Religious Nationalism and Pope Francis’ ‘Culture of Encounter’

Pope Francis and Imam al-Tayyeb. Photo: Vatican Media

In recent years, religion has become increasingly present in discussions of international politics. This is partly due to the recognition that religious communities are contributing to some of the conflicts that mar the international scene today. Religiously inspired nationalist movements are among the more dangerous ways that religion can lead to conflict today. On the other hand, religious communities can also be  important agents of peace. Pope Francis has been an important religious contributor to peace, both through his actions and his teaching.

This article sketches several examples of how religious nationalism threatens peace. It will then note several forms of faith-based resistance to religious nationalism. It will conclude by highlighting how Pope Francis’s “culture of encounter” can provide a remedy for such religious nationalism and can help build peace.

Religious Nationalism Today: Russia and the United States

The most visible contemporary example of religion’s involvement leading to  conflict is the tragic Russian war against Ukraine, initiated by President Vladimir Putin with the strong support of the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill. This war is being conducted with no regard for the ethical norms governing warfare or for the standards set out  in international law. Ethically, the actions of Russia are violating both the jus ad bellum and jus in bello norms for the ethics of war laid out in the just war tradition.[1] The UN Charter affirms that “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”[2] Further, the Geneva Conventions governing the means used in conflict declare that the belligerents “shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives, and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.”[3] These binding moral and international legal standards are clearly being violated by Russia’s aggressive invasion of  Ukraine and its indiscriminate use of force against civilians.

Russia’s violation of  these key moral and legal norms is  perhaps the strongest contemporary illustration  of the dangers of religious nationalism. Indeed, Vladimir Putin has often appealed to both religious and nationalist values to justify what Russia is doing. Putin asserts that Ukraine is not, in fact, an independent country whose sovereignty deserves the respect called for by the UN Charter. He claims that Ukraine is part of Russia, so the Russian “military operation” is not a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of an independent state. Rather, Putin sees the war as a defense of Ukraine against illegitimate pressure from the European Union, NATO, and the West more generally.

He bases this claim on both historical and religious grounds. For example, following the movement of Russian troops into the Crimean region of Ukraine in 2014, Putin appealed to history to justify his claim that “In people’s hearts and minds, Crimea has always been an inseparable part of Russia.”[4] He has repeated this claim often. In July 2021 he affirmed that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people,” and just days before the war began he asserted that “Ukraine is not just a neighboring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space.”[5] Putin supports these historical claims with religious warrants, appealing to the roots of both Russian and Ukrainian identity in the baptism of Prince Vladimir (Volodymyr in Ukrainian) into the Orthodox Christian tradition in the year 988.

This religious warrant for a common Russian and Ukrainian identity has been reinforced by the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, who has joined Putin in asserting that Ukrainians are to be identified as “peoples of Holy Russia.”[6] Kirill has preached that Russia’s engagement in Ukraine is not just a political struggle but that it has “metaphysical significance.” He sees the war as a matter of salvation from the corrupt freedoms of the West.[7] The war of Russia against Ukraine, therefore, is rooted in nationalist values, supported by appeals to both religious history and religious belief. This religiously supported Russian nationalism directly contradicts the call of both faith and ethics that require respect for the common humanity of all people that transcends  both national and religious differences.

Sad to say, religiously inspired nationalism is also present in a number of other settings, including the United States. Recent years have seen the rise of Christian nationalism as an influential force in United States politics and culture. Though Christian nationalism is difficult to measure, sociologists Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry show from empirical data that 42 percent of Americans believe that “the success of the United States is part of God’s plan.” Other surveys show that close to half of all Americans support a fusion of Christianity with their country’s civic life and national identity.[8] These supporters of a Christian America feel that current trends are undermining the historical bond between Christianity and America and that the identity of the country is under threat. Thus they advocate a politics that seeks to restore the Christian identity of the nation by the blending of a version of Christianity with a particular vision of the U.S. national agenda. This was evident in the large wooden crosses and the banners proclaiming “Jesus saves” carried by some of those who violently challenged  the congressional certification of the U.S. presidential election on January 6, 2021.

Despite the appeal of U.S. based religious nationalists to the role of God and Christianity in the establishment and flourishing of  the United States, the national identity they seek to defend is, however,  more cultural than based on orthodox Christian values. Whitehead and Perry argue, again from empirical data, that the identity Christian nationalists envision for the U.S. is often based on nativism, white supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity, authoritarian control of social life and high valuation of the military’s role. Indeed they suggest that Christian nationalism in the United States is rarely concerned with instituting what a well-grounded theology would regard as “‘Christ-like’ policies, or even policies reflecting New Testament ethics at all.”[9]

The similarity between the religious nationalisms in Russia and the United States is sadly evident. Religious traditions are invoked to support a particular vision of where the nation should go. In both cases, it could be argued that the agenda being affirmed is not really religious, but that religion is being manipulated to support a nationalist agenda. In both the Russian and U.S. cases, however, interpretations of religious history and religious values are in fact regularly invoked to support agendas that their advocates see as genuinely religious. Since the advocates of these nationalist movements see their commitments as having a transcendent grounding, it is appropriate to call such movements examples of “religious nationalism.” The historian Scott Appleby has argued that even where national or ethnic commitments are manipulating religion, as they were in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, “religious nationalism” remains an appropriate description for movements whose advocates see religion as helping to define their agenda.[10] 

Religious Opponents of Religious Nationalism

Fortunately, many religious communities reject and work against these currents of religious nationalism. An important Orthodox statement, For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church, strongly opposes the Russian war in Ukraine.[11] This statement was published on January 18, 2020, with the endorsement of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, and it has the support of the leadership of almost the entire Orthodox world, with the exception of the Russian Orthodox Church based in Moscow. The statement recalls that in 1872 the Council of Constantinople condemned the subordination of the Orthodox faith to ethnic identities and national interests.[12] It directly challenges President Putin’s and Patriarch Kirill’s appeals to Russian religious history and to Christian ethics to support the war in Ukraine.

A second document of a less authoritative nature, the “Declaration on the ‘Russian World’ (Russkii Mir) Teaching,” issued March 13, 2022, and signed by numerous Orthodox Church leaders and thinkers, sees the blending of Russian nationalism and Orthodox faith as “heresy,” and as “profoundly un-Orthodox, un-Christian and against humanity.”[13]

In the United States, there has also been notable religious opposition to recent Christian nationalist movements. The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty helped to organize and promote a movement it calls “Christians against Christian Nationalism.” This movement rejects the effort to merge Christian and American identities as “a distortion of the gospel of Jesus and a threat to American democracy.” It holds that the distortion is magnified by the way Christian nationalism “often overlaps with and provides cover for white supremacy and racial subjugation.”[14] This opposition has been endorsed by religious leaders of most of the major mainline Protestant churches in the United States, including the American Baptists, the Episcopalians, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the Society of Friends, the Presbyterian Church USA, and the National Council of Churches.[15]

Such resistance to religious nationalism has deep roots in most major religious traditions. For example, both Judaism and Christianity hold that every person has been created in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:27). Thus all persons have a shared sacredness that reaches across the borders that create national identity. Muslim duties also apply  across national, cultural and religious borders.[16] The oneness of God is the central conviction of Muslim faith, and the divine oneness is reflected in the unity of the human race. The Qur’an proclaims that the human race was created by Allah as umma wahida, “one community” (Sura 2: 213). The Muslim community, therefore, has a responsibility to support human unity despite the national and religious divisions that have arisen through history. Similar support for human unity can be found in other traditions as well.

The Culture of Encounter in Pope Francis’ Thought

Overcoming religious nationalism thus calls us to recognize the dignity and worth of all persons, no matter what their religious or national identity. Authentic faith requires what Pope Francis has called a genuine “encounter” with the personal dignity of others and for the duty to respond to that dignity with respect and care. For Francis, “encounter” is an active awareness of the presence and true worth of the other person. It is a kind of awakening to the reality of the other and to their dignity and their needs.

To make this point, Francis’ encyclical Fratelli Tutti draws on Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. The Good Samaritan not only sees the needs of the person who has been injured by robbers  but he is moved to action. The Priest and the Levite walk by and are indifferent to  the condition of the injured person who continues suffering by the side of the road. The Good Samaritan, however, encounters the needy person in a way that stimulates an active response. The Samaritan is awakened to the necessity of action by his recognizing the real dignity and  need of the person left on the side of the road by the robbers.

Pope Francis also uses the term “accompaniment” to describe this kind of existential encounter. Accompaniment arises from an attentiveness to the other person that might be described as a form of contemplative openness to the other. As Francis puts it in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (EG), to encounter the real worth of another person is like standing before the burning bush when God became powerfully present to Moses. In genuine encounter, we “remove our sandals before the sacred ground of the other (cf. Exod 3:5)” (EG 169). Recognition of the sacredness of the other person leads the responder to move beyond the existing boundaries of his or her own world, including national or religious boundaries. In encounter, one meets the other in their very reality, not in a way determined by one’s previous relations or by ideas transmitted from one’s national or religious tradition. As Francis puts it when he calls for the development of a culture of encounter, “Realities are more important than ideas.” Adequate response to the needs of our world, therefore, calls for appreciative, respectful and loving response to the reality of the persons who live in our world (cf. EG 231-233).

Despite the eloquence of his writing on this theme, Francis does not fully define what he means by “encounter.” The ways he uses the term, however, suggest that it might be further clarified in the following way. Encounter is the meeting and mutual engagement of two persons. The capacity for such meeting and engagement is a form of self-transcendence. To encounter another, one must be able to reach beyond or transcend oneself in appreciation of the reality of the one being encountered. This transcending of the narrow confines of one’s own self occurs when one comes to know the other as they truly are, when one freely turns to the other in affirmation of who they are, and when one enters into a relationship of respect for a person that can grow into love. The one encountered also possesses a self-transcendence that gives them a dignity and value. The one encountered is more than an object or a brute animal, silently self-contained and incapable of conscious relationship.

Encounter, therefore, is the meeting of two self-transcendent beings who have spiritual characteristics that make them more than things. These forms of self-transcendence are markers of the dignity and worth of all persons. They are the reason why persons must be respected and protected by others in human interaction. Specific norms as to how humans should treat each other are more detailed expressions of the requirement of respect for the self-transcendence of human persons. To respect a person’s self-transcendence is to respect their ability to know, to make choices in freedom, and to form bonds of relationship and love.

Similarly, a second person is capable of experiencing the duty to show such respect because the second person also possesses the capacity for self-transcendence. This second person is not confined within the limits of their self-consciousness but can genuinely encounter the other as a fellow human being. Thus, one human being experiences a kind of ought in the face of another.[17]

Each person’s capacity for self-transcendence makes a claim on the other’s capacity for self-transcendence. One person’s ability to know and understand calls out for acknowledgement in the understanding and action of others. One person’s freedom makes demands on the freedom of another. One person’s capacity to form bonds of relationship with others calls for acknowledgment and support through the concern of others. All this is implicit in what Francis calls “encounter.”

Pope Francis stresses that encounter has its prime manifestation in interpersonal interaction that achieves its fullness in the love of one person for another. But he also insists that encounter can occur communally when one community engages positively with another community and recognizes the other community’s worth and rights. Encounter, therefore, can occur socially and can help shape macro-relationships on the social, economic and political levels.[18] When this occurs, encounter will contribute to the promotion of justice and peace within communities and among nations on the global level. When this communal encounter takes place, it can lead to what Francis calls “social friendship.” It will also have effects on political institutions that lead to what the pope sees as the deepening of “political love.” These social dimensions of encounter among persons and communities will spur them into action “to create more sound institutions, more just regulations, more supportive structures” (FT 186). They will promote the development of what Francis calls a “culture of encounter.”[19]

At the beginning of Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis tells us that his decision to prepare the encyclical was encouraged by his interaction with the Grand Imam of the Al Azhar mosque in Cairo, Ahmad Al-Tayyeb.[20] The pope and the Grand Imam had already encountered one another when they worked together on the Document on Human Fraternity, which they issued jointly at their meeting in Abu Dhabi in February 2019.[21]

No pope has ever before stated that an important papal teaching has been directly influenced by a religious leader who is not a Christian. Thus the encounters between the pope and the Grand Imam could lead to a significant advance in Christian-Muslim relations on the institutional level and over the long term. The Christian and Muslim communities together make up slightly more than half the population of the world.[22] Thus movement from the conflict and violence that have often marked their past relations to mutually appreciative interaction in peaceful solidarity would surely be of great historical significance and could be a major contribution to global peace and justice.

Pope Francis’ “culture of encounter” thus reinforces religious resistance to the religious nationalism that poses such a serious threat to men and women today. We need to heed Francis’s call to encounter real persons and to recognize their very real needs. We also need to respond effectively to his call to create institutions that sustain encounters that reach across the borders dividing our world. Such encounters and such institutions are crucial in advancing the peace and justice that are urgently needed today.

DOI: La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 7, no.2 art. 3, 0223: 10.32009/22072446.0223.3

[1] Cf. M. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, New York, Basic Books, 20155, chaps. 4, 8, 9; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, “The Harvest of Justice is Sown in Peace”, November 17, 1993, Part I, B, 2, (www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catholic-social-teaching/the-harvest-of-justice-is-sown-in-peace.cfm).

[2] United Nations Charter, art. 2,  para. 4, (www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text).

[3] Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol, adopted June 8, 1977, art. 48, “Basic Rule,” https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/INTRO/470?OpenDocument, 264.

[4] V. Putin, “Address by President of the Russian Federation to State Duma deputies, Federation Council members, heads of Russian regions and civil society”, March 18, 2014, (en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20603).

[5] V. Putin, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, July 12, 2021, (en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181), and “Address by the President of the Russian Federation”, February 21, 2022, (en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67828). For a useful overview of the historical interaction of Russia and Ukraine that shows that Putin’s account of this history is oversimplified, see A. Reid, “Putin’s War on History: The Thousand-Year Struggle over Ukraine”,  in Foreign Affairs, May/June, 2022, 54-63.

[6] Kirill, “The word of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill on the 4th Week of Great Lent after the Liturgy in the main church of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation”, April 3, 2022, (https://tinyurl.com/bddsb2pz).

[7] Kirill, “Patriarchal Sermon on Cheesefare Week after the Liturgy at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior,” March 6, 2022, (https://tinyurl.com/2j7sdyvs).

[8] Cf. A. L. Whitehead – S. Perry, “What Is Christian Nationalism?”, in Christian Nationalism and the January 6, 2021 Insurrection, a report from a joint project of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC) and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, February 9, 2022, (bjconline.org/jan6report/).  See also A. L. Whitehead – S. Perry, Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States, New York, Oxford University Press, 2020, 6-10; 25.

[9] A.L. Whitehead – S. Perry, Taking America Back for God, op. cit., 11.

[10] Cf. R. S. Appleby, The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation, Lanham, MD, Rowman and Littlefield, 2000, 76. Appleby cites G. F. Powers, “Religion, Conflict, and Prospects for Reconciliation in Bosnia, Croatia, and Yugoslavia”, in Journal of International Affairs, 50, (Summer, 1996/1) 63, to back up his interpretation. D. Little and D. K. Swearer (eds) reach similar conclusions about the religio-ethnic conflicts in Iraq, Sri Lanka and Sudan in their Religion and nationalism in Iraq: A Comparative Perspective, Cambridge, MA, Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, 2006, “Preface”,  8-9.

[11] For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church, January 18, 2020, available on the website of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, (goarch.org/social-ethos)

[12] For the Life of the World, No. 11.

[13] “Declaration on the ‘Russian World’ (Russkii Mir) Teaching”, March 13, 2022, available on the website Public Orthodoxy of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University, publicorthodoxy.org/2022/03/13/a-declaration-on-the-russian-world-russkii-mir-teaching/.

[14] Statement on “Christians Against Christian Nationalism,” available on the webpage of Christians Against Christian Nationalism, (www.christiansagainstchristiannationalism.org).

[15] See the list of Endorsers on the website of Christians Against Christian Nationalism, (www.christiansagainstchristiannationalism.org/endorsers).

[16] For an excellent treatment of the significance of borders for an Islamic approach to humanitarian intervention, see Sohail H. Hashmi, “Is There an Islamic Ethic of Humanitarian Intervention?” in Ethics and International Affairs 7 (1993) 55–73, (doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-7093.1993.tb00143.x).

[17] Cf. W. Luijpen, “Justice as an Anthropological Form of Co-Existence”, chap. 6 in Phenomenology of Natural Law, Pittsburgh, PA, Duquesne University Press, 1967, esp. 180.

[18] Cf. FT 181.

[19] This phrase was first used by Francis in EG 220, and has appeared repeatedly in subsequent writings, especially in Fratelli Tutti.

[20] Cf. FT 5.  For a helpful study of Francis’s approach to interreligious dialogue, especially the social and political implications of such dialogue, see P. C. Phan, “Pope Francis and Interreligious Encounter”, in Theological Studies 83 (2022/1) 25-47.

[21] Francis – Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, A Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, February 4, 2019 (www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/travels/2019/outside/documents/papa-francesco_20190204_documento-fratellanza-umana.html).

[22] Pew Research Center, “The Changing Global Religious Landscape”, April 5, 2017, reports that in 2015 Christians were 31.2 percent of the people of the world and Muslims 24.1 percent, (www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/04/05/the-changing-global-religious-landscape).