Ian Buruma writes about politics and culture for a variety of major publications—most frequently for The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Corriere della[…]
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“People see religion as a challenge again to liberalism and democracy.” The “Taming the Gods” author sees that issue as grist for writing.
Question: Could the U.S. division between church and rnstate crumble in the near future?
rn
Ian Buruma: I’m not so sure. I think it’s… the system rnis fairly robust and… but it has always been contested as far back as rnJefferson, and he was accused by Christians of being a man of Satan who rnwas not recognizing that the United States was a Christian country, rnwhereas he of course saw it as the State, as a secular state, so it has rnbeen contested from the beginning.
rnQuestion: Is religion in any way a threat to democracy?
rn
Ian Buruma: I think you can’t really answer that rnquestion by yes or no because it depends on what kind of religion, underrn what circumstances and so on. It’s not necessarily a threat to rndemocracy. What is a threat to democracy is if the authority of rnorganized religion starts to… gets mixed up in what should be secular rnpolitics.
rnQuestion: How religious are you?
rn
Ian Buruma: Well I never had a religion. Neither of my rnparents were religious, so I grew up with no religion at all, so I rnsuppose I’m an agnostic in the sense that I’m not an aggressive atheist rnwho has a deep belief in the nonexistence of God. I’m indifferent to rnit, which also means I don’t really have an axe to grind and it doesn’t rnfill me with rage because I don’t have childhood memories to rebel rnagainst, but nor am I particularly attracted by any kind of religion.
rn
Question: Is that why you chose to take a scholarly look rnat religion?
rn
Ian Buruma: It may have given me a relatively… It may rnhave enabled me to take a fairly dispassionate view of the problem, but rnno, that is not the reason I decided to write it. The book by the way, rnis based on three lectures that I gave at Princeton and the reason I rnchose the subjects is because clearly in one form or another people see rnreligion as a challenge again to liberalism and democracy, which wasn’t rntrue for a while. In Europe people thought that this was a problem thatrn had been successfully licked. But Islam is now seen as a challenge. rnThe mobilization of the religious right in the United States is seen as arn challenge and there have been acts of religious-inspired violence in rnplaces like Japan and so on. And so it’s an issue.
Recorded April 21, 2010
rn
Ian Buruma: I’m not so sure. I think it’s… the system rnis fairly robust and… but it has always been contested as far back as rnJefferson, and he was accused by Christians of being a man of Satan who rnwas not recognizing that the United States was a Christian country, rnwhereas he of course saw it as the State, as a secular state, so it has rnbeen contested from the beginning.
rnQuestion: Is religion in any way a threat to democracy?
rn
Ian Buruma: I think you can’t really answer that rnquestion by yes or no because it depends on what kind of religion, underrn what circumstances and so on. It’s not necessarily a threat to rndemocracy. What is a threat to democracy is if the authority of rnorganized religion starts to… gets mixed up in what should be secular rnpolitics.
rnQuestion: How religious are you?
rn
Ian Buruma: Well I never had a religion. Neither of my rnparents were religious, so I grew up with no religion at all, so I rnsuppose I’m an agnostic in the sense that I’m not an aggressive atheist rnwho has a deep belief in the nonexistence of God. I’m indifferent to rnit, which also means I don’t really have an axe to grind and it doesn’t rnfill me with rage because I don’t have childhood memories to rebel rnagainst, but nor am I particularly attracted by any kind of religion.
rn
Question: Is that why you chose to take a scholarly look rnat religion?
rn
Ian Buruma: It may have given me a relatively… It may rnhave enabled me to take a fairly dispassionate view of the problem, but rnno, that is not the reason I decided to write it. The book by the way, rnis based on three lectures that I gave at Princeton and the reason I rnchose the subjects is because clearly in one form or another people see rnreligion as a challenge again to liberalism and democracy, which wasn’t rntrue for a while. In Europe people thought that this was a problem thatrn had been successfully licked. But Islam is now seen as a challenge. rnThe mobilization of the religious right in the United States is seen as arn challenge and there have been acts of religious-inspired violence in rnplaces like Japan and so on. And so it’s an issue.
Recorded April 21, 2010
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