8 Beliefs and Communities
Chapter 8
Beliefs and Communities
According to the World Population Review of 2022, some eighty-five per cent of people on this planet claim adherence to a faith. In earlier chapters, we considered some ways in which beliefs affect the outlooks and lives of individuals, while occasionally touching on their more communal aspects. We now need to focus on the interaction of beliefs and communities, why they arise and the purpose they serve.
A ‘community’ arises in response to many factors, including the need for social interaction, a sense of solidarity, shared interests and views of the world, and collective action. Some of these communities have a territorial basis, in that they are restricted to or focused on a geographical space around which a boundary can be drawn – for example, a local place-based community, such as a rural sports club. Other communities, however, are spatially dispersed, focusing on more general issues that are not specifically linked with a geographical location – such as political, philosophical or religious beliefs.
Communities of belief can take both forms. In the case of Christianity, we might think of local parish churches (embedded in a specific place) or dispersed communities in which individuals gather with belief-based agendas and interests, rather than with specific local issues in mind. In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in online gatherings, whether these take the form of territorial meetings with an extended range (for example, a parish church or cathedral which reaches thousands of people for their online services), or spatially dispersed gatherings which choose to increase their reach online.
In a socially and ideologically fractured age, communities play an important role in maintaining the fabric of a culture which might otherwise unravel. It is well understood that communities of belief have an important integrative function, individually and socially, which has been particularly well studied in the case of religious communities. Yet such communities are about more than socialisation and solidarity; the dynamics of belief in a community involves a complex interaction of ‘believing’ and ‘belonging’.
Some believe and are drawn to communities of belief as a social expression of their beliefs. Others are drawn to these communities for social reasons, and gradually come to appreciate and appropriate their belief systems. Religious narratives, rites and rituals form a system of symbols, which is of critical importance for creating and maintaining a sense of ‘belonging’ or ‘togetherness’, thus serving as the nucleus of a community shaped by these values.
A ‘community of believers’ offers reinforcement of the plausibility of the beliefs of what Peter Berger refers to as a ‘cognitive minority’ – a ‘group formed around a body of deviant knowledge’, whose view of the world ‘differs significantly from the one generally taken for granted in their society.’ Berger’s notion of ‘plausibility structures’ offers an important lens through which we can understand the role of communities of belief, which offer both social and cultural support to their members through inhabiting a common framework of meaning and the sense of belonging that arises from it.
Community and Human Sociality
Aristotle declared that we are social animals. This communal aspect of human identity is not unique; most animals show substantially the same types of social behaviour such as affiliation and aggression, the use of rituals, or the establishment of hierarchy and territoriality. Biological organisms function in groups, in which cooperation is key to survival. This cooperation can take many forms – such as the collective intelligence of a colony of ants or a school of fish, or human beings constructing cities in Mesopotamia. Groups survive; isolated individuals don’t.
It is thus not difficult to explain why human beings are social, but this does not account for the emergence of ‘communities of beliefs’, in which the organising principles are not specifically linked to biological survival, but to the fostering, inhabiting and study of ways of understanding our world. These communities are cultural, rather than biological, in their origins.
At one level, culture is not a uniquely human phenomenon, if this is understood in terms of learning new patterns of behaviour that are acquired and shared by other members of the group, and then passed down to the next generation. A well-known example is the sweet potato-washing monkeys (macaca fuscata) on the Japanese island of Koshima. In the 1950s, researchers left some sweet potatoes on the island’s beach, and noticed one of the monkeys washed the sand off the potato with sea water before eating it. Why? Perhaps the potatoes tasted better when they were salted? But for whatever reason, over a period of five years this practice was universally adopted within this animal community and was then passed down to succeeding generations.
Back in 1971, the primatologist Hans Kummer noted that species seemed to adapt to their environment mainly through two processes: phylogenetic adaptation, which takes the form of a gradual evolution of the species at the genetic level; and adaptive modification, in which individual members of the species adapt to their specific present environment. The gradual emergence of a new way of treating and eating sweet potatoes on Koshima is a good example of this second process.
Yet some cultural changes appear to emerge internally within the group, rather than in response to external environmental change. In 1999, Jane Goodall and her colleagues highlighted thirty-nine unusual forms of behaviour specific to certain chimpanzee populations – such as patterns of tool usage or grooming and courtship rituals – where the catalyst appeared to be social in origin rather than some form of adaptation to the environment. Goodall witnessed chimpanzees embracing each other as human beings do to comfort those in mourning. Yet she also observed chimpanzees exhibiting more disturbingly human-like behaviour, such as waging war on rival groups and killing members of their own species.
One of the most important things that seems to distinguish human communities from those of other animals is the role of beliefs in sustaining personal existence, creating public norms of behaviour, and distinguishing one human community from another. The transmission of these beliefs, whether traditional or newly minted, is a core element of human culture. And when those beliefs undergo radical change – as in the rise of the Protestant Reformation in western Europe during the sixteenth century, or Marxism in the twentieth century – they can significantly impact the visible forms of human culture.
The Italian Renaissance, for example, witnessed a revival of interest in classical forms of architecture, leading to a radical change in the cityscapes of northern Italy. There seems to be no direct equivalent to these ideologically directed changes within colonies of ants and schools of fish, which tend to respond directly to stimuli from their environments. Human culture involves one generation being able to pass its wisdom on to its successors through language and writing – by putting into words their core beliefs and values.
C. S. Lewis captured this point in reflecting on the role of literature: ‘Humanity does not pass through phases as a train passes though stations: being alive, it has the privilege of always moving yet never leaving anything behind. Whatever we have been, in some sort we still are.’ Lewis here points to the cumulative capacity of human beings to retain the wisdom of the past, while ensuring that its subsequent development and enhancement is passed on to future generations. Communities of beliefs can thus be grounded in the inherited wisdom of the past, and see this as generating strategies for dealing with the future.
Communities of Belief as Places of Safety
I have deliberately spoken of ‘communities of beliefs’. There is no universal, indubitable foundation for human knowledge, no set of grounding or informing beliefs that is shared by all human beings. What we find empirically is a diversity of beliefs across history and human culture – beliefs that are not universally perceived as intellectually self-evident. This naturally leads people to gravitate towards communities that share their beliefs, partly for intellectual and cultural security (beliefs can easily lead to discrimination or social conflict), but also to enable them to flourish within this tradition of belief by exploring its implications for an appropriate way of living. Communities of belief arise due to the observable diversity of human beliefs and the intellectual and social needs that this diversity raises.
In western culture, communities of belief – irrespective of the genre of those beliefs – can be seen as playing two significant roles: as places of safety and reflection. Human communities emerged primarily as ‘safe places’ to enable physical survival, allowing individuals within those communities to feed and defend themselves, and ensure their futures through reproduction. The nomadic lifestyles of hunters and gatherers gradually gave way to more settled forms of existence. Cities emerged, capable of sustaining their existence through agriculture in Mesopotamia, and along the Nile in Egypt, the Indus in Asia, and the Huang (Yellow) River in China.
Within those cities, social stratification took place at several levels. At least three different forms of monarchy are known to have emerged in ancient Mesopotamia, whose authority was often associated with (and perhaps even dependent) on each city-state’s patron deity. In ancient Egypt, the king was seen as both the chosen representative and servant of the gods. To be a member of these communities was to be entangled within their founding myths, social norms and beliefs. Although these were often expressed in state or civic festivals, many of them took place at the level of households, where rituals relating to family events were celebrated.
In the ancient world, the ‘city’ designated a polis, a community of citizens united by common origins and sharing common concerns. The core identity of the city – what was transmitted from one generation to another – rested in its citizens and their beliefs, not its physical structures. As Catherine Morgan points out, one of the key questions about ancient Greek cities concerns ‘the extent to which cities served as statements of community identity’, particularly through ‘ideological institutions such as communal cults.’ Cities were understood to be cohesive corporate entities, rather than aggregates of individuals, shaped by a set of beliefs and values, which in turn influenced the personal belief systems of their members.
Our concern here, however, is primarily with the situation today, particularly in the western world, in which communities increasingly arise around specific beliefs or values – whether these are political, social, religious, cultural or recreational. Many people today belong to several such communities, seeing each as engaging, informing or sustaining an integral aspect of their personal identities, providing them with a richer quality of life. Let us first consider how communities act as safe places.
In the ancient world, cities were above all places of security against external threats. Their gates and walls protected their populations against their enemies, whether these took the form of marauding wild animals or invading armies. One of the great prayers of ancient Israel was that there should be no breaches in the walls of the city of Jerusalem (Psalm 144: 14). The security of the city’s population depended on the integrity of its walls, towers and gates. Early Christian communities met in secret during the second and third centuries, as their refusal to conform to the imperial cult marked them out as potentially seditious to the Roman authorities.
Communities of belief are social spaces where believers meet to socialise, as well as to receive ideological support, encouragement and affirmation from fellow believers. In most cases, such communities take the form of physical gatherings of believers. Yet online communities are playing an increasingly important role in creating and sustaining a sense of community identity, partly by reassuring groups who consider themselves to be marginalised or under threat to experience a sense of solidarity.
The general human need to seek out and socialise with like-minded people is mirrored widely in the cultural and religious domains. People want to meet those they feel at home with and with whom they can share their experiences and concerns in an affirming manner – rather than be ridiculed, abused or dismissed. People feel the need to feel valued and supported – irrespective of their beliefs. This is particularly important in nations in which state criticism of religion, or one specific religion, causes some religious individuals to feel insecure, threatened or unwelcome. For example, the public visibility and activity of Christianity is limited within the highly restrictive political context of China. Chinese Christians have adapted to this context by using social media apps such Weixin and Weibo to develop a sense of community and provide religious teaching and news through regular online publications.
As noted earlier in this chapter, an important function of a community of belief is to affirm the plausibility of these beliefs, especially in the case of a ‘cognitive minority’ – a group whose view of the world does not conform to, or deviates from, those that are taken for granted in the wider culture. Confronted with a culture which is, or is perceived to be, antagonistic to certain beliefs, communities of faith provide a context within which these beliefs are treated as both normal and significant, rather than being seen as weird. No apology is required for holding them within these communities, nor are they seen as embarrassing.
Berger’s sociological analysis highlights the importance of ‘plausibility structures’ that are embedded within a trustworthy community. ‘The plausibility, in the sense of what people find credible, of views of reality depends upon the social support these receive. Put more simply, we obtain our notions about the world originally from other human beings, and these notions continue to be plausible to us in a very large measure because others continue to affirm them.’
Berger points out that communities of belief often hold to forms of ‘deviant knowledge’ that are out of tune with the mainstream of the wider culture. Yet this perception of ‘deviance’ is historically situated, determined by the dominant ideologies of a particular age and location. What is ‘deviant’ today might have been acceptable or even normal in the past, and may become so again.
An atheist might feel they belong to a ‘cognitive minority’ in the United States, which is largely Christian; yet Christians felt they belonged to a ‘cognitive minority’ in the Soviet Union for much of its history. No community of belief is intrinsically a ‘cognitive minority’ or ‘deviant’; it may become so, however, on account of its changing social context, rather than its fundamental beliefs.
Communities of Belief as Places of Reflection
A second significant role of communities of faith is that they are places of reflection, in which beliefs are incubated and enabled to grow and mature within a supportive environment. The community of belief sustains and catalyses a process of learning about the intellectual and social world that these beliefs create. It is about exploring the landscape of faith, and learning to inhabit this new set of perspectives and relationships. To believe is to occupy the same physical landscape as everyone else, but to see it and experience it in a new and distinctive manner. The community of belief helps us to expand our vision of this landscape, and encourages us to go ‘further up and further in’ (C. S. Lewis) to this way of thinking and living.
Communities of faith provide an environment in which their underlying beliefs – again, whether political, religious or cultural – can be studied, internalised and appropriated. Particularly in religious communities – such as churches, synagogues and mosques – education is seen as integral to achieving a mature faith, capable of engaging the world and sustaining a meaningful life. This typically takes the form of explaining the core beliefs and defining practices of a community and pointing to exemplars who are able to enact and model the community’s distinctive ethos.
There is now a growing awareness of the need to prepare communities of belief for the challenges of living in a pluralist western context, in which there are no universally accepted norms of truth, justice or goodness, and in which nobody is seen as having privilege in matters of belief. While some communities of belief are trying to find an appropriate place and voice within wider culture, re-reading their histories to see if the past might help them navigate the stormy seas of the present, others isolate themselves from the complexities of our social world to maintain the myth of their totalising truths.
This isolationism is a source of concern because it detaches such communities from the cultural mainstream, often leading to the perception that they are at war with, or threatened by, wider society. This can easily lead to alienation or even radicalisation within these communities, which result in political or religious extremism. Some Islamic communities in secular France or alt-right networks in Germany provide illuminating examples of this problem, for which there appears to be no obvious solution.
Charles Taylor noted the ‘fragilisation’ of belief in the modern period, which was catalysed by a growing awareness of alternative possibilities. The emergence of a pluralist culture ‘fragilises’ belief systems – whether religious or atheist – by undermining their self-evident correctness. ‘If my view of the world is right, why do other views exist?’ The hostility of certain forms of secular atheism to continuing religious belief in a supposedly secular culture is partly a response to the threat that they pose to its plausibility, heightened by the growth and enhanced visibility of religious immigrant communities in many western nations. ‘If my theory is right, religion ought not to exist.’ Peter Berger concurs: ‘The appearance of an alternative symbolic universe poses a threat because its very existence demonstrates empirically that one’s own universe is less than inevitable.’
Communities of belief thus serve an important role in maintaining the plausibility of their own position in the face of a cultural milieu that suggests that their views are not as secure and self-evident as they might like to believe they are. The challenges posed to traditional cultural or religious values by rapid social changes in the West illustrate this concern well. While some see these as the bedrock of their communities of belief, other such communities see them as backward looking and oppressive. The outcome is that the existence of a plurality of communities of belief leads to a sense of anxiety and hostility, in that one’s own beliefs are not seen as respected, but as something that others believe ought to be rejected and overthrown.
This means that communities of belief must also learn how to reflect on how they can survive and adapt in the present, alongside other communities with divergent views. Can their traditional beliefs simply be reasserted? Or do they need to be translated into a new social language? How can a community’s past, particularly if considered to be problematic, be repurposed, refocused or reconfigured to meet new situations and challenges? This very often involves asking hard questions about the core vision of a community. To take a political example, what exactly is the essence of being a Conservative in Britain? Or a Democrat in the United States? Which of the competing visions of these political movements is most authentic and translates into electability?
Holding Communities Together:
Narratives and Rituals
Foundational narratives are essential to building a sense of community and explaining not simply how a community came into being, but why. What core themes and concerns were hardwired into its emergence? Abraham Lincoln, one of America’s most admired presidents, did much to consolidate the emergence of American identity, particularly in the aftermath of the Civil War. His Gettysburg Address of November 1863 sought to consolidate the idea that America was ‘a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.’ Lincoln’s address set out a new foundational narrative for a United States without slavery, thus distancing himself from the views of the Founding Fathers, many of whom (such as Thomas Jefferson, author of the ‘Declaration of Independence’ and third President of the United States) had been slave-owners.
The identity of what is now known as the European Union is shaped by a series of foundational narratives explaining the decision of the original six nations – Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany – to work together collaboratively. Four distinct foundational narratives were constructed to account for the formation of this union, and to give its members a sense of identity and direction for the future. This was essential at the time, given that it ‘was largely an elite-led project’, lacking a core vision. Perhaps the most important function of these narratives was to create a shared vision for this new political community, and depict it as offering a new way ahead, allowing these six nations to move on from a troubled past.
On this account, the European Union was essentially a ‘peace project in which nation-states learned from the atrocities of World War II and bound themselves together in peaceful cooperation in its aftermath.’ This created a powerful grounding and defining narrative of the European Union as a necessary consequence of the destructiveness of the Second World War, instrumental in restoring Europe to its rightful cultural and economic place. The historical accuracy of this narrative is, of course, somewhat questionable. Critics observed that it was not ‘nation-states that kicked off the process of European integration, it was fading empires, exhausted by their colonial efforts.’ The failures of Belgian, Dutch and French colonial projects demanded a recasting of their national identities and a reshaping of their futures.
We have already seen that it is natural for humans to form communities; it is becoming increasingly accepted that it is also natural for us to tell stories. The sociologist Christian Smith makes the point that we are story-telling animals, who ‘understand what reality is, who we are, and how we ought to live by locating ourselves within the larger narratives and metanarratives that we hear and tell, and that constitute what is for us real and significant.’ As Ursula K. Le Guin once pointed out, there have been ‘great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.’ Why do we do this? One reason is to tell the story of how our community came into being, and the values it embodies.
Narratives lie at the heart of many of the world’s great religions, possessing a remarkable ability to capture the imagination and at the same time to convey ideas and values. For C. S. Lewis, stories shape our thought, not by a cold dialectic of logic, but by an imaginative captivation. They somehow seem to have a capacity to enchant us, to shape our thinking by showing us another world, by inviting us to step into another landscape, and reflect on what we find and how it may force reconsideration and recalibration of our ideas. The most compelling worldviews are thus often narrated, rather than merely articulated.
J. R. R. Tolkien suggested that the natural human inclination and capacity to create stories (such as his own great fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings) is the result of bearing God’s image and likeness. We find ourselves motivated to tell such stories, and construct our identities in narrative terms and forms. ‘We make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.’
The Christian theologian Stanley Hauerwas is one of many writers to emphasise the importance of these foundational narratives for personal growth in faith and communal participation. Christianity is about seeing the world in a certain way, and acting in accordance with this vision of reality. But how does this way of seeing the world come about? Hauerwas points to the need to be ‘trained to see’ the world in a Christian manner. ‘We do not come to see just by looking, but by disciplined skills developed through initiation into a narrative.’ We see ourselves as part of this ongoing narrative. It is not just a narrative, but our story as a community – a narrative that we allow to enfold and inform our life story.
For C. S. Lewis, the Christian narrative is primary; Christian creeds are secondary. The narrative invites participation; the creeds invite reflection. Creeds articulate the core themes of this narrative and describe the framework of beliefs that it conveys; yet they cannot convey either its imaginative appeal or its subjective impact. For Lewis, it is important to step inside this narrative and inhabit it.
Both Judaism and Christianity (which, despite their significant divergences, share many important points of connection), see themselves as communities grounded in identity-giving stories, which are retold within the community to affirm their distinct identities, recall their histories, and to give them hope for the future.
Take the story of the exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt, which plays a particularly important role in shaping the sense of distinctiveness and identity of Jewish communities. This narrative set out the origins of Israel as a people, explained their distinctiveness, and offered hope. While the historical details of the exodus remain unclear and are at points contested, its cultural memory and perceived significance for Judaism are affirmed and consolidated through the annual Passover Seder. Yet this foundational narrative is not simply something that is told again and again, as if it were merely a favourite family story. This story is expressed ritually in an annual meal, which adds depth, detail and imaginative engagement to a narrative performance.
Human beings are not simply social creatures, nor are they simply story-telling creatures; they are also creatures who use rituals as ways of creating, expressing and internalising meaning. As the anthropologist Dimitris Xygalatas points out, rituals are ‘seemingly senseless acts’ that end up making life worth living. Outsiders may find the rituals of a community puzzling, even unintelligible. Yet the logic of a ritual is embedded within a community of belief, which can see and make the vital connections that an outsider would find puzzling, irrational, or alienating (think of E. M. Forster’s ‘othering’ of the ritual celebrating the birth of Krishna in the Hindu village of Mau in his novel A Passage to India).
The participants in the Friday evening ritual meal are encouraged to feel as if they are leaving the captivity of Egypt. A centrepiece of the meal is the following question, traditionally asked by a child: ‘Why is this night different from all other nights?’ The remainder of the meal explains why, using various foods – such as bitter herbs and unleavened bread – as symbols to evoke the memory of Israel’s exodus from bondage. Each element of the meal evokes the memory of this historical event, at which none of the participants in the Seder meal were physically present – and yet which defines and constitutes their identity.
Rituals do not change the external world; their impact lies on the internal world of the believer – someone who inhabits a community of beliefs. As Xygalatas points out, while rituals have no impact on the physical world, they help human beings cope subjectively with a complex and sometimes senseless world. They enable us to ‘connect, find meaning and discover who we are’. Rituals are acts through which we create meaning and facilitate social connection to others. Some rituals are highly individual and idiosyncratic – such as Rafael Nadal’s complex preparations for tennis matches. Perhaps the most famous of these involves water bottles. ‘I put my two bottles down at my feet, in front of my chair to my left, one neatly behind the other, diagonally aimed at the court.’ Nadal dismisses any suggestion this is some form of superstition. ‘It’s a way of placing myself in a match, ordering my surroundings to match the order I seek in my head.’
Yet most rituals are communal and social, involving people gathering together. The disruption of these and many other forms of social gatherings by the COVID pandemic of 2020–22 clearly demonstrated the social importance of these rituals. For religious communities, online worship services proved an inadequate substitute for face-to-face encounters, not least because of loss of the social support that is known to be important for human wellbeing.
Communities and Traditions of Rationality
In the ancient world, various schools of philosophy emerged, some of which anticipated aspects of what we now know as the ‘natural sciences’. Each of these philosophical communities developed its own distinct mode of thinking, alongside practising an understanding of how to live authentically that was grounded in those ideas. In classical Greece, Platonist, Aristotelian, Stoic, Epicurean and Sceptical schools of thought emerged, each attracting followers to their visions of the good life. A similar pattern can be seen in China, with the emergence of the ‘three teachings’ of Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism.
In each of these cases, reflecting on how best to understand our world and live meaningfully within it was carried out within a community of belief, developing often quite sophisticated accounts of the acquisition of wisdom and its implementation in real life. Some might be drawn to these schools or traditions on account of their intellectual appeal; others because they were attracted by the quality of life that these philosophical communities seemed to enable or inform.
A similar recognition of the importance of communities of enquiry and beliefs can be seen within the modern academic world, especially within the natural and social sciences. The phrase ‘the scientific method’ does not imply a single normative way of gaining knowledge; it rather articulates the general criteria of attention to evidence and critical and consistent thought that are typical of individual natural sciences, yet which are implemented in different ways within each scientific disciplinary community that they consider to be appropriate to their subject matter.
Each of these disciplinary communities developed its own distinct research methods and criteria of adjudication, based on their specific fields of engagement. This is reflected in the concept of an ‘epistemic community’, developed in the late twentieth century to help make sense of the complex interaction between professional communities, in particular their epistemic values and their rationalities. Such communities hold their own distinct set of normative and principled beliefs, based on ‘internally defined criteria for weighing and validating knowledge in the domain of their expertise.’
To use the analogy of a map, favoured by Mary Midgley, we are not talking about an empire which enfolds a series of distinct subordinate territories, each of which operates under centralised control. Rather, we are dealing with a series of loosely confederated territories, each of which is independent, while at the same time is willing and able to contribute to the wider field of human knowledge and understanding.
Instead of the monolithic approach to knowledge demanded from some rationalists of the late eighteenth century, the recovery of a broader sense of rationality has enabled a more diverse and richer approach to human knowledge and wisdom. This suggests that the landscape of human knowledge production can be likened to a patchwork quilt of communities of reflection and investigation, each exploring its own chosen area of expertise with the tools it has developed and adapted for those purposes. Each has its own identity and integrity, its own contribution to make to human society.
Perhaps the Enlightenment’s tendency to think of reasoning as a form of impersonal rationalist mechanical calculus led to a disregard for the moral qualities of thinkers. A growing realisation that thinkers are human beings, subject to and limited by the many fallibilities of human nature, has led to a reconsideration of this viewpoint. Recent scholarship has explored the importance of what is now known as ‘character epistemology’, characterised by certain ‘epistemic virtues’ and ‘epistemic vices’. The important point is that the knower, or the seeker after knowledge, should be an epistemically moral person. For Linda Zagzebski, a philosophical pioneer in this field, such ‘epistemic virtues’ would include intellectual humility, diligence and open-mindedness.
Although traditional Aristotelian character ethics tended to focus on individual agents as the primary embodiments of virtues and vices, more recent studies of human character have drawn attention to the importance of collective epistemic virtues and vices. Groups and communities can be seen as acting as epistemic agents, with their own distinct virtues and vices. One of the latter is ‘epistemic arrogance’, the tendency of an individual or community to believe that their self-declared intellectual or social superiority entitles them to have privileged status in the public arena and exclude or marginalise others.
Individual thinkers or communities of beliefs have often been deliberately excluded or treated as inferior or insignificant in mainstream discourse – an act of discrimination and repression that is increasingly discussed in terms of ‘epistemic injustice.’ This practice continues to this day, both in the forms of denigrating certain epistemic groups, or privileging others. Certain groups of people have historically been discounted or marginalised as the bearers or interpreters of truth – particularly women and people of colour. Many religious traditions, for example, clearly treat women as having lesser status as witnesses to truth, teachers, or exemplars. A growing awareness of the historical use of the Bible to perpetuate and justify racism and abusive male dominance has led to a closer reading of this text to understand how these interpretations arose in the first place, and might be challenged in the second.
Yet while religious communities are certainly guilty of some forms of discrimination, they are also discriminated against, particularly in the epistemic domain – think, for example, of the imperious dismissal of religious believers as evil, stupid or mentally ill by some rationalist writers. Yet this epistemic arrogance is not specifically linked with a criticism of religion. It is now widely encountered within western culture, with the potential to increase its fragmentation and polarisation. For example, the growth of online ‘echo chambers’ providing selectively curated information that is consistent with an in-group’s ideology or identity is not merely heightening cultural tensions; it is making it increasingly difficult to mediate between factions and tribes, who see the perpetuation of their favoured stereotypes as simply articulating ‘their truth’.
As noted earlier, this problem is becoming especially significant within the political domain, as an increasingly toxic culture emerges, particularly in the United States. Fewer politicians are willing to socialise across party lines, or even partner with opponents in a variety of other activities. Ideological distance, based on what people believe, is now being supplemented by personal antagonism, based on how people feel about members of other communities.
If we are to rebuild social cohesion and mitigate the negative social impact of ‘affective polarisation’ in western culture, there is a clear need for public intellectuals to become diplomats, explaining one specific community’s idea without condemning or ridiculing others. In view of the importance of this issue, we shall reflect more on the role of ‘public intellectuals’ in mediating between communities of belief.
Communal Mediation:
The Role of the Public Intellectual
So how do communities of belief communicate with a wider culture? Or with other communities of belief? As human knowledge expands, making it increasingly difficult for individuals to know what else is going on in the world of thought, how can these communities ensure that their ideas or perspectives are known to and appreciated by their peers in the world at large? The answer seems to lie, at least in part, in the idea of a public intellectual – a term that was first used in 1987 to explore the changing role of intellectuals in American public life. For Russell Jacoby, the term referred to ‘writers and thinkers who address a general and educated audience.’
It has since taken on a number of meanings, including the justification of the academic life to a sceptical public, the defence of a specific discipline in the face of its critics (who wants to study classics in a scientific age?), or an individual without academic affiliation who speaks and writes intelligibly and engagingly on issues of public importance (such as Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, or Naomi Klein, before her appointment as professor at the University of British Columbia in 2021).
I shall use the term more or less as Jacoby intended it, to refer to an individual intellectual, embedded within an academic community and credentialised by that community – perhaps an intellectual discipline within the natural sciences or humanities, or a political or religious community – who aims to make developments, debates or discussions within these communities intelligible and accessible to a broader audience (think of Brian Cox or Carlo Rovelli in the field of physics, or Mary Beard in the field of classics). This involves both communication, correction and correlation – being able to explain ideas, correct misunderstandings, and ‘tease out some of the links between their own discipline and the wider context beyond it’.
It is widely considered that the ‘public intellectual’ is of major importance in enhancing and correcting public perceptions of communities of belief or practice. At points, certain public intellectuals feel that they are able to speak about a ‘range of public issues outside the discipline in which they have earned their academic stripes’. As the case of New Atheist writers makes clear, this is intellectually risky, in that it often involves accidental or intentional academic over-reach, misunderstanding and misrepresentation. The problem, of course, is that audiences often assume that an individual’s competence and prominence in one intellectual discipline amounts to a transferable character trait, allowing their pronouncements in unrelated fields of knowledge to be treated as authoritative and reliable.
Yet when rightly understood and enacted, a public intellectual represents a vital bridge of contact between communities of belief, offering an informed and empathetic account of how insights from one community might be relevant to another, resolving misunderstandings, and creating personal relationships which can mitigate suspicions and enable dialogue. Unsurprisingly, those who advocate such dialogues are often abused by those wanting to maintain a ‘cold war’ between communities of beliefs or academic disciplines. Yet the increasingly polarised nature of western culture means that we need bridge-builders, who are able to explain the ideas and values of their communities dispassionately without censuring or misrepresenting others.
Schism: When Communities of Belief Split
Communities split over time – and beliefs often lie at the heart of these fractures. While some suggest this demonstrates that beliefs are fundamentally divisive, it is too easy to overlook the fact that beliefs created these communities in the first place, providing them with their grounds of unity and coherence. Communities of belief gather around the narratives and rituals which express their fundamental identity.
While the formal statement of beliefs – for example, in creeds – may create the impression that these are fixed and static, the human act of believing takes place in the flux of history, involving constant reflection and review as communities of faith face new challenges, opportunities and issues. The concept of ‘living tradition’ expresses the idea that communities of belief change over time, as they evolve in their self-understanding – but see this development as an ongoing exploration of their fundamental identity. Communities of belief aim for faithful continuity to the past, while being responsive to the challenges and concerns of the present.
Yet there comes a point at which communities of belief find themselves faced with internal tensions of such moment that it becomes impossible to continue in their present form. Often the causes of such divisions and ruptures within a community are responses to changes in their environments, which seem to call for new ways of implementing a traditional belief system, or changing its focus or manner of application. Sometimes movements fragment; sometimes a majority expels a minority, who form a new community with appropriate adjustments to their beliefs.
Although these fragmentations take many forms, the most significant schisms are generally thought to be religious in nature, focusing on the identity of a religious community, and the implementation of its core vision. A good example is found in the ‘parting of the ways’ between Judaism and Christianity. This fissure took place over an extended period, and was not centrally directed, taking different forms in local contexts. Judaism and Christianity coexisted for a while, with local variations in how the two communities related to each other. By the second century, however, a permanent separation had emerged.
Recent scholarship has shown how two theological issues were of importance in creating tensions between early Christianity and Judaism – namely, how to understand the identity and significance of Jesus Christ, and the correct way of interpreting Israel’s sacred scriptures. Christianity regarded these sacred writings as important to its own identity, but framed them in a way that differed significantly from traditional Jewish readings of the same texts. For example, Christians do not consider the cultic regulations of Israel’s sacred texts to apply to them, and thus do not observe its food laws or its requirement that males should be circumcised
Within Islam, an unhealed division arose after the prophet Muhammad’s death in 632. Muhammad had not stipulated who should succeed him as the political leader of the Muslim community. One group (the Shia) believed only someone from Muhammad’s family should succeed him; most (the Sunni) felt that the community was free to choose from a wider range of candidates, and selected Muhammad’s close friend Abu Bakr to become his successor (Arabic: khalif). The two groups seem to have coexisted in relative peace for many centuries. However, the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran gave rise to a more radical form of Shia Islam. Subsequent upheavals in the Middle East caused by two Gulf Wars, the Arab Spring of 2011, and the civil war in Syria have significantly increased polarisation between these two groups.
Christianity has been significantly affected by two schisms or fragmentations. The first was the extended drifting apart of the Latin-speaking Christian West, focused on Rome, and the Greek-speaking Christian East, focusing on Constantinople. Several factors contributed to this Great Schism, generally regarded as formalised in 1054 following a fierce dispute over a demand that Greek churches in southern Italy should conform to Latin practices.
The second is the movement generally known as the Protestant Reformation within western Christianity, which emerged following increasing demands for reform within the Church, particularly to the role of the Papacy, associated with leading Christian writers such as Erasmus of Rotterdam. What began as reforming movements in many sections of the Church (especially in France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland) gave way to the emergence of new alignments of churches, which no longer considered themselves to be under papal control.
The origins of this movement are complex, including the growing social power of the middle classes, the rise of self-governing urban communities, a demand to use the vernacular rather than Latin in preaching and worship, and a return to simpler and more biblical ways of Christian thinking. Eventually it led to the emergence of various forms of Protestantism, and the loss of unity within western Christianity. Many scholars feel that this fragmentation was not necessary, in that the difficulties could have been resolved. While there is little chance that the situation will now be reversed, there is growing interest in rebuilding relationships across these denominational divides. Recent ecumenical dialogues between these communities of belief may not have led to their reunion, but have at least led to an increase in mutual understanding and lessening of tensions.
Yet the Reformation illustrates how beliefs can have social functions, serving as boundary markers between communities. The doctrine of justification by faith alone came to define the boundaries between Protestantism and Catholicism in the sixteenth century – a convenient theological litmus test which reduced these two complex and variegated religious communities to a set of binaries. For Martin Luther, the ‘article of justification’ defined whether the Christian Church stood firm or fell apart. It thus was a point of coalescence for Protestantism, and a line of demarcation from Catholicism.
Why is this point important? Because it illustrates the dual function of beliefs – to unite people into communities on the one hand, and divide them on the other. Beliefs are not purely divisive; where they do lead to divisions, they were often responsible for the unity that existed beforehand. The challenge is for the wise to give thought to how these dual aspects of belief can be managed. It is natural for humans to believe and to form communities; this problem is located deep within the human condition, and is not going to go away.
While there is much more that needs to be said about the interplay of beliefs and communities, we need to bring our reflections on this theme to a close. I will conclude by considering the following: if belief is inevitable in life, how can we, whether as individuals or communities, be reassured that we have chosen wisely in what we believe, given that we cannot prove these beliefs?