In a world where politics and religion overlap, believers and disbelievers – even believers of different stripe – clash with little provocation. Can they live together peaceably?
The headlines say “no.” Not even the architect of “Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason” is sure.
“What I do know is that talking to people who agree with us is like jogging in a cul-de-sac,” Moyers says via e-mail. “We have to hear what others are saying, as we want to be heard ourselves. … Our beliefs are so different that the important thing is not agreement but a fair hearing for everyone.”
His eight-part series debuts Friday on most PBS stations, and throughout those eight weeks of conversations, he exchanges thoughts and ideas with writers from around the globe. The topic: a world divided over God and religion.
Ah, religion. A poison in the blood? The muse of inspiration? One of his guests says it’s both.
Moyers, now a hale and hardy 72, was part of the JFK and LBJ White Houses, and he has racks of Emmy and Peabody awards to his broadcast journalism credit.
He says he came out of retirement because “the rocking chair was squeaking. Drove me crazy.”
In fact, he heard interesting opinions being expressed on every side of this issue and couldn’t stay away.
“And when we looked at the 100 writers invited by Salman Rushdie (to the PEN American Center) to talk about faith and reason, we said, “Wow! What an opportunity to hear what creative people have to say about this hot-button issue.”‘
In Part One of the series, Rushdie is the guest, and his observations, as always, are provocative.
“We’re living with a new tyranny,” says Rushdie, an avowed atheist, “one that uses the language of religion but, in fact, is a new totalitarianism.” That kind of long-term censorship can rob people of a view of anything beyond the censorship, he adds, and they learn to accept oppression as normal.
“Power wants to create the world in its image,” Rushdie says. “And in the battle of wills between censorship and freedom, it’s so important to hold the line.”
Mary Gordon, an author and professor of English at Barnard College, joins Moyers for Part Two. She seems to surprise him by saying that she, a parochial school-educated practicing Christian, prefers the company of disbelievers, adding, “There are many more good reasons for not believing than believing.” Her reasons intrigue.
Jeanette Winterson brings easy humor to her conversation with Moyers in Part Three. She grew up in the UK, a fundamentalist Pentacostal with a lot of questions she seldom asked. Her mother, a creationist, banned all but five books from the house, the Bible and four books about the Bible. She escaped that environment to attend Oxford, and she says she believes that all of us are interested in God.
“But this is a dark time … and we have to keep belief alive for future generations.”
Other writers who join the discussion over the coming weeks are Canadian Margaret Atwood; David Grossman from Israel; Anne Provoost from Belgium; and Brit Colin McGinn and Richard Rodriguez from the U.S.
Moyers, for his part, grew up in “a tight little Protestant culture in east Texas. It was a wonderful experience, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, (but) religion is about dogma, beliefs,” he says. “Faith is about experience. With religion, it’s all settled. With faith, it’s an adventure. You remain open to the spirit, to revelation wherever you find it.
“Once I moved out of that culture into a larger world and saw and heard what all was going on, I realized there are many ways to experience reality. So I am neither wholly a skeptic, nor wholly a believer. I know the ground on which I stand, but I am also open to what has yet to be experienced.”
He recalls that in their first interview, Rushdie talks about what dreamers writers are and how people of imagination often see things the rest of us don’t.
“Talking with (those writers) was like peering through a kaleidoscope,” Moyers says. “You keep turning it, and the light and the colors and the patterns keep shifting. I guarantee that if you watch the entire series you won’t think in familiar ruts anymore.”
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