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175 14 Religion and the Imperatives for Development Development is an increasingly popular notion in parts of the world and more often than not the notion is turned over solely to social and economic theorists to provide intellectual rationale, motivation and direction . More fundamental is the developmental mutual participation of persons that requires a center of value for and trust in each other. Religious reflections are germane and perhaps significantly consequential. IN WHAT SENSE “DEVELOPMENT”? The situation in which persons are living today in Sri Lanka is one of change. Change, of course, is built into the historical process and into the lives of persons. However, persons in Sri Lanka are met by a rapidity of change that, through its apparently relentlessly increasing pace, might tend to push one toward the borders of bewilderment. Further, this rapid process of change has been stimulated by trends and forces engendered within and extended from a variety of sources other than those that have developed from within the country’s pluralistic heritage. This total fluid context manifest today in Sri Lanka has yet to find its meaning told by those who are familiar with the foundations for meaning that have been passed down through the religious traditions. It seems that the present situation in Sri Lanka represents a time neither conducive for timid thinking nor hospitable for inflexible dogmatism. It is a time that summons the best minds to interpret political, economic, and social developments by applying more than political, economic, and social theories, to provide a conceptual context in which these processes are given purpose fundamentally rooted in the total well-being of persons.1 On a wider scale in Sri Lanka, Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, and Muslims have had and will have their daily lives influenced by the 176 I n t he C om p a ny of Fr ie nd s decisions made by persons of different religious communities. This interdependent , intertwined pluralism has at times held firmly in this country ’s history, and at times it has unraveled in devastating disarray. These strands might be held together by political ideologies—we have seen the sequence: independence, national identity, development—and then again, perhaps not. Conceivably, coming to understand the religiousness of persons of other religious communities might provide a more cohesive bond in this religiously plural context than we might have imagined.2 These words, written thirty years ago, can be presented afresh today. Surely, we will agree, the observations contained in those words remain relevant to the case in this country now. We are not slow of learning in this island nation. One wonders why, therefore, we have not yet turned the flank on some of the problems that have been confronting us more recently. Our topic is “Religion and the Imperatives for Development.” I have found myself becoming more and more a personalist, increasingly so with each passing year of my life, as did Wilfred Smith. Being a personalist is not a regressive move, a kind of surrender in the face of the complexities of life, a retreat into subjectivism, a sign of intellectual atrophy, even, perhaps, of the setting in of old age. Hardly! Such position is grounded in the most rigorous examination of concepts and empirical realities. Let us then consider our case at hand. We speak of development, and generally we know what we mean. Usually the point at issue is economic development. But from time to time we see our focus enlarged to include development in a much more comprehensive sense: economic, educational, infrastructural, legal, political, social, and on and on one might go. One point one would want to note early is the absence of something that is never included in such a listing. Have you ever heard of someone speaking in this context about the need for religious development? Of course not. When we focus on development studies, we tend to turn our eyes away from religious understanding. Other things need to be developed, it is assumed; religion will, more or less, have to take care of itself. Have we overlooked something? The topic we are considering is engaging. From one point of view, “Religion and the Imperatives for Development” might suggest that there must be development, that development has its imperatives and, consequently, religion must come around to it, that religion must be changed to become aligned with the imperatives for development. From another point of view, it could be rather just the opposite, that religion presents the imperatives for...

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