Punctum Saliens

There is an alternative to the “Christianity is right” versus “Christianity is wrong” scuffle. The virgin birth, the resurrection, the Holy Spirit, etc. can be other than literal realities or literal horse pucky. The alternative is that they are myth. Now, I’m not being pejorative with my use of the word “myth” which is greatly under-rated and almost entirely misunderstood in today’s world of science.

I found what C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien said about myth here:

Myths, Lewis told Tolkien, were “lies and therefore worthless, even though breathed through silver.”

“No,” Tolkien replied. “They are not lies.” Far from being lies they were the best way — sometimes the only way — of conveying truths that would otherwise remain inexpressible. We have come from God, Tolkien argued, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily toward the true harbor, whereas materialistic “progress” leads only to the abyss and the power of evil.

In his autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, C.G. Jung said:

For it is not that “God” is a myth, but that myth is the revelation of a divine life in man.

And in Why Religion Matters, Huston Smith said:

Science provides a useful analogy here. The entire scientific worldview has been spun from a relatively few crucial experiments, which can be likened to the numbered dots in children’s puzzles that (when they are connected by a line that is drawn through them sequentially) produces the outline of a giraffe or whatever. Myths are like the lines traditional peoples collectively and largely unconsciously draw to connect the “dots” of the direct disclosers that their visionaries report.

If number is the language of science, myth is the language of religion. It does not map literally onto the commonsense world — biblical literalists’ mistake is to think that is does …

Why do we believe what we believe? I think that it’s because the beliefs we choose to believe are the ones that “work” for us. That is, there is something about the belief that attracts us. The belief makes “sense” to us. The promised results of believing are manifested. This is also the exact way that I word my main reason for leaving the Fundamentalist Christianity in which I was raised from the womb: it just didn’t “work” for me.

Christianity does work for some people — my parents, for example. They see God’s hand everywhere and feel God’s presence. They live “by the grace of God” through all their physical problems. They are not disillusioned by God’s “testing” them with yet another difficulty. And many people are converted to Christianity because it just makes sense — people like Lee Strobel and Ravi Zacharias. It just plain works for them. And that’s great. More power to them. But just because it works for you doesn’t mean that it will work for me no matter how hard I try.

I have seasonal allergies. I’ve had them my whole life and everywhere I’ve lived. Some years it’s not too bad and other years it is bad. Sometimes the only thing that gets me through is to overdose on allergy medicine, crank the AC to arctic conditions, sit down with my head tilted slightly back and go to sleep. When I’m in this condition, the worst thing possible is to be around someone who does not have any allergies. They just don’t understand what I’m feeling and can’t believe that all I want to do is sleep all day and all they want to do is go outside and do something. They just can’t sympathize or empathize. That’s how it is with Christians for whom Christianity really works. “If it works for me then it’ll work for anyone” … “You just have to hang in there” … “You can’t blame God or the church or your family” “God will see you through” … and on and on.

This is one reason I don’t think that Christianity can be the one and only true religion. It is unrealistic to force every person from every culture to believe the exact same thing and have those beliefs be alive and meaningful. Why do you think there are different cultures to begin with? The anti-pluralist Christians who say that everyone must be a Christian (and especially their flavor Christian) are a lot like Captain James T. Kirk who zooms around the universe telling everyone he meets that their brand of society and government is wrong and they need to be a democracy — just like his society. Democracy just doesn’t work for everyone the same way. And neither does religion.

For proof, I show you ol’ J.C. himself. Now many Christians will say that Jesus did not break from Judaism but only fulfilled the Old Testament and the prophecies. But it seems pretty clear to me that the Old Testament concept of God was not “working” for the Jews anymore. The Old Testament concept of God was not helping them cope with their current situation with the Romans. They needed something different. And that’s exactly what Jesus brought them. A new concept of God — the same God, so to speak, but a different way of approaching him and a different way of worshiping him. Something new that “worked” for them. So, if Jesus brought something new to a people for whom the old religions were not working, then how can you possibly think that 2000 years later the same Christianity should be expected to work for us?

After an anonymous commenter (apparently he or she is not afraid of the Holy Spirit but is afraid if me) called me a moron in response to my post about the The Blasphemy Challenge I decided to do a little more investigating. Yes, I admit that I did not read very much on TBC’s website (tsk tsk). But I went back and viewed their very brief FAQ. Here are some more comments …

Why do you care?

It isn’t just adult Christians who are indoctrinated with the frightening ideology of Christian belief. In fact, most Christians are indoctrinated as children. These children are told that they must believe the following: That 2000 years ago a man died, stayed dead three days, rose from the dead and then flew into the air above the clouds– and right now this man is with them as their invisible companion and savior from Hell, if only they will submit to him. If this bizarre theory were not religious in nature, teaching it to children would probably be considered child abuse.

Personally, I don’t see anything frightening at all about what TBC’s FAQ says Christian children must believe. And this is not all that bizarre when you look at any religious belief. It’s also not at all bizarre when you compare it to the fairy tales and myths that are routinely believed by children. Things like “Santa Claus is watching you to see if you are naughty or nice” and “he knows when you are sleeping”. That is closer to child abuse than the Christian tenets listed above. TBC is missing the whole point — in my opinion. It’s not the Christianity that is the enemy — it’s the Fundamentalism.

How will The Blasphemy Challenge help?

Religious dogma has one chief means of support: Our unwillingness to criticize it in public. If we talked about religion the same way we talk about science, history or other fields involving truth claims, dogma would wither in the light. The Blasphemy Challenge, by addressing a truth claim of Christianity, is intended to provoke this sort of conversation.

A couple points here. First, how is asking people to blaspheme “addressing a truth claim?” The only way to determine that the “truth claim” is false is to demonstrate that the expected outcome does not happen. The only way to demonstrate that the expected outcome does not happen is to wait until all the people who blasphemed are dead and see if they ended up in Hell or not. But, anyone who blasphemed who was not a Christian would be in Hell anyway so there would still be no proof that it was the blasphemy that put them there. So, the only real test would be to have a Christian blaspheme and then see if that peson ended up in Hell. But I doubt that a true believer would want to blaspheme unless, of course, they would be willing to lose their eternal soul in the hopes of saving others. So, clearly this experiment is far from scientifically valid. If only the Bible said that anyone who blasphemes would be immediatley struck by lightning. Now that would be a verifiable result. But, alas, that is not the case.

Second, I think people have been criticizing religious dogma a lot longer than TBC gives them credit. But criticism is very different in the scientific community and in the religious community. If anyone has ever criticized a Christian Fundamentalist you know what I’m talking about. They do not take criticism well and usually it just makes them cling to their beliefs with more tenacity and close their ears and minds more tightly. Pissing off the Fundamentalists is not the way to get them to talk to you. I will guarantee that no “conversation” will be provoked by this.

Is it true that you are targeting young people with this campaign?

Yes. As young people are the most vulnerable to religious indoctrination, we feel it is important to reach them with the concept of challenging the doctrine they are told to unquestioningly believe.

In my opinion, Brian Flemming is as fanatical about being not Fundamentalist as the Fundamentalists are about being Fundamentalist. (Again, I saw the movie and these are my opinions. And these are opinions from someone who was in a situation very very similiar to Flemming’s.) Just because you don’t like Fundamentalism is no reason to trash all religious beliefs. If you don’t like Fundamentalism, then attack Fundamentalism! Don’t attack religion in general.

The FAQ talks about “religious indoctrination” and battling this by “challenging the doctrine” that Fundamentalists preach. But TBC is not about challenging any doctrine. TBC takes one idea out of an entire religion — an idea that it’s impossible to prove is wrong — and tries to base a new “anti-religion” on it. This is “religious indoctrination” of a different kind but it’s still indoctrination. “Don’t believe anything!” is as bad as “Only believe this!”.

Isn’t this just “fundamentalist atheism”?

That is a remarkably stupid question. The Rational Response Squad encourages people to inquire, argue, reason and doubt — not to believe something because they are told to. Free inquiry is the opposite of fundamentalism. The Blasphemy Challenge may be activist in nature, but it is hardly fundamentalist.

Again, I saw the movie and in my opinion the movie was very fundamentalist atheist. I got the impression that the movie was all about throwing out Christianity in its entirety and not about questioning your beliefs. TBC talks about free inquiry but also seems to say that you can’t believe the Christian dogma even if you want to. I’ll give my opinion one more time: It’s not Christianity that’s the enemy — it’s the Fundamentalism. Yet I see TBC attacking Christianity.

I was thinking today about the creed I am writing on my What I Believe page and while I was jotting down some notes about God and Jesus and whatnot, the thought hit me: “So what?” I’m writing down all these ideas that are somewhat Christian but include ideas from other religions and I say that I’m trying to figure out what I believe but so far they are just ideas … thoughts. I don’t really believe these things because I don’t see them impacting my life. And I think that is the criteria for real belief — John 3:16 style belief.

If I really, truly believe something then that belief will be evident in what I do in my day to day life. If I really, truly believe in the sanctity of marriage then I will not have an affair no matter what opportunities present themselves. If I really, truly believe that by eating right and exercising daily I will feel better, look better, and live longer then I will eat right and exercise daily.

But I can “think” or “know” something without it impacting my life — and this is not, in my opinion, John 3:16 style belief. For example, I do not actually eat as well as I could (although I don’t eat poorly) and I don’t actually exercise very often even though I sometimes wish I had more energy and was a little thinner. So I can think or know that exercise has benefits but I really don’t believe it; otherwise I’d be on the cross trainer instead if sitting on my ass writing this.

So you say that you believe in God and Jesus and yada yada yada. But how does this belief impact your life? What do you do — every day — because of this belief? You say you believe in the virgin birth and in Jesus’ resurrection and that the Bible is the Word of God. But unless this belief affects the way you live your life every day, it’s merely intellectual knowledge like knowing the capital of Montana is Helena.

I stumbled upon The Blasphemy Challenge tonight. I saw the movie The God Who Wasn’t There and felt it was very … juvenile. Now I don’t mean this in a condescending way. What I mean is that Brian Flemming is in the same place that I was 20 years ago. I, too, was raised Fundamentalist Christian and made a break from it. And after my break I thought everything that even smelled Christian was hogwash, naive, and just plain stupid. But in that 20 years “away from it all,” I’ve grown to see that I was not rebelling against God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit. I was rebelling against Fundamentalism. And there is a huge difference. I will never rejoin the ranks of the Fundamentalists but I am no longer anti-everything-religious. I hope that Flemming and everyone who participates in the Blasphemy Challenge grow up to see the difference.

And as far as the Blasphemy Challenge goes … what’s the point? If these people are so sure God doesn’t exist then it’s pointless to do this. They might as well be denying The Great Pumpkin.

In my posts No Christian should have a bank account or an IRA and Blogger Solves World Problems. Details at 11:00, was I exaggerating? I think that if you literally do what Jesus preached (and I mean literally as in the Bible is literally true and is literally the fully inspired, inerrant word of God and the Bible is literally absolute truth) then no, those were not exaggerations. But given how we interpret the Bible today (see my post The Bible and Society — which conforms to which?) I doubt we should be expected to take anything Jesus said as literally applying to us today since we are so far removed from the social situation of his time. But I would like you to think about a few things in light of Jesus’ generic commands of loving one another, helping one another, yada yada yada.

• Should there be multi-millionare Christians? Is being a a plain old millionare not enough? Think about how much good those millions would do in the name of Jesus.
• Should a Christian sock away 15% pre-tax in a 401(k) yet only tithe 10% (and often much less) post-tax?
• Should a Christian drive the top of the line Mecedes sedan? The E-Class is pretty darn nice and think about how much good those tens of thousands of dollars would do in the name of Jesus.
• Should a Christian have a basement full of stuff and a Public Storage space and a PODS full of stuff gathering moths and rust? Imagine if you sold everything you didn’t use or, better yet, didn’t buy it in the first place?
• Should Christians take six-figure vacations or have six-figure weddings? Are they really necessary?
• Should Christians work 60-70 hours a week and not have time to spend with his/her family let alone give of their time for others?

Most Christians probably thing that it’s what you believe that makes you “Christian.” But there’s a lot in the New Testament that talks about what you do. Works demonstrates your faith. Love is above all. We are to emulate Jesus. So, I’m wondering what’s more important: The spirit of Christianity or the letter of Christianity.

The early church of, say, 34 A.D. would have to be — almost by definition, one could say — the definition of Christianity. And, yes, perhaps the majority of Christians today believe the same things the early church did. That is, the dogmatic points are, perhaps, the same. But the … how should I say it … degree or intensity of belief seems to me to be very different because of what Christians do today compared to what Christians of 34 A.D. did.

For example, I think the typical sermon in the typical church on a typical Sunday morning today would be, at best, a distant cousin to the typical sermon in 34 A.D. The apostles and early church were preaching Jesus in public and baptizing in public and speading the gospel to everyone. Today, Christians are huddled inside their churches with the doors closed and may or may not welcome strangers but probably don’t even talk to them beyond a possible “Hello.” Gone are the days of public baptisms. Gone are the days of public sermons. And how often is the gospel preached on a Sunday morning from the pulpit? Probably very rarely because there are no unbelievers there!

The early church did amazing things to help one another — they were a real family. But today, it may not be at all uncommon on a Sunday morning to find a very wealthy Christian sitting right next to someone in serious financial trouble or even in poverty. Is there any assistence given? Is there even an acknowledgement of the need? I doubt it. Yet the early church members were having “everything must go” yard sales and giving to anyone in need.

And what of Christ — the namesake of Christianity. I imagine that the early church were very busy doing the things Jesus preached when he was on earth. The humility, the love, the giving, the helping. Quite the contrast to the Christians of today who are too busy driving to church in their $70,000+ cars and wearing their designer labels and who are too busy condemning the sinners of the world for their murdering abortions, deviant sexuality, godless liberalism and who are too busy trying to protect their business, political, personal image. They are too busy to hear what Jesus said they should do and only hear what everyone else should not do. Too busy to act like a Christian on Monday and help out a Christian in need. Too busy giving a little of their lot and not noticing the poor Christian giving a lot of their little.

Too busy being their version of a Christian to be Jesus’ version of a Christian.

One of my favorite movies is The Name of the Rose. The main reason I love this movie is the subplot of why all the various Christian sects are converging on this one abbey. They are all there to discuss the very important question: “Did Jesus own the clothes he wore?” To me, the various answers and rationalizations argued by the attendees is much less interesting than the question itself. That the question needed to be asked at all is what is meaningful. They were not discussing whether Jesus owned a one-hump or two-hump camel. They were not discussing whether Jesus wore designer labels or knock-offs. They were not discussing how much Jesus socked away for retirement. They were discussing whether Jesus owned or simply borrowed one of the most basic necessities of life — his clothes.

So I wonder: even though Christians today may share a handful of beliefs with the early church, is dogma enough to really be Christian?

In part two of this series, I talked about Romans 1:18-21 where Paul claims that everyone can know God from nature. But this doesn’t seem to be quite enough because, as I said in part one, you need to get from God to The Jesus of The Bible in order to be saved. And, despite a valient attempt by the Greeks with Dionysus, it seems darn near impossible to do this — at least to the Christian’s satisfaction. And indeed it must be because Paul writes in Romans 10:13-17

… for “whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!” However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

So where does that leave the billions of people who, because of where and when they were born, have never heard the name of Jesus? And doesn’t this put the fate of all these souls on the hands of every Christian? Well, yes, but …

Some Christians have no qualms about sending billions of people to Hell. A professor of New Testament, Ethics, and Philosophy at a Baptist Theological Seminary with whom I had a brief email exchange a few years ago told me straight out: “God may do with us just as he pleases.” He was referring to Romans 9 where in verses 20-23 Paul says

On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory

Paul seems to be saying that God created some people knowing full well they’d end up in Hell. But, what the hell, He’s God, right? Of course, this opens up the whole predestination v free-will issue which I am not going to delve into right now. My point is that some Christians are fine with a Hell kind of like Monaco and a Heaven kind of like Greenland. (Hint … Manoco is the most densely populated country and Greenland is the least populated country.) Of course, aside from the guaranteed 50-acre lot in Heaven, the other advantage to this viewpoint is that it’s more or less out of your hands — your evangelical hands, that is. If God created some people knowing they’d end up in Heaven, they’re gonna get there, right? Whether I tell them about Jesus or not, they are gonna get there. And those who were created to be kindling, no matter how much you preach to them they are beyond hope.

Fair enough, but what about the Maya people who lived before even Columbus sailed the ocean blue? Can God, a God of Love, really condemn them all? My seminary pen-pal says yes. God can create entire civilizations knowing that they don’t stand a snowball’s chance in … hell. He is, after all, a God that is 100% just (apparently just trumps love) and those Mayas just didn’t get it right and didn’t say the right prayers and didn’t believe the right thing. They must be punished in accordance with God’s Law. Ignorantia juris non excusat, afterall. Quite a cavalier attitude for someone who had the luck to be born in the right place at the right time!

All this “God is 100% just” talk is just fine except that God, apparently, does have the ability to go against his nature. There is a loophole in the Law. Apparently, God doesn’t send little babies to Hell. Whew! That’s a relief. That would be just downright cruel and unusual. I mean, those cute little babies don’t deserve eternal damnation just because they are unable to hear about Jesus Christ and are unable to make a conscious decision to follow Jesus. Who cares that the Bible says they take part in the “total depravity of man” and are stained by “original sin” and are “conceived in sin”. They don’t deserve Hell!

But, aren’t the Maya of the 9th century, for example, in the same boat? Aren’t they unable to make a conscious decision about … about … what’s his name? Exactly. They never heard!

But don’t give up. There are other Christians who, perhaps like you, don’t sit well with God sending all those wrong-place-wrong-timers to Hell. How do they get around it? Do they let God chill out a bit and offer some free passes? No. They still insist that God be 100% just but they don’t want people condemned who never had the chance to hear. So what do they do? A little presto-chango … a little abracadabro … and a lot of stay tuned …

Maybe it is the influence of my Fundamentalist, “Give me that Old-Time Religion” upbringing but I sometimes think about the role of the Bible in our lives. Should the Bible (in it’s complete entirety) dictate the way we live or should our current society (including attitudes, social norms, etc.) allow us to label parts of the Bible as irrelevant and thus redefine how we interpret the Bible. In other words: Should we change religion or should religion change us?

And I started thinking about this anew after finding this link on Reiter’s Block to a post on Faith and Theology titled Twelve propositions on same-sex relationships and the church. In this post is the following statement on hermeneutics, the science of interpretation:

For here is a fundamental hermeneutical axiom: “If Biblical texts on any social or moral topic are to be understood as God’s word for us today, two conditions at least must be satisfied. There must be a resemblance between the ancient and modern social situation or institution or practice or attitude sufficient for us to be able to say that in some sense the text is talking about the same thing that we recognise today. And we must be able to demonstrate an underlying principle at work in the text which is consonant with biblical faith taken as a whole, and not contradicted by any subsequent experience or understanding” (Walter Houston).

Now, I know nothing about Walter Houston except that it appears he is an Oxford man whose research interests are “the social-scientific interprtation of the Hebrew Bible, with regard to the topics of social class, economics, and culture; its ethics, especially social ethics; and its hermeneutics.” And this is the first thing that really, really bothers me. This guy is doing university-level research on how to interpret the Bible. And he’s bringing into his research more research on ancient social situations, institutions, attitudes, etc. How the heck am I supposed to have devotions now? How am I supposed to apply anything at all to my life until I get a Ph.D. in ancient studies so that I can figure out what I should apply and what I shouldn’t? Are we really at the mercy of the “scholars” to tell us what is relevant for our lives?

And what does this say about the Bible? Is it really any different than Grimms Fairy Tales which get reinvented every few years; updated for today’s youth? I think you’d be suprised to know how some of the original ones ended — not at all the way Walt tells them. There are people who claim that the Bible is absolute truth. Yet absolute truth should be true, absolutely, no? How can absolute truth change from generation to generation? And doesn’t this make the Bible less like God’s Word and more like Dear Abby? A lot of advice that you can pick and choose from and use or not use depending on your mood — I mean your modern social situation?

And what does this say about God? I was taught that the Bible is the plenary, verbally, infallible, inspired, inerrant Word of God. If this is the case, then it seems to me that we ought not be mucking around with it. After all, “God said it, I believe it, and that’s good enough for me” was a whole-heartedly believed motto in my youth. But now, it’s “God said it, but I’ve decided it’s not applicable to my particular situation, and that’s good enough for me.” I wonder why God put all that stuff in the Bible in the first place, knowing that it would be out of date in just a few millenia. I thought he was omniscient — surely he would have had enough foresight to put some everlasting words in there.

Furthermore, doesn’t this really make Society our new God? Since we are reinterpreting the Bible based on our “social situation or institution or practice or attitude,” if society changes then our Bible changes. I thought it was supposed to be the other way around. I thought the Bible was to dictate how we live. But it seems that the modern view is that the way we live dictates how we read the Bible. So society is, essentially, issuing a new edition every few years. You know, updated and revised with more graphs and pictures and 17 hours of special features including a 7 hour “The Making of” featurette. If Society is putting out the new editions, doesn’t this make Society God?

And what is the end result of all this reinterpretation? I doubt very much that passages deemed irrelevant will ever come back into “fashion” so we will slowly eliminate verse after verse, passage after passage, until entire books are inapplicable to our modern social situation. What do you think will remain in 25, 50, or 100 years? I think that pretty much the entire Old Testament is null and void even now. After all, the entire thing is about a nomadic, oppressed by everyone and his cousin, desert-wandering society. That pretty much fails the first of Houston’s two tests so chuck it all! And even a lot of the New Testament is out. I mean, women covering their heads while praying, all men with short hair, divorcees banned from church boards, men only as pastors, deploring homosexuality — we have absolutely nothing in common with those people.

I think the death blow is not far away and will be signaled by the removal of Bibles from those little shelves on the back of the pews. Afterall, if the pastor can’t even mention one verse during her sermon, why do we need them? And the pastor can’t mention a single verse because she needs to be hip and relevant and nothing in there is. Of course, we can always ship our unused copies to third world countries. It will take a couple more generations for their social situations to outgrow the Bible.

Please head over to The World According to Bruce and read It Is Time to Leave the Christian Ghetto and Become Worldly for Jesus. All I can say is, Bruce is right on!