The Sub-Dom Complex in Religion

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm by Robert Hunt

The Sub-Dom Complex in Religion 2015-03-13T20:08:15-06:00 Robert Hunt

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The logic of hegemony arises in part from the claim that a particular culture, worldview, and language have the privilege of being chosen by God to express God’s truth to humanity.

In Malaysia two pieces of news. First came the circulation of a forged letter saying that if an opposition party won the next election they would turn the 60% Muslim country into a toadying Christian state. Then the announcement by the government that they would restrict the number of Christians traveling to Israel to 20 in a year. This out of a Christian population of nearly 3 million. Malaysia’s Muslims enjoyed unlimited access to Mecca for their Haj and Umrah.

Like a character out of 50 Shades of Gray the present Malaysian government can only imagine Islam either in complete submission or complete control. It is the language of hegemony, and it comes from the claim that being Malay and Muslim gives access to a privileged position in public discourse.

The claim of privilege has often been made by Christians. The current Pope asserted in this address at Regensburg several years ago that the (admittedly fertile) cross roads of semitic religion and Greek rationality created an eternal locus for true doctrine and true faith. For him the Christendom that arose out of this heritage is not a passing historic event, but the greatest achievement of the Catholic church and representation of God’s Reign. Thus he continues to defend Christian Europe against the incursions of Islam and secularism, as his American bishops likewise defend the Christian Americas. Even the flight of Catholics to evangelical and pentecostal communities isn’t seen as a failure of doctrine, but a failure to be pure enough.(Catholic News Agency, Vatican City, Wednesday, July 4, 2012, by David Kerr)

Christian Fundamentalists likewise privilege a particular social and cultural location – one defined by the Greek Textus Receptus, the English King James Bible, and their own heritage of 19th century rationality and Calvinist doctrine. Like the Pope they appear to believe that either they will control America’s destiny, or will see Christianity bludgeoned into submission to a secular-humanist agenda.

Is there an alternative to hegemonic claims? Can we care about the truth without claiming to possess the only standpoint from which it can be recognized?

Post modernism appears to answer the hegemonic claims of universality associated with modernity by locking all truth claims into distinct, if evolving, cultural and linguistic worlds. The result often appears to be at best complete relativism, and at worst pure agnosticism. Since we can only evaluate truth claims within a confined linguistic and cultural framework it is assumed that there is no standpoint from which to judge claims advanced outside that framework.

What post-modernism in this popular form fails to recognize is that language itself continually evolves through dialogue toward universality. It is true that much cannot be spoken intelligibly across cultures, and that the prospects for misunderstanding abound. Yet we humans continue to translate, to try to speak across those boundaries, to seek a common language and understanding of what are clearly shared experiences, hopes, and desires. The boundaries of culture do not determine the limits of our shared humanity, and this shared humanity draws us into inexorably into dialogue.

Truth emerges out of this continual dialogue across cultural boundaries. It emerges out of the continual search for shared meanings, rather than being locked in existing in linguistic formulations and thus specific cultural locations. Expressions of truth cannot be hegemonic because they are never complete. They always await an encounter with another language, another culture, another opportunity to be more fully explored, deepened, and transformed in the process of dialogue and translation.

In public discourse this means simply that the best defense of the truth is engagement in that dialogue which alone both seeks it and does it homage.

For Christians at least this is a matter of faith not possession, for the existence of universal truth is known only through a confidence in things unseen, things unseen because they lie always in a future of ever richer and more diverse dialogue. “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

It is no accident that Paul casts such knowledge into the realm of the transcendent, the eschatological, and the realm of love. Where else can we both know fully even as we are fully known than within the eternal dialogue of the Trinity?

In the meantime for Christians there is in every encounter, every translation and transformation an anticipation of a deeper knowledge of the truth. We need neither dominate nor submit – only love.

Christian Identity

Inter-Religious Dialogue

Previous Post

July 6, 2012

Lost in Translation?

Next Post

July 13, 2012 Divine Mandate, Dialogue Disaster?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Christian Identity Christian Muslim Relations Home Page Inter-Religious Dialogue Uncategorized

Select a Month September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 July 2010 May 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz