Opinion | Cherish theology: we absolutely cannot do without it to understand the world today

Theology is the craziest of all academic disciplines. Her research object is inherently unprovable. It is therefore understandable that theology as a science is practiced in fewer and fewer places and is constantly under pressure. But to understand today’s complicated world we absolutely cannot do without it.

Take Russia’s war in Ukraine. The current Kremlin has transformed the former Soviet ideology into something that can only be understood as religion. Elements such as patriotism, propaganda and myth-making that once formed a coherent ideology to support the communist state now function as political technologies that are fired like loose arrows at the people. Under Putin’s rule, concepts such as nation, state and church are granted a ‘sacred’ status; citizens are not allowed to arrive there. And while the ‘sanctity’ of the Communist Party, Lenin and Stalin had no claim to the afterlife, this time it is different. Today’s war propaganda promises that to believers who are loyal to the state.

The use of religion as an ideological instrument is called ‘Putinization’. And Vladimir Putin fully integrates religious leaders into his geopolitical strategy. On October 25, for example, he brought together Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, Chief Rabbi Lazar and Grand Mufti Tadzuddin in the Kremlin. All four skillfully merged the divine with their fervor over the war in Ukraine and “the need to talk about events in the Middle East,” and placed both conflicts under the rubric of “religious, national conflicts.” The aim is to justify the Kremlin’s geopolitical ambitions by claiming the “common moral value system” of the three religions as the foundation of the Kremlin ideology. In this fusion of religion and ideology, Putin becomes the sacred peacemaker who can stop the global “conflict of civilizations.”

Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, is enthusiastically participating in this. Jesus Christ was missing from many of his sermons over the past year. Christ was replaced by the ‘holiness’ of the state, the military forces and the church. Or Putin himself. During the advance to Moscow of Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, Kirill replaced Jesus with Putin, quoting from Matthew 10:33 about treason: “Whoever denies Me before men, him will I also deny.” Menacingly supplemented by: “We know what this life without God has led to in our country.”

Blind spot

For a long time, many Dutch people thought that religion was ‘passé’. They have overlooked that secularization is by no means a global phenomenon and that religion is a factor of enormous importance elsewhere in the world. This blind spot creates serious misconceptions about the role of religion as an enabling force that has even spawned wars. Adopting a Western, secularized perspective is therefore not only short-sighted and provincial, but also geopolitically risky.

Now you can say: besides theologians, there are also sociologists, anthropologists and religious scholars, right? What then is academic theology needed for? But secular academic approaches that disregard “the sacred” reduce the riddle of life to the material world, ignoring the existential basis of faith: that the sacred is a reality for believers.

Theology provides a view from within, studying the perspective of believers themselves. And so, where religious content is used politically, theology not only gives you a better view of the problem, but also of possible change. Every religious tradition also has antibodies to separate religion from political ideology. And also to achieve self-purification after a period of trauma and war. It is crucial to discover and activate these antibodies from within with a craft theology.

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‘God Fills All Things’

For example, there is untapped potential in Russian Orthodox theology. Its power lies precisely in the ‘foolishness’ that puts this science under so much pressure in the academy. In Russian Orthodoxy there is a strong realization that God transcends all human understanding and experience. True knowledge of God’s nature is not possible, intellectually or experientially. That is why orthodox theology is extremely reserved in its descriptions of both God’s essence and his divine presence in the world. At the same time, this theology centers on the riddle of life: in the words of the Orthodox liturgy, God is “present everywhere and fills all things.”

This specific awareness of God’s omnipresence provides the antidote to the instrumentalization and misuse of religion. After all, anyone who believes that the divine pervades creation also believes that every aspect of creation – whether it concerns people, animals, nature or material things – is inherently worthy of respect. This respect is not based on instrumental value, but on the intrinsic sacredness of each being or thing. The faith thus leaves no room for hatred or hostile thinking towards Ukrainians.

If you believe that something or someone has an inherent, divine value, you cannot simultaneously use it for an external purpose without compromising that value. To discover these kinds of antidotes and then help change mentalities, theology must be valued and theologians must be allowed to practice their craft.

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