Islamic, Christian and Buddhist Confrontations with Modernity
It is interesting to contrast how modernity affected Islam, Christianity and Buddhism throughout each of their histories. Islam and Christianity, other than the fundamentalist/reformist controversies, are more consistent in the commonality of their rituals, beliefs and practices than Buddhism and more rigid in terms of enforcing tradition so responded more violently to the challenges of modernity. Unlike the other world religions, Buddhism has but a few universally accepted doctrines and practices hence is the one most flexible and tolerant to changes in religious traditions brought on by modernity.
Muhammed and the times of his first four successors are seen as the formative, normative, exemplary period of Muslim faith and history and both reformers and Islamic revivalists today look to this period as the reference point for divine guidance and historical validation. Thus, any change to the traditions brought on my modernity are fiercely and sometimes violently resisted.
The tribes of Arabia were united under Islam and Islamic armies overran the Byzantine and Persian empires. Islam then swept across North Africa and into Europe where Muslims ruled Spain and the Mediterranean. Muslims collected great books of science, medicine and philosophy and contribute to the development of astronomy, chemistry, algebra, optical, art and architecture. This is a time romanticized as a period of brilliant Muslim success and powerful Islamic empires which lasted until Islam encountered a confrontation with modernity when Christianity undertook the crusades which had a shattering and long-lasting effect on Islam.
Another significant confrontation with modernity occurred from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries when the Islamic world witnessed a protracted period of upheaval and renewal. Muslim societies failed and declined, sparking responses from religious social/political revivalist movements. Many of these groups called for a return to the fundamentals of the Quran with jihad as a method to accomplish this. Movements like the Wahhabis responded to the challenges presented by modernity by waging holy wars. Even fellow Muslims who did not go along were declared enemies of God who must be fought.
One result of these violent responses to the challenges of modernity is that Islam is equated by many with violence, religious extremism and terrorism: from hostage taking and hijackings to holy wars, assassinations and bombings. Unfortunately, these responses to modernity have changed Western world views of Islam from a religion of peace to a religion of violence.
Christianity began as a Jewish sectarian movement and was an often-persecuted religion. A first major encounter with modernity was the conversion of the Roman emperor, Constantine, the first monarch to champion the rights of Christians. A pattern that would continue throughout Christianity’s encounters with modernity, as the religion was used to legitimize rulers, whether they were corrupt or not didn’t matter as long as the churches got their monies and lands.
The model of Christianity that was most shaped by modernity was not that of Orthodox Christianity which thrived as the Constantinian model until the fifteenth century, but an important modification based on another major encounter with modernity when the idea of separation of church and state was developed by St. Augustine. This formulation provided the decisive model of relations between church and state, religion and politics and sacred and secular for all future encounters with modernity. In Europe, the church carried civilization forward through the middle ages through the spread of Christian monasteries, providing a bridge between the ancient world and the modern world.
Christianity experienced the early expansion of Islam as a threat to its religious and political hegemony and as with Islam, the crusades were crucial encounter with modernity as Christianity was spread by the conquering of lands and the opening of new trade routes. The Enlightenment was another major conflict with modernity as secularism began to spread as advances in science and philosophy challenged Christian teachings. The Protestant Reformation was yet another example of Christianity’s conflicts with modernity as Protestantism in conjunction with the Renaissance humanism laid the groundwork for the mergence on the West of the idea of human dignity and human rights.
Ironically religious wars followed and after much bloodshed, the challenges of modernity were met by the gradual transformation of both Protestantism and Catholicism into the denominational religions we see throughout Christianity today.
Buddhist civilization is sustained by ritual exchanges between householders and renunciants, the monks and nuns whose advanced ascetic practices entailed abandonment of worldly comforts. The subsistence of the monks and nuns has always remained dependent on the donations of food and shelter by the lay community. Buddhism’s most significant challenges throughout history occur when modernity interrupts this flow for any reason.
Buddhism’s first major conflict with modernity occurred when it was virtually erased from the land where it was founded due to the successful development of Hinduism and the arrival in South Asia of Islam. As Indic Buddhism declined, donations to the monasteries ceased and most were abandoned and left to decay. Muslim conquests resulted in raids and the remaining Buddhist institutions were plundered and the destruction dispersed the Indian monks into the Himalayas, to coastal urban centers and across the seas, shifting Buddhism’s dominant region to East Asia after its scared centers in India lay in ruins.
After shifting to East and Central Asia, Buddhism flourished until another major conflict with modernity occurred around 645 CE. Buddhism had enjoyed wide spread support during the pre-Tang era. In fact, hundreds of Buddhist texts were translated into Chinese, monks, merchants and rulers obtained many precious relics and had them enshrined in monasteries across China. Then with consolidation of the T-ang state and the revival of the traditional Confucian class, the destiny of Buddhism began to rise and fall according to the degree of support from the reigning emperor and his court.
Buddhism continued to survive in this manner even after kingdoms of the earlier era gave way to smaller regional states. However, this form of traditional, hierarchical Buddhism was to be challenged again with modernity as new ideas and political systems emerged and daunting challenges were presented in the colonial era.
The next encounter with modernity was one of widespread decline for Buddhism across Asia when medieval states either lost their autonomy or were destabilized by colonialism which diminished or stopped the state funding required to survive. There was aggressive proselytizing through public preaching and pamphlets, attacking Buddhist beliefs and practices. Though fiercely criticized. the Buddhist sangha endured until the Communists introduced the policy of thorough destruction, denigration and disestablishment that had no precedent in Buddhist history.
Buddhists recovered from these challenges with modernity in many ways. Buddhist intellectuals and preachers emerged to engage in dialog with science and Christianity. Modern forms of media distribution were utilized to distribute Buddhists literature n many languages.
The modern reformation continued as “Protestant Buddhism” emerged adopting aspects of Protestant Christianity into the Buddhist framework to revitalize its institutions practices and doctrines.
The different crises, influences and possibilities experienced in each region led to different historical tracts, thereby increasing the diversity of Buddhism. Several aspects that were adopted in response to modernism are the importance of the laity in revitalization, the founding of Buddhist publications and schools, the beliefs that the practice of the religions had been corrupted by idolatry, polytheism and an undisciplined and corrupt monastic “priesthood”.
In eschewing celibate monasticism, minimizing ritualism and emphasizing mediation, compassion and self-discovery, Buddhism is presented as relevant to modern life and compatible with the scientific and cultural changes that have occurred over the last 2500 years or so since the Buddha first became enlightened.
As earlier mentioned, Buddhism has but a few universally accepted doctrines and the practices. This facet of the religion along with early monastery autonomy shaped the continuation of regional pluralism found across the Buddhist world up to the present.