"Belief-less Christianity"

Is that a thing?  Apparently so.   Blogger and Presbyterian minister John Shuck writes that he does not believe in a supernatural God, and stories about Jesus are the stuff of legend.

 I think of Christianity as a culture. It has produced 2,000 years of artifacts: literature, music, art, ethics, architecture, and (yes) beliefs. But cultures evolve and Christianity will have to adapt in order to survive in the modern era.
.....

I believe one of the newer religious paths could be a “belief-less” Christianity. In this “sect,” one is not required to believe things. One learns and draws upon practices and products of our cultural tradition to create meaning in the present. ....

Belief-less Christianity is thriving right now, even as other forms of the faith are falling away rapidly. Many liberal or progressive Christians have already let go or de-emphasized belief in Heaven, that the Bible is literally true, that Jesus is supernatural, and that Christianity is the only way. Yet they still practice what they call Christianity. Instead of traditional beliefs, they emphasize social justice, personal integrity and resilience, and building community. The cultural artifacts serve as resources.
....

Personally, even though I don’t believe in God as a supernatural agent or force, many still do. I utilize the symbol “God” in worship. This may be viewed as cheating but since our cultural tradition is filled with images of God, it is near impossible to avoid. As a symbol, I’m not yet ready to let go of God. It is a product of myth-making — I know that — but the symbol incorporates many of our human aspirations. I find that “God” for me is shorthand for all the things for which I long: beauty, truth, healing, and justice. They’re all expressed by this symbol and and the stories about it.

 Now, I don't see how you can be a Christian pastor without, you know, believing in Christ.  But perhaps that's because my familiarity is with traditional trinitarian sacramental theology (e.g., Catholic and Episcopalian) .  I don't know how the Presby's rock.  But this does seem a bit.... unconventional.

Update:  We have talked quite a bit about being a secular Christian, and in many ways I am one.   So that doesn't faze me.  But what I find interesting is that he's a "professional" God-believer....being a pastor and all... yet considers God just a symbol he uses in worship.

Shuck isn't belief-less, he's just without a conventional belief in God.  He believes in lots of things, as he has indicated here.

He's perhaps not that far from Karen Armstrong.

The myths and laws of religion are not true because they they conform to some metaphysical, scientific or historical reality but because they are life enhancing. They tell you how human nature functions, but you will not discover their truth unless you apply these myths and doctrines to your own life and put them into practice.” The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness

Or from me, for that matter.  But I'm not wearing a collar. 

On science and faith, again

A profile of physicist-turned priest John Polkinghorne, from a few years ago.

 I love this analogy!!

Science and religion are not mutually exclusive, Polkinghorne argues. In fact, both are necessary to our understanding of the world. “Science asks how things happen. But there are questions of meaning and value and purpose which science does not address. Religion asks why. And it is my belief that we can and should ask both questions about the same event.” 

As a for-instance, Polkinghorne points to the homey phenomenon of a tea kettle boiling merrily on the stove. 

“Science tells us that burning gas heats the water and makes the kettle boil,” he says.
But science doesn’t explain the “why” question. “The kettle is boiling because I want to make a cup of tea; would you like some?

How vs why.  Nicely explained.

I don't know that religion per se is necessary but as a species, we clearly have a desire to explain the "why" of the world in some way. But I've realized I have a real tin ear on philosophy and why-ness.  Some scientists may get all philosophical these days, but all i really care about is which recepter is doing what, so to speak.  I'm too much of a literalist.  The rest is just too woo-woo for me!

As to the question of which has the clearer view of reality—faith or science?— Polkinghorne answers that it’s a false question. “You have to be two-eyed about it. If we had only one eye, then we could say it’s religion, because it relates to the deepest value of being human. Science doesn’t plumb the depths that religion does. Atheists aren’t stupid—they just explain less.” 

Put another way, atheists explain what can be explained by facts and observation, and don't try to explain what cannot.

i like this next bit, too.

Ultimately, people of faith should not be afraid of science because both pursue truth. “Because people of faith worship the God of Truth, they should welcome truth from whatever source it comes,” Polkinghorne says. “Not all truth comes from science, but some does. It grieves me when I see Christian people turning their backs on science in a willful way, not taking seriously the insights it has to offer. All truth interacts with each other, and all truth is helpful.” 

Likewise, people of science do not need to be afraid of faith. “Science doesn’t tell you everything. Those who think it does take a very diminished and arid form or view of life.”
For Polkinghorne, science made his faith stronger, and that faith made him a better scientist. Both approaches fulfill one of his favorite verses in scripture, I Thessalonians 5:21, which the esteemed physicist paraphrases: Test everything. Hold fast to what is true.

My kind of guy.

A "God-believing atheist"?

Frank Shaeffer has a new book out, called "The God Believing Atheist".  Well, he's not an atheist--but he argues for a more pantheist view. In an interview, he wrestles with the concept of faith in this way:

I do not always believe, let alone know, if God exists. I do not always know he, she, or it does not exist either, though there are long patches in my life when it seems God never did exist. What I know is that I see the Creator in Jesus or nowhere. What I know is that I see Jesus in my children and grandchildren’s love. What I know is that I rediscover hope again and again through my wife Genie’s love. What I know is that Mother Maria loved unto death. What I know is that sometimes something too good to be true, is true.

He goes on,

Maybe we need a new category other than theism, atheism, or agnosticism that takes paradox and unknowing into account. I believe that life evolved by natural selection. I believe that evolutionary psychology explains away altruism and debunks love and that brain chemistry undermines my illusion of free will and personhood. I also believe that the spiritual reality hovering over, in, and through me calls me to love, trust, and hear the voice of my Creator. It seems to me that there is an off-stage and an on-stage quality to my existence. I live on-stage, but I sense another crew working off stage. Sometimes I hear their voices singing in a way that’s as eerily beautiful as the off-stage chorus in an opera.....

The interview ends like this:

So what are we left with? “It all comes back to stories,” says Schaeffer. “We are living a story."

On W.H. Auden, God, and prayer

My English degree focused on the Victorian  and post-Victorian novel, so while I read Auden casually I didn't study him closely.  From the New York Review of Books (H/T Episcopal Cafe), we learn that cranky WH Auden was actually a deeply generous man

Auden’s sense of his divided motives was inseparable from his idiosyncratic Christianity. He had no literal belief in miracles or deities and thought that all religious statements about God must be false in a literal sense but might be true in metaphoric ones. He felt himself commanded to an absolute obligation—which he knew he could never fulfill—to love his neighbor as himself, and he alluded to that commandment in a late haiku: “He has never seen God/but, once or twice, he believes/he has heard Him.” He took communion every Sunday and valued ancient liturgy, not for its magic or beauty, but because its timeless language and ritual was a “link between the dead and the unborn,” a stay against the complacent egoism that favors whatever is contemporary with ourselves.

I found that description quite resonant.

 A previous article about Auden explains  that he was moved by a vision to discover the need to value all others, and that he was a Christian by ideal rather than by specific doctrinal belief.

Auden took seriously his membership in the Anglican Church and derived many of his moral and aesthetic ideas from Christian doctrines developed over two millennia, but he valued his church and its doctrines only to the degree that they helped to make it possible to love one’s neighbor as oneself. To the extent that they became ends in themselves, or made it easier for a believer to isolate or elevate himself, they became—in the word Auden used about most aspects of Christendom—unchristian. Church doctrines, like all human creations, were subject to judgment. 

He made it clear that he understood perfectly well that any belief he might have in the personal God of the monotheist religions was a product of the anthropomorphic language in which human beings think.

...Auden referred to himself as a “would-be Christian,” because, he said, even to call oneself a Christian would be an unchristian act of pride. “Christianity is a way, not a state, and a Christian is never something one is, only something one can pray to become.” To become a Christian, as he understood it, did not require belief in an immortal soul separable from the body (a Platonic doctrine, he called this, not a Christian one) nor in the resurrection of Christ (which he only mentioned in order to remark that he could not make himself believe in it) nor in miracles that violated the laws of physics.

And from the same source, here he is on prayer:

To pray,” Auden wrote, “is to pay attention or, shall we say, to ‘listen’ to someone or something other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention—be it on a landscape, or a poem or a geometrical problem or an idol or the True God—that he completely forgets his own ego and desires in listening to what the other has to say to him, he is praying.” 

yeah, I have trouble with the term "prayer" but I think I get what he's saying.

How religious are scientists?

Inside Higher Education reports on a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science showing that scientists are more religious than most people think:

Scientists vs. General Public on Religious Observance

	Scientists	General Public
Attend weekly religious services	18%	20%
Consider themselves religious	15%	19%
Read religious texts weekly	13.5%	17%
Pray several times a day	19%	26%

As far as religious observance, obviously I'm an example....I generally attend weekly services, even though I'm not religious.  I don't pray, and I don't read texts, however.

So who are these scientists? Let's just say the Episcopalians appear well represented.  ;-)

Scientists and the Public by Religious Belief

	Public	Scientists
Evangelical Protestant	22.9%	17.1%
Mainline Protestant	26.9%	24.9%
Roman Catholics	23.8%	19.1%
Jews	1.9%	3.9%
Mormons	1.8%	1.7%
Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains	2.6%	7.2%
Atheists/Agnostics/No Religion	15.5%	24.4%
Other	4.7%	1.7%

Not surprisingly, the biggest gap between scientists is with Evangelical protestants--evolution, obviously, but also

Other findings in the survey point to significant differences between scientists and evangelical Protestants, nearly 60 percent of whom said that scientists "should be open to considering miracles in their theories or explanations.”

You can click here for more of my posts on science, and science-and-faith

Do science and religion teach the same lessons?

From the HuffPo, writer Elad Nehorai reflects,

The more I learn about science, and the more I learn about religion, the more I feel like the two so beautifully complement each other. The more people debate and argue, the more I see the commonality between the two...

He goes on to enumerate some of the lessons he thinks they teach in common.

1. I'm Not In Control
Learning about science taught me just how little control I have over the universe....

Believing in G-d is so similar, on an emotional level, that it's almost like we've used different words to describe a similar idea. Accepting that G-d is completely in control of every moment immediately implies that we aren't in control of anything....

2. I'm Insanely Small
The more science learns, the more it seems to realize just how small we really are. ....within a universe more vast than we can imagine. 

If that's not a spiritual realization, I don't know what is.... 

.... To remember that our smallness is simply a reminder to live our lives in a state of giving is the greatest lesson both science and religion can teach us. 

3. I'm A Miracle 

...[N]o matter what you believe, there's no question whatsoever that our just existing is the most special thing we could ever imagine. 

Let's take science. If you believe that we originated in some sludge, and then that sludge turned into a single celled organism and that turned into something and that something turned into something and eventually, after billions of years, out came you... um, how insanely amazing is that? ... 

And if you're an insane religious nutball like me and you believe that G-d made the world in six days (however you interpret that, whether it be six days that were really billions of years or six days that were actually six days), you simply can't help but be blown away. I mean, that something as immense as G-d, something so beyond reality and so real, the only thing that's real, could take a moment out of his busy day and make me, and care about me..... 

4. Nothing Makes Sense 

This is one I think that both the fanatics of science and the fanatics of religion hate accepting. In fact, you could say they twist the reality of both science and religion to make themselves believe they have some measure of true understanding of the way the world works. 

What's funny is that it seems the more you study about science, the more you realize how little you know. ... 

The same is true, I've found, of religion. ... 

a true believer of religion knows that he knows, essentially, nothing. And anyone that accepts that the reality of science is a constant growth in knowledge that changes, evolves, over time, realizes how little they really know.

What do you think of these lessons?  Which ones would YOU add?

Scientists and faith

Over the years, we've talked about science and faith, and whether there's a conflict (my answer is "no".  I commend to you some of my previous essays on this topic:  Science, Faith, Mythos, Logos  and also, Scientists in the Pews.  More are linked here.)

Along those lines, here is a great article in the HuffPo, that derives from the Templeton Foundation's Scientists in Congregations grant project.

The author writes of a dialogue with the scientists in his congregation, and what he has learned.

A strong humility governs the professional lives of scientists. They have the academic degrees, the university positions, the experimental successes, the professional accolades, and the grants that are reasons for pride, but they also have a deep and abiding sense of how little they know, of how much remains to be discovered, and of the mystery that surrounds us and in which we live. They have a sense of wonder that is basic to both science and faith. They look at this world that they investigate with amazement and awe.
Because of this, they are able embrace both a scientific outlook and a faith perspective in their lives.... 

And yet they readily admit that doubt and skepticism are important to their work.... 

Scientists doubt. They are uncertain about what the results of their work might be. And this uncertainty leads to the unexpected as often as it leads to the expected....

The opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty. Scientists do their work with a kind of faith as well: faith in the scientific method, faith in the orderliness of the universe, faith even in their colleagues. Science, as every enterprise, requires a measure of trust, a "conviction of things not seen," as the author of the Letter to the Hebrews described faith. Faith in the scientific enterprise is different from religious belief, but for many it is also a practice that does not exclude participation in a religious tradition. ...

... I have been in conversations in which scientists in my congregation have shown as much skepticism about Christian doctrine and "proofs" of God as any of the new atheists. But -- and here is the other surprise -- they keep their faith.

Once again, evidence that the so-called "war"  between science and faith isn't being waged by scientists as such....

Do you need to believe to belong?

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?  (Robert Browning, Andrea del Sarto)

"Belonging before believing" is a trendy term in the emergent church movement, that argues for community to come first, and establish the connection; belief will then follow.

Or will it?  Is a firm sense of belief an essential part of religion? Is it even necessary?

Dr Primrose points us to this column in the NY Times, by T.M. Luhrmann (whom we have met before) exploring this concept.  Luhrmann is a social scientist who has study evangelicals. A non-believer herself, Luhrmann helps bridge the distance between secularist and religionist.  She tells a story:

One devout woman said in a prayer group one evening: “I don’t believe it, but I’m sticking to it. That’s my definition of faith.”

So faith is not necessarily belief.  That makes sense:  we use the term "to have faith in", which generally means trust in something for which we may not have rigorously logical or empirical support;  something ineffable, or transcendent.  Like love.  We consider to be faithful is to be loyal, and steadfast.

So then, what is belief?  

In 1912, Émile Durkheim, one of the founders of modern social science, argued that religion arose as a way for social groups to experience themselves as groups. He thought that when people experienced themselves in social groups they felt bigger than themselves, better, more alive — and that they identified that aliveness as something supernatural. Religious ideas arose to make sense of this experience of being part of something greater. Durkheim thought that belief was more like a flag than a philosophical position: You don’t go to church because you believe in God; rather, you believe in God because you go to church. [IT's emphasis]
...
[S]ecular Americans often think that the most important thing to understand about religion is why people believe in God, because we think that belief precedes action and explains choice. That’s part of our folk model of the mind: that belief comes first. 

And that was not really what I saw after my years spending time in evangelical churches. I saw that people went to church to experience joy and to learn how to have more of it. These days I find that it is more helpful to think about faith as the questions people choose to focus on, rather than the propositions observers think they must hold. 

If you can sidestep the problem of belief — and the related politics, which can be so distracting — it is easier to see that the evangelical view of the world is full of joy. God is good. The world is good. Things will be good, even if they don’t seem good now. That’s what draws people to church. It is understandably hard for secular observers to sidestep the problem of belief. But it is worth appreciating that in belief is the reach for joy, and the reason many people go to church in the first place.

It would come as a surprise to many secularists to find that there are religionists who don't necessarily believe;  yet I would argue that those doubters still have faith.  So, clearly there are a lot of people who have faith but perhaps, not so certain belief?

Here are some data from Gallup, that support a notion that belief is not so absolute.  The break down that would be interesting, is what fraction of people have doubts but go to church anyway. (Probably they would be less likely to admit it to a pollster).

Now, I would describe myself as someone with neither belief nor faith; and so in some way I'm stalled permanently on the belonging-before-believing path.  Yet I'm welcomed anyway, and I've argued here for people like me being actually useful.   As you know, I cheerfully admit to getting quite a lot out of the community that is church (although I am taking more breaks from the worship services, especially when BP is up there serving rather than sitting next to me in the pew).

It seems the emergent church folks have it right: you can build church with belonging first.  Perhaps you then need to be open about doubts in belief, while still maintaining faith.  It's smug certainty  that put most people off.

So, would you agree that belief often exceeds one's grasp?  

Newer Atheists

Those of us who are friendly but without faith have long taken umbrage at being lumped in with the anti-religion polemics of Richard Dawkins and his friends.  As a church-going non believer, I have avoided the A word  to point at coinages such as "gratheist",  or "cultural Christian"  or "secular Christian" or "Christian atheist"  in my extensive musings on the subject.

Dawkins recently jumped the shark but good, with an anti-Islamic Twitter rant.  But his star is already on the wane. Writing in the Spectator, Theo Hobson points to a reaction against the crude fundamentalism of Dawkins and his followers, in a more nuanced form of atheism that is ready to have a conversation.

... Crucially, atheism’s younger advocates are reluctant to compete for the role of Dawkins’s disciple. They are more likely to bemoan the new atheist approach and call for large injections of nuance. A good example is the pop-philosopher Julian Baggini. He is a stalwart atheist who likes a bit of a scrap with believers, but he’s also able to admit that religion has its virtues, that humanism needs to learn from it. For example, he has observed that a sense of gratitude is problematically lacking in secular culture, and suggested that humanists should consider ritual practices such as fasting. This is also the approach of the pop-philosopher king, Alain de Botton. His recent book Religion for Atheists rejects the ‘boring’ question of religion’s truth or falsity, and calls for ‘a selective reverence for religious rituals and concepts’. If you can take his faux-earnest prose style, he has some interesting insights into religion’s basis in community, practice, habit.
….
At one point [de Botton] commends the Christian perspective, that we are ‘at heart desperate, fragile, vulnerable, sinful creatures, a good deal less wise than we are knowledgeable, always on the verge of anxiety, tortured by our relationships, terrified of death — and most of all in need of God’. Is this mere posturing at depth, for ultimately he does not affirm the idea of our need of God in a sustained, serious way? Yes and no: it is also a mark of the intelligent humanist’s desire to avoid simplistic ideologising and attempt some honesty about the human condition. The key novelty of the newer atheism, perhaps, is its attentiveness to human frailty. 

The religious believer might say: we do not need humanism to tell us this. Indeed not, but it might not hurt non-believers, inoculated against all religious talk, to hear of it.

Well, nice to know they are catching up with me!

Post-Christian? Not really.

source

The Barna Group has identified "post-Christian" cities in the US, according to the following criteria:

Post-Christian = meet at least 60% of the following 15 factors (9 or more factors)
Highly Post-Christian = meet at least 80% of the following 15 factors (12 or more factors) 

1. do not believe in God
2. identify as atheist or agnostic
3. disagree that faith is important in their lives
4. have not prayed to God (in the last year)
5. have never made a commitment to Jesus
6. disagree the Bible is accurate
7. have not donated money to a church (in the last year)
8. have not attended a Christian church (in the last year)
9. agree that Jesus committed sins
10. do not feel a responsibility to “share their faith”
11. have not read the Bible (in the last week)
12. have not volunteered at church (in the last week)
13. have not attended Sunday school (in the last week)
14. have not attended religious small group (in the last week)
15. do not participate in a house church (in the last year)

 I don't think you can buy their criteria as all necessarily "Post-Christian".  The Barna group is evangelical, and I think that you can better describe some of these as "Post-Evangelical".   For example, 5. have never made a commitment to Jesus.  Would your average Episcopalian say s/he has made such a commitment?  That's not the language of the mainline, or the Catholics.

Similarly, 6. disagree the Bible is accurate.  Well, I don't know any Episcopalians who buy that the Bible is literally true, do you?

And what about 9. agree that Jesus committed sins.  If Jesus was human, didn't he commit any sins?  He doubted, didn't he?  I bet he got rude and annoyed. Did he ever talk back to Mary when he was a teenager?

And then:  10. do not feel a responsibility to “share their faith” That would be the evangelizing that names the evangelical, don't you think?  God's Frozen Chosen are often very reticent.

11. have not read the Bible (in the last week) Until BP joined EfM, I don't think she read the Bible frequently, I mean outside of the Gospel readings in church.   Occasionally, yes, but not every week.

12. have not volunteered at church (in the last week)  Oh, you mean because you are working two jobs and have the flu?  C'mon Barna, not everyone volunteers.

13. have not attended Sunday school (in the last week)  If you're over 15, you probably aren't attending Sunday school.  But this makes you "post-Christian"?

14. have not attended religious small group (in the last week)
15. do not participate in a house church (in the last year)
Wow, I don't think the big Sunday Eucharist counts.

So, 'piskies:
If you are not clergy: how  many of the Barna's list applies to you?  Are you, by their definition, "post-Christian"?

How Skeptics and Believers Can Connect

Great article in the NY Times by anthropologist T. M. Luhrmann.  If you can get behind the paywall to read the whole thing, this is worth it.

I do not call myself a Christian. So maybe I should not have been surprised when I went on my first Christian radio show, a year ago, and the host set out to save me .... 

I was on the show to discuss my recent book, which explains the way evangelicals learn to experience themselves in conversation with God....  over a decade of research, I found myself more open to the idea of God, and more aware of the fragile human grasp on the real. 

So it was a shock to have my host grill me about the state of my soul. It reminded me that one of the things that makes mutual respect between believers and nonbelievers difficult is that there is a kind of line in the sand, and you’re either on one side of it or on the other. ...

The in-your-face confrontation makes it that much harder to connect. The more my interviewer pressed me, the more my faith — such as it is — grew strained. I had come to live (theologically speaking) in a messy in-between. My interviewer wanted clarity. The more he put me on the spot, the more I wanted to say that I shared nothing with him and that his beliefs were flimsy dreams. ...

Anthropologists have a term for this racheting-up of opposition: schismogenesis....

I think that schismogenesis is responsible for the striking increase in the number of people who say that they are not affiliated with any religion. ...We know that most of these people still believe in God or a higher power, whatever they mean by that. It’s just that they are no longer willing to describe themselves as associated with a religion. They’ve seen that line in the sand, and they’re not willing to step over it. 

Yet believers and nonbelievers are not so different from one another, news that is sometimes a surprise to both. When I arrived at one church I had come to study, I thought that I would stick out like a sore thumb. I did not. Instead, I saw my own doubts, anxieties and yearnings reflected in those around me. People were willing to utter sentences — like “I believe in God” — that I was not, but many of those I met spoke openly and comfortably about times of uncertainty, even doubt. Many of my skeptical friends think of themselves as secular, sometimes profoundly so. Yet these secular friends often hover on the edge of faith. They meditate. They keep journals. They go on retreats. They just don’t know what to do with their spiritual yearnings. 

 It's hard for those of us who live in the messy muddle of the middle, if those around us live by absolutes. I think there are a lot of people who are somewhat like me--more than you may think.

Walking the walk

I find it very moving that in the immediate aftermath of the tragic murder in Maryland of an Episcopal priest and a church administrator, followed by the suicide of the homeless man who committed the crime, that the church offered not only forgiveness, but also a funeral.

Psychologist Fred Luskin, director of the Stanford Forgiveness Projects and author of "Forgive for Good: A Proven Prescription for Health and Healing," said it was unusual and "quite beautiful" for a wronged party to offer forgiveness so quickly. The most famous example, he said, was Indian civil rights leader Mohandas Gandhi, who appeared to make a gesture of forgiveness toward the assassin who shot him in 1948 even as Gandhi fell.

"It's a wonderful counterpoint to the more prevailing hardness in response," Luskin said. "We certainly live more in a payback culture than one of graciously offering to host a funeral for somebody who has just murdered somebody."

THe testimony has been striking.

[W]e reach out arms of love, not hands of hate. I pray for the repose of the souls of Mary-Marguerite and Brenda. I pray for the repose of the soul of Douglas. I pray for my wife and the so many others of our communities who knew Mary-Marguerite and Brenda as colleagues and friends. I pray for the safety of all who work with the marginalized, the desperate and the dangerous. And I pray for the transforming grace of God that will show a hurting world a yet more excellent way, a path to love and reconciliation that cuts across the empty cycles of retribution and hate.

A graceful, thoughtful reaction. Well done.

A Christian Atheist?

We've talked before about whether the faithful need believers (here and here) and about my own thoughts on non-belief (see summary here).

Along those lines, here's another entry. Jon Meacham reflects on the passing of William Hamilton, a notable "Christian atheist" and theologian who was interviewed for the famous TIME magazine "Is God Dead?" issue.

In his view that faith was “not a possession but a hope,” Hamilton was tapping into an ancient tradition. As the author of the New Testament Epistle to the Hebrews wrote, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”—in this sense, religious faith is way of interpreting experience that allows for the possibility of the redemptive.

Faith in this sense assumes that scripture and tradition are the works of human hands and hearts, efforts undertaken to explain the seemingly inexplicable. Faith in this sense is inextricably tied to doubt; it is an attempt, sometimes successful and sometimes not, to squint and struggle to “see through a glass darkly,” as Paul wrote in Corinthians. Faith without such doubt has never been part of the Christian tradition; it is telling, I think, that one of the earliest resurrection scenes in the Bible is that of Thomas demanding evidence—he wanted to see, to touch, to prove. Those who question and probe and debate are heirs of the apostles just as much as the most fervent of believers.

So, what do you think of the concept of "Christian atheist"? I'm not sure I agree it's possible. I don't think of myself as a Christian, since I think you really do have to believe at some level in God and Christ's crucification and resurrection to claim that title. The description of faith as a hope, not a possession, makes sense, but sounds more like "agnostic" than "atheist". I think my own experience would be, in that regard, hopeless: I don't have such a hope. I think it would be nice, living as I do surrounded by people of faith, to have any sense that I could share what gives them (and you) joy and comfort, but just I don't have it.

The Unexpected Face of the Faithful (II)

We've discussed how the more educated surprisingly are more likely to attend church.   Another study found that while religious attendance is dropping overall, it is dropping faster in less educated whites.

“Our study suggests that the less-educated are dropping out of the American religious sector, similarly to the way in which they have dropped out of the American labor market,” said W. Bradford Wilcox, a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, who was lead researcher on the project…..

The study focuses on white Americans because church attendance among blacks and Latinos is less divided by education and income.

So, while many tend to think that religion is the pablum for the uneducated masses, that's too simplistic a view.

Lower church attendance among the less-educated may stem from a disconnect between them and modern church values, the study theorizes.

Religious institutions tend to promote traditional middle-class family values like education, marriage and parenthood, but less-educated whites are less likely to get or stay married and may feel ostracized by their religious peers, the researchers said.

The researchers expressed concern about the falloff in church attendance among the less-educated.

“This development reinforces the social marginalization of less educated Americans who are also increasingly disconnected from the institutions of marriage and work,” said Andrew Cherlin, co-author of the study and a professor of sociology and public policy at Johns Hopkins University.

This concern makes sense.  A few weeks ago, I described how the bad economy is affecting marriage, particularly amongst those most likely to be suffering.  And those are largely red-state citizens.  Less likely to be married.  Less likely to go to church.   And the less educated you are, the more likely you are to be jobless.

These observations suggest a segment of American society that is falling further behind, losing social cohesion and connection. It's not surprising they are angry and resentful. They may still identify as Christian, but it's a tribal identity, rather than a religious one. And it's a recipe for social disaster.

The unexpected face of the faithful (I)

Recently a number of  studies have  described addressing who, exactly,is going to church.  And the results may surprise you.

One study shows that more educated white Americans are actually MORE likely to attend church regularly.

….with each additional year of education:

• •The likelihood of attending religious services increased 15%.
• •The likelihood of reading the Bible at least occasionally increased by 9%.
• •The likelihood of switching to a mainline Protestant denomination - Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian USA or United Methodist - increased by 13%.

...

“The more educated a person is in their faith, the more cosmopolitan they are in their religious outlook,” [D. Michael Lindsay] said. “They’re worldly in the very best sense of the term. They rub shoulders with people of different kinds of faiths every day and as a result they have different visions of what it means to express your faith in the public square.”

“They’re more open-minded, but here’s the thing: They’re no less faithful.”

Of course, fundamentalists would probably rail at these more educated believers, who are able to grasp allegory, paradox, and mystery without wanting it all laid out in black and white.  One might say, a more mature faith.

And while we're at it, let's address the stereotype that people in my profession (science) are all Godless atheists.  In fact, studies show a surprising number of my colleagues are amongst those in the pews.  Elaine Ecklund of Rice University has examined religion in the science profession, looking specifically at faculty at major research universities--that means doctoral level scientists. Of 1700 surveys, she interviewed 275 closely. From a review of her recent book, Science v. Religion:

Fully half of these top scientists are religious. Only five of the 275 interviewees actively oppose religion. Even among the third who are atheists, many consider themselves "spiritual." One describes this spiritual atheism as being rooted in "wonder about the complexity and the majesty of existence," a sentiment many nonscientists -- religious or not -- would recognize. By not engaging with religion more fully and publicly, "the academy is really doing itself a big disservice," worries one scientist. ….

I'm not interested in the "spiritual but not religious" identification which has been contentious on other blogs . Rather, I'd like you to focus on the fully half of the top scientists who consider themselves religious--including Francis Collins, the head of the NIH.

In an article in the WaPo, Ecklund expands on her findings:

It turns out that nearly 50 percent of scientists identify with a religious label, and nearly one in five is actively involved in a house of worship, attending services more than once a month.....

Unfortunately...most religious scientists do not feel comfortable talking about their scientific lives within their faith communities. They think discussing science within their house of worship might offend fellow parishioners who are not scientists. So they do not bring it up. Instead, they practice what I call "secret science."...[A]nother poll shows that 25 percent of Americans think scientists are hostile to religion...

Ya think? THose stereotypes will bite you every time.

In any case, it is clear that the stereotype that religion is the pablum for the uneducated masses is not correct. THese studies show that highly educated people, including scientists, are active in their faith communities. I'm going to guess that those tend towards particular TYPES of faith communities, such as those represented here on this blog, not those of rigid fundamentalist bent.

(Incidentally, I don't consider myself spiritual in the least. Nor do I consider myself religious. On the other hand, I do go to church with my wife every week, though at times I admit to finding it rather tedious--particularly when the music program is on summer hiatus.  But it's such an important part of BP's life that it's important to me to be with her and share what I can.)

So much for the educated.  What's happening to those with less education?  Why are they NOT attending church?  My next post will look at that issue.

"Hate has no place in God's house"

From retiring Archbishop Desmond Tutu, writing in Essence magazine:

Each of you is called to respond to God's urgency for love and life. So whether you are in South Africa, the United States or anywhere else, humanity needs to accept its own diversity as a gift from our Creator. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are part of our family of God....

Boldly, I urge all faith leaders and politicians to stop persecuting people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Every day people live in fear because of who they love. We are talking about our family members, our flesh and blood, our humanity. LGBT people are in our villages, towns, cities, countries -- and our whole world.

In South African churches we have sung, "Oh freedom! Freedom is coming, oh yes, I know." We sang this chorus at the lowest points of our journey toward freedom against the racist and colonialist system of apartheid, and we still sing it to this day. Freedom is coming -- and those of us who have freedom must speak out for those whose freedom is under attack. We can and must make a difference.

Cross posted from the new series, "Voices of Faith Speak out", at Gay married Californian

Scientists in the pews

Riffing off our father blog (Fr Jake is discussing atheism, science and religion today), here's an interesting piece from the WaPo:

I am now beginning my third national study of top university scientists, and from 2005 to 2008 I conducted the most comprehensive study to date of what scientists think about religion.....It turns out that nearly 50 percent of scientists identify with a religious label, and nearly one in five is actively involved in a house of worship, attending services more than once a month. ....

Unfortunately, because of the controversy and conflicts surrounding the evolution-creation debate, stem cell research and other topics related to science and faith, most religious scientists do not feel comfortable talking about their scientific lives within their faith communities. They think discussing science within their house of worship might offend fellow parishioners who are not scientists. So they do not bring it up. Instead, they practice what I call "secret science." And everyone in the community loses out.
....
Yet, another poll shows that 25 percent of Americans think scientists are hostile to religion. In a country where most people have a religious identity, if a large proportion of the populace believes science is hostile to religion, our science education system is in serious trouble.

..... If we want students of faith to attend the nation's top universities and to succeed in America's top institutions, then we need to encourage them to thoughtfully examine modern scientific theories and dispel misconceptions and stereotypes about science. Scientists with faith could be bridges.
...
Scientists should not be required or compelled to leave behind their professional identities and ideas when they come to the altar.

It is also worth noting that scientists can be just as bad towards those with faith in a science setting. When Francis Collins, director of the NIH, was appointed to that position, many scientists protested that this esteemed and respected geneticist was unfit for office because of his Evangelical beliefs. I told you about my disgust at their protest here. Perhaps its time for everyone to "come out"!


OblDisclaimer: I was one of the scientists surveyed for her 2005-8 study.

Must conservatives believe in God?

Following up to my previous post, a new discussion on conservative blogs wrestles with the tendency to make conservatism as defined by Republicanism, explicitly religious.

The secularist conservatives, who are the major bulwark against conservative theocracy, naturally disagree:

There are many people like us: people who cherish limited government, fiscal restraint, personal liberty, free enterprise, self-support, patriotic defense of the homeland and its borders, love of the Constitution, respect for established ways of doing things, pride in Western Civilization, etc., and yet who cannot swallow stories about the Sky Father and the Afterlife, miraculous births and revivifications. What does the one set of things have to do with the other?

Kathleen Parker writing in the Post sees it as a battle to reclaim the Republican brand.

...the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh.

As Andrew Sullivan writes,

I don't see how Republicanism, as it is now constructed, can tolerate atheists in its midst. The principles of today's Christianist GOP are theological before they are political.

I guess this is the flipside of the canard that Democrats are not people of faith (which most of you lot easily disprove, if only the media paid attention). However I think it does mean that the culture wars are going to get worse before they get better, partly because of the death-grip that fundamentalist Christianists and their allies have on the Republican party, and partly because they are emboldened by their success in attacking my civil rights.

Religion and elected office

When is it legitimate to be concerned about the religious beliefs of those running for office?

Religion has inserted itself into the electoral process in a number of ways. We all know the sorry state of affairs in 2004, when John Kerry was denied Communion. I also posted here previously about noted Catholic conservative Douglas Kmiec, who was denied Communion this year for the "sin" of supporting Obama! (Apparently he was since absolved.) Another Catholic pro-lifer has now come out for Obama. (Hat-tip, Franiam). Fortunately the deny-communion movement seems to be running out of steam, and we haven't heard more than a few murmers about Joe Biden.

Now, we have Sarah Palin, running for Vice President. As described in a recent LA Times article , Gov Palin is a follower of Assemblies of God, which is a conservative, pentacostalist denomination. She is rabidly anti-abortion, a young-earth creationist who won her mayoral election with the help of an activist Christianist campaign. She considers it "God's plan" to send troops to Iraq.Her Wasilla church runs an ex-gay program and Youtube is littered with disturbing videos from her pastor.

The Boston Globe comments on another story, that Wasilla under Palin was alone of towns in Alaska in charging rape victims for the "rape kits" used to collect evidence--some of which include the "morning after pill". The Globe asks,

Whether the fee-for-kits policy reflected Palin's budgetary zeal or her extreme view on abortion, voters deserve to know. As Alaska's governor in 2000, Tony Knowles, put it: "We would never bill the victim of a burglary for finger-printing and photographing the crime scene, or for the cost of gathering other evidence."

But in Wasilla they would, if the crime was rape.

Sarah Palin's religious views are completely incompatible with my political views. The thought of her establishing any sort of policy scares the beejeesus out of me. I do not find in her statements, policies, or objectives any evidence that she will provide a "big tent" of tolerance or accommodation, or that she will uphold the Constitution rather than her religious opinion.

So while in the general sense, I don't think that the religious faith of a candidate should matter, clearly in the specific example, it does. It must.

Update: The Human Rights Campaign, a mainstream gay rights group, went up to Alaska to talk about Sarah Palin and her religious views of GLBT folk. Check out this Youtube video.

Update 2 More video! JCF in the comments mentions Bill Maher's interview on the Daily show on 30 Sept, discussing his new film Religulous. You can watch Part 1 of the Daily Show piece here and watch Part 2 here.

A Thought for the Day

I am tired of being told I am not "orthodox" because I believe that God is calling us to include all the baptized in the life and ministry of the church. I suspect I am far more "orthodox" than many who want to kick me out of the church. (Most of them seem to be gnostics---and totally unaware that they are committed to the earliest of heresies.)

Full inclusion is not a "justice" issue for me---it goes to the heart of my belief that God loves EVERYONE, and that faithful love between two people is a sign of God's presence and grace...no matter what sex they happen to love. To accuse me of wanting full inclusion based on some political agenda is to trivialize my faith and my experience of the Living God. --- Wormwood's Doxy in a comment on the Rev. Mark Harris' blog