Book by Jonathan Sacks (Continuum, 2002)
Reviewed by Tim Montgomerie on 2 December 2002
Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, is one of Britain's most articulate and persuasive advocates for a politics of civil society. Many of the most powerful themes from his previous books are included in The Dignity of Difference. Unfortunately, the book has had to be temporarily withdrawn from sale because of protests it has provoked from Orthodox Jewry. They have taken exception to passages such as this:
"God has spoken to mankind in many languages: through Judaism to Jews, Christianity to Christians, Islam to Muslims.... God is God of all humanity, but no single faith is or should be the faith of all humanity." (p55)
This perceived devaluation of the historic theological differences between the world's major faiths has surprised many of the Chief Rabbi's admirers. His book appears to suggest that unless Christians, Jews and Muslims are willing to move beyond mere tolerance and "find positive value" in other faith traditions, hatred and violence will result.
Jonathan Sacks' book is a useful reminder of the considerable common moral ground that the historic faiths share and this should, indeed, provide the basis for a conversation about co-belligerence on key social challenges and how different worldviews might peacefully coexist. But whilst I would welcome a conversation about the nature of that co-existence I would not be willing to repudiate key Christian teachings or be unwilling to question the reasons why certain 'Islamic-inspired groups' are behaving as they currently are. Sacks himself does say: "Religious believers cannot stand aside when people are murdered in the name of God or a sacred cause" (p9).
The clarifications that the Chief Rabbi has promised in the book's 'second edition' will be awaited eagerly by many people beyond Britain's Jewish communities. In the meantime readers might be interested in reading Gene Edward Veith's Christianity in an age of Terrorism. Veith writes in a much less elevated style and his pro-Americanisms may be too much for some European readers. His book does, however, offer a more robust and realistic assessment of the nature of relations between Christianity and Islam and all faiths and secularism.
Religion, civil society and market fundamentalism
For Sacks, religion is much more powerful than politics:
"Politics moves the pieces on the chessboard. Religion changes lives. Peace can be agreed around the conference table; but unless it grows in ordinary hearts and minds, it does not last." (p7)
Religion, Sacks contends, provides "reverence, restraint, humility, a sense of limits, the ability to listen and respond to human distress". These qualities are at the heart of the disproportionate success of faith-based schools and faith-inspired social action projects. Governments all over the world are inviting faith communities back into the public square because they are seeing the failure of one-dimensional, secular approaches to persistent social problems.
Neither the market nor the state can compensate for the retreat of civil society institutions like the family and religion. Only through these institutions do we become truly human:
"The universality of moral concern is not something we learn by being universal but by being particular. Because we know what it is to be a parent, loving our children, not children in general, we understand what it is for someone else, somewhere else, to be a parent, loving his or her children, not ours. There is no road to human solidarity that does not begin with moral particularity - by coming to know what it means to be a child, a parent, a neighbour, a friend. We learn to love humanity by loving specific human beings. There is no short-cut." (p58).
In a necessary attack on what George Soros has called "market fundamentalism", the Chief Rabbi emphasises the importance of recognising what the market can and cannot do:
"The market is good at creating wealth but not at distributing it. It encourages certain virtues but undermines others. It has social consequences that are not always benign and sometimes disastrous." (p88).
Sacks is particularly critical of consumerism's "endless process of stimulating, satisfying, and re-stimulating desire. It is more like an addiction than a quest for fulfilment" (p40). Later he develops his powerful theme:
"A consumer-driven, advertising-dominated culture militates daily against ongoing attachments. It is constantly inviting us to switch to a different brand, try something new, go for a better deal elsewhere. It should not come as a surprise that this begins to affect human relationships as well. A society saturated by market values would be one in which relationships were temporary, loyalties provisional and commitments easily discarded." (p155)
Sacks documents the extent to which we have surrendered huge parts of our lives - that were once the province of covenantal institutions like the family and places of worship - to the market and state. The market and the state do provide us with a great deal in return but there are two huge weaknesses in such relationships:
(1) The services they provide (schooling, counselling, welfare) are only available so long as the beneficiary themselves - or taxpayers - can afford them (in good as well as bad times);
(2) The services provided feed a sense of powerlessness. Sacks writes: "We have delegated away much of what matters in our lives, partly to governments, police forces, judges, courts, social workers, managers and teachers, in part to therapists, counsellors, advisers, coaches and gurus, each of whom we pay, through taxation or fees, to manage our affairs, relationships, conflicts or emotions better than we can or have time to. This constitutes a massive loss of sovereignty over our lives, and it means that when things go wrong, as at times they must, we are liable to despair, because our destiny now rests in other hands, not our own." (p78).
Sacks leaves conservative-minded politicians with many challenges ringing in our ears. How are we to recapture relevance and responsibility for the free institutions of society that are not contract-based but people-shaped and people-sized? How are we to promote stable family life for children when discussion of these issues is saturated in talk of adults' rights? How are we going to build a culture of co-operation when, as Sacks describes, the media is driven by a culture of confrontation? Sacks does not pretend to offer practical answers to those questions. He leaves that enormous task to us....
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