Leaving American Christianity

John Pavlovitz writes,

I am not losing my mind.
I’m not losing my faith.
I’m not failing or falling or backsliding.
I have simply outgrown American Christianity. 

I’ve outgrown the furrowed-browed warnings of a sky that is perpetually falling.
I’ve outgrown the snarling brimstone preaching that brokers in damnation.
I’ve outgrown the vile war rhetoric that continually demands an encroaching enemy.
I’ve outgrown the expectation that my faith is the sole property of a political party.
I’ve outgrown violent bigotry and xenophobia disguised as Biblical obedience.
I’ve outgrown God wrapped in a flag and soaked in rabid nationalism.
I’ve outgrown the incessant attacks on the Gay, Muslim, and Atheist communities.
I’ve outgrown theology as a hammer always looking for a nail.
I’ve outgrown the cramped, creaky, rusting box that God never belonged in anyway. 

Most of all though, I’ve outgrown something that simply no longer feels like love, something I no longer see much of Jesus in..... 

It’s getting harder and harder to love all people and still fit into what has become American Christianity, so rather than becoming less loving and staying—I’m leaving.

Does this mean he will become one of the unaffiliated?  That varied group that includes disaffected practitioners, agnostics, and atheists? We'll be interested to see what he says next.

Pope Francis recently said that fundamentalism is a sickness in all religions.  And, fundamentalist American Christians with their language of war and violence, their endless outrage, their calls for theocracy, are viewed the same way we view Islamic or Hindu theocrats.  They've highjacked the name "Christian" so that it is nearly divorced from its  meaning. Nice job, guys.

The clerk goes to court and Christianity loses (updated)

The Rowan KY county clerk, Kim Davis, believes that her religiously-founded disdain for same sex marriage entitles her to refuse to do her job.  Her office is refusing to provide marriage licenses to any couple, straight or gay.  Religious freedom, you know.

Think about that.  She is saying that her religious beliefs entitle her, a public servant, to deny her fellow citizens legal civil rights.

Susan Russell writes, 

What if I'm a Muslim and my understanding of my religion is that women shouldn't drive? Can I refuse to issue drivers' licenses to women? Or if I'm a Hindu and a vegetarian -- can I refuse to issue fishing licenses because killing/eating fish is against my religion? Of course not. Likewise, your personal opinions and beliefs about who should or should not be getting married has absolutely no bearing on who you issue marriage licenses to as a county clerk. Period.

Exactly.  And just to make it sweeter, Ms Davis has been divorced three times.  But wait, there's more!

She gave birth to twins five months after divorcing her first husband. They were fathered by her third husband but adopted by her second.

She has since found JAYSUS and has been absolved of sin.  Wiped clean.  Like it never happened.  Of course it doesn't work that way for the Roman Catholics, who consider a couple married following divorce to be living in adultery.  Good thing she's not Catholic, then.

But regardless of her past, even if she were pure as snow, that would not justify her actions.

She has lost in federal court.  While her appeal is pending, she asked for an extended stay of the decision so that she didn't have to sign the licenses.  The 6th circuit said, no, no stay.  The Supreme Court said no, no stay.  You have to start giving out the licenses while your appeal is pending.

GOD! cries Davis and won't do it.  Clerk Davis is facing contempt charges, fines, maybe jail.

Even anti-gay Ryan Anderson of the Heritage Foundation thinks she's nuts.  Quoted in Think Progress, 

“The citizens of Rowan County have a right to receive in a timely and efficient manner the various government provisions—including licenses—to which they are entitled,” Anderson writes for one of Heritage’s websites. 

He adds.... that “[s]aying your religion requires your entire office to stop issuing marriage licenses to everyone . . . cannot be reasonably accommodated without placing undue hardships on the citizens unable to receive their licenses in their county and forced to drive to another.” 

.... the fact that as prominent an anti-gay luminary as Anderson believes that Davis has gone too far is a sign of just how thin a limb the Kentucky clerk now finds herself upon.

Joe Childers makes the constitutional point:

Religiously neutral civil mechanisms are the only possible way for true religious freedom to exist for multiple religions simultaneously. Civil servants who are religious ought therefore to be even more scrupulous about preserving religious neutrality in their duties than non-religious servants, for they are more directly enjoying religious freedom in their own lives and have more to lose from threats to that freedom.

 So what's up?  Everyone agrees that this is wrong at many levels.

Is she merely a puppet of the lawyers who are fundraising wildly? Mark Stern in Slate:

I’m growing a bit concerned about Davis’ lawyers. Davis is being represented by the Liberty Counsel, a far-right fringe group that specializes in anti-gay litigation. (Naturally, it is also a Christian ministry and a tax-exempt nonprofit.) Founder and Chairman Mathew D. Staver has used Davis’ case to raise money and boost publicity for his group, going so far as to hold a rally for Davis..... 

When a federal judge ordered Davis to issue licenses or be held in contempt of court, the Liberty Counsel advised her to disobey the ruling. Good lawyers don’t usually tell their clients to defy lawful court orders, especially when jail time is a real possibility. Yet the Liberty Counsel didn’t mind putting their client at risk—perhaps because the idea of a middle-aged woman being hauled off to jail for purportedly following her conscience would send thousands of anti-gay Americans reaching for their pitchforks (and checkbooks).

Liberty Counsel, which gallingly is funded by tax-deductable donations and grants, stands to gain.  The  Lexington KY Herald-Leader agrees:

So, why is Liberty Counsel marching alongside Davis in this losing cause? It takes a lot to keep that marketing machine humming and those executives paid, and the only way to keep those donations coming is to stay in the news. For that purpose a losing cause is just as good as, perhaps better than, a winning one.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/08/13/3987637_time-for-davis-to-do-her-job-or.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

It's always about money.  Dan Savage sees a method to Kim's madness: t he greed of martyrdom:

....this isn't about Kim Davis standing up for her supposed principles—proof of that in a moment—it's about Kim Davis cashing in. There's a big pile of sweet, sweet bigot money out there waiting for her. If the owners of a pizza parlor could rake in a million dollars just by threatening not to cater the gay wedding no one asked them to cater... just imagine how much of that sweet, sweet bigot money Kim Davis is going to rake in. I'm sure Kim Davis is already imagining it.

Regardless of who is using whom, money and martyrdom go hand in hand.  But Dan goes on,

.... This pathetic bullshit is what passes for Christianity in America today. Thanks to the efforts of hate groups like the American Family Association, the Family Research Council ....,, the 700 Club, the Moral Majority, the National Organization for Marriage, the National Association of Evangelicals, etc., and the mousy, near-complicit silence of left-wing and progressive Christians, "Christian" is now synonymous with "anti-gay bigot."

"Mousy, near complicit silence of left-wing and progressive Christians".  Yup.  Because if you don't defend the brand, the brand becomes Kim Davis.  Dan continues,

To be a good American Christian like Kim Davis—or a good Alaskan Christian like Bristol Palin—you don't have to stay in your first marriage, ....you don't have to deny marriage licenses to straight people who are remarrying or marrying outside the faith or obtaining marriage licenses for Godless secular marriages. Nope. You just have to hate the homos. ....You don't have to feed the sick, clothe the naked, house the homeless—you don't have to do any of that shit Jesus actually talked about—you just have to hate the homos hard enough to go to jail for for your beliefs cash in on your bigotry.

That, my friends, is Christianity in America today.  And all the gay friendly mainlines, the ELCA, UCC, PCUSA, TEC, you all are being so NICE about it, while your brand is going down the drain.   You quietly wring your hands or comment on Facebook, so politely, "you know, we're Not All Like That (NALT)."  Oh, but remember, you pretty much don't have any friends on Facebook who don't already agree with you.

Why isn't anyone saying assertively and publicly, "this woman DOESN'T SPEAK for Christianity"?  Why isn't anyone speaking out?  Why are you letting this once more be cast as the mediatainment narrative likes it, as a battle between Teh Gayz  and the Christians?

Can anyone wonder why the Nones are the fastest growing religious group in the country?

Update:  Found in contempt of court, Ms Davis was taken into custody.  She apparently intends to stay there, and refuses to allow her clerks to administer licenses.  The fundraising no doubt will pick up, until it doesn't,  and no one will marry in Rowan County.

THe religious right is not leaving (and it's not religious)

Great article:

There is a miscalculation spreading among my liberal friends and some of my fellow commentators that the demographic decline of organized religion in America augurs the end of the religious right as a dominant political force. This is a massive miscalculation, because the religious right has nothing whatsoever to do with faith, dogma, Jesus, or the afterlife. Instead, large sections of American Christendom exist solely to support reductive conservative politics as a hedge against progress. They are tools used by cynical politicians and bloviating television pundits to transform rage and tribalism into viewers and a compliant voting public. There’s no reason to think those who benefit will abandon such a calculated and successful effort just because gay people can now (thankfully) get married. If anything, the rhetoric on “religious freedom” and attacks on issues like women’s health has only gotten more outlandish over time.

And this one is a keeper:

I could fill a dozen essays with examples of Bible verses that contradict the core ideas and statements of conservative candidates, politicians and talking heads, but it’s a waste of time. No matter what the politicians and pundits claim to believe, they are only using faith to exploit an angry and ignorant populace with a collective Bible literacy that wouldn’t fill a shot glass.

As the Republican base becomes both grayer and whiter, more homogenous and religious, fake Christianity will become an even more important wedge for conservatives to drive between people and their self-interest. We don’t care if a Republican politician throws grandma out of the nursing home or takes food stamps from poor people, so long as he weeps during Sunday service. ....

There is finally starting to be some pushback against the "'elp, 'elp, I'm bein' repressed!" meme of the religious right.  Well, for one thing, we have a vivid picture of what actual religious persecution means, as we see Christian and other minority religious communities essentially wiped out in the middle east. Whereas here, in the US, we take national holidays on Christian holy days.

From the Guardian.

In much of the rest of the world, religious persecution involves forced conversion, mob attacks and genocide by violence or by neglect. In America, your employee might be able to use the health insurance for which you pay a part of the premium to get an IUD..... 

These Christians equate not getting their own way in the political sphere – not being able to impose their idiosyncratic religious views on others with the force of law – with brutal and unjust persecution. As America becomes more diverse and less religious than ever, white conservative Christian men are losing their disproportionate influence on politics and, because they think of themselves as the natural and deserving custodians of that power, having to share it feels like a shocking injustice. ...

Yes, that's it.  And this frames it well:

Most of the time, when conservatives say "freedom," they really mean "privilege." Typically, they do not recognize this, because they view their preferred power structure as the natural order. Theocrats and other religious authoritarians will raise a great hue and cry about their religious freedoms being violated. Most will honestly believe this, but they do not truly seek freedom of religion, which they already possess. What they seek is power and preferential status, the ability to impose their religious beliefs on others. 

So the argument for religious freedom is an argument for religious privilege.  And needs to be called as such.

How the culture wars function in opposition to the common good

From an interview with Vince Miller, the Gudorf Chair in Catholic Theology and Culture at the University of Dayton, in the National Catholic Reporter:

What are the culture wars?

Culture war politics focuses on what can divide groups, polarize them and then mobilize them against each other. Part of what defines the culture wars is rhetoric: using language that portrays the opponent as not simply wrong, but morally depraved. Politically, it seeks policies and legislation that do not appeal to the majority. It aims to mobilize the base, but not broad coalitions. It's always about getting 51 percent.....

And igniting these battles was a deliberate political decision.

the culture wars developed out of a political strategy intended to mobilize conservative evangelicals and other conservative Christians in opposition to the cultural changes of the 1960s -- the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement and the women's movement. It wasn't just a grassroots backlash; it was a political strategy designed to mobilize a backlash. It turned those moral issues into political issues, and in so doing, it dissolved complex constituencies and communities. It sorted America out along the lines of the culture war.

While politically this has been successful, in the sense of empowering certain political viewpoints, it has been deeply harmful to a functioning government or any concept of the common good.  He explains that the consequences to Christianity are severe, losing an entire generation

For people whose access to Christianity is largely what they see on television or in the news or in the paper, they got to define the public face of Christianity. And study after study has shown that the millennial generation has gotten that message loud and clear, and they don't find it interesting at all. They find it repugnant.

Remember, the "nones"are a large and growing group, and ex-Catholics are also a large and growing group in the spectrum of American religious identity. The Christian right has tried to force their brand on us and damaged it perhaps irreparably.

What's lost in all this warfare is any sense of community or shared values.  "My way or the highway" is not the way to govern or get anything done, as we see in the gridlock in Congress. Compromise is not a dirty word.

I think it could turn around if we understand the dead end that this style of politics is. And that's the work of journalists, that's the work of politicians, to say how fruitless it's been and to point out what's been taken off the table in the process -- to point out that this kind of politics has not led to a more just and flourishing society, but to a society where people are more vulnerable and more on their own.

And if we don't?

My greatest fear is that the next step will reject the culture war morality but simply slide into a complete libertarianism, where there's no moral obligation of society to anybody, where government shouldn't be involved in any kind of moral question. And we'll just continue on with Republican economic politics. My fear is that we've really been set up for that move. What we have to do to avoid it is argue clearly that what we've been ignoring is the common good itself.

Politics, not science, makes atheists

Interesting article in Politico makes the case that the loss of religious belief in Europe is directly linked to a history of corrupt churches as part of the political power structure,  not a conflict between science and religion.

In reality, the growth of atheism in Europe and America has much more to do with politics and, in particular, ecclesiastically backed politics, than it has with science, something that is clear even from its earliest days. The first person we can unequivocally call an atheist in modern Europe was a French Catholic priest who died in 1729. Jean Meslier led an unremarkable life at Étrépigny, in Champagne. On his death, however, friends discovered a manuscript, his “Testament,” which denounced all belief, all God and all religion with a frenzied anger that makes Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion seem like a work of reasoned scholarship.

But then, Meslier did have a great deal to be angry about.... The monarch ruled with absolute power that was justified by a fabulously wealthy and notoriously intolerant church. People were still being publically tortured and executed for ‘religious’ crimes as late as the 1760s. ... Europe’s first public atheists were driven from mere scepticism and anti-clericalism to full-blown unbelief not by reason or scientific progress but primarily by a venal and violent theo-political settlement.

The author contrasts this situation with Britain, which was much more tolerant, religiously and initellectually, and with the US, in which the separation of church from temporal state power also paradoxically helped it survive.

He then moves into the 20th century and points out that the violence of the explicitly atheist communist regimes also provided a pro-religion backlash that strengthened religious expression in the US.

He concludes

In the last decades of the 20th century, history veered off script. The world stopped secularising, and some religious groups, most famously evangelicals in America and Shias in Iran—two groups not usually bracketed together—found a political voice that had heretofore been muted. The results were often troubling and sometimes grotesque, and all of a sudden the wells of moral indignation were overflowing once more. Today, atheism is resurgent, in America and elsewhere, confidently predicting God’s imminent death and uncritically retelling the creation myth of atheism’s progress on science’s back.

The irony of the truth was sadly lost in the shouting: Atheism is indeed rejuvenating—but only because God is back. 

 And not in a good way.  All you have to do is read the comments following any religiously themed article in the mainstream press to see an upwelling of anger against religion and the religious, which is very much linked to the political over-reach of the right wing. The irony in all this  is that the biggest driver against religious belief is  those who express it, because they are politicizing it.  The Founding Fathers were on to something.  Too bad we don't seem able to figure it out any more.

Religious liberty cuts both ways

The odious amendment 1, which passed in North Carolina to forbid gay couples from marrying, also included an additional, unusual component that forbids clergy from marrying anyone who doesn't have a marriage license.

From North Carolina's Charlotte Observer:

The General Synod of the United Church of Christ filed a lawsuit today in U.S. District Court in Charlotte, contending state law that defines marriage as a union between a man and woman restrict its ministers from performing their religious duties is unconstitutional.

North Carolina prohibits couples of the same gender from obtaining a marriage license and makes it a crime for ministers to officiate a marriage ceremony without determining whether a couple has a license. UCC attorneys say the law limits ministers’ choices, violates the principle of “free exercise of religion” and restricts the freedoms of religion and expressive association guaranteed in the First Amendment. The church seeks a preliminary injunction that would allow ministers the choice of performing a religious marriage.

In addition to the UCC, there are some other clergy involved in the suit.From the HuffPo:

"As a Christian minister in a Christian church that supports same-gender marriage, I should be religiously free to offer my services as a minister performing a wedding for a couple in my congregation," said Rev. Nancy Ellett Allison, a United Church of Christ plaintiff in the case, which also includes a dozen non-UCC clergy and same-sex couples.

Oh, my, doesn't THAT hoist the conservatives on their own petard!   Some people seem a little unclear on the concept that the government is not supposed to enforce theological views. Southern Baptist bigwig Russell Moore states that religious liberty is reserved for those who oppose marriage equality.

Tami Fitzgerald, director of the North Carolina Values Coalition, the group that led the charge to pass the state's ban on same-sex marriage, echoed Moore's sentiments, saying the beliefs of the clergy from the United Church of Christ are "errant." 

"These individuals are simply revisionists that distort the teaching of Scripture to justify sexual revolution, not marital sanctity," Fitzgerald said in a statement.

So, she thinks that government should promote her views over those of others.  Not much liberty there.  However, some people grudgingly get it.

Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, declared Tuesday that North Carolina's ban is "dubious and dangerous." And while Mohler has not changed his opposition to same-sex marriage -- he once equatedhomosexuality with cancer -- he did concede that the UCC clergy's lawsuit is "very convincing."

....Indeed, in his podcast, Mohler urged listeners to take the long view. 

"Even as we advocate for religious liberty, we have to understand that the guarantee of religious liberty means the freedom of heretics to teach heresy," he said. "If we deny religious liberty for others, very soon others will deny religious liberty to us. That's fair warning and this case bears close attention."

meanwhile, I'm proud to be friends with heretics!

But this isn't just about gays marrying.  That's a proxy for a whole slew of dangerous policies set by the REpublicans in control of NOrth Carolina.  As Susan Brooks Thistlewaite writes, 

Progressive people of faith and people of conscience across a wide spectrum are taking back the term "moral" from the extreme right, and it is important to see the UCC lawsuit as part of this larger moral struggle.... 

What has happened in North Carolina since 2012, from a faith perspective, is biblically and theologically wrong. In their frenzy of economic and civil rights cutting, these legislators and their supporters have 'fallen into the temptation' of creating systemic injustice, rather than systemic justice. ... 

North Carolina has "overreached" in making it illegal for the members of the United Church of Christ, and those of other faiths, to actually exercise their religious freedom to marry congregants who want to marry. And in "overreaching," in this way, these legislators tipped their hand, and made this lawsuit possible. 

The United Church of Christ has taken a bold and absolutely necessary step to protect religious freedom for all Americans, and in so doing has taken a stand against the gutting of real freedom in this country. 

I am very proud of my church and of the many people who worked to make this lawsuit possible. 

We are in a profound spiritual as well as democratic struggle in this country, and it is time to choose sides.

A challenge from within: God and the Gay Christian

Evangelical Christian Matthew Vines has written a book called God and the Gay Christian.  Albert Mohler of the Southern Baptist Convention took the strong step of releasing a rebuttal ebook on the same day Vines' book was published.  "They" appear to be running scared, trying to keep Vines' message from being read.  What's the deal?

Vines’s book, unlike most of the titles that have made similar arguments over the years, offers the non-traditional biblical theory using simple language, personality and thoughtful prose. In other words, it’s a good read. And easy to understand...

In an email exchange with Vines, the author explained that “most books written on this subject in the past have come from a more progressive or moderate theological bent, so they haven't found an audience among conservative Christians. But given that my book takes a conservative theological approach, it is much more likely to gain a hearing from evangelicals."...

According to Vines, somebody from Mohler’s camp requested an early copy of God and the Gay Christian, but Vines didn’t learn of the ebook until last Tuesday, the day that both books released. Yes, that’s how afraid of Matthew Vines they really are, so scared that they’re fully willing to purposefully sabotage not only the success of Vines’s book with a rush-to-press response but also the conversation he’s hoping to spark. 

 And because Vines is himself a conservative evangelical, he may have "legs".  Randy Potts at the Box Turtle Bulletin tells us more:

There are two positions Vines’ book hinges on: 1, that celibacy has never been forced on Christians but instead has always been a choice, seen as a “gift” that some have but that most do not, and, 2, that orientation cannot be changed. ...Thus, the checkmate – if you believe orientation cannot be changed and you are also persuaded by Vines that celibacy has never been forced on Christians, it follows that there must be a Christian expression of sexuality for gay people. There must be and, according to Vines, there is: covenantal marriage.

Potts also has more existential issues:

What’s somewhat unsettling to me as a former evangelical is to watch a very intelligent gay man accept the entire framework of the most conservative Christian churches in America. For many, the siren song of gay rights was really queer rights, the right to be different, to be outré, to buck norms. The marriage equality movement and the dismantling of DADT are two legs of a very different stool and Vines provides the last leg, a way for gay people to completely assimilate within even the most conservative Christian communities if they so choose. In this sense, Rachel Maddow was right when she expressed her fear that the fight for marriage equality would end gay culture as we know it. What Vines will represent for some is the last nail in the coffin for Harry Hay’s idea that gay people are their own separate culture with their own distinct mores and attributes.

The End of Gay Culture, as Andrew Sullivan calls it.

Well, I never have lived in "gay culture".  This is a feature probably of coming out later in life.  One of my gay men friends, an older man, asked where BP and I go to "be with lesbians".  We don't.  We don't live in a gayborhood, and most of our friends are straight.  So assimilation and acceptance is to me all about gains, and not about losses.

And if we gain acceptance by the young evangelicals thanks to Matthew Vines' book, all the better.

Baptism by torture

By now, you've heard that Sarah Palin likens waterboarding to baptism for accused terrorists.

Baptism.

A sacrament.

Compared to torture.

Rob Dreher speaks out:

OK, stop. Not only is this woman, putatively a Christian, praising torture, but she is comparing it to a holy sacrament of the Christian faith. It’s disgusting — but even more disgusting, those NRA members, many of whom are no doubt Christians, cheered wildly for her.... 

If I thought that kind of hateful declaration and abuse of the Christian religion was what conservatism stood for, I wouldn’t be able to call myself a conservative. Some conservatives do stand for that. They’re wrong, and they should be called out on it — not because some liberal somewhere is going to be offended, but first and foremost because we Christians who identify as conservatives are appalled by it. 

Joe Carter:

For anyone to confess Christ as their savior and to compare one of the means of God's grace to a reprehensible act of torture is reprehensible. I hope members of Gov. Palin's local church will explain to her why her remarks denigrate the Christian faith. Such remarks bring shame on the Body of Christ and to our witness in the world. Even more shameful, however, is the fact that so many Christians would cheer her support of torture (and yes, waterboarding is torture).....

.... The truly Christian position is to never forget that evil comes not just from the actions of "terrorists" or "enemies" but from the heart of a fallen, sacred yet degraded, human beings. If we are to preserve our own humanity we must not forget that our enemy differs from us in degree, not in kind. Like us, our enemies need to accept Jesus and to be baptized by water and the Spirit. That is the Christian way, not as Palin would have it, to have our enemies fear a pagan god and have their spirit broken by water.

Andrew Sullivan looks at what drives "Christian" outrage:

It seems to me, moreover, that torture is a far graver evil, even for orthodox theologians, than non-procreative or non-marital sex. And yet today’s Christianists are obsessed about the latter and not just indifferent to the former, but actually in favor of it. It’s this twisted set of priorities, this exquisitely misplaced set of fears, and this utter ignorance of even basic Christian teaching that reveals all that’s so terribly wrong with American Christianity. It has become its own nemesis.

Morality, faith, and the South

Another study (from Pew) has come out showing that the US is a major outlier compared to other first-world countries, in that a substantial proportion of our population believes that atheists can't be moral.  Never mind that atheists are under-represented in prisons, less likely to divorce, more highly educated, etc etc.

Writing in Salon, CJ Werelman  puts this down to the religiosity of the Southern US.

Essentially, the Republican Party has convinced tens of millions of Southerners that a vote for a public display of the Ten Commandments is more important to a Christian’s needs than a vote against cuts in education spending, food stamp reductions, the elimination of school lunches and the abolition of healthcare programs. 

....While the Republican Party retains its monolithic hold on the South, the rest of America remains deprived of universal healthcare, electric cars, sensible gun control laws, carbon emission bans, a progressive tax structure that underpins massive public investment, and collective bargaining laws that would compress the income inequality gap. In other words, without the South’s religiosity, “America” would again look like a developed, secular country, a country where it’s probable for an atheist to be elected into public office, and where the other 50 million law-abiding atheists wouldn’t be looked upon as rapists, thieves and murders.

We discussed "what's wrong with the South" a few days ago.   Can we lay it all at the feet of religious fervor?

On science and religion, and angry fundamentalists

After a Christian student was relieved to hear that his faith was okay with evolution, physicist Max Tegmark wondered whether religion really is unfriendly to science.

This gave me the idea to start the MIT Survey on Science, Religion and Origins,.... We found that only 11 percent of Americans belong to religions openly rejecting evolution or our Big Bang. So if someone you know has the same stressful predicament as my student, chances are that they can relax as well....

So is there a conflict between science and religion? The religious organizations representing most Americans clearly don't think so. Interestingly, the science organizations representing most American scientists don't think so either: For example, the American Association for the Advancement of Science states that science and religion "live together quite comfortably, including in the minds of many scientists." This shows that the main divide in the U.S. origins debate isn't between science and religion, but between a small fundamentalist minority and mainstream religious communities who embrace science.

In a followup, Max describes how he was prepared for an angry response to his news that most faith groups are actually pretty okay with evolution.

The vitriolic responses poured in as predicted. But to my amazement, most of them didn't come from religious people, but from angry atheists!...I have three criticisms of these angry atheists:

1) They help religious fundamentalists:
A key point I wanted to make with our survey is that there are two interesting science-religion controversies: a) Between religion & atheism b) Between religious groups who do & don't attack science.

Some forces pushing for creationism in US schools try to conflate the two so that they can pretend to represent the majority, and taunting religious groups that don't attack science can play into their hands. In contrast, I think that drawing attention to b) is the most effective way to weaken the anti-scientific fringe and improve the prospects for future generations.… 

2) They could use more modesty: 
If I've learned anything as a physicist, it's how little we know with certainty. ... 

3) They should practice what they preach: 
Most atheists advocate for replacing fundamentalism, superstition and intolerance by careful and thoughtful scientific discourse. Yet after we posted our survey report, ad hominem attacks abounded, and most of the caustic comments I got (including one from a fellow physics professor) revealed that their authors hadn't even bothered reading the report they were criticizing.

Just as it would be unfair to blame all religious people for what some fundamentalists do, I'm obviously not implying that all anti-religious people are mean-spirited or intolerant. However, I can't help being struck by how some people on both the religious and anti-religious extremes of the spectrum share disturbing similarities in debating style. 

You think? I'm not surprised, there is considerable anti-religion antipathy in some of more-rabid atheists. But frankly most of us are happy to live and let live, and don't really care what you believe as long as you don't inflict your beliefs upon us.

And then there's the angry Christian fundamentalists. When erstwhile religious dating site e-Harmony were sued and so put together a same-sex site, says their founder,Neil Clark Warren

we literally had to hire guards to protect our lives because the people were so hurt and angry with us, were Christian people, who feel that it's a violation to scripture. 

 Yup, nothing says Jesus-follower like death threats.

Fundamentalism is by its nature intolerant.  We see this lack of tolerance and respect throughout society, ranging from anti-gay to anti-Islam....to anti religion.  But the step beyond that into threats of violence, is deeply, deeply disturbing.  And it boggles the mind that followers of the "prince of peace" ever resort to  violent rhetoric  (previous examples here here and here ), when confronted by anyone different.

How fundamentalists destroyed the Republican Party (and may destroy the country)

From Alternet, Mike Lofgren on his new book.  Go, read.

Having observed politics up close and personal for most of my adult lifetime, I have come to the conclusion that the rise of politicized religious fundamentalism may have been the key ingredient in the transformation of the Republican Party. Politicized religion provides a substrate of beliefs that rationalizes—at least in the minds of its followers—all three of the GOP’s main tenets: wealth worship, war worship, and the permanent culture war
...
The results of this takeover are all around us: If the American people poll more like Iranians or Nigerians than Europeans or Canadians on questions of evolution, scriptural inerrancy, the presence of angels and demons, and so forth, it is due to the rise of the religious right, its insertion into the public sphere by the Republican Party, and the consequent normalizing of formerly reactionary beliefs. All around us now is a prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science. Politicized religion is the sheet anchor of the dreary forty-year-old culture wars.
….
Some liberal writers have opined that the socioeconomic gulf separating the business wing of the GOP and the religious right make it an unstable coalition that could crack. I am not so sure. There is no basic disagreement on which direction the two factions want to take the country, merely how far it should go. The plutocrats would drag us back to the Gilded Age; the theocrats to the Salem witch trials. If anything, the two groups are increasingly beginning to resemble each other. Many televangelists have espoused what has come to be known as the prosperity gospel—the health-and- wealth/name-it-and-claim-it gospel of economic entitlement. If you are wealthy, it is a sign of God’s favor. If not, too bad! This rationale may explain why some poor voters will defend the prerogatives of billionaires.

I was listening to NPR this week, as they interview "average Americans" about the election.  The  conservatives who want to vote against Obama express fear at what he will do next:  Socialism!  Gun Control!  Nothing based in reality (I'd love it if there were any chance of a more progressive agenda; to me Obama is a corporate centrist!)  but everything based in fear.  The biggest success of the right wing Christianist fusion with the Republicans is using the language of fear to manipulate the electorate.  What chance do facts have in the face of The Rapture?

Does your God know hate? (Updated)

Every year at the San Diego Pride parade, there is a vocal anti-gay demonstration by fundy evangelicals along the Pride parade route. In 2009 BP and I had recently started attending St Paul's Cathedral, and were invited to march with the Cathedral group in the parade. We walk towards the staging area before the parade started, with the Dean. As I told you at the time, the haters became outraged at the sight of the Dean's collar, and through their loudspeaker shrieked, "If you think God doesn't hate, then you don't know God!"

That God of Hate has been visible this year too. We talked before about hate in the calls to anti-gay violence from the pulpits especially during the run-up to North Carolina's hate Amendment. And in the aftermath of the shootings in Colorado, we heard hate in the attempts of some to blame liberals , or gays, or progressive churches for the tragedy .Fred Jackson of the AFA:

"The AFA Journal has been dealing with denominations that no longer believe in the God of the Bible, they no longer believe that Jesus is the only way of salvation, they teach that God is OK with homosexuality, this is just increasing more and more. It is mankind shaking its fist at the authority of God. We are seeing his judgment. You know, some people talk about ‘God’s judgment must be just around the corner,’ we are seeing it."

Tea Party Congressman Louis Gohmert blames the shooting on atheists and "ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs".

But I think the most hate-filled comment was from an "evangelical spokesman"

who blamed the tragedy of the Aurora shooting on the nation’s loss of fear of God and hell. Discussing the victims, Newcombe argued that the non-Christians were going to Hell.

How vicious is that? What kind of person steps up and says "your murdered child is going to burn in hell"?

It is difficult to fathom how these men got from commandments to "Love God and thy neighbor" to a hate-filled and punitive deity, leading them to verbal assaults and even calls for violence on anyone who disagrees. It's a very old-Testament view, which leads one to wonder what part of "Christian" they actually embrace.

UpdateFrank Bruni looks at Michelle Bachman with similar questions in the NY Times today.

What I find most fascinating about Michele Bachmann — and there are many, many more where she came from — is that she presents herself as a godly woman, humbly devoted to her Christian faith. I’d like to meet that god, and I’d like to understand that Christianity.....

Bachmann’s concept of Christian love brims with hate, and she has a deep satchel of stones to throw. From what kind of messiah did she learn that?

... Perhaps we should start noting the difference between Christians of real compassion and those of exclusionary spite.

What they really think

Mike Huckabee, darling of the evangelical right, went on a cruise to Alaska with a bunch of supporters. And for the people who support him… well, I can't comment better than just letting you read this quote:

Maggie Benedict and Jinx Drda from suburban St Louis were also greatly disappointed to hear Huckabee had bowed out of the presidential race. They’ve always voted but it wasn’t until Obama’s victory that they became more active in politics.

“It’s the first time I’ve felt the president wasn’t a true American,” Maggie says. “And that he wants to become a dictator. We didn’t like seeing him get elected because of his race.”

The mind, it boggles.

You can't make this up department

Susan Russell writes:

Prop 8 Ruling Could Criminalize Christianity, Leaders Warn
And Liars Could Find Their Pants On Fire, Priest Warns

You can't make this stuff up. And even if you could, you wouldn't have to. Because they're doing it for you.

(CNSNews.com) – Religious leaders warn that if an Aug. 6 ruling by a federal judge on same-sex marriage is upheld, it could wind up putting a gag on Christians speaking out about homosexuality – a gag that a top Southern Baptist leader says his denomination will not accept.”

Two words for Mr. Southern Baptist leader: First Amendment. The one that protects freedom of religion. You get to believe whatever the heck you want to. You just don't get to write those beliefs into the Constitution. Got it?

Yes, I know it's over on CNS-News (not to be confused with CBS-News ... I did that once. Big mistake.) But it's exactly the kind of baseless, fear-mongering, manipulative bald faced lies that formed the foundation of the "Protect Our Marriage/Screw Your Marriage" campaign in California.

Here's the bottom line on this one: Good people of deep faith can read the Bible and come to different conclusions about a variety of things -- including what God thinks about blessing same sex couples but NOT including what God thinks about lying through your teeth.

9th Commandment.

If you can't run the race, change the rules

Just when you thought it was safe, the Anglican Wars pop up again. The usual suspects have come with a new scheme designed to force and outcome of their own liking.

Read more in the Andrew Plus blog posting If you can't run the race, change the rules.

[H/T to Göran Koch-Swahne]

Prayers for Bobby

In an era where Mike Huckabee says that gays haven't met a violence threshold sufficient to be a "real" minority, where a woman is raped apparently for being lesbian, where the gay community in Seattle is threatened by ricin poisoning, and where studies show gay youth rejected by their parents at increased risk for suicide, this true-life movie may be particularly timely about the costs of love and acceptance and denial.



H/T Mike in Texas, who also posted this essay by the real-life mom. Go read!

The News from Newsweek

The new issue of Newsweek is catching some flack. The usual suspects are calling for boycotts. The cover story is gay marriage.

Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. "It is better to marry than to burn with passion," says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script?

Of course not, yet the religious opponents of gay marriage would have it be so....
First, while the Bible and Jesus say many important things about love and family, neither explicitly defines marriage as between one man and one woman. And second, as the examples above illustrate, no sensible modern person wants marriage—theirs or anyone else's —to look in its particulars anything like what the Bible describes....

We want, as Abraham did, to grow old surrounded by friends and family and to be buried at last peacefully among them. We want, as Jesus taught, to love one another for our own good—and, not to be too grandiose about it, for the good of the world. We want our children to grow up in stable homes. What happens in the bedroom, really, has nothing to do with any of this.

Full credit to Newsweek for daring to challenge the hegemony of the religious right in political discourse. Thanks to Ann for bringing this to my attention.

Defeating fear.

I know you all are sick of Prop8, but this isn't about Prop8, except as a symptom.

I want us to think about what provokes people into fear. Because I put it to you that the separatist instinct that we are seeing playing out across the country, dividing "us" and "them", is about fear and insecurity.

Item:

The election of America's first black president has triggered more than 200 hate-related incidents, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center – a record in modern presidential elections. Moreover, the white nationalist movement, bemoaning an election that confirmed voters' comfort with a multiracial demography, expects Mr. Obama's election to be a potent recruiting tool – one that watchdog groups warn could give new impetus to a mostly defanged fringe element.

The article goes on to discuss that a sense of disenfranchisement in Southern and other whites leads to a potential for violent response against Obama and people of color. We can't forget that the Oklahoma City bombings were done by people "like us", and not scary foreigners.

Item:

The theologically conservative Diocese of Fort Worth voted Saturday to split from the liberal-leaning Episcopal Church, the fourth traditional diocese to do so in a long-running debate over the Bible, gay relationships and other issues. About 80 percent of clergy and parishioners in the Texas diocese supported the break in a series of votes at a diocesan convention.

I know you know all about this, but really, from where *I* sit, it looks like desperately trying to hold on to the past, where women and gays both knew their places and father figures (always white men) channeled authority.

Item:

In a recent email urging supporters to attack the Governor for his comments, Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council had this to say: "Since Election Day, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has made statements supporting demonstrations against Proposition 8, and urging California 's Supreme Court to block the amendment's enforcement…Condoning street protests and supporting judicial activist scams to overturn a popularly approved state constitutional amendment approaches advocacy of anarchy. Gov. Schwarzenegger is playing a dangerous game, and it needs to stop. Now."

Attempts to suppress peaceful dissent is a major symptom of fear, wouldn't you say? I told you that their next attack would be against free speech.

So, what is it that is so ingrained in the human instinct that some of us need to feel "above" someone else? That people feel threatened by change, or inclusion, sufficient to use acts of violence and words of hate to support their views?

Is it that if someone else is special, we aren't? This sounds like the jealousy of a small child when a new sibling comes home from the hospital--only with the weapons of adulthood.

Some time ago, I wrote here about ambiguity, and argued that fundamentalists respond the way they do because of their discomfort with things ambiguous. Here, I will add that I think fear is also a component.

In these undeniably frightening economic and social times, it is a natural instinct to barricade the doors against what we see as the marauding hoardes. Yet it is precisely now that we need to take the risk to open the door and realize that the "hoardes" are just starving neighbors, and people like us.

With gun sales on the upswing, right wing groups advocating the elimination of free speech, these are indeed perilous times. Now is the true challenge, of living our humane values in the face of fear and violence--not by excluding the fearful, but by trying to reach them.

How do we do this, with the threats of political and social violence?

Updated: Cross posted with some editing at TPM Cafe and Daily kos

Who would Jesus Torture?

From  Human Rights First :

A new poll released Thursday (Sept. 11) finds that nearly six in 10 white Southern evangelicals believe torture is justified...

The poll, commissioned by Faith in Public Life and Mercer University, found that 57 percent of respondents said torture can be often or sometimes justified to gain important information from suspected terrorists. Thirty-eight percent said it was never or rarely justified.....

The findings of this poll, which did not define torture, compared to a Pew Research Center poll from February that found that 48 percent of the general public think torture can be justified.

The new face of American Christianity. Live and in person and voting for President.