The Reith Lectures 2016
All faith is false; all faith is true: Truth is the shattered mirror strown in myriad bits; while each believes his little bit the whole to own – Sir Richard Francis Burton
Kwame Anthony Appiah cites the words of Sir Richard Francis Burton, the nineteenth century British explorer and scholar, when considering the idea of truth in relation to faith. Appiah’s first Reith Lecture in 2016 emphasised the importance of community and practice in religious faith, over the centrality of scripture. He offers the term orthopraxy to emphasise the idea of acting in the right way, as opposed to orthodoxy, which promotes belief in correct or accepted creeds. His talk seeks to demonstrate that scriptures are subject to interpretation and reinterpretation over time; indeed, this allows religious faiths to stay relevant and to speak to their followers over many centuries. Appiah insists that “when it comes to their survival, their openness is not a bug but a feature.”
For many of religious faith, private and public rituals are embedded in daily life. Dress codes and dietary practices are central to Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism and Islam amongst many others. Although Appiah questions what of these are a matter of custom and what are a matter of creed, he also suggests that as these religious practices evolve and change over time, they effect change over doctrine.
In the modern age, fundamentalism has tended to promote a strict adherence to the scriptures as they were thought to be when they were first revealed. Appiah uses the term ‘scriptural determinism’ to define the suggestion that scripture determines how people who adhere to particular faiths should behave. But scriptures are open to selective readings and there are plenty of contrasting interpretations in all faiths. Of course, there are many passages within the Quran or Bible, for example, that would be seen as unacceptable to contemporary, liberal minds. Particular positions on gender or sexuality that can be understood from the scriptures are not necessarily reflected in religious communities whose views on such matters shift continually (as demonstrated, for example, by the appointments of women bishops or rabbis in the face of examples of gender inequality within Anglican or Jewish scriptures). As Appiah says: “the story of sacred and ecclesiastical texts is the story of their readers – of shifting and often clashing interpretations.”
The question of identity is the subject of Appiah’s three Reith lectures. There is an acknowledgement that faith through practice and community plays a part in defining identity but also, that “identity endures through change”. Appiah’s personal story illustrates that identity is often complex and made of a range of intersectional characteristics. Towards the end of the talk, he describes his father who, although an elder of the Wesley Methodist Cathedral in Kumasi, Ghana, would see no conflict in also paying homage to his Ashanti spiritual ancestors by pouring regular libations. As much as Appiah’s father’s Methodist faith was central to his sense of identity, so was the spiritual customs and rituals of his Ashanti heritage. Appiah rationalises this through the words of Hellenistic philosopher Philo of Alexandria, who said: “To be loyal to your god, you need not revile the gods of others.”