I’ve been thinking about religion and conflict a great deal since our return from Mindanao, where we were assured again and again that the conflict was not a religious conflict. And indeed I am convinced that is the case. And yet who was telling us this? Generally Catholics and Muslims, working through the mediums of their faiths as the basis for peacebuilding, more than one of whom told us they did not think they would be able to do the work they were doing without the support of their faith.
We finally asked our hosts at Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in our debrief with them before leaving Mindanao, if indeed this conflict is not a religious conflict, why then do so many of the peacebuilding solutions emphasize or are based in religion? Unfortunately we asked this question near the end of our visit and our CRS host had little time to respond, but what he did say was that it was about bringing spirituality into the process. For some this statement was an instant clarification, but as I left the office I realized I had no idea what that actually meant.
Can we separate spirituality out from religion, in the context of an otherwise entrenched religious creed? And what actually is spirituality, in and of itself? Perhaps it is related to mysticism. But mysticism is often about dissolving identities and merging with God, (or in modern versions, “the Universe”) and the associated feelings of oneness, infinite love, ecstasy or occasionally a kind of corrosive delicious dread, as described by Rudolf Otto’s term “numinous.” Mysticism, which speaks more to the interior and individual experience and relationship to the divine, is also a vehicle of rebellion against traditional religious authorities, which may be why mystical schools have generally been regarded as heretical.
But I think what is generally meant by “spirituality,” while similar, is probably something less radical. Human beings seem to have an inbuilt need for transcendence, for systematizing and integrating and legitimizing our activities and experiences, to give them meaning. If “religion” acts as a profoundly powerful organizing system, which among other organizational functions, taps into that human hunger for the experience, construction and/or imposition of meaning (and determines the contexts and hierarchies that structure or “deploy” meaning), maybe referring to faith-based action as “spirituality” is an attempt to extract the transcendent, universal aspect from the more divisive socio-political organizational aspects of religion, a delocalization that emphasizes connection over division, and compassion over competition, the more harmonious propensities of our innate primate ethics (referring to the work of Frans de Waal) writ large, across “tribes.” I saw so many examples of this “spiritual” side of religion in Mindanao. Arguably, while the conflict itself is not caused by religion, religion- or spirituality- does seem to be playing a meaningful role in finding the best solutions for peace; at least one writer, Robert Schreiter, C.PP.S., has even referred to a theology of peace building in Mindanao.