[Religion]
[religion] Evangelical America, I feel sorry for you and your God
Slacktivist Fred Clark, a progressive evangelical, had an interesting post over the weekend entitled The evangelical mind must obey the moneyed enforcers of the tribe in which he talks about a frequent theme of his, that modern American evangelical Christianity has morphed into political tribalism rather than a theological movement. I was most struck by this comment:
[The younger scholar] asked his former professor, now colleague, why he was sent to graduate school with so many gaps in his learning. The answer: “Our job was to protect you from this information so as not to shipwreck your faith.”
(This is Clark in turn quoting another source, Peter Enns.)
That in turn prompted me to revisit a thought I’ve had for a long time. Basically, it’s this: I feel sorry for evangelical Christians of a conservative bent whose faith compels them to deny reality and turn away from the richness of the world. Here’s why…
- I feel sorry for you that your faith is so weak it can be challenged by open, honest education. If I were a faith holder, I’d like to think my faith would be strong enough to be reinforced by the mysterious, miraculous complexity of the world around me rather than undermined by exposure to reality.
- I feel sorry for you that your God is so petty that He tempts you with false evidence such as dinosaur bones embedded in the rocks of the Earth. If I were a faith holder, I’d like to think my God would love me enough not to twist the world around me with cheap tricks in an attempt to lead me astray.
- I feel sorry for you that your God created you with all the magnificent imagination and intelligence of the human mind, only to demand that you ignore and even falsify the fruits of reason and observation. If I were a faith holder, I’d like to think my God would rejoice in the fullest use of the gifts granted me by His creation.
- I feel sorry for you that your faith is so petty and narrow-minded that you cannot encompass the glorious complexity of evolution, astronomy and Deep Time. If I were a faith holder, I’d like to think my faith would enhance my imagination rather than impoverish it, and bring the world to me rather than shut it out.
- I feel sorry for you that your religion compels you to act in ways and believe in ideas that are so obviously stupid, mean and hateful when viewed by everyone outside your tribe. If I were a faith holder, I’d like to think my religion would make me an example and even a leader to everyone outside my tribe.
So I say to those people I feel sorry for in Evangelical America, wake up. We live in a better world than your faith allows you to see or believe. I feel sorry for both you and your impoverished, petty God that you cannot do so. If He is as you say you believe Him to be, your God is either a bully or a liar, or both.
I will welcome you joyfully when the scales of your blinkered faith fall from your eyes and you see the beauty of the world as it truly is.
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Posted: 5:43 am Tue June 26 2012 |
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Christian universities and colleges in the US are setting themselves and – more tragically – their students up to be not taken seriously by anybody outside their little tribe, if they peddle crap like young Earth theory or creationism in what are supposed to be science classes. Who would take a supposed biologist who doesn’t believe in evolution or a supposed geologist who believes that the Earth is 6000 years old seriously? People with degrees from these colleges, including many smart people, are set up to be laughing stocks.
Just yesterday, I chanced to be talking with a few old friends from university, when the subject of a protestant radical from Northern Ireland came up. “Well, he likes to be called Doctor these days”, one of people, himself from Northern Ireland and an academic, said, “But he got his doctorate from a place called Bob Jones University in the US. And that’s not the kind of institution you can take seriously.” Lots of giggles all around.
Is this what US evangelicals want? That the graduates of their universities and colleges arouse giggles around the world?
I’m not saying that all religiously affiliated universities and colleges are necessarily bad. I used to work at a German university that was closely affiliated with the Catholic church. However, outside the department of Catholic theology, the religious affiliation of the university mainly expressed itself in the fact that there were a lot of crucifixes on campus. I even had one in my office – apparently it was part of the standard furnishings. However, nobody ever gave my any trouble for not being Catholic nor a member of any other church. Nobody tried to tell me what I could or couldn’t teach. And the biology department taught evolution just like any completely secular university.
I am an atheist, but I think that a lot of American thinking in general, and in evangelism specifically, is simplistic, driven by fear, and dogmatic at the same time. Small minds at work!
This from a nation I sought out for history of liberty, aspirations, and foundations (Franklin, Jefferson, etc.).
Despite the fact that religion has been abused by the drive for power, and has been the cause of much suffering, there is some genuine meta physical thinking that happened in its context.
To bad, it is being drowned by petty zealots…
I’m a [sydney] evangelical & I agree with everything written here.
See the recent story about these people using the Loch Ness Monster as proof against evolution? They are already sliding down the slippery joke.