Innovation and Religion with Dr. Marco Ventura - S4E11 (Part 2 of 2)

Dr. Marco Ventura is Professor of Law and Religion and Religious Diplomacy at the University of Siena in Italy. Trained in bioethics and biolaw at the University of Strasbourg, he has advised the European Parliament, the OSCE, and various governments on the intersection of religion and rights. He directed the Center for Religious Studies at the Fondazione Bruno Kessler in Trento and chairs the G20 Interfaith Working Group on Religion, Innovation, and Technology and Infrastructures.

Marco is the author of numerous books, including From Your Gods to Our Gods and Nelle mani di Dio, la super religione del mondo che verrà. Over the past decade, he has helped shape the emerging field exploring the encounter between religion and innovation.

In this episode, we explore Marco's work on bioethics and technoscience, their influential position paper mapping out this emerging field of religion and innovation, and what innovation really means in a religious context.

In this second part of our conversation, we talk about:

1. The language of innovation

2. How do religious communities decide what kind of change is desirable?

3. Innovation, markets, and technology as rival meaning systems

4. Resistance movements as responses to innovation

5. Politicization and polarization in debates about markets and capitalism

To learn more about Marco’s work, you can find him at: 

• https://credo.unisi.it/about/secretariat-and-experts/person/marco

Links Mentioned:

• Religion, Innovation, Position paper, FBK 2019 - https://isr.fbk.eu/en/about-us/position-paper/ 
• Fondazione Bruno Kessler – https://www.fbk.eu/ 
• G20 Interfaith Forum – https://www.g20interfaith.org/ 
• Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) – https://www.osce.org/

This season of the podcast is sponsored by Templeton Religion Trust.

Transcript

(intro)

Brandon: I'm Brandon Vaidyanathan, and this is Beauty at Work—the podcast that seeks to expand our understanding of beauty: what it is, how it works, and why it matters for the work we do. This season of the podcast is sponsored by Templeton Religion Trust and is focused on the beauty and burdens of innovation.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Beauty at Work. This is the second half of my conversation with Professor Marco Ventura on innovation and religion. Please check out the first half if you haven't already.

In the second half, we're going to turn towards the burdens and pitfalls of focusing on innovation, including how markets and technological change can act as competing religious systems, the ambivalent responses of religious actors. We're also going to look at how practices on the ground, like offering phone charging towers at a papal youth gathering, could reveal more about the future of religion and technology than even the most sophisticated ethical statements.

Let's get started.

(interview)

Brandon: Do you see this as worthwhile overall in the face of, again, the conceptual baggage associated with the term? It's very clear when you're talking about technological innovation and trying to say, well, how do religions or spiritualities contribute to the furthering, or even maybe propose obstacles to technological innovation, et cetera, one can certainly examine that kind of work. But once you're looking at religion as itself, the domain in which innovation happens, the big question is: Is that really the right category, or are we talking about something else? I wonder how you all had made sense of that, or what you think about the scope of that kind of inquiry. Is it worthwhile?

Marco: Yeah, of course, you have a language which is a specific language—the language of innovation—and then you have the alternative language of that specific tradition you're examining. This is something that we absolutely wanted to take into account. So we invited a few experts on Islam to provide us some insights and references about the use of terms like bid‘ah, which is usually associated to a very negative connotation, as a departure from the path that God has indicated to mankind. But I still think that innovation as its heuristic, in the sense that to some extent, innovation is the modern and contemporary reference out there. You can oppose it. That's my point about opposition. But your opposition cannot ignore that innovation is the language and the concept of what happens out there. Out there, of course, I mean, once again, in the market, in the lab, in the society, basically.

Brandon: I mean, even if you're doing a doctorate in theology, you have to make an argument as to why your argument is, your dissertation, is innovate. I mean, that becomes just the taken for granted criterion of worth.

Marco: Yeah, exactly. I think this is very important. It is really an exercise in awareness and control as much as possible. So once again, it's not an exercise in buying into something. It's quite the contrary. It's being aware of the need to position yourself, and explain, if you adopt innovation, why you're adopting that terminology. So that's how I would see it very much. In order to do that, you really need to build your field and expertise and, at the same time, a conversation with the world, the community of experts on religion—religious studies and theology, of course, but also sociology of religion, anthropology, philosophy, history, of course. But at the same time, you also need the other guys, to bring the other guys into the conversation. This is why it was so important—well, for me, personally and the group in Trento—to be a small group devoted to religion in a bigger organization, where we would come to be acquainted day after day with engineers, computer scientists, physicists, or sociologists also, and philosophers. So you really need both, in my view. You need the religious people. Well, of course, also the religious people, in the sense of the believers.

Brandon: Sure.

Marco: But of course, that's an additional layer to what is needed in terms of methodology. But it is really a way to open up the field. And of course, I have nothing against those who prefer to adopt a different terminology. So, at the time, when we had this discussion about how to define terminologically our mission, Vienna University was somehow changing its initiative on religion. They ended up adopting the transformation word. So they redefined the endeavor in terms of looking at the transformation of religion, which is perfectly fine. But there's a difference there of course. Transformation is probably more neutral, whereas innovation means that we want to engage directly and openly with the way the contemporary world of science and industry and the market and society and public policies is framed. That's the difference

And the FBK, I want to mention this, under the fantastic leadership of my successor, Massimo Leone, who is an expert in semiotics, has got a great deal ahead and has developed — there's a recent special issue of religion devoted to artificial intelligence, a religion which has been co-directed by one of the researchers. Actually, the one who made the link with Benoît Godin, his name is Boris Soreme. I wish to acknowledge his great contribution. But it's everybody, everybody there. There have been fantastic workshops and research activities around new topics all related to innovation. And so the experience is going on.

Brandon: Okay, that's great. That's great. Yeah, it seems that the category of innovation as religion is a very fruitful area of inquiry, and is for us to understand how just — I mean, maybe even 100 years ago, the term was seen pretty much universally with suspicion, right? Not just in a tradition like Islam, but even certainly in Christianity, and just generally even at the political level there. Whereas I think King Edward VI or VII, I can't remember. Maybe Edward VI in the UK had issued a proclamation that thou shalt not innovate, because religious innovation is a threat to the political establishment, right? So going from there to this sort of pejorative understanding of innovation as just being a fad, or unserious, or certainly not something that one should see as desirable to now being the prime modality of expressing something as valuable. That shift seems really quite remarkable.

Marco: Well, you can ask the big question to religious individuals and communities, traditional organization, which is, how do you change? How will you understand change? How do you decide what kind of change is desirable and what's not? What you add to that question when you formulate that in connection with innovation is: how do you want to change by reference to market-led change? How do you want to change by reference to how technology is changing? This is the additional layer which, in my view, is absolutely necessary.

Of course, it's a challenge because is very demanding in terms of engaging the economy and engaging economics. At the same time, it's demanding in terms of engaging technology and engaging the market. Of course, while engaging with those dimensions, religions might also feel — well, religions as an actor is not very accurate. But for the sake of clarity here, religious actors might also feel that the contemporary market, innovation-based market, innovation-based research, science, technology, they represent a competitor. They represent a competitor of a system of meaning, a system of faith, a system of reference. This is where the third corner of the triangle, this innovation as religion is so important. It is yet another layer to our conversation which makes it very fruitful in my view. Of course, it is difficult to categorize it. This is not a question of formulating the market as a church.

Brandon: Certainly—

Marco: Although, well, one of the early guests that we had in 2016, or 10 years ago, was Harvey Cox. Harvey Cox is a theologian at Harvard Divinity School. At the time, he had just published his book, The Market as God. That was very important. That's a thorough study about the equivalence of market items, market elements, market ingredients, and religion and faith. There's a lot which has been done already also in that direction, in the direction of a competition—a sort of religious competition, to some extent—between the market, science, technology and religious actors. Of course, a competition. But for someone, it might also be a partnership. Who knows? This is where we then differ to actors. Of course, engage with actors. But as a scientist, as scholars, what we do at that level is that we open up the field. We offer some reflections. We are happy and available for discussion. But then I think that you have reached a threshold where you really need to know—this is also fascinating task—where you if you want to stop there, or if you want to go past that threshold, which would imply that you have an agenda. You have an agenda to push actors in a certain direction or another agenda. For instance, how to reconcile the business and churches, or the business and what in the Islamic world, how to reconcile those. And then under which conditions you want that reconciliation to happen.

Brandon: And for what reasons, right? I do think that there's a worthwhile question to ask around the ways in which this sort of, and I really like this, this recognition of the market and technological innovation as meaning systems, as competing religious entities perhaps. Certainly, it's true. There's research showing that once you have the abolition of blue laws—at least, in the United States, the businesses used to be closed on Sundays, and once the businesses are open, then people can go shopping instead of going to a church or to religious service, right? So that's a direct competitor. Sports, perhaps or another, another competitor for a lot of people as a meaning system, even for families. You used to go to church, but now you go to the soccer game, and your kids are playing. So those are competing as well. And then certainly, technological innovation, where questions of whether spending time on screens or new gadgets is a substitute for religious practices such as silence or prayer, et cetera.

And so in the face of all of these challenges, certainly, you do have a resistance. Like with now, with the rise of AI systems, a lot of religious actors who say we need to resist this. We have Paul Kingsnorth has this new book, Against The Machine, saying you need to push back against all of this stuff, this surveillance capitalism, and the kind of techno utopia that is trying to be built, and to maybe return to forms of tech-free life. I wonder how you see those sorts of responses the return to, in some part, growing pockets of the Catholic Church, the Latin mass. So these movements of trying to reclaim something from the past, to return to the past, or as sort of a mode of retrieval or mode of a retreat, now, do you see those also as types of innovations, or are they reactions to innovation? What scope is there for making sense of those concepts in relation to innovation?

Marco: Well, that's a part of the investigation, that this to be a part of the investigation. The most relevant distinction I would draw here — I hope I'm not eluding your question.

Brandon: That's fine.

Marco: The most interesting distinction I would draw is between—well, very old fashion kind of putting it—leading by word and leading by example. So what we observe, it's probably very European. It might be less so in the US or elsewhere. But in Europe, there's, of course, churches, for instance, or other faith-based actors. They are very reluctant to cross the line and become actors in the economy, for instance. Although German churches are the first employer after the state. Well, once again, it very much depends on categories and assumptions. But in general, this is not where you go in Europe as a religious authority.

Very often, what religious authorities tend to do is to offer—sometimes dictate. Let's say, offer—a normative framework. So when the European Union Commission consulted with religious actors in general on its, at the time, effort to build a normative framework on AI in particular, policy of Europe for the ecosystem of the trust, the ecosystem of excellence—these are the European categories—what they got from churches was basically an ethical framework. So this is normative ethical framework. I don't want to be dismissive in this regard. I don't underestimate the importance of their contribution and its conceptual depth, because that's very interesting to go through. Great effort, by the way. But this is still in the paper to some extent. It's leading by principles. Whereas what the real challenge, in my view, or the core challenge, would rather be answering the question, okay, that's your ethical reference. But then, what do you do? What do you do with your capitals? What do you do with your human resources? What do you do in Catholic or Protestant universities, in your labs? This is something I have developed almost an obsession for. So the question is: what do you actually do? What do you offer?

Recently, during the Jubilee, there was a huge gathering of the youth in Rome. The decision was to put at the disposal of the youth, in this big, big, big open space where thousands of youths gathered, ways to recharge their smartphones. So towers were available to plug in for your smartphones and recharge your smartphones. I interviewed for an Italian newspaper. I interviewed a young Franciscan sister about that experience and without me asking the question. For once, I refrained myself for advancing the innovation. So I was silent on that. She picked that example. She picked that example, and she said, "I know that this might be debatable from a Christian perspective, but I think that at the end of the day, that was a sign of welcoming people." So you see how she read that decision. She understood the decision, first and foremost, in terms of we are inviting people to feel well here, to feel welcome here. So it also depends. Well, this is a great lesson in terms of which meaning do you attach, which meaning do you want to be attached to some step, to some action. And for me, this kind of decision, understanding these debates, possible contrary voices, this is much more telling—I'm not going to be exaggerated. I've overstated here—much more important than a fantastic, elaborate, articulated statement about the ethics of AI. Also, because this is more challenging for actors, this is really where you push actors to come out, also to compromise themselves with reality, in a sense. You really need to show who you are. I know that this is difficult, but I think that this is where research, as well, needs to go.

There's another, if I can mention this, there's another aspect why I think that this is crucial. This is also where our discussion on freedom can be better placed. That's where we can have our discussion on freedom, including religious freedom. If you understand innovation in these terms, innovation and religion can really be very beneficial for a renewed discussion of: What's the meaning of religious freedom? What's religious freedom for? How do you connect religious freedom to responsibility? Of course, there's a danger that religious freedom is transformed into something utilitarian. I've written about this. I'm totally against a kind of understanding of religious freedom and condition to qualify in the sense that if you don't show me that you are useful, you don't deserve to be protected. This is a danger we need to avoid. But we also need to avoid the danger that religious freedom is not attached to responsibility from the religious actor side. I think that a discussion on innovation is very beneficial in this sense.

Brandon: Thank you. Perhaps, can I ask you a little bit about the downsides or the pitfalls of focusing on innovation—the burdens of innovation, as it were? Is something lost when we privilege this term? Do we lose, perhaps, an attentiveness to stability, to maintenance, or to some other modality that is really important to recognize? Yeah, I'm just curious to know. Or any other sort of downsides you see to this concept?

Marco: Well, if we are careful not to make that confusion, I mean, not to falling into the misunderstanding that innovation and religion is about pushing religion to innovate, I don't really see this danger. I mean, quite the contrary, religion and innovation is an invitation and encouragement to religious actors and other actors to come out with ideas and commitment to stability, as you say, to tradition and stability and permanence.

I would rather see the politicization as a danger. Of course, there's a lot with this strong polarization around the capitalistic model, about consumerist society, about the market. It's very difficult to engage in a meaningful discussion, while keeping oneself from being lost in the polarization, to actually being polarized. This is where I really see a danger. Because these topics, if you take them seriously, if you engage with them, they are so polarized that it's very difficult. Even when you are very aware of what's at stake, it's really very difficult not to fall in the trap of belonging to one tribe or the other, one pole or the other. So this is really very difficult—very, very difficult—when you engage with the economy.

I recently interviewed a French Jesuit, who was for some time an economist actually, was a chief economist of a public agency for development in France. His name is Gaël Giraud. He's written a very interesting book from a Catholic theological perspective on the commons. Very strong critique of private property, strong critique of state property, and some opening with a theological basis to commons. Of course, very strongly rooted in Pope Francis' thoughts. Now, the reason why I interviewed him was that the book has been translated. The first part of the book has been translated by Libreria Editrice Vaticana, which means the Vatican publisher. So just to one author, it's something institutional to some, to some extent. We had a very interesting discussion around this conceptualization of the commons as a possible future way for communities to own goods. That is time about rethinking private property. The discussion world is extremely, extremely stimulating for me. At the same time, how do you keep the discussion free from political polarization, from politicization? That's very difficult. Very difficult. That's where I really see the danger.

Brandon: Thank you.

Marco, to close, do you have anything you want to add about where you see the promise of your own research, or where the field should go, in terms of this topic of religion and innovation? Anything else you want to add that you've not mentioned, in terms of what you're excited about working on in the future or what needs to be done?

Marco: Well, I would go back to this memory that you asked me.

Brandon: Yeah, sure.

Marco: I think that artists might be a great partner for this research. Artists might be a very, a very great partner. We might want to hear from them and associate them to our research, which also implies engaging with their own way to understand the tradition in whatever art and new means of expression. So to close our conversation, I'll really go back to that little Romanesque church in ruins, where contemporary arts could shine. It's probably a good image for where we might go with our religion and innovation, with the ambition—that's very ambitious as a statement—of repairing our economy, repairing our market, and repairing our religious communities as well. Artists might give us a pretty crucial contribution.

Brandon: Yeah, that's amazing. Thank you. Marco, where can we direct our listeners and viewers to your work if they want to learn more about what you're working on?

Marco: Well, I would say that they can look for religion and innovation position paper, FBK, 2019.

Brandon: We'll share that in the show notes. Yeah, we'll share that.

Marco: Yeah, that'll be, still six years later, pretty seminal. I like to point at that document especially, as this was a collective work. So this is really a way from my side, once again, to credit all this work to the fantastic researchers that I had the pleasure and honor to work with in Trenton—which as I mentioned, was still very active. So you might also check FBK-ISR Institute, Center for Religious Studies. There's still a lot of fantastic work and initiatives. Then, of course, we also have, at my university, University of Siena, something new especially also in the field of cultural diplomacy, which is another side to it. So you might also want to check the website of our initiative which is called The Cradle, which is a partnership funded under the German scheme of the European Union for cultural diplomacy, which is also a nice framework, a very stimulating framework, for directing the investigation of religion and innovation towards the future.

Brandon: Yeah, fantastic. Marco, thank you. It's been such a pleasure.

Marco: Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Brandon.

(outro)

Brandon: All right, folks. That's a wrap for this episode. If you enjoyed the episode, please share it with someone who would find it of interest. Also, please subscribe and leave us a review if you haven't already. Thanks, and see you next time.