charlatans whom he has interviewed, is basic to all religions. Thus, after citing the views of many contemporary fanatics concerning divine warfare, Juergensmeyer writes:
These images of divine warfare are persistent features of religious activism. They provide the contents and the themes that are played out in the grand scenarios that lie behind contemporary acts of performance violence. (P. 146)
Note that in this citation Juergensmeyer links divine warfare to all religious activism. He thus ignores centuries of religious activism, in many parts of the globe, which encouraged dialogue, peace and love of one’s neighbour. Saint Francis is merely one of many thousands who have engaged in such activism. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer is another.) In short, it is blatantly false that images of divine warfare are persistent features of religious activism. Yet, Juergensmeyer’s false statement concerning religious activism allows him to insinuate that cosmic war is central to all religions.
Let me state categorically that all the religious leaders and theologians whom I have listed above would have announced, from every pulpit and to every audience, that their beliefs were not based on the cosmic war that Juergensmeyer holds is religiously central. You could add to that list all the recognised great rabbis in Israel and the world, all great religious leaders of Christianity and Islam, etc. In short, this notion of a cosmic war as being at the basis of all religious belief is a figment of Juergensmeyer’s imagination.
Juergensmeyer also attempts to establish links between religious terrorism and sex, but I spare the reader a discussion of this matter.
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Juergensmeyer’s book points to one of the dangers that postmodernism poses for the notion and venture of global dialogue. It may be stated in one sentence: Not all narratives are worthy of being respected as true spiritual expressions of religion. But Juergensmeyer throughout unquestioningly presents the views of religious charlatans as if they were true religion. His book shows that any attempt to build a theory on narratives that are essentially immoral is bound to ruin the scientific endeavour.
Endnotes
1. Perhaps I should advise the reader that since 1988 I, together with a small group of Israelis, have been working in the Gaza Strip on a tri-weekly basis to protect the human rights of the Palestinians from Israeli aggression. In this work I have met dozens of Hamas activists, among them Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and other leaders of the movement. Thus, my pointing out of Juergensmeyer’s errors is based on twelve years of experience in working for human rights in Gaza.
