Although I am tardy in recognising it on this blog, the Irish Times covered the Irish Association conference that I participated in earlier this month at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin, ‘Belief in the Future’.
Columnist Breda O’Brien featured the conference in a column titled ‘Being Religious is now a Counter-Cultural Identity’. She cited my presentation, which charted measures of religious decline on the island of Ireland, before profiling the contributions of various speakers. O’Brien noted a mix of those who expressed satisfaction that Ireland was no longer dominated by religion, and those who argued that religion can continue to play a positive role in society. Her most strongly-worded argument was:
Several speakers suggested that the rise in Islam across Europe would pose interesting questions, including Rev Dr Niall Coll from St Mary’s College in Belfast, who quoted Damian Howard SJ. The latter queries whether the fact that Muslims have no hesitation in declaring the reality of God may provoke Christians in a constructive way to return to their own traditions.
I am not so sure about that. In fact, I am not so sure that even Muslims will be able to maintain a strong religious identity in the face of the universal solvent of individualism, which is now the dominant western ideology.
Some of the speakers spoke of how good it was that people are no longer blindly accepting doctrines.
Again, I am not so sure. Have we just accepted different tribal identities that impose a high level of conformity instead? Being burned as a heretic (in a metaphorical sense) is a strong possibility for those who do not conform to the doctrines of shiny, progressive Ireland.
I am not so sure that ‘shiny, progressive Ireland’ is so hostile to religion; indeed, indifference rather than hostility may be more prevalent, and in the future indifference could swing to either hostility or openness — depending on a number of factors.
The Irish Times religion correspondent Patsy McGarry also covered the conference, profiling the contribution of Rev Trevor Sargent, the former Green Party leader who was recently ordained in the Church of Ireland.
Sargent framed environmentalism as an issue of global justice and critiqued the Irish Government for failing to live up to its environmental obligations. Noting the potential scale of environmental destruction, he suggested it would take a miracle to turn things around, as quoted by McGarry:
“The amount of column inches that occupy those elements of religious activity and religious belief and conviction are hugely unbalanced compared to an equally strong biblical code which values social justice, human rights, intergenerational responsibility and the humility that come with asking God’s help in stewarding this wonderful creation,” he said.
… Where the climate issue in general was concerned, he said, “I believe in miracles. The Good Friday [Belfast] Agreement was something of a miracle. As a member of the Oireachtas Prayer Group after the IRA 1994 ceasefire, we prayed and met many times with paramilitaries and victims of violence from all sides and none. I believe our prayers were answered.”
In his view, “once enough of us believe we can overcome our addictive dependency on fossil fuels and enjoy simpler lives, then a momentum will build, just as it did for civil rights under the leadership of Rev Martin Luther King in the USA”.