“Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, to God the things that are God’s”. It is never easy to follow a biblical quote but this stating of the obvious did strike me. The change from a notoriously clerical country to one where it is practically forbidden to use the word “crib” in Christmas advertisements in just a few years is a rollercoaster generational ride. However, this change of attitudes towards faith from a too sociological to an “exclusively personal” approach might have its downsides – just think of the recent Knock “apparitions” or the international cells of unrepresentative “muslim” terrotist fanaticism.
I am convinced that like the independence of powers within the state is healthy for its functioning so the independence of institutions within a nation is fundamental for its long term stability. Still, following the health imagery, there is no need for the political or social liver of Ireland to deny the existence of the religious kidney of Ireland or for this kidney to bypass law or consider itself to be a justified exception. They simply have to work together for a better Ireland. And maybe it is as true here as in America that “Before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation.” (Michelle Obama)
Moreover, in a theocratic state like the Roman Empire’s Judea “to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” must have sounded at least uncomfortable to the politico religious leaders of the time, used to equate religious hopes with political victories. (Maybe that happened here as well?) However, for the Roman authorities trying to spread the cult of the Roman Emperor as a “living god” who you must adore, the other face of this coin sounded like defiance. In fact, atheism and superstition were some of the charges facing the first Christians for the next few centuries after this event, for refusing to adore the divine Roman Emperor. Here in Ireland it looks like blasphemy will be the charge if you use unparliamentary language like “G*d b**ss” or dare not use “Happy holidays!”…
This mock tolerance by eliminating any expressions of religious belief or simple cultural difference from the public sphere should not replace an engaging debate of ideas and worldviews which has to be free as much from aseptic intolerant prejudice as from an “anything goes” mentality. I think college is the best place to learn how to do this. After all, the undergraduate experience is the perfect time to become anything we wish, to discuss anything we wish and to learn anything we wish, searching for the best version of ourselves without immediate career concerns. This is a privilege that is worth defending from obsessions about rankings or research or funding. As Allan Bloom, a Professor at the University of Chicago, described, a freshman “has four years of freedom to discover himself – a space between the intellectual wasteland he has left behind and the inevitable dreary professional training that awaits him after the baccalaureate. In this short time he must learn that there is a great world beyond the little one he knows, experience the exhilaration of it and digest enough of it to sustain himself in the intellectual deserts he is destined to traverse. He must do this, if he is to have any hope of a higher life.”
How to integrate this experience into modern, “bolognised” curricula? I do not know but as Junior Sophister in Trinity I certainly did not feel that in these last 3 years my class was given any decent opportunity to think outside the box but for the chance punctual insightful lecture. The broad curriculum program seems like an anorexic cousin of the Horizons program in UCD and except for some resilient societies the undergraduate experience in Trinity is fading away at a fast pace. Even the concept of a B.A. (Bachelor of Arts) is now merely theoretical; liberal education, an illusion.
Maybe what is lacking is a unified university-wide course of general education for undergraduate’s not just “pick and mix” course requirements. Literature, philosophy, natural sciences should be, at a basic level, requirements for everyone whether you are studying Zoology or European Studies. The time to learn how to discuss the great questions in a meaningful way is now not later. The place will be nowhere else in Ireland if not in this college. A demand for a real quality education to individuals not to numbers in lecture halls lies more or less dormant in most students but is there and is expressed even in things like the recent Berkeley Library sit in. This shared desire to form ourselves in our wholeness and develop our real potential which college authorities seem to ignore should be answered somehow and soon. It is as much of fundamental justice to “render to Caesar’s the things that are Caesar’s” as to render to the students the things that should be ours – a proper preparation for a truly multicultural society, not an anti-cultural one.
