Reassess religious dogmas that have developed in over 2000 years

Theological revisionism tests faith in all religions. [iStockphoto]

Faith and theology are interconnected. Theology studies faith or belief systems and is often associated with the supernatural.

Faith is an acceptance of reality beyond common reason as the basis for the identity of people. The search for identity relies on oral traditions as to the beginnings of a people, which often lands on a deity as the creator after which everything else makes sense.

Organisations that develop around those 'beginnings', as 'articles of faith', become religions that people defend and advance. The religions then become instruments of governance to those people. These faiths and religions are subjected to regular study and assessment as to practice and tenets. As a system of study, theology is bound to go through changes about the way of studying beliefs themselves or the issues to be raised.

The changes constitute theological revisionism. It is on the rise in two of the world's main belief systems that often appear to be in competition - Christianity and Islam. In 2023, the two systems of faith have two of their annual rituals coinciding in the month of April as either Ramathan or Easter. Both have gone through theological revisionism and appear to attract each other, mainly because of increased fear of war and assorted violence.

Fear makes 'war' a theological modifier in the sense that it has sobering effect on beliefs. Since no religion wants to annihilate its people by insisting on being exclusively right on, or having monopoly of, heavenly access, the issue becomes one of common sense over dogma. Two religious philosophers, Pope Francis of the Catholic Church and Muslim Fethullah Gulen, who inspires the Hizmet Movement, head this theological redirection.

For Gulen, dogmatism is dangerous because it clouds reason and distorts the essence of faith. The way out, Gulen argues, is through good education in all fields of knowledge for it helps to build ethical behaviour and consideration for others.

Pope Francis, emphasising 'healthy realism', appears to be of the same mind-frame, stressing common sense. The times, therefore, call for reassessment of various religious dogmas that have developed in roughly 2000 years as both Christianity and Islam struggle to claim their theological space in the human arena.

Theological revisionism is not new; it goes back to ancient Egypt's New Kingdom. Akhenaton, in forcing the Egyptians to worship only the God of his choice, Aton, turned religion into his tool of governance. Moses, taught as Egyptian, established the religion of Judaism which turned the 'Passover' into an annual ritual.

This ritual graduated into Easter after Jesus, a theological revisionist, revised Moses. Thereafter, the beliefs that evolved around the person and divinity of Jesus became subject to frequent theological revisionism. Francis, a serious Jesuit, besides theologically 'rehabilitating' people like Mary Magdalene and St Thomas, re-examines dogma, opens up the Church, and engages in theological revisionism.

Among the dogmas up for the revisionist chopping block is the doctrine of 'just war' propounded by Aurelia Augustine and reinforced by Thomas Aquinas. Augustine was countering the myth that Christians did not fight because they were 'pacifists'. It was, he argued, a bigger sin not to fight under certain circumstances when lives were in danger. Fighting for self-defence and to save lives was therefore 'just war'.

Since rulers and states repeatedly abuse 'just war' arguments, and given the ability of modern gadgets to eliminate humanity, there can be no just war. Theological revisionism tests faith in all religions. Among Christian denominations and Muslim branches, philosophical Francis and Gulen are redirecting theological discourses. It is their time to confront current theological challenges. They are neither the first nor last.