Jesus Camp
Mike Papantonio
Creepy but not terrifying
While much of "Jesus Camp" is set in a North Dakota camp for evangelical kids, the film also depicts the family background of those who would send their kids to such a place. Much of the film focuses on Levi and Racael, two home-schooled kids who have imbibed deeply of their parents' piety and politics. While these kids are hardly robotic or brainwashed, their unkidlike commitment to their religious principles is sometimes scary to watch. Not surprisingly, these kids are insulated from the real world. Rachael prays over her bowling ball before rolling it, then wanders the alley distributing religious tracts to other bowlers. The mulleted Levi and his family recite their pledge to the "Christian flag" and to the Bible before their lessons begin.
The camp itself is run by Backy Fischer, at the ironically-named Devil's Lake, North Dakota. Camp is a combination religious revival and political indoctrination. The kids tearfully (and seemingly quite spontaneously) confess their shortcomings, their already-unbearable load of youthful guilt prompting them to uncontrolled weeping. They sing enthusiastic songs about Jesus, support Geroge W. Bush and pray to end abortion. Back home, they visit pre-scandal Ted Haggard's church in Colorado Springs. Levi, especially, clearly hero-worships Haggard, and can be seen pacing the sanctuary, imagining himself as a world-class evangelist. The film follows the kids to a small Washington DC anti-abortion rally where they stand in protest before the Supreme Court building with "Life" stickers closing their mouths. Afterwards, they encounter the real world -- which is neither as fascinated by them or as impious as they believe.
I had expected to be appalled by the behavior of the parents, but wound up terrified by and concerned for the kids, who are being raised to be narrow-minded, ignorant and self-righteous. Racheal's insistence that God does not listen to the prayers of those whose worship style is sedate has the makings, under the right circumstances, of religious persecution. The film is bracketed by scenes of the bleak midwestern lanscape punctuated by radio snippets about the Supreme Court confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito, a darling of the religious right. Air America's Mike Papantonio appears occasionally while taping his radio show and serves as a counterpoint from the left. His comments are heartfelt, but ineffective, a sad commentary on the left's until-now inability to counter the simplistic notions, unwillingness to engage science and narrow view of the true believers.
"Jesus Camp" is fascinating and frightening, a glimpse inside the world of the kind of Americans who reflexively support anything marketed as Christian, including the war in Iraq and the far-right agenda of the Bush II administration. I don't believe that we should fear people like those shown in the film, as they must someday engage the real world and perhaps moderate their more extreme views. But the film does a wonderful job at acquainting us with people whose world view and aspirations are at odds with science, reason and the notions of a secular form of representative government.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Book Review: The Rabbi's Cat
The Rabbi's Cat
by Joann Sfar
The Cat's Meow
Bad pun, I know, but perfectly apt for this wonderful book. "The Rabbi's Cat" is a graphic novel set in Algeria in the mid 1930s. A poor rabbi lives with his lovely daughter Zlabya and their precocious gray cat. In over 850 marvelously-varied panels, author Joann Sfar tells the story of the trio as they deal with the cosmic questions of life, love, God's existence and fickle human nature. The story shuttles between sun-baked traditional North Africa and rain-drenched, cosmopolitan Paris. Sfar's palette ranges from the reds, oranges and yellows of the rabbi's home country to the muted blues, greens and whites of the Moroccan night and of the Parisian day.
The book's characters are wonderful and complex. The old rabbi is kind, God-fearing and gentle, but fears being replaced by a more urban man who speaks French. His beautiful, young daughter, content to remain in her father's house, playing the piano and reading, also longs for love. The cat -- a cunning and shameless atheistic and opportunist -- gains speech, insists on being Bar Mitzvah and demands to learn the Kabala. He contends pointedly, if ignorantly, with the learned over theological questions -- all the while angling for a night on the prowl. There's also old and sinewy Malka of the Lions, striding manfully from the desert, toting an ancient rifle and accompanied by his faithful leonine companion. The book follows the characters through normal life events -- shopping, praying for the dead, washing dishes -- but touches on themes of death, hypocrisy, apostasy and man's relationship with a rather enigmatic and silent God. Using this humble cast, and in a medium not fully taken seriously by all, Sfar plumbs depths not normally plumbed by many serious works. Sfar's art is deceptively spare, but is always evocative and never dull. His message is one of optimism, delivered with humor and humanity.
If this book were a film, I would rate it PG-13 for a small amount of nudity and vulgarity, and for the adult themes it explores.
by Joann Sfar
The Cat's Meow
Bad pun, I know, but perfectly apt for this wonderful book. "The Rabbi's Cat" is a graphic novel set in Algeria in the mid 1930s. A poor rabbi lives with his lovely daughter Zlabya and their precocious gray cat. In over 850 marvelously-varied panels, author Joann Sfar tells the story of the trio as they deal with the cosmic questions of life, love, God's existence and fickle human nature. The story shuttles between sun-baked traditional North Africa and rain-drenched, cosmopolitan Paris. Sfar's palette ranges from the reds, oranges and yellows of the rabbi's home country to the muted blues, greens and whites of the Moroccan night and of the Parisian day.
The book's characters are wonderful and complex. The old rabbi is kind, God-fearing and gentle, but fears being replaced by a more urban man who speaks French. His beautiful, young daughter, content to remain in her father's house, playing the piano and reading, also longs for love. The cat -- a cunning and shameless atheistic and opportunist -- gains speech, insists on being Bar Mitzvah and demands to learn the Kabala. He contends pointedly, if ignorantly, with the learned over theological questions -- all the while angling for a night on the prowl. There's also old and sinewy Malka of the Lions, striding manfully from the desert, toting an ancient rifle and accompanied by his faithful leonine companion. The book follows the characters through normal life events -- shopping, praying for the dead, washing dishes -- but touches on themes of death, hypocrisy, apostasy and man's relationship with a rather enigmatic and silent God. Using this humble cast, and in a medium not fully taken seriously by all, Sfar plumbs depths not normally plumbed by many serious works. Sfar's art is deceptively spare, but is always evocative and never dull. His message is one of optimism, delivered with humor and humanity.
If this book were a film, I would rate it PG-13 for a small amount of nudity and vulgarity, and for the adult themes it explores.
Book Review: Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery
Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery
by Eric Metaxas
Though the name "William Wilberforce" is hardly at the tips of our collective tongues anymore, author Eric Metaxas thinks it should be. In "Amazing Grace," Metaxas relates the story of Wilberforce -- a slight, stooped and sickly man -- whose physical frailty disguised a great strength of character and soul. Wilberforce, as a member of the British Parliament, was (at least according to Metaxas's telling) the driving force behind both the end of the slave trade in the British colonies in 1807 as well as the abolition of British slavery itself in 1833.
The book covers all of Wilberforce's life, from the controversies between Anglicanism and Methodism of his boyhood, through his indolent college days, to his conversion in 1785 at age 24, to his parliamentary career and his death in 1833. Metaxas tells a rousing story of a young man in search for meaning and relevance, in an age of barbarity toward animals, criminals and "lower" races that is shocking to the modern ear. Metaxas sets the stage by discussing animal cruelty -- bull, horse and bear-beating -- that were popular pastimes of the era. His catalog of the evil done to black slaves is chronicled by those who had first-hand familiarity with the infamous Middle Passage or the treatment of slaves on the sugar plantations of the West Indies. Wilberforce's voice is heard through excerpts from his personal diaries, bringing this now-obscure person to life.
I truly enjoyed the book, though with a few reservations. Metaxas's Wilberforce is a man whose worldview would be recognizable to moderns. As a man born of a racist and vicious era, he used his religious views in ways that ran counter to his society. He took seriously the scriptural dictum that humanity is created in God's image, resulting in the inevitable conclusion that people of color deserved the same treatment as whites. A sickly man, he showed great compassion for the poor and the weak, even extending this soft heartedness to animals. Among many other works, Wilberforce was a founding member of the then-named Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
The reservations. Metaxas's style is usually staid, punctuated with the occassional tic -- he suddenly gets overly-cute or uses faux-Elizabethan anachronistic turns of phrase. He also tends to give Wilberforce solitary credit for opposing slavery, when this work started long before he appeared on the scene and ended after he left it. Metaxas's evidently sympathetic view of Wilberforce's spiritual life was another problem. In many passages, Metaxas presumes a conservative Christian worldview, lauding Wilberforce for making decisions that are in line with God's will, as though this was self-evident to the reader. Metaxas clearly roots for young Wilberforce to find God, and he speaks from with seeming familiarity with a convert's stages of maturation through during his conversion experience. There's nothing wrong with religious experience, but I found this overt tilt surprising and a bit troubling in a biography. Appallingly, Metaxas describes Anglicanism as a religion practiced in name only by bishops and clergy who no longer believed in its tenets. Metaxas even notes which bishops of the period are "orthodox," as though the reader understands and agrees to his meaning of the word. Metaxas may also be guilty of painting Wilberforce in too-bright colors. His subject's distrust of Roman Catholicism is minimized and his opposition to the right of labor to organize is left unmentioned. Wilberforce is sometimes portrayed as the most eloquent of speakers and other times as having a rather rambling and disconnected style. These inconsistencies and biases diminished the book's impact.
Nevertheless, I do recommend "Amazing Grace". In an age in which the wounds of racism and cruelty are still borne by too many, it is encouraging to read of a man who, though borne to wealth and privilege, put his faith into practice in a way that benefited so many and is still admirable today. "Amazing Grace" makes the strong case that William Wilberforce ought to merit at least a mention when the roll of the history's great humanitarians is read.
by Eric Metaxas
Though the name "William Wilberforce" is hardly at the tips of our collective tongues anymore, author Eric Metaxas thinks it should be. In "Amazing Grace," Metaxas relates the story of Wilberforce -- a slight, stooped and sickly man -- whose physical frailty disguised a great strength of character and soul. Wilberforce, as a member of the British Parliament, was (at least according to Metaxas's telling) the driving force behind both the end of the slave trade in the British colonies in 1807 as well as the abolition of British slavery itself in 1833.
The book covers all of Wilberforce's life, from the controversies between Anglicanism and Methodism of his boyhood, through his indolent college days, to his conversion in 1785 at age 24, to his parliamentary career and his death in 1833. Metaxas tells a rousing story of a young man in search for meaning and relevance, in an age of barbarity toward animals, criminals and "lower" races that is shocking to the modern ear. Metaxas sets the stage by discussing animal cruelty -- bull, horse and bear-beating -- that were popular pastimes of the era. His catalog of the evil done to black slaves is chronicled by those who had first-hand familiarity with the infamous Middle Passage or the treatment of slaves on the sugar plantations of the West Indies. Wilberforce's voice is heard through excerpts from his personal diaries, bringing this now-obscure person to life.
I truly enjoyed the book, though with a few reservations. Metaxas's Wilberforce is a man whose worldview would be recognizable to moderns. As a man born of a racist and vicious era, he used his religious views in ways that ran counter to his society. He took seriously the scriptural dictum that humanity is created in God's image, resulting in the inevitable conclusion that people of color deserved the same treatment as whites. A sickly man, he showed great compassion for the poor and the weak, even extending this soft heartedness to animals. Among many other works, Wilberforce was a founding member of the then-named Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
The reservations. Metaxas's style is usually staid, punctuated with the occassional tic -- he suddenly gets overly-cute or uses faux-Elizabethan anachronistic turns of phrase. He also tends to give Wilberforce solitary credit for opposing slavery, when this work started long before he appeared on the scene and ended after he left it. Metaxas's evidently sympathetic view of Wilberforce's spiritual life was another problem. In many passages, Metaxas presumes a conservative Christian worldview, lauding Wilberforce for making decisions that are in line with God's will, as though this was self-evident to the reader. Metaxas clearly roots for young Wilberforce to find God, and he speaks from with seeming familiarity with a convert's stages of maturation through during his conversion experience. There's nothing wrong with religious experience, but I found this overt tilt surprising and a bit troubling in a biography. Appallingly, Metaxas describes Anglicanism as a religion practiced in name only by bishops and clergy who no longer believed in its tenets. Metaxas even notes which bishops of the period are "orthodox," as though the reader understands and agrees to his meaning of the word. Metaxas may also be guilty of painting Wilberforce in too-bright colors. His subject's distrust of Roman Catholicism is minimized and his opposition to the right of labor to organize is left unmentioned. Wilberforce is sometimes portrayed as the most eloquent of speakers and other times as having a rather rambling and disconnected style. These inconsistencies and biases diminished the book's impact.
Nevertheless, I do recommend "Amazing Grace". In an age in which the wounds of racism and cruelty are still borne by too many, it is encouraging to read of a man who, though borne to wealth and privilege, put his faith into practice in a way that benefited so many and is still admirable today. "Amazing Grace" makes the strong case that William Wilberforce ought to merit at least a mention when the roll of the history's great humanitarians is read.
Book Review: Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code
Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine
by Bart D. Ehrman
Affable, well-informed and devastating
Almost as amazing as the explosive phenomenon that was "The Da Vinci Code," is the explosion of books attacking its premises and conclusions. Bart Ehrman's book, "Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code" is an able addition to the list.
Ehrman is a historian, a Protestant, with a mainstream viewpoint. His book examines 6 "codes" that appear in TDVC. These touch on the persons of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, the process of defining the canon or list of accepted books, the role of women in the early church and other topics germane to the discussion. Ehrman's examination and conclusions are logical, based on the evidence and (I thought) quite convincing. For instance, he discusses the supposed "fact" that since all rabbis had to be married, then Jesus (often called "Rabbi" by his disciples) must have been married as well. Ehrman demolishes this notion with easily-accessible facts. The apostle Paul himself was unmarried, as evidenced by his own letters. And the 1st-century Jewish historian Josephus speaks glowingly of the Essenes, noting that they do not marry. The term "rabbi" means "teacher," and can be applied to those who have undergone and official process as well as those (like Jesus) for whom the term is used as an honorific. And, unconvincingly to skeptics, the Gospels do not mention a married Jesus. Having made the case, Ehrman states that he has broken the code (that a married Jesus was probable) and moves on.
By far, Ehrman spends the most time with the so-called gnostic gospels, upon which the hopes of so many who attack the Church are based. These works of the early centuries of the current era were known mostly through the attacks upon them made by early Church Fathers like Irenaeus. Since the 1940s, with the discover of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi library, historians have had a field day studying the primary texts of the first, second and third centuries. Ehrman examines the texts themselves as well as the cosmology and theology they espouse. This section is long, confusing and hard to follow, not least because the texts themselves are contradictory and plain weird. Ehrman pays special attention to details that moderns have given special importance. There is, for instance the section in the Gospel of Phillip in which Jesus is said to have kissed Mary Magdalene often on the mouth. Ehrman shows how this text is a reconstruction, with key words missing, and that it is embedded in sections that have purely spiritual and symbolic significance. Those who see it as an example of a flesh-and-blood relationship often neglect these key aspects of the work. Not to mention that the text post-dates the canonical gospels by many decades.
"Truth and Fiction" is a careful and dispassionate critique of the fuzzy thinking of TDVC partisans. It is also an good-natured attack on best-selling authors like Elaine Pagels ("The Gnostic Gospels") who have gained prominence by championing the vision of the gnostics. But the book's ultimate attack is on the "code behind the codes" -- the attempt to make the doctrine of the gnostics equivalent to the orthodox view taught in the gospels. Ehrman's great contribution is in making clear that two gospels -- one that preaches a suffering, crucified and risen Lord, and another that preaches a Lord who did not suffer and die -- can not merely be considered alternatives of one another. They preach different realities and have different consequences for believers. One is a gospel for all, the other a gospel for the elite. One opposes the world, the other revels in it. One was passed down by those close the Jesus, the other was invented decades or centuries after his life.
Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" was more than a work of fiction. It was an attack on the truth and on the hard-won and hard-kept beliefs of Christians over the last 2000 years. Ehrman's book is an educated, entertaining and accessible rebuttal that is well worth the read.
by Bart D. Ehrman
Affable, well-informed and devastating
Almost as amazing as the explosive phenomenon that was "The Da Vinci Code," is the explosion of books attacking its premises and conclusions. Bart Ehrman's book, "Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code" is an able addition to the list.
Ehrman is a historian, a Protestant, with a mainstream viewpoint. His book examines 6 "codes" that appear in TDVC. These touch on the persons of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, the process of defining the canon or list of accepted books, the role of women in the early church and other topics germane to the discussion. Ehrman's examination and conclusions are logical, based on the evidence and (I thought) quite convincing. For instance, he discusses the supposed "fact" that since all rabbis had to be married, then Jesus (often called "Rabbi" by his disciples) must have been married as well. Ehrman demolishes this notion with easily-accessible facts. The apostle Paul himself was unmarried, as evidenced by his own letters. And the 1st-century Jewish historian Josephus speaks glowingly of the Essenes, noting that they do not marry. The term "rabbi" means "teacher," and can be applied to those who have undergone and official process as well as those (like Jesus) for whom the term is used as an honorific. And, unconvincingly to skeptics, the Gospels do not mention a married Jesus. Having made the case, Ehrman states that he has broken the code (that a married Jesus was probable) and moves on.
By far, Ehrman spends the most time with the so-called gnostic gospels, upon which the hopes of so many who attack the Church are based. These works of the early centuries of the current era were known mostly through the attacks upon them made by early Church Fathers like Irenaeus. Since the 1940s, with the discover of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi library, historians have had a field day studying the primary texts of the first, second and third centuries. Ehrman examines the texts themselves as well as the cosmology and theology they espouse. This section is long, confusing and hard to follow, not least because the texts themselves are contradictory and plain weird. Ehrman pays special attention to details that moderns have given special importance. There is, for instance the section in the Gospel of Phillip in which Jesus is said to have kissed Mary Magdalene often on the mouth. Ehrman shows how this text is a reconstruction, with key words missing, and that it is embedded in sections that have purely spiritual and symbolic significance. Those who see it as an example of a flesh-and-blood relationship often neglect these key aspects of the work. Not to mention that the text post-dates the canonical gospels by many decades.
"Truth and Fiction" is a careful and dispassionate critique of the fuzzy thinking of TDVC partisans. It is also an good-natured attack on best-selling authors like Elaine Pagels ("The Gnostic Gospels") who have gained prominence by championing the vision of the gnostics. But the book's ultimate attack is on the "code behind the codes" -- the attempt to make the doctrine of the gnostics equivalent to the orthodox view taught in the gospels. Ehrman's great contribution is in making clear that two gospels -- one that preaches a suffering, crucified and risen Lord, and another that preaches a Lord who did not suffer and die -- can not merely be considered alternatives of one another. They preach different realities and have different consequences for believers. One is a gospel for all, the other a gospel for the elite. One opposes the world, the other revels in it. One was passed down by those close the Jesus, the other was invented decades or centuries after his life.
Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" was more than a work of fiction. It was an attack on the truth and on the hard-won and hard-kept beliefs of Christians over the last 2000 years. Ehrman's book is an educated, entertaining and accessible rebuttal that is well worth the read.
Book Review: Misquoting Jesus
Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (Plus)
by Bart D. Ehrman
Clear and respectful exposition of a hot topic
In spite of the provocative title, "Misquoting Jesus" is very respectful of Scriptures - so much so that it willing to tell the truth about them. Bart Ehrman does his typically great job of explaining a difficult topic -- in this case, the history, operation and findings of biblical textual criticism -- to a lay audience. Ehrman's journey as a textual critic has been a long and difficult one, and it seems to have knocked him off-balance, at least for a time. Starting as a fundamentalists of the fundamentalists (to paraphrase Paul) he decided to study scripture. His first epiphany was when he asked himself, if the Bible is God's word, then why do I have to learn Greek and Hebrew to understand it? This question led to others, culminating in a nuanced and complex understanding of the Bible and its history -- as told by the ways scribes have changed the Bible itself.
Ehrman discusses the history of the Bible's transmission through the centuries-- via scribes whose literacy was sometimes comprised only by their ability to copy the shape of letters from an old copy to a new, without understanding their meaning. This was eye-opening for me, but Ehrman supports his contentions with evidence that is sometimes funny and always persuasive. Ehrman helps us to understand the world from the scribe's point of view, as they miss and repeat words, misunderstand abbreviations and (as they listen to dictation) write down homonyms that sound the same but mean vastly different things.
Ehrman gives us a glimpse at the history of biblical textual criticism. We learn how we got the Vulgate, St. Jerome's 4th-century translation of scriptures into Latin, and about 16th-century scholar Erasmus's rush to be the first to print a Greek New Testament. Erasmus's slapdash work then became a basis for the King James Bible, a translation still considered sacrosanct and untouchable by many. Through Ehrman, we learn of the great men whose work lay the foundations for modern biblical scholarship. We also learn of the tens of thousands of variant readings of Scripture that exist. It is this variation that causes consternation for those who believe the Bible to be unblemished and inerrant, and prompts delight for scholars who use the variants to piece together the original words, and to determine the theological biases of the scribes who introduced the variants into the text.
Ehrman is not on a mission to destroy the sacredness, the authority of the Church or to downplay the teaching of Jesus. He seemed constantly poised to deliver a death blow to the basic authenticity of the Bible. But mostly, he delivered examples that show the conservatism of even the most interventionist of scribes. Most of the variants, Ehrman admits, are insignificant -- misspellings and such. Interestingly, the truly significant variants are mostly tentative add-ons to the text, where a scribe changed one unpalatable word, but left the rest of the text alone. Textual critics identify these "patches," note their mismatch with the surrounding text, and propose solutions that bring us closer to the originals. Ehrman shows how variants can tell us much about the struggle for ideas that was the history of the Church. Ehrman identifies texts that were used against heretics like Marcion, against Jews, against gnostics and against women. Difficult texts, says Ehrman -- those that contradict what we would like the Scriptures to say, may well be the most accurate. For instance, in Mark 1:40-45, Jesus encounters a leper hoping to be cleansed. Most translation say that Jesus, filled with compassion, touched and healed the man. But some variants say that Jesus grew *angry* before healing him. Which is correct, and why? Ehrman argues that the variant in which Jesus becomes angry fits better into Mark's overall presentation of Jesus, and may therefore be original.
Ehrman's greatest sin is the way he vastly overstates his case. Perhaps this is due to his extremely conservative starting point (one shared by his more vituperative critics and reviewers) which cannot tolerate even the suggestion of the hand of Man in the Bible. Perhaps Ehrman's seeming overreaction (and the consequent lack to deliver) is akin to the doctor who warns that a procedure will hurt, bringing relief to the patient when he delivers only a minor sting. More darkly, perhaps Ehrman really believes that his work brings the Bible into such disrepute that he has lost faith in its divine authorship. But one need not believe that God inspired the Scriptures by literally dictating his words to scribes. One need not believe, along with the simpleminded, that Jesus had scribblers in his entourage. There are solutions to the divine authorship of the Bible that don't require the unsupported belief in its inerrancy posited by the fundamentalists nor the utter rejection of atheists. Some sort of imperfect, mysterious divine-human cooperation is an alternative, supported by mainstream scholars, which Ehrman's work certainly supports.
"Misquoting Jesus" is a terrific primer to the obscure field of textual criticism, especially as applied to the Bible. Though it provides many examples to illustrate Ehrman's points, it is not an exhaustive study of the discipline, but ably and gently leads Bible lovers to a new level of understanding of their holy book. There is no question that Ehrman simplifies his presentation. For instance, he gives us little insight into which textual criticisms are generally accepted and which are hotly debated. Some might see this book as a way for Ehrman to rush his own opinions into print. But Erhman backs up each of his contentions with logic and plausible theories. At the very least, the reader gains enough knowledge to follow the argument.
Ehrman's book helps us to be more careful about selecting biblical translations, and helps us appreciate the work of the legion of scholars who try to parse out the real meaning in its many verses. It lets us see through the gauze of false piety to understand and appreciate the differing worldviews and intentions of the Bible's writers and scribes, letting them speak for themselves. Above all, "Misquoting Jesus" helps us to see that the Bible cannot be read apart from the personalities and world-views of those who wrote it, those who copied it, those who translated it or those who read it. As such, it is a living document.
Which when you think of it, may have been its Inspirer's idea all along.
by Bart D. Ehrman
Clear and respectful exposition of a hot topic
In spite of the provocative title, "Misquoting Jesus" is very respectful of Scriptures - so much so that it willing to tell the truth about them. Bart Ehrman does his typically great job of explaining a difficult topic -- in this case, the history, operation and findings of biblical textual criticism -- to a lay audience. Ehrman's journey as a textual critic has been a long and difficult one, and it seems to have knocked him off-balance, at least for a time. Starting as a fundamentalists of the fundamentalists (to paraphrase Paul) he decided to study scripture. His first epiphany was when he asked himself, if the Bible is God's word, then why do I have to learn Greek and Hebrew to understand it? This question led to others, culminating in a nuanced and complex understanding of the Bible and its history -- as told by the ways scribes have changed the Bible itself.
Ehrman discusses the history of the Bible's transmission through the centuries-- via scribes whose literacy was sometimes comprised only by their ability to copy the shape of letters from an old copy to a new, without understanding their meaning. This was eye-opening for me, but Ehrman supports his contentions with evidence that is sometimes funny and always persuasive. Ehrman helps us to understand the world from the scribe's point of view, as they miss and repeat words, misunderstand abbreviations and (as they listen to dictation) write down homonyms that sound the same but mean vastly different things.
Ehrman gives us a glimpse at the history of biblical textual criticism. We learn how we got the Vulgate, St. Jerome's 4th-century translation of scriptures into Latin, and about 16th-century scholar Erasmus's rush to be the first to print a Greek New Testament. Erasmus's slapdash work then became a basis for the King James Bible, a translation still considered sacrosanct and untouchable by many. Through Ehrman, we learn of the great men whose work lay the foundations for modern biblical scholarship. We also learn of the tens of thousands of variant readings of Scripture that exist. It is this variation that causes consternation for those who believe the Bible to be unblemished and inerrant, and prompts delight for scholars who use the variants to piece together the original words, and to determine the theological biases of the scribes who introduced the variants into the text.
Ehrman is not on a mission to destroy the sacredness, the authority of the Church or to downplay the teaching of Jesus. He seemed constantly poised to deliver a death blow to the basic authenticity of the Bible. But mostly, he delivered examples that show the conservatism of even the most interventionist of scribes. Most of the variants, Ehrman admits, are insignificant -- misspellings and such. Interestingly, the truly significant variants are mostly tentative add-ons to the text, where a scribe changed one unpalatable word, but left the rest of the text alone. Textual critics identify these "patches," note their mismatch with the surrounding text, and propose solutions that bring us closer to the originals. Ehrman shows how variants can tell us much about the struggle for ideas that was the history of the Church. Ehrman identifies texts that were used against heretics like Marcion, against Jews, against gnostics and against women. Difficult texts, says Ehrman -- those that contradict what we would like the Scriptures to say, may well be the most accurate. For instance, in Mark 1:40-45, Jesus encounters a leper hoping to be cleansed. Most translation say that Jesus, filled with compassion, touched and healed the man. But some variants say that Jesus grew *angry* before healing him. Which is correct, and why? Ehrman argues that the variant in which Jesus becomes angry fits better into Mark's overall presentation of Jesus, and may therefore be original.
Ehrman's greatest sin is the way he vastly overstates his case. Perhaps this is due to his extremely conservative starting point (one shared by his more vituperative critics and reviewers) which cannot tolerate even the suggestion of the hand of Man in the Bible. Perhaps Ehrman's seeming overreaction (and the consequent lack to deliver) is akin to the doctor who warns that a procedure will hurt, bringing relief to the patient when he delivers only a minor sting. More darkly, perhaps Ehrman really believes that his work brings the Bible into such disrepute that he has lost faith in its divine authorship. But one need not believe that God inspired the Scriptures by literally dictating his words to scribes. One need not believe, along with the simpleminded, that Jesus had scribblers in his entourage. There are solutions to the divine authorship of the Bible that don't require the unsupported belief in its inerrancy posited by the fundamentalists nor the utter rejection of atheists. Some sort of imperfect, mysterious divine-human cooperation is an alternative, supported by mainstream scholars, which Ehrman's work certainly supports.
"Misquoting Jesus" is a terrific primer to the obscure field of textual criticism, especially as applied to the Bible. Though it provides many examples to illustrate Ehrman's points, it is not an exhaustive study of the discipline, but ably and gently leads Bible lovers to a new level of understanding of their holy book. There is no question that Ehrman simplifies his presentation. For instance, he gives us little insight into which textual criticisms are generally accepted and which are hotly debated. Some might see this book as a way for Ehrman to rush his own opinions into print. But Erhman backs up each of his contentions with logic and plausible theories. At the very least, the reader gains enough knowledge to follow the argument.
Ehrman's book helps us to be more careful about selecting biblical translations, and helps us appreciate the work of the legion of scholars who try to parse out the real meaning in its many verses. It lets us see through the gauze of false piety to understand and appreciate the differing worldviews and intentions of the Bible's writers and scribes, letting them speak for themselves. Above all, "Misquoting Jesus" helps us to see that the Bible cannot be read apart from the personalities and world-views of those who wrote it, those who copied it, those who translated it or those who read it. As such, it is a living document.
Which when you think of it, may have been its Inspirer's idea all along.
Friday, October 05, 2007
Why I love Christopher Hithens in spite of myself
Christopher Hitchens is rude, boorish, obnoxious and just plain hard to like. I loathe his hawkish stance on Iraq. I despise his bullying, and I abhor the pseudo-intellectualism that he brings to many of his subjects. I have reviewed his book "god is not great" elsewhere, and found it to be shoddy and vituperative. I am taken aback by his trashing of Mother Teresa and irritated by his crowing over her purported loss of faith as revealed in her diaries.
So why do I root for him against his adversaries?
I was watching YouTube the other night and entered "Hitchens" into the search engine. For the next half hour I watched him take on -- and either take apart or intimidate -- one TV blowhard after another. He eviscerated Sean Hannity and showed him up to be an ignorant non-entity. He drew only worshipful praise from Lou Dobbs. He won favor from fellow-atheist Bill Maher.
In each of these interviews, what impressed me most about Hitchens was his unflappability. Even when he is not sure what he is talking about (watch him gesture toward his head when he talks about a human's too-large adrenal glands) he exudes this calm sureness that I can only admire. As shallow and ignorant as he is, he vastly outstrips the omniscient pinheads who populate our TV screens.
So I appreciated C.H., if only for the luscious opportunity to see someone at least equal in intellectual depth to our famed talking heads, but invulnerable to their tactics. And also speaking from the depths of his personal belief -- however wrongheaded -- and not from a list of popular talking points. Someday, Chris H will meet his match. It may be on this side of the eternal divide or the other. But until then, I will enjoy his heartfelt, if arrant, diatribes, and continue to rejoice that for a few minutes, on 21st century market-driven, populace-pandering TV, our on-screen personalities have played host to someone they cannot spin and cannot handle.
So why do I root for him against his adversaries?
I was watching YouTube the other night and entered "Hitchens" into the search engine. For the next half hour I watched him take on -- and either take apart or intimidate -- one TV blowhard after another. He eviscerated Sean Hannity and showed him up to be an ignorant non-entity. He drew only worshipful praise from Lou Dobbs. He won favor from fellow-atheist Bill Maher.
In each of these interviews, what impressed me most about Hitchens was his unflappability. Even when he is not sure what he is talking about (watch him gesture toward his head when he talks about a human's too-large adrenal glands) he exudes this calm sureness that I can only admire. As shallow and ignorant as he is, he vastly outstrips the omniscient pinheads who populate our TV screens.
So I appreciated C.H., if only for the luscious opportunity to see someone at least equal in intellectual depth to our famed talking heads, but invulnerable to their tactics. And also speaking from the depths of his personal belief -- however wrongheaded -- and not from a list of popular talking points. Someday, Chris H will meet his match. It may be on this side of the eternal divide or the other. But until then, I will enjoy his heartfelt, if arrant, diatribes, and continue to rejoice that for a few minutes, on 21st century market-driven, populace-pandering TV, our on-screen personalities have played host to someone they cannot spin and cannot handle.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Gospel explainer: the parable of the crafty steward
This Sunday's gospel reading was one of the more confusing ones for a couple of reasons. First, it includes a pretty hard-to-follow parable about a corrupt steward or manager whom Jesus seems to praise. Second, it gives us a long list of pithy aphorisms that Luke the evangelist strings together, as thought Jesus rattled these off one after another.
First the long list. Here is a list of Jesus's sayings, from verse 8 to 13 of Luke Chapter 16, separated into units that make logical sense:
1) “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light." This is actually the punch line of the parable, of which more to come soon.
2) "I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings." This one might belong with #1.
3) The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones.
4) "If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth?" Here we go with dishonest wealth again. This one might go with #3.
#5) "If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours?" This sounds a lot like #3, yes?
#6) "No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other,
or be devoted to one and despise the other."
#7) "You cannot serve both God and mammon.” Which could extend or compete #6.
Anyway, that's 7 separate lines, some of which relate to others and some of which must stand alone. One conclusion that the scripture student can make is that Jesus sure had lots to say about money. This "fireworks finale" of sayings seems to say this at the very least. That should give those Christians who equate wealth with sanctity a little bit to chew on. (Not that anything slows them down in their quest for self-justification!)
Our second bit of business relates to the parable, which I give here in its entirety:
What does this mean? Why is Jesus praising this shmoe, who not only screws his boss enough to get canned, but then continues to screw him while looking out only for #1?
The moral of the story (if you leave off the other 6 sayings) states right out that Jesus's disciples (the children of light, the good guys) can learn something even from evil people (the children of this world, or bad guys). Specifically, they need to be as clever, creative and resourceful when it comes to doing good as are evil people when they go to do evil.
Now cleverness and creativity means thinking outside the box and taking risks -- looking at things in ways you're not accustomed to. It also mean taking ownership and taking charge. It doesn't mean sitting around waiting for goodness to fall from the heavens.
I get a kick out the like it when the gospels show Jesus bustling about, getting people off their duffs. You get the impression that if Jesus had to tell a story like this, that he was dealing with a rather passive group of people. There are enough other examples in the gospels that showed the disciples hoping for the grand apocalypse to sweep them into glory and make their troubles disappear. "We want to sit on your left hand and your right hand when you come into power!" That kind of talk seemed to make Jesus grumpy. "Can you be baptized with my baptism?" he wants to know. Can you walk the walk and follow the path of suffering, rejection and pain that I am taking? Only when it came from the mouth of the thief on the cross next door, a man at the end of his rope and completely vulnerable in the presence of Christ, did a line like "Remember me when you come into your kingdom" merit a positive response.
The parable of the crafty steward is not told to inform Christians on ways to set up a killer pension plan. It's not about permission to screw our bosses to "get ours." It is about being willing to be creative, crafty, and work outside the rules to make goodness happen.
It's another example of how following Christ is not a matter of being nice, but of being and doing good.
First the long list. Here is a list of Jesus's sayings, from verse 8 to 13 of Luke Chapter 16, separated into units that make logical sense:
1) “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light." This is actually the punch line of the parable, of which more to come soon.
2) "I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings." This one might belong with #1.
3) The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones.
4) "If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth?" Here we go with dishonest wealth again. This one might go with #3.
#5) "If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours?" This sounds a lot like #3, yes?
#6) "No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other,
or be devoted to one and despise the other."
#7) "You cannot serve both God and mammon.” Which could extend or compete #6.
Anyway, that's 7 separate lines, some of which relate to others and some of which must stand alone. One conclusion that the scripture student can make is that Jesus sure had lots to say about money. This "fireworks finale" of sayings seems to say this at the very least. That should give those Christians who equate wealth with sanctity a little bit to chew on. (Not that anything slows them down in their quest for self-justification!)
Our second bit of business relates to the parable, which I give here in its entirety:
Jesus said to his disciples,
“A rich man had a steward
who was reported to him for squandering his property.
He summoned him and said,
‘What is this I hear about you?
Prepare a full account of your stewardship,
because you can no longer be my steward.’
The steward said to himself, ‘What shall I do,
now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me?
I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg.
I know what I shall do so that,
when I am removed from the stewardship,
they may welcome me into their homes.’
He called in his master’s debtors one by one.
To the first he said,
‘How much do you owe my master?’
He replied, ‘One hundred measures of olive oil.’
He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note.
Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.’
Then to another the steward said, ‘And you, how much do you owe?’
He replied, ‘One hundred kors of wheat.’
The steward said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note;
write one for eighty.’
And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.
“For the children of this world
are more prudent in dealing with their own generation
than are the children of light.
What does this mean? Why is Jesus praising this shmoe, who not only screws his boss enough to get canned, but then continues to screw him while looking out only for #1?
The moral of the story (if you leave off the other 6 sayings) states right out that Jesus's disciples (the children of light, the good guys) can learn something even from evil people (the children of this world, or bad guys). Specifically, they need to be as clever, creative and resourceful when it comes to doing good as are evil people when they go to do evil.
Now cleverness and creativity means thinking outside the box and taking risks -- looking at things in ways you're not accustomed to. It also mean taking ownership and taking charge. It doesn't mean sitting around waiting for goodness to fall from the heavens.
I get a kick out the like it when the gospels show Jesus bustling about, getting people off their duffs. You get the impression that if Jesus had to tell a story like this, that he was dealing with a rather passive group of people. There are enough other examples in the gospels that showed the disciples hoping for the grand apocalypse to sweep them into glory and make their troubles disappear. "We want to sit on your left hand and your right hand when you come into power!" That kind of talk seemed to make Jesus grumpy. "Can you be baptized with my baptism?" he wants to know. Can you walk the walk and follow the path of suffering, rejection and pain that I am taking? Only when it came from the mouth of the thief on the cross next door, a man at the end of his rope and completely vulnerable in the presence of Christ, did a line like "Remember me when you come into your kingdom" merit a positive response.
The parable of the crafty steward is not told to inform Christians on ways to set up a killer pension plan. It's not about permission to screw our bosses to "get ours." It is about being willing to be creative, crafty, and work outside the rules to make goodness happen.
It's another example of how following Christ is not a matter of being nice, but of being and doing good.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Book Review: "god is not great"
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
by Christopher Hitchens
A cranky crack at religious crazies (and others)
Despite Christopher Hitchens' reputation as an irascible critic of religion (and everything else), perhaps because of it, I thought I would give his anti-religion book, 'god is not great" a try. As a liberal Catholic who is a great fan of science, what harm could it do? At worst, he would provide a devastating attack on a cherished assumption, and my faith would go down in flames. But if what I called "faith" was based on nonsense, I'd be better off without it.
Sadly for Mr. Hitchens my faith continues intact, but my appreciation for his intellectual depth has suffered. "god is not great" (if he won't capitalize the word for the deity then I won't capitalize the rest of his title) is basically a long, unsupported rant against religion and religiosity. Surprisingly, Hitchens makes numerous unsupported categorical statements and sweeping condemnations, of the sort he despises in his enemies. Perhaps because of his broad-brush style, Hitchens has a tendency to select the least nuanced interpretation of an event and present it as fact. His chapter of the history of the Old Testament provided some of the most egregious examples. On page 102, he denies wholesale the events of the Exodus story: "It goes without saying that none of the gruesome, disordered events in Exodus ever took place." Now, one may suggest that the Exodus story is an amplified version of a real (albeit minor) event. One may even state the undeniable fact that there is no official Egyptian record of the event (though it's obvious why the pharaohs chose not to immortalize one of their failures by having it chiseled in stone). But to suggest that the Exodus never happened goes far beyond evidence and plausibility and begins to be rival the fantastic story recorded in the Bible. This is not to say that everything in the Bible is historically and scientifically true and that the excavators can now stop digging. For instance, the serious biblical student must pause at the lack of archaeological evidence for a Joshua-style conquest of the Holy Land. But biblical scholars are way ahead of Hitchens. The Bible provides its own ample evidence -- courtesy of the contradictions between the conquest narrative in Joshua and the more protracted struggle described in Judges -- that the "conquest" took a long time and had much of the character of assimilation. To the unsubtle Hitchens, this contradiction proves the Bible is entirely false. To the more careful student of biblical history, the contradiction suggests other possibilities, such as a weak group's propagandistic need to impress neighboring and warlike tribes.
When it comes to the New Testament, Hitchens is equally addled. He makes much of the work of Bart Ehrman, a modern biblical scholar, who states that the Resurrection narrative of Mark is a later historical addition. Duh, Chris! That is common knowledge among biblical scholars and hardly original with Ehrman. Hitchens defies logic (one of his cardinal sins) by concluding that adding a resurrection to Mark disproves the Resurrection itself. Would not the first impulse of the early church been to proclaim the resurrection, not to write it down? Hitchens intends to amaze the reader with bald statements about the lack of concurrence between the nativity stories (true) and the resurrection stories, though these latter tales differ only in insignificant details. But in Hitchens' world, if two people have different opinions about you it is proof that you do not exist.
But Hitchens makes valuable points. To its everlasting shame, religion has much blood on its hands. It has taken the side of ignorance and tyranny, often in opposition to its own "sacred" teachings. To the smarmy religious commentator who asked whether Hitchens would feel safe in a strange town at nightfall if he knew that the large group of men approaching him were coming from a prayer meeting, Hitchens gave the devastating reply (p 18), "Just to stay within the letter 'B,' I have actually had that experience in Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, Bethlehem and Baghdad." He goes on on describe frightful experiences with people whose religious world view led them to violence murder and mayhem. Hitchens is also right on when he attacks the idiocy that uses religious precepts to determine health policy. Be it female genital mutilation in Africa, Catholic edicts against condom use in AIDS ravaged nations, evangelical abstinence-only campaigns or the Muslim claim that oral vaccines cause impotence, religion has often done the devil's work, self-servingly depriving humans of effective medical care and dooming them to lives of sickness and degradation.
Most devastating to religionists, Hitchens makes the completely valid and observable point that one needn't be theist to be moral. Aside from the truth the religion has often fostered hatred and has been the excuse for much sickening barbarity, many non-religious people are loving, cooperative, productive, calm and reasonable. The religious fanatic has much to learn from the heathen.
We religious people must take note of Hitchens' criticisms. We must balance the world as it appears to our senses with the world as our scriptures tell us it ought to be. We must come to grips with a world that is billions of years old. We must wonder at a Deity who can tolerate countless eons during which his creation lives by feeding on itself. We must wrestle with the notion of a beneficent, all-powerful being who doesn't intervene often to save his children, and who is pleased to wait millennia as they develop vaccines, food crops and other life-saving techniques to sustain themselves in the dignity and joy that are His supposed grant to humanity.
We must even thank cranks like Christopher Hitchens for keeping us honest, and for attacking the mental dodges that help us justify appalling behavior, pretending that illogic pleases the Creator. But let's not pretend that "god is not great" amounts to anything more than venting of the inexhaustible Hitchens spleen. For all of his bluster and chest-pounding, Hitchens is no clear-thinking critic. He is often so committed to his vituperative diatribes that he falls into same logical fallacies as the most nimwitted of his opponents. Though he rightly excoriates the Church for its violence, the best one can say about his own violent temperament is that it's good he is not a churchman, else we would have another Khomeini/bin Laden/Torquemada on our hands.
For all of its unintentional value to theists, Hitchens' book does not (and can not) disprove the existence of God. Neither is the book a nuanced and reasoned exposition of the state of biblical scholarship or archeology. Hitchens has equated foolish religious ideas with religion itself. In this he is wrong, a fact that his bitter screeching will not alter.
by Christopher Hitchens
A cranky crack at religious crazies (and others)
Despite Christopher Hitchens' reputation as an irascible critic of religion (and everything else), perhaps because of it, I thought I would give his anti-religion book, 'god is not great" a try. As a liberal Catholic who is a great fan of science, what harm could it do? At worst, he would provide a devastating attack on a cherished assumption, and my faith would go down in flames. But if what I called "faith" was based on nonsense, I'd be better off without it.
Sadly for Mr. Hitchens my faith continues intact, but my appreciation for his intellectual depth has suffered. "god is not great" (if he won't capitalize the word for the deity then I won't capitalize the rest of his title) is basically a long, unsupported rant against religion and religiosity. Surprisingly, Hitchens makes numerous unsupported categorical statements and sweeping condemnations, of the sort he despises in his enemies. Perhaps because of his broad-brush style, Hitchens has a tendency to select the least nuanced interpretation of an event and present it as fact. His chapter of the history of the Old Testament provided some of the most egregious examples. On page 102, he denies wholesale the events of the Exodus story: "It goes without saying that none of the gruesome, disordered events in Exodus ever took place." Now, one may suggest that the Exodus story is an amplified version of a real (albeit minor) event. One may even state the undeniable fact that there is no official Egyptian record of the event (though it's obvious why the pharaohs chose not to immortalize one of their failures by having it chiseled in stone). But to suggest that the Exodus never happened goes far beyond evidence and plausibility and begins to be rival the fantastic story recorded in the Bible. This is not to say that everything in the Bible is historically and scientifically true and that the excavators can now stop digging. For instance, the serious biblical student must pause at the lack of archaeological evidence for a Joshua-style conquest of the Holy Land. But biblical scholars are way ahead of Hitchens. The Bible provides its own ample evidence -- courtesy of the contradictions between the conquest narrative in Joshua and the more protracted struggle described in Judges -- that the "conquest" took a long time and had much of the character of assimilation. To the unsubtle Hitchens, this contradiction proves the Bible is entirely false. To the more careful student of biblical history, the contradiction suggests other possibilities, such as a weak group's propagandistic need to impress neighboring and warlike tribes.
When it comes to the New Testament, Hitchens is equally addled. He makes much of the work of Bart Ehrman, a modern biblical scholar, who states that the Resurrection narrative of Mark is a later historical addition. Duh, Chris! That is common knowledge among biblical scholars and hardly original with Ehrman. Hitchens defies logic (one of his cardinal sins) by concluding that adding a resurrection to Mark disproves the Resurrection itself. Would not the first impulse of the early church been to proclaim the resurrection, not to write it down? Hitchens intends to amaze the reader with bald statements about the lack of concurrence between the nativity stories (true) and the resurrection stories, though these latter tales differ only in insignificant details. But in Hitchens' world, if two people have different opinions about you it is proof that you do not exist.
But Hitchens makes valuable points. To its everlasting shame, religion has much blood on its hands. It has taken the side of ignorance and tyranny, often in opposition to its own "sacred" teachings. To the smarmy religious commentator who asked whether Hitchens would feel safe in a strange town at nightfall if he knew that the large group of men approaching him were coming from a prayer meeting, Hitchens gave the devastating reply (p 18), "Just to stay within the letter 'B,' I have actually had that experience in Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, Bethlehem and Baghdad." He goes on on describe frightful experiences with people whose religious world view led them to violence murder and mayhem. Hitchens is also right on when he attacks the idiocy that uses religious precepts to determine health policy. Be it female genital mutilation in Africa, Catholic edicts against condom use in AIDS ravaged nations, evangelical abstinence-only campaigns or the Muslim claim that oral vaccines cause impotence, religion has often done the devil's work, self-servingly depriving humans of effective medical care and dooming them to lives of sickness and degradation.
Most devastating to religionists, Hitchens makes the completely valid and observable point that one needn't be theist to be moral. Aside from the truth the religion has often fostered hatred and has been the excuse for much sickening barbarity, many non-religious people are loving, cooperative, productive, calm and reasonable. The religious fanatic has much to learn from the heathen.
We religious people must take note of Hitchens' criticisms. We must balance the world as it appears to our senses with the world as our scriptures tell us it ought to be. We must come to grips with a world that is billions of years old. We must wonder at a Deity who can tolerate countless eons during which his creation lives by feeding on itself. We must wrestle with the notion of a beneficent, all-powerful being who doesn't intervene often to save his children, and who is pleased to wait millennia as they develop vaccines, food crops and other life-saving techniques to sustain themselves in the dignity and joy that are His supposed grant to humanity.
We must even thank cranks like Christopher Hitchens for keeping us honest, and for attacking the mental dodges that help us justify appalling behavior, pretending that illogic pleases the Creator. But let's not pretend that "god is not great" amounts to anything more than venting of the inexhaustible Hitchens spleen. For all of his bluster and chest-pounding, Hitchens is no clear-thinking critic. He is often so committed to his vituperative diatribes that he falls into same logical fallacies as the most nimwitted of his opponents. Though he rightly excoriates the Church for its violence, the best one can say about his own violent temperament is that it's good he is not a churchman, else we would have another Khomeini/bin Laden/Torquemada on our hands.
For all of its unintentional value to theists, Hitchens' book does not (and can not) disprove the existence of God. Neither is the book a nuanced and reasoned exposition of the state of biblical scholarship or archeology. Hitchens has equated foolish religious ideas with religion itself. In this he is wrong, a fact that his bitter screeching will not alter.
Movie Review: Jesus Camp
Jesus Camp
DVD ~ Mike Papantonio
Creepy but not terrifying
While much of "Jesus Camp" is set in a North Dakota camp for evangelical kids, the film also depicts the family background of those who would send their kids to such a place. Much of the film focuses on Levi and Racael, two home-schooled kids who have imbibed deeply of their parents' piety and politics. While these kids are hardly robotic or brainwashed, their unkidlike commitment to their religious principles is sometimes scary to watch. Not surprisingly, these kids are insulated from the real world. Rachael prays over her bowling ball before rolling it, then wanders the alley distributing religious tracts to other bowlers. The mulleted Levi and his family recite their pledge to the "Christian flag" and to the Bible before their lessons begin.
The camp itself is run by Backy Fischer, at the ironically-named Devil's Lake, North Dakota. Camp is a combination religious revival and political indoctrination. The kids tearfully (and seemingly quite spontaneously) confess their shortcomings, their already-unbearable load of youthful guilt prompting them to uncontrolled weeping. They sing enthusiastic songs about Jesus, support Geroge W. Bush and pray to end abortion. Back home, they visit pre-scandal Ted Haggard's church in Colorado Springs. Levi, especially, clearly hero-worships Haggard, and can be seen pacing the sanctuary, imagining himself as a world-class evangelist. The film follows the kids to a small Washington DC anti-abortion rally where they stand in protest before the Supreme Court building with "Life" stickers closing their mouths. Afterwards, they encounter the real world -- which is neither as fascinated by them or as impious as they believe.
I had expected to be appalled by the behavior of the parents, but wound up terrified by and concerned for the kids, who are being raised to be narrow-minded, ignorant and self-righteous. Racheal's insistence that God does not listen to the prayers of those whose worship style is sedate has the makings, under the right circumstances, of religious persecution. The film is bracketed by scenes of the bleak midwestern lanscape punctuated by radio snippets about the Supreme Court confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito, a darling of the religious right. Air America's Mike Papantonio appears occasionally while taping his radio show and serves as a counterpoint from the left. His comments are heartfelt, but ineffective, a sad commentary on the left's until-now inability to counter the simplistic notions, unwillingness to engage science and narrow view of the true believers.
"Jesus Camp" is fascinating and frightening, a glimpse inside the world of the kind of Americans who reflexively support anything marketed as Christian, including the war in Iraq and the far-right agenda of the Bush II administration. I don't believe that we should fear people like those shown in the film, as they must someday engage the real world and perhaps moderate their more extreme views. But the film does a wonderful job at acquainting us with people whose world view and aspirations are at odds with science, reason and the notions of a secular form of representative government.
DVD ~ Mike Papantonio
Creepy but not terrifying
While much of "Jesus Camp" is set in a North Dakota camp for evangelical kids, the film also depicts the family background of those who would send their kids to such a place. Much of the film focuses on Levi and Racael, two home-schooled kids who have imbibed deeply of their parents' piety and politics. While these kids are hardly robotic or brainwashed, their unkidlike commitment to their religious principles is sometimes scary to watch. Not surprisingly, these kids are insulated from the real world. Rachael prays over her bowling ball before rolling it, then wanders the alley distributing religious tracts to other bowlers. The mulleted Levi and his family recite their pledge to the "Christian flag" and to the Bible before their lessons begin.
The camp itself is run by Backy Fischer, at the ironically-named Devil's Lake, North Dakota. Camp is a combination religious revival and political indoctrination. The kids tearfully (and seemingly quite spontaneously) confess their shortcomings, their already-unbearable load of youthful guilt prompting them to uncontrolled weeping. They sing enthusiastic songs about Jesus, support Geroge W. Bush and pray to end abortion. Back home, they visit pre-scandal Ted Haggard's church in Colorado Springs. Levi, especially, clearly hero-worships Haggard, and can be seen pacing the sanctuary, imagining himself as a world-class evangelist. The film follows the kids to a small Washington DC anti-abortion rally where they stand in protest before the Supreme Court building with "Life" stickers closing their mouths. Afterwards, they encounter the real world -- which is neither as fascinated by them or as impious as they believe.
I had expected to be appalled by the behavior of the parents, but wound up terrified by and concerned for the kids, who are being raised to be narrow-minded, ignorant and self-righteous. Racheal's insistence that God does not listen to the prayers of those whose worship style is sedate has the makings, under the right circumstances, of religious persecution. The film is bracketed by scenes of the bleak midwestern lanscape punctuated by radio snippets about the Supreme Court confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito, a darling of the religious right. Air America's Mike Papantonio appears occasionally while taping his radio show and serves as a counterpoint from the left. His comments are heartfelt, but ineffective, a sad commentary on the left's until-now inability to counter the simplistic notions, unwillingness to engage science and narrow view of the true believers.
"Jesus Camp" is fascinating and frightening, a glimpse inside the world of the kind of Americans who reflexively support anything marketed as Christian, including the war in Iraq and the far-right agenda of the Bush II administration. I don't believe that we should fear people like those shown in the film, as they must someday engage the real world and perhaps moderate their more extreme views. But the film does a wonderful job at acquainting us with people whose world view and aspirations are at odds with science, reason and the notions of a secular form of representative government.
Book Revew: Ten Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can't, Because He Needs the Job)
Ten Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can't, Because He Needs the Job)
by Oliver Thomas
A pipe dream of a more tolerant Christianity
Oliver Thomas, a Baptist minister and writer for USA Today has written a breezy little volume that he hopes will make American Christianity nicer and (he thinks) more in line with the teachings of its Founder. The book is organized into ten areas ("How it All Began," "Why Are We Here," etc.) that allow Thomas to examine issues of creationism, prayer, miracles, the end of time, the nature of the afterlife and many others. His views are what some call "liberal," which to me is an irritating misnomer, as many of his ideas are condensations of wisdom taught in most mainline seminaries and divinity programs. For instance, Thomas writes in support of a non-literal reading of Scripture, asking that readers keep in mind the historical context in which it was written. He points out that Jesus was a friend of women and that Paul's opposition to homosexuality is misunderstood. Thomas is also willing to be agnostic about the details of the afterlife and the end of the world. He is definitely no fan of the "Left Behind" books, or of the hateful rhetoric that often substitutes for religious thought in this country.
All well and good.
Thomas's theological points are often in line with the way many people think, here in the post-modern era. Where we are less certain to subscribe, for instance, to the golden images of heaven accepted by our forebears, Thomas points out that even in the Bible, the afterlife has been imagined in many ways. And Hell? Thomas (surprisingly) dilutes Hell by noting correctly that it is a mistranslation of "Sheol," a shadowy place of the dead, or "Gehenna," Jerusalem's garbage dump. Here, I think Thomas is off base, taking literally a word that Jesus may have meant figuratively. One would have to work quite hard to insist that every reference to "the outer darkness" or "the fiery furnace" where there is "weeping and gnashing of teeth" is simply a cute, figurative description of having one's life be considered worthless, rather than damnable. Now I am no fan of Hell, and I see an immense inconsistency in a loving Father who tortures his wayward children for eternity. One does not have to believe in a literal, physical Hell of fire to imagine an undesirable spiritual consequence for bad behavior. But Thomas is rather blithe in dismissing the dark side of the gospels. Are there solutions to this problem other than jettisoning the parts of the gospels that one doesn't like?
Thomas does score points. His examples of the inconsistencies in Scripture (contradictory creation accounts, etc.) should be enough to send any open-minded fundamentalist back to the drawing board. And he makes a valid point that the Bible's proscription of homosexuality loses a great deal of its meaning when put into context of the many other strictures of the book of Leviticus (shell food consumption, tolerance for Sabbath breakers, beard trimming, etc.) that we break as a matter of course. And speaking of gays, Thomas is probably right that Paul was not acquainted with men and women living in committed gay relationships. These are solid pieces of evidence that we need to be careful about the way we apply ancient moral wisdom to our own era.
But the length of Thomas's book works against him. His more controversial contentions -- such as that what Paul condemned as homosexuality was actually pederasty -- need much more discussion than Thomas provides. The book's title -- with its implication that ministers believe what Thomas writes -- is problematic. Perhaps this is true of Thomas and a few of his like-minded minister friends. But there are plenty of ministers -- from many faith communities -- who seem quite satisfied to disagree with Thomas. In my own Roman Catholic community, where there is virtually no chance of a priest losing his job, there are more than a few who gladly espouse much of what Thomas rejects. These people could actually stand to be afraid of what their congregations think!
As one who has struggled for a lifetime to find value in religious observance, who prays but wonders why, and who grieves for a world in which birth, death, and marriage have little value beyond themselves, I appreciate encountering a man of the cloth who struggles with the same issues. That the man is a Baptist, not a group know for its fuzzy-headed liberalism or lack of absolute certainty, is extraordinary. I would very much like it if the Bible could be used to support unambiguously the tolerant and positive theology that Thomas subscribes to. But wishing for it will not make it so.
If you can't quite imagine a Christianity that is less arrogant, more accepting of other faiths, and that welcomes gays, women and minorities, you may find a template for your new thinking here. Will anyone change their minds after reading Thomas's "10 Things"? Believers are notoriously hard to rock, especially if they are convinced that their opinions are scriptural. Neither will the non-believers be moved; it's unlikely that the vast mass of the apathetic will join a Church, even one of Thomas's more tolerant sort, based on this book.
The only question is whether enough of us still have a burning need to wrestle with life's ultimate questions, or whether a shrug, a "whatever" and a channel change are enough to keep the existential bogeyman at bay.
by Oliver Thomas
A pipe dream of a more tolerant Christianity
Oliver Thomas, a Baptist minister and writer for USA Today has written a breezy little volume that he hopes will make American Christianity nicer and (he thinks) more in line with the teachings of its Founder. The book is organized into ten areas ("How it All Began," "Why Are We Here," etc.) that allow Thomas to examine issues of creationism, prayer, miracles, the end of time, the nature of the afterlife and many others. His views are what some call "liberal," which to me is an irritating misnomer, as many of his ideas are condensations of wisdom taught in most mainline seminaries and divinity programs. For instance, Thomas writes in support of a non-literal reading of Scripture, asking that readers keep in mind the historical context in which it was written. He points out that Jesus was a friend of women and that Paul's opposition to homosexuality is misunderstood. Thomas is also willing to be agnostic about the details of the afterlife and the end of the world. He is definitely no fan of the "Left Behind" books, or of the hateful rhetoric that often substitutes for religious thought in this country.
All well and good.
Thomas's theological points are often in line with the way many people think, here in the post-modern era. Where we are less certain to subscribe, for instance, to the golden images of heaven accepted by our forebears, Thomas points out that even in the Bible, the afterlife has been imagined in many ways. And Hell? Thomas (surprisingly) dilutes Hell by noting correctly that it is a mistranslation of "Sheol," a shadowy place of the dead, or "Gehenna," Jerusalem's garbage dump. Here, I think Thomas is off base, taking literally a word that Jesus may have meant figuratively. One would have to work quite hard to insist that every reference to "the outer darkness" or "the fiery furnace" where there is "weeping and gnashing of teeth" is simply a cute, figurative description of having one's life be considered worthless, rather than damnable. Now I am no fan of Hell, and I see an immense inconsistency in a loving Father who tortures his wayward children for eternity. One does not have to believe in a literal, physical Hell of fire to imagine an undesirable spiritual consequence for bad behavior. But Thomas is rather blithe in dismissing the dark side of the gospels. Are there solutions to this problem other than jettisoning the parts of the gospels that one doesn't like?
Thomas does score points. His examples of the inconsistencies in Scripture (contradictory creation accounts, etc.) should be enough to send any open-minded fundamentalist back to the drawing board. And he makes a valid point that the Bible's proscription of homosexuality loses a great deal of its meaning when put into context of the many other strictures of the book of Leviticus (shell food consumption, tolerance for Sabbath breakers, beard trimming, etc.) that we break as a matter of course. And speaking of gays, Thomas is probably right that Paul was not acquainted with men and women living in committed gay relationships. These are solid pieces of evidence that we need to be careful about the way we apply ancient moral wisdom to our own era.
But the length of Thomas's book works against him. His more controversial contentions -- such as that what Paul condemned as homosexuality was actually pederasty -- need much more discussion than Thomas provides. The book's title -- with its implication that ministers believe what Thomas writes -- is problematic. Perhaps this is true of Thomas and a few of his like-minded minister friends. But there are plenty of ministers -- from many faith communities -- who seem quite satisfied to disagree with Thomas. In my own Roman Catholic community, where there is virtually no chance of a priest losing his job, there are more than a few who gladly espouse much of what Thomas rejects. These people could actually stand to be afraid of what their congregations think!
As one who has struggled for a lifetime to find value in religious observance, who prays but wonders why, and who grieves for a world in which birth, death, and marriage have little value beyond themselves, I appreciate encountering a man of the cloth who struggles with the same issues. That the man is a Baptist, not a group know for its fuzzy-headed liberalism or lack of absolute certainty, is extraordinary. I would very much like it if the Bible could be used to support unambiguously the tolerant and positive theology that Thomas subscribes to. But wishing for it will not make it so.
If you can't quite imagine a Christianity that is less arrogant, more accepting of other faiths, and that welcomes gays, women and minorities, you may find a template for your new thinking here. Will anyone change their minds after reading Thomas's "10 Things"? Believers are notoriously hard to rock, especially if they are convinced that their opinions are scriptural. Neither will the non-believers be moved; it's unlikely that the vast mass of the apathetic will join a Church, even one of Thomas's more tolerant sort, based on this book.
The only question is whether enough of us still have a burning need to wrestle with life's ultimate questions, or whether a shrug, a "whatever" and a channel change are enough to keep the existential bogeyman at bay.
Book Review: Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play
Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play
by James Shapiro
The Oberammergau Passion Play has been in near-contintual production sine 1643 when (as legend has it) terrified townsfolk promised it in return for divine protection from a plague. This hoary drama seems innocent and pious enough on its surface. But after the Holocaust, as many sought the roots of the slaughter of millions of innocents, the people and traditions of Oberammergau came in for their share of scrutiny. This scrutiny topok on special urgency when the Catholic Church officially changed its position in 1965, in the landmark document "Nostra Asetate," in regard to the charge of deicide against the Jews. This book focuses on the seesaw attempts in the last 40 years to rid the play of its antisemitic elements and bring it into line with official Church teaching.
Author James Shapiro makes no secret of his Jewishness, and has produced a remarkably even-handed account of the play's history and theology as well as attempts to expunge strands of anti-Semitism and Christian triumphalism. Shapiro follows the effort of Oberammergau natives Otto Huber and Christian Struckel to emphasize the Jewishness of Jesus while making a work that traditionalists would tolerate, the public would pay to see and Jewish organizations could live with. They attempt to deal with aspects of the play that show Christianity as prefigured in Old Testament writings. This idea is odious to Jews, who bridle that this "typology" reduces their faith to a preview of coming attractions. But it remains an aspect of Christianity that is difficult, if not impossible, to dislodge.
The struggle within the Oberammergau community is the struggle of Christians everywhere. It may even be the divine mandate for our time--to use the analytical tools of our age to strip away layers of hatred varnished over gospels accounts that themselves are antagonistic toward Jews. To uproot hatred of Jesus's neighbors and family while retaining the Jesus of faith is no small undertaking. No wonder that less committed people have chosen one of two easy ways: to blame only the Jews for Jesus's death or to call all religion irrelevant. The book also details the self-serving myths surrounding the Oberammergau play's origins and the piety of the "simple peasant folk" who lived there. Oberammergau residents have not been above selling outsiders on the myth that they so inhabit their roles that they are hyper pious even out of play season. Indeed, Shapiro shows how this myth cuts both ways--ensuring the play's popularity, but trapping its actors in an impoverishing economic rigidity between cycles.
The book neither swells on nor shies away from the dark side of Oberammergau. The community, like others in Germany, tends to whitewash its Nazi past and is surprisingly blind to its deeply-seated and axiomatic anti-Semitism. One "Jesus," Nazi party member Alois Lang, played the lead role even after the war. During the war, a jet engine plant was situated just outside of town. And the notorious Dachau concentration camp was a mere 75 miles away. Some Oberammergau residents seem genuinely baffled that a play that casts Pilate as a hero and Jews as money-hungry could be seen as anti-Semitic. Even the younger residents come perilously close to reverting back to old attitudes when encountering pressure and bad press from the Jewish organizations they are courting. And in spite of the wish for residents to keep the world at bay, modernity rears its head -- Oberammergau youth are no different than other in having abandoned devotions; and married women clamor to be allowed into the play.
"Oberammergau" does wonderful job of depicting the contradictory threads that run through producing a gospel drama in an age when the old certainties--the virtue and inevitable triumph of Christianity, the eternal guilt of the Jews, the historicity of the gospels--have been called into question. In many important ways, the drama replays themes of great and global import--the rehabilitation of those who participate in evil, the need to hear the voice of the persecuted, and the need to root out wickedness from one's own heart. "Oberammergau" asks us the same question posed by its play's central figure, asking whether we have ears to hear and the purity of heart needed to break out of shackles that blind us to our own evil and to the suffering of our fellows.
by James Shapiro
The Oberammergau Passion Play has been in near-contintual production sine 1643 when (as legend has it) terrified townsfolk promised it in return for divine protection from a plague. This hoary drama seems innocent and pious enough on its surface. But after the Holocaust, as many sought the roots of the slaughter of millions of innocents, the people and traditions of Oberammergau came in for their share of scrutiny. This scrutiny topok on special urgency when the Catholic Church officially changed its position in 1965, in the landmark document "Nostra Asetate," in regard to the charge of deicide against the Jews. This book focuses on the seesaw attempts in the last 40 years to rid the play of its antisemitic elements and bring it into line with official Church teaching.
Author James Shapiro makes no secret of his Jewishness, and has produced a remarkably even-handed account of the play's history and theology as well as attempts to expunge strands of anti-Semitism and Christian triumphalism. Shapiro follows the effort of Oberammergau natives Otto Huber and Christian Struckel to emphasize the Jewishness of Jesus while making a work that traditionalists would tolerate, the public would pay to see and Jewish organizations could live with. They attempt to deal with aspects of the play that show Christianity as prefigured in Old Testament writings. This idea is odious to Jews, who bridle that this "typology" reduces their faith to a preview of coming attractions. But it remains an aspect of Christianity that is difficult, if not impossible, to dislodge.
The struggle within the Oberammergau community is the struggle of Christians everywhere. It may even be the divine mandate for our time--to use the analytical tools of our age to strip away layers of hatred varnished over gospels accounts that themselves are antagonistic toward Jews. To uproot hatred of Jesus's neighbors and family while retaining the Jesus of faith is no small undertaking. No wonder that less committed people have chosen one of two easy ways: to blame only the Jews for Jesus's death or to call all religion irrelevant. The book also details the self-serving myths surrounding the Oberammergau play's origins and the piety of the "simple peasant folk" who lived there. Oberammergau residents have not been above selling outsiders on the myth that they so inhabit their roles that they are hyper pious even out of play season. Indeed, Shapiro shows how this myth cuts both ways--ensuring the play's popularity, but trapping its actors in an impoverishing economic rigidity between cycles.
The book neither swells on nor shies away from the dark side of Oberammergau. The community, like others in Germany, tends to whitewash its Nazi past and is surprisingly blind to its deeply-seated and axiomatic anti-Semitism. One "Jesus," Nazi party member Alois Lang, played the lead role even after the war. During the war, a jet engine plant was situated just outside of town. And the notorious Dachau concentration camp was a mere 75 miles away. Some Oberammergau residents seem genuinely baffled that a play that casts Pilate as a hero and Jews as money-hungry could be seen as anti-Semitic. Even the younger residents come perilously close to reverting back to old attitudes when encountering pressure and bad press from the Jewish organizations they are courting. And in spite of the wish for residents to keep the world at bay, modernity rears its head -- Oberammergau youth are no different than other in having abandoned devotions; and married women clamor to be allowed into the play.
"Oberammergau" does wonderful job of depicting the contradictory threads that run through producing a gospel drama in an age when the old certainties--the virtue and inevitable triumph of Christianity, the eternal guilt of the Jews, the historicity of the gospels--have been called into question. In many important ways, the drama replays themes of great and global import--the rehabilitation of those who participate in evil, the need to hear the voice of the persecuted, and the need to root out wickedness from one's own heart. "Oberammergau" asks us the same question posed by its play's central figure, asking whether we have ears to hear and the purity of heart needed to break out of shackles that blind us to our own evil and to the suffering of our fellows.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Phoney Mahoney indeed
The recent "apology" from LA's Cardinal Richard Mahiney is a case of continuing deflection of responsibility, as Jason Berry's piece in the Boston Globe makes clear. There should no longer be any doubt that Catholic bishops consider themselves wholly above the law, capable of retaining power in spite of horrific lapses of judgment, demonstrated incapacity for compassion, and a knack for phony PR display that rivals that of the most social unconscious corporation.
Where is the accountability? Why don't bishops offer to resign when exposed as so utterly incompetent and devoid of Christian love?
Yes, there's something special about being a bishop.
The episcopate has got to get over the fact that being in the Apostolic Succession makes them a) invulnerable to serious error and b) ineligible to be held accountable for their lapses. They believe (and many of their dumbbell conservative supporters agree) that the bishop's person (extending to the financial and personnel dealings of hid diocese) must be sacrosanct. The real fight is about control over information. The real issue is retention of the medieval mindset that allows bishops to do whatever they want -- since what they want is the will of God. To answer to charges -- even legitimate charges stemming from a crime as horrific as child abuse -- is to give up the pretense of ultimate authority. Any man who really believes himself to be above and outside the law is a fool and a menace. It's no wonder why our bishops seem cut from the same bolt of inferior cloth -- what man of any integrity would put himself in the company of men of such vapid morals?
The honorable thing for a man who has as much dirt on his hands as Mahoney is to repent and resign. Apologies are too easy. Apologies are strewn about by high churchmen like holy water -- a little dab'll do ya, and on we go. If there was an ounce of repentance in Mahoney's demeanor. just a smidgen of remorse showing on his face, then the rest of us could let go and move on to other issues. But the phony smiles that bishops wear are a cover for their fundamental mendacity and uncaring. It's no wonder that their homilies and official communications mean so little -- they have not suffered enough -- paid their dues -- to have anything to say to the rest of us. The least they can do (and it is no small thing in this age of unaccountability) is to lead the way to salvation that is born of a repentant heart. St. Peter demonstrated the method. After pretending not to know Christ, he wept.
Could that Cardinal Mahoney weep! Even those scoundrels Jimmy Swaggart and Tammy Faye Bakker wept. Which tells you how remorseless are our bishops.Imagine! To avoid being shattered by the fact that they contributed to the anal rape of a child! What kind of monster does it take to ignore the suffering of one of Christ's Little ones?
The episcopal kind, that's what kind.
Where is the accountability? Why don't bishops offer to resign when exposed as so utterly incompetent and devoid of Christian love?
Yes, there's something special about being a bishop.
The episcopate has got to get over the fact that being in the Apostolic Succession makes them a) invulnerable to serious error and b) ineligible to be held accountable for their lapses. They believe (and many of their dumbbell conservative supporters agree) that the bishop's person (extending to the financial and personnel dealings of hid diocese) must be sacrosanct. The real fight is about control over information. The real issue is retention of the medieval mindset that allows bishops to do whatever they want -- since what they want is the will of God. To answer to charges -- even legitimate charges stemming from a crime as horrific as child abuse -- is to give up the pretense of ultimate authority. Any man who really believes himself to be above and outside the law is a fool and a menace. It's no wonder why our bishops seem cut from the same bolt of inferior cloth -- what man of any integrity would put himself in the company of men of such vapid morals?
The honorable thing for a man who has as much dirt on his hands as Mahoney is to repent and resign. Apologies are too easy. Apologies are strewn about by high churchmen like holy water -- a little dab'll do ya, and on we go. If there was an ounce of repentance in Mahoney's demeanor. just a smidgen of remorse showing on his face, then the rest of us could let go and move on to other issues. But the phony smiles that bishops wear are a cover for their fundamental mendacity and uncaring. It's no wonder that their homilies and official communications mean so little -- they have not suffered enough -- paid their dues -- to have anything to say to the rest of us. The least they can do (and it is no small thing in this age of unaccountability) is to lead the way to salvation that is born of a repentant heart. St. Peter demonstrated the method. After pretending not to know Christ, he wept.
Could that Cardinal Mahoney weep! Even those scoundrels Jimmy Swaggart and Tammy Faye Bakker wept. Which tells you how remorseless are our bishops.Imagine! To avoid being shattered by the fact that they contributed to the anal rape of a child! What kind of monster does it take to ignore the suffering of one of Christ's Little ones?
The episcopal kind, that's what kind.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Pondering points: Limbo and bad marketing
I was giving thought to a number of items from the recent past:
1) My uncle is in the hospital for a hip operation. I can't help but think that his recovery will be due in large part to the skill of the surgeons, the care of the nursing staff, the potency of antibiotics and to his own body's ability to heal. Though I prayed for and with him, I had a hard time imagining that this alone, or even this substantially, would help.
2) The recent news that the Vatican is doing away with Limbo is welcome news to all but the most rabid of Shiite Catholics. Who needs to imagine that if a parent is a few mintes too late with the baptismal formula, or if a baby dies in utero, that the gates of salavation are shut and the poor child is relegated to a place between heaven and hell, tasting neither the fires of the latter nor the joys of the former.
3) At a baptism in my faith community recently, the presider referred to the limbo situation and said that baptizing children was once thought to be the invitation into salvation, but now is a welcome into a community of faith.
I was pondering all of this, and the thought came to me again that regardless of the value of the theology being used to back up these ideas, that it's bad for the "brand" -- i.e., the Catholic Church brand -- that baptism is no longer seen as the only way into salvatyion. It seems to me that the Shiites Catholics may have a weirdly correct point when they oppose any tinketing with the system.
Especially when the tinkering is in the hands of guys whose analysis skills are rather lacking.
Put it this way. Back in the day (about anytime prior to 1970) there were two kinds of people -- the saved and the unsaved. Baptism saved a person, which is why the Eurpoean conquerors of the New World always brought missionaries along with them. Or perhaps the missionaries insisted on making the trip. In any event, these men went about the New World furiously baptizing everyone they could find. And why not? If a heathen is a person, and a person needs baptism to get to heaven, the missionaries were doing these poor folks a big favor. The same goes for Catholic parents wishing to get their kids baptized. What a great way to make new Catholics -- sell people on the idea that there was only one way in, and we had it.
But now, the dynamic has changed. People are tired of being manipulated, even when it is for their own good, by guys who clearly have a selfish interest in the system. Priests need new Catholics to fill their Churches and give themselves a reasons to be big shots. What better way than to scare folks to death on behalf of their children? But now that the underpinnings of this obviously faulty system have been removed, what is left? What is it that brings folks to Church? The Church, in its backing away from its prior stance, has pretty much said that God will take care of a lot of things. Babies who die before baptism? No problem, God's mercy wil take care of it. Aborted fetuses? Same deal. How about kids who don't get baptized until they are 3 or 4 or 5 -- or 15, 25 or 50? Seems to me that once you open the gates for this kind of argument, the whole absolute need for bapism to be saved goes out the window.
From the point of view of selling the faith, this is a horrible state of affairs. Why bother getting involved in a faith community if God isn't all that choosy about whichi one (or none) you select? And what if the faith community simultaenously removes people's main reason for particuipating without providing another reason to join, such as community, great school, fine liturgy or something else? It seems to me that we have pulled the drain out of the tub of faith and forgotten to open up the spigot to keet the tuib full. Sooner or later, the tub is gonna empty out. And where will the cleaver theologians be then?
1) My uncle is in the hospital for a hip operation. I can't help but think that his recovery will be due in large part to the skill of the surgeons, the care of the nursing staff, the potency of antibiotics and to his own body's ability to heal. Though I prayed for and with him, I had a hard time imagining that this alone, or even this substantially, would help.
2) The recent news that the Vatican is doing away with Limbo is welcome news to all but the most rabid of Shiite Catholics. Who needs to imagine that if a parent is a few mintes too late with the baptismal formula, or if a baby dies in utero, that the gates of salavation are shut and the poor child is relegated to a place between heaven and hell, tasting neither the fires of the latter nor the joys of the former.
3) At a baptism in my faith community recently, the presider referred to the limbo situation and said that baptizing children was once thought to be the invitation into salvation, but now is a welcome into a community of faith.
I was pondering all of this, and the thought came to me again that regardless of the value of the theology being used to back up these ideas, that it's bad for the "brand" -- i.e., the Catholic Church brand -- that baptism is no longer seen as the only way into salvatyion. It seems to me that the Shiites Catholics may have a weirdly correct point when they oppose any tinketing with the system.
Especially when the tinkering is in the hands of guys whose analysis skills are rather lacking.
Put it this way. Back in the day (about anytime prior to 1970) there were two kinds of people -- the saved and the unsaved. Baptism saved a person, which is why the Eurpoean conquerors of the New World always brought missionaries along with them. Or perhaps the missionaries insisted on making the trip. In any event, these men went about the New World furiously baptizing everyone they could find. And why not? If a heathen is a person, and a person needs baptism to get to heaven, the missionaries were doing these poor folks a big favor. The same goes for Catholic parents wishing to get their kids baptized. What a great way to make new Catholics -- sell people on the idea that there was only one way in, and we had it.
But now, the dynamic has changed. People are tired of being manipulated, even when it is for their own good, by guys who clearly have a selfish interest in the system. Priests need new Catholics to fill their Churches and give themselves a reasons to be big shots. What better way than to scare folks to death on behalf of their children? But now that the underpinnings of this obviously faulty system have been removed, what is left? What is it that brings folks to Church? The Church, in its backing away from its prior stance, has pretty much said that God will take care of a lot of things. Babies who die before baptism? No problem, God's mercy wil take care of it. Aborted fetuses? Same deal. How about kids who don't get baptized until they are 3 or 4 or 5 -- or 15, 25 or 50? Seems to me that once you open the gates for this kind of argument, the whole absolute need for bapism to be saved goes out the window.
From the point of view of selling the faith, this is a horrible state of affairs. Why bother getting involved in a faith community if God isn't all that choosy about whichi one (or none) you select? And what if the faith community simultaenously removes people's main reason for particuipating without providing another reason to join, such as community, great school, fine liturgy or something else? It seems to me that we have pulled the drain out of the tub of faith and forgotten to open up the spigot to keet the tuib full. Sooner or later, the tub is gonna empty out. And where will the cleaver theologians be then?
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
In the News: Vatican Publihes 10 Commandments for drivers
Must be a slow news day at the Holy See:
VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Got road rage? The Vatican on Tuesday issued a set of
"Ten Commandments" for drivers, telling motorists to be charitable to others
on the highways, to refrain from drinking and driving, and to pray you
make it before you even buckle up. An unusual document from the Vatican's office for
migrants and itinerant people also warned that automobiles can be "an occasion
of sin" -- particularly when they are used for dangerous passing or for
prostitution.
It warned about the effects of road rage, saying driving can bring out "primitive" behavior in motorists, including "impoliteness, rude gestures, cursing, blasphemy, loss of sense of responsibility or deliberate infringement of the highway code."
It urged motorists to obey traffic regulations, drive with a moral sense, and
to pray when behind the wheel.Cardinal Renato Martino, who heads the office, told a news conference that the Vatican felt it necessary to address the pastoral needs of
motorists because driving had become such a big part of contemporary life.
Here are the new Big Ten:
1. You shall not kill.
2. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.
3. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.
4. Be charitable and help your neighbor in need, especially victims of accidents.
5. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion
of sin.
6. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in
a fitting condition to do so.
7. Support the families of accident victims.
8. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.
9. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.
10. Feel responsible toward others.
Comes down to a version of the Golden Rule -- "Do unto others" and all that. Except for the praying behind the wheel part, which sounds kind of dangerous.
But now that the Vatican has tackled issues iof automobile driving, can the Ten Commandments of Typewriting or the Decalogue of Daguerreotyping be far behind?
Saturday, May 26, 2007
In the News: Creation Museum set to open
Sad piece from Yahoo News about the upcoming opening of Ken Ham's "Creation Museum" near Cincinnatti. I'm not sure what is sadder: religious people too pious to trust the intellect God gave them, or religious wannabes who think that by rejecting Darwin they are getting in good with God. What part of "giving God the Glory" requires you to lie about His work?Pathetic. And Don Ham's books are stupid also. Ha!
___________________________________________
PETERSBURG, United States (AFP) - Dinosaurs frolic with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and an animatronic Noah directs work on his Ark in a multimillion dollar creationism museum set to open next week in Kentucky.
Designed by the creator of the King Kong and Jaws exhibits at the Universal Studios theme park, the stunning 60,000 square foot (5,400 square-metre) facility is built for a specific purpose: refuting evolution and expanding the flock of believers in a literal interpretation of the Bible.
"You'll get people into a place like this that you can't get into a church with a stick of dynamite," said founder Ken Ham from his office overlooking the museum's manicured grounds.
"Some will still sneer, some will say we'd like to hear you again and some will actually believe."
The potential audience is huge in a country divided over the origins of the universe and battling in the courts to bring creationism into classrooms.
At a recent debate among Republican presidential hopefuls, three candidates raised their hands when asked who did not believe in evolution.
Polls consistently show that nearly half of Americans believe God created humans in their present form less than 10,000 years ago. Only about 13 percent believe God played no part in the origin of human life.
.....
While the content is debatable, there is no question as to the high production value and professionalism of the 27-million dollar (20-million euro) facility.
In a scene reminiscent of Jurassic Park, no expense was spared to create the "wow factor" of the main entrance hall.
An animatronic girl giggles and feeds a squirrel next to stream filled with live fish as two baby T-rexes play a few feet away.
To the left is a 500,000 dollar planetarium -- whose dome will show films proving that "the heavens declare God's Glory" -- and a bookstore and gift shop designed to look like a medieval castle, complete with a dragon.
To the right, is a special effects theater with shaking seats, thunder and mists of water for the flood scenes.
The "wows" continue as visitors pass through the Grand Canyon into the Garden of Eden, Noah's Ark, the Tower of Babel and scenes from the life of Christ.
Located just outside of Cincinnati near the intersection of the states of Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, nearly two thirds of the population of the United States lives within a 650-mile (1,050-kilometer) drive of the Creation Museum.
It is expected to draw at least 250,000 people a year when it opens on May 28.
By comparison, the American Museum of Natural History, which recently organized a touring Darwin exhibit, draws millions of visitors every year -- including more than 400,000 school children -- to its 1.6 million square foot facility in New York.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Opinion:What does a girl have to do to get excommunicated?
I am no fan of abortion, and take an only slightly-less-strict view on it than the Church: when a woman's health is in danger, I feel that allowing the mother to die is just as heinous as aborting the fetus, thereby (regretably) justifying abortion.
Today's Salon magazine features an interesting piece by Frances Kissling, head of "Catholics for a Free Choice," in which she discusses why, for all their bluster and bloviation, bishops don't and can't excommunicate those who advocate for abortion rights.
____________________________________________
What does a girl have to do to get excommunicated?Catholic officials keep threatening to excommunicate pro-choice politicians and activists like me. I think they're bluffing, and canon law is on my side.
By Frances Kissling
May. 21, 2007 Every so often some Roman Catholic hierarch gets a bee in his beanie and makes noises about excommunicating some pro-choice policy maker. Ultra-orthodox Catholics are ecstatic, and even mainstream newspapers turn into tabloids rushing to report the imminence of something that never happens. I pay attention to this stuff. Right-wing Catholics have been pleading with the Vatican to excommunicate me along with Mario Cuomo, Patrick Leahy, Ted Kennedy and Ellie Smeal for about 20 years. They frequently announce that I have excommunicated myself because of my pro-choice views, but as is true for 99.9 percent of pro-choice Catholics, no one who could actually excommunicate me has ever done so.
Excommunication in the 21st century might have some benefits. Like Sonia Johnson. who was excommunicated from the Mormon church for her support of the Equal Rights Amendment, I could get a book contract, go on a speaking tour and have a couple years of celebrity. And, since there is no way the church could effectively police the excommunication, I could also ignore it and keep going to Mass and taking Communion. As one canon lawyer told me, the church has only the power we give it. No more burning at the stake, no loss of one's job, no Vatican prisons -- what are they going to do?
But in the end, excommunication is no joking matter, No Catholic, however rebellious and irreverent, wants to be excommunicated. And so I spent my 25 years as head of Catholics for a Free Choice with my fingers crossed. The fact that there were no firm canonical grounds for excommunication did not mean some overzealous bishop wouldn't do the wrong thing. And because bishops are still feudal princes, the excommunication would be allowed to stand.
Catholic politicians tend to worry more than radical women about the church's official disapproval because they have something more to lose -- elections and credibility. During political campaigns threats of excommunication can become a distraction from getting heard on big issues like healthcare and war. When John Kerry was on "wafer watch," with reporters camped out in front of whatever church he was going to that Sunday in order to see if he would be turned away from the altar, he had trouble getting his message out. And no doubt he was scared. Catholics of a certain age remember public humiliation from Sister Mary Ignatius as the source of schoolroom angst. Just go to a Christopher Durang play if you don't know what I'm talking about.
While no one is getting excommunicated and the lesser penalty of denying a person Communion is very rare, bishops and cardinals are talking about these "options" more than ever. The week before last, Pope Benedict got dragged into the debate during an impromptu press conference on "Shepherd One," the plane taking him to Brazil for a state visit. The pope was asked if legislators who voted to legalize abortion in Mexico City should be excommunicated. "Yes," he replied, "the excommunication was not something arbitrary. It is part of the code [of canon law]."
End of story? Hardly. Within moments the papal spokesperson, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, was walking the pope's remarks back for reporters, noting that the Mexicans hadn't yet taken any action. "If the bishops [of Mexico City] haven't excommunicated anyone, it's not that the pope wants to," he explained. The next day, the Vatican published a transcript of the pope's remarks, and the "yes" was nowhere to be found. As Lombardi explained, "Every time the pope speaks off the cuff, the secretariat of state reviews and cleans up his remarks."
But what's to "clean up"? The pope is worried about changes in the abortion law throughout Latin America, not just Mexico. The Colombian Supreme Court declared laws against abortion unconstitutional in that country. The very Catholic Brazilian president told Catholic radio stations that while he was personally opposed to abortion, Brazil's social conditions mean that some pregnant women need help. "The state needs to treat [abortion] as a matter of public health." In Uruguay, the House passed a liberal abortion law four and a half years ago, and although it failed in the Senate in 2004, the issue is expected to emerge again.
And yet, the pope -- and it seems most Catholic bishops -- do not excommunicate; they equivocate. Again, take Mexico. Maria Mejia, the president of Mexico's Catholics for the Right to Decide, claimed that at the beginning of the abortion debate, the spokesman for the Mexico City Archdiocese, the Rev. Hugo Valdemar, had said that legislators who supported the law would be "automatically excommunicated." Later, the Mexican bishops' conference repeated the claim that politicians who support abortion, doctors who perform them, and women who have them automatically excommunicate themselves. Several legislators responded by asking the bishops to send them written confirmation of their excommunication. The bishops backed off. Cardinal Rivera Carrera, head of the bishops' conference, announced that he was not excommunicating anyone, but that legislators who had voted to legalize abortion were "impeded from receiving communion."
In the absence of any willingness from the hierarchy to issue an actual, formal "bull of excommunication," which requires due process, warnings and canonical justification, conservative church leaders prefer ambiguity. They tell us we have "excommunicated ourselves" by supporting legal abortion (which, in fact, is also what Lombardi ultimately told reporters the pope had meant to say about Mexican legislators). Or church officials "advise" policy makers that they should not present themselves for Communion if they are not in a "state of grace" and suggest that supporting legal abortion means they can't be in a state of grace. Such pronouncements make good headlines, but they do not intimidate well-educated Catholics. Increasingly, we know canon law as well as we know civil law.
In reality, it is quite difficult to excommunicate yourself, even if you do have an abortion. Only seven acts merit automatic excommunication, and only three of those acts can be committed by laypeople. One of them is to attempt to assassinate the pope, another is profaning the Host (the Communion wafer), and the last is to successfully perform or have an abortion. No attempted or actual "murder" other than abortion subjects you to the ultimate penalty of automatic excommunication -- you can massacre thousands of civilians in war and, while you will surely have sinned, you are not automatically excommunicated.
But the code of canon law also states that "automatic" excommunication for abortion is not really automatic. Canon law 1323 sets out the exceptions for excommunication. If one is under 17, ignorant of the penalty for one's deed, acts out of fear or coercion, or believes one's action is moral, the penalty does not apply. Many canon lawyers have said that it is unlikely that any woman who has an abortion does not meet one of those exculpatory conditions. Even economic stress could be considered to be coercive.
A friend who was formerly president of a Catholic women's college once told me about a meeting between college presidents and a prominent Catholic bishop, who complained that the educators had educated women too well. It would seem that many Catholics are now too well-educated. We follow our conscience -- and as much as that may make papal politics difficult, our bishops know we are within our rights.
Today's Salon magazine features an interesting piece by Frances Kissling, head of "Catholics for a Free Choice," in which she discusses why, for all their bluster and bloviation, bishops don't and can't excommunicate those who advocate for abortion rights.
____________________________________________
What does a girl have to do to get excommunicated?Catholic officials keep threatening to excommunicate pro-choice politicians and activists like me. I think they're bluffing, and canon law is on my side.
By Frances Kissling
May. 21, 2007 Every so often some Roman Catholic hierarch gets a bee in his beanie and makes noises about excommunicating some pro-choice policy maker. Ultra-orthodox Catholics are ecstatic, and even mainstream newspapers turn into tabloids rushing to report the imminence of something that never happens. I pay attention to this stuff. Right-wing Catholics have been pleading with the Vatican to excommunicate me along with Mario Cuomo, Patrick Leahy, Ted Kennedy and Ellie Smeal for about 20 years. They frequently announce that I have excommunicated myself because of my pro-choice views, but as is true for 99.9 percent of pro-choice Catholics, no one who could actually excommunicate me has ever done so.
Excommunication in the 21st century might have some benefits. Like Sonia Johnson. who was excommunicated from the Mormon church for her support of the Equal Rights Amendment, I could get a book contract, go on a speaking tour and have a couple years of celebrity. And, since there is no way the church could effectively police the excommunication, I could also ignore it and keep going to Mass and taking Communion. As one canon lawyer told me, the church has only the power we give it. No more burning at the stake, no loss of one's job, no Vatican prisons -- what are they going to do?
But in the end, excommunication is no joking matter, No Catholic, however rebellious and irreverent, wants to be excommunicated. And so I spent my 25 years as head of Catholics for a Free Choice with my fingers crossed. The fact that there were no firm canonical grounds for excommunication did not mean some overzealous bishop wouldn't do the wrong thing. And because bishops are still feudal princes, the excommunication would be allowed to stand.
Catholic politicians tend to worry more than radical women about the church's official disapproval because they have something more to lose -- elections and credibility. During political campaigns threats of excommunication can become a distraction from getting heard on big issues like healthcare and war. When John Kerry was on "wafer watch," with reporters camped out in front of whatever church he was going to that Sunday in order to see if he would be turned away from the altar, he had trouble getting his message out. And no doubt he was scared. Catholics of a certain age remember public humiliation from Sister Mary Ignatius as the source of schoolroom angst. Just go to a Christopher Durang play if you don't know what I'm talking about.
While no one is getting excommunicated and the lesser penalty of denying a person Communion is very rare, bishops and cardinals are talking about these "options" more than ever. The week before last, Pope Benedict got dragged into the debate during an impromptu press conference on "Shepherd One," the plane taking him to Brazil for a state visit. The pope was asked if legislators who voted to legalize abortion in Mexico City should be excommunicated. "Yes," he replied, "the excommunication was not something arbitrary. It is part of the code [of canon law]."
End of story? Hardly. Within moments the papal spokesperson, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, was walking the pope's remarks back for reporters, noting that the Mexicans hadn't yet taken any action. "If the bishops [of Mexico City] haven't excommunicated anyone, it's not that the pope wants to," he explained. The next day, the Vatican published a transcript of the pope's remarks, and the "yes" was nowhere to be found. As Lombardi explained, "Every time the pope speaks off the cuff, the secretariat of state reviews and cleans up his remarks."
But what's to "clean up"? The pope is worried about changes in the abortion law throughout Latin America, not just Mexico. The Colombian Supreme Court declared laws against abortion unconstitutional in that country. The very Catholic Brazilian president told Catholic radio stations that while he was personally opposed to abortion, Brazil's social conditions mean that some pregnant women need help. "The state needs to treat [abortion] as a matter of public health." In Uruguay, the House passed a liberal abortion law four and a half years ago, and although it failed in the Senate in 2004, the issue is expected to emerge again.
And yet, the pope -- and it seems most Catholic bishops -- do not excommunicate; they equivocate. Again, take Mexico. Maria Mejia, the president of Mexico's Catholics for the Right to Decide, claimed that at the beginning of the abortion debate, the spokesman for the Mexico City Archdiocese, the Rev. Hugo Valdemar, had said that legislators who supported the law would be "automatically excommunicated." Later, the Mexican bishops' conference repeated the claim that politicians who support abortion, doctors who perform them, and women who have them automatically excommunicate themselves. Several legislators responded by asking the bishops to send them written confirmation of their excommunication. The bishops backed off. Cardinal Rivera Carrera, head of the bishops' conference, announced that he was not excommunicating anyone, but that legislators who had voted to legalize abortion were "impeded from receiving communion."
In the absence of any willingness from the hierarchy to issue an actual, formal "bull of excommunication," which requires due process, warnings and canonical justification, conservative church leaders prefer ambiguity. They tell us we have "excommunicated ourselves" by supporting legal abortion (which, in fact, is also what Lombardi ultimately told reporters the pope had meant to say about Mexican legislators). Or church officials "advise" policy makers that they should not present themselves for Communion if they are not in a "state of grace" and suggest that supporting legal abortion means they can't be in a state of grace. Such pronouncements make good headlines, but they do not intimidate well-educated Catholics. Increasingly, we know canon law as well as we know civil law.
In reality, it is quite difficult to excommunicate yourself, even if you do have an abortion. Only seven acts merit automatic excommunication, and only three of those acts can be committed by laypeople. One of them is to attempt to assassinate the pope, another is profaning the Host (the Communion wafer), and the last is to successfully perform or have an abortion. No attempted or actual "murder" other than abortion subjects you to the ultimate penalty of automatic excommunication -- you can massacre thousands of civilians in war and, while you will surely have sinned, you are not automatically excommunicated.
But the code of canon law also states that "automatic" excommunication for abortion is not really automatic. Canon law 1323 sets out the exceptions for excommunication. If one is under 17, ignorant of the penalty for one's deed, acts out of fear or coercion, or believes one's action is moral, the penalty does not apply. Many canon lawyers have said that it is unlikely that any woman who has an abortion does not meet one of those exculpatory conditions. Even economic stress could be considered to be coercive.
A friend who was formerly president of a Catholic women's college once told me about a meeting between college presidents and a prominent Catholic bishop, who complained that the educators had educated women too well. It would seem that many Catholics are now too well-educated. We follow our conscience -- and as much as that may make papal politics difficult, our bishops know we are within our rights.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
RIP: Jerry Falwell
No self-respecting Christina would gloat over the death yesterday of Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority. But one wonders about the frosty reception he must be receiving in Heaven today. Purportedly a true warrior in the Army of The One, Falwell was on the wrong side of so many battles in the late-20th century culture wars. Though a famous promoter of the 10 commandments and bibical literalism, Falwell nonetheless took part in one of the greatest smear campaigns in American political history -- he dissemination of vicious (and false) attacks on Bill Clinton that portrayed the former president as a murderer. Nothing like setting aside the commandment agaist bearing false witness against one's neighbor in the interst of partisan gain.
Then there's Jerry's famous statement just after 9/11 blaming the attack on gays, lesbians and the ACLU, among others. The man was a born-again smearmeister. Not to mention the aspersions he spread about Tinky-Winky, the most inoffensive of the Teletubbies. Let's face it, when it came to blaming, never let it be said that Reverend Falwell picked anyone his size. Male and white makes right - mmm, hmm
Maybe Jerry ought to be nervous if he hears Saint Peter propose a toast. he joke might be on him. Purgatory might be just he place to ponder the many minds that Jerry led astray in his day.
CNN ran a story today about Falwell's mixd legacy. Read all about it.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Movie ReviewL Into the Great Silence
The film is long, it must be said. It features long, lingering shots of the monks at prayer -- favoring closeup shots of an ear, fingers, lips and eyes. But visually, the film is breathtaking. The interior of the monks' cells is spare, with plain wood furnishings and gray, stone walls. The diffuse lighting is almost entirely natural. Many of the shots achieve a Flemish painter's level of natural beauty and homeliness, with parts of the shot plunging into darkness. The camera lingers lovingly on small elements of the monkish life: a candle flame that hovers almost disembodied near the tabernacle in a near-dark chapel during middle-of-the-night prayer; a view of a snow-laden roof seen through a monk's window. The potential monotony of this approach is broken up using a number of techniques. Monks are caught as they make small movements -- adjusting the flue in a wood stove, eating from a tin of soup, scrubbing a plate, learning a new chant. Communal moments are shown as well -- the monks getting haircuts, filling pitchers of water, walking to chapel. The camera also focuses on the small things of nature -- a leaf, a rushing spring, water dripping from a drying dish, a patch of sky -- permitting us to study the beauty and simplicity of the small elements of the creation that surrounds us. In all of these ways, viewers find themselves drawn into the monks' silent world of prayer.
There are drawbacks and debatable choices. The filmmakers interspersed standard film stock with scenes made by (or in imitation of) the shaky home movie stock of the 1960s. Perhaps this was done in an attempt to provide a sense of the community's longevity. But the technique came just "this close" to being the a precious, film-school distraction. Though the Gregorian neums and script in the wonderfully over-sized chant books are an object of the filmmakers' attention, the contents of those beautiful words is never apparent. Those who have chanted the Divine Office during a retreat may know what is going on (the chanting of all 150 psalms over the course of a few weeks), but others will not. Too, there is a focus on the seasons of the year, but not on the seasons of the Church -- Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter -- which are enormously more significant to the monks. Then again, with a single unfortunate exception, one does not know much about the contents of or the motivation for the monks' prayer. What do they spend so much time doing -- meditating on the Passion? Scripture study? Self-analysis and reflection? By the same token, this lack of information brings viewers into contact with their own inner monologue -- "what are they doing now?" "How long will this movie last?" "How is the film structured?" These reflections, born of the silence of the movie theater, may precisely map to the inner lives of the men the film portrays. A more pressing issue is with the biblical texts that are occasionally (and with deliberate repetition) displayed on the screen. One verse, from Jeremiah, was horribly mistranslated from the French. The French read, "You seduced me, and I *allowed myself to be* seduced." The translation read, "You seduced me, and I was seduced," not entirely the same thing. Missing from both was the context of the verse, in which the prophet Jeremiah accuses God of luring him into prophetic career that caused him to be mocked and derided -- a far cry from the gentle feeling these words evoke when divorced from their biblical context. And one more problem: the one monk who spoke about his inner life was an elderly, blind man whose gentle piety was a vapid as his sight was blunted. One can only hope that others had an interior life that was less pollyannaish.
"Into Great Silence" is a challenging film on many levels. It is not easy to spend three hours watching others pray. But in the end, it succeeds in bringing the interior life of the monastery to a cinematic audience. Whatever flaws it suffers are subsumed to that larger and more worthy achievement -- the devotion of one's entire life to the worship of God.
Book Review: Why I Am A Catholic
"Why I Am a Catholic" by Garry Wills
Why popes need the Church and vice versa
Garry Wills is a paradox. He viciously attacks some of his Church's most public teachings, harshly questions the competence and motives of its leadership and challenges its image of itself. He is also madly in love with it, appreciating it for what it has managed to retain of its mission and calling. He is liberal and old-fashioned - a pre-Vatican-II-born Catholic who wields a pen-sword of truth in one hand, a rosary in the other and knows how to use both.
"Why I Am a Catholic" is Wills's response to the criticism he received from some quarters about his previous book, "Papal Sins." Many (including this reviewer) saw that book as an attack on celibacy, priesthood and the papacy. Not so, says Wills. A more careful reading would have shown it to be an attack was on the "structures of deceit" that the Church has built into itself. These structures defend celibacy, for instance, by knowingly twisting the meaning of scripture to fit pre-conceived conclusions. Wills doesn't seem to care whether the Church teaches celibacy, opposes contraception or reserves the priesthood to men. He detest the Church when it relies on untruths, selective history, outdated philosophy and bad scholarship to do so. Wills argues loudly and persuasively that using lies to sell truth is ultimately a losing proposition. And, I might add, even a diabolical one.
This volume attempts to set the record straight. But as the Church has allowed such an overgrowth of pietism, nonsense and superstition to flourish, Wills is compelled yet again to wield his machete of truth-telling with his characteristic vigor.
This book, which should have been called "Why Popes Matter," is written in three-parts. Part I details Wills's childhood and education. Raised in difficult economic times in the Midwest, he received his education at the hands of the Jesuits. At the time, this order was a fusty version of its old vigorous self, relying more on fleshly mortifications and [...]-retentive rule-mongering than on the innovative spiritual experiments of its founder, Ignatius of Loyola. Wills loved his teachers, though the curriculum was a straightjacket that forbade forays into secular literature, something suffocating to a nimble mind like Wills's. Still, he felt enough of a pull to consider joining the Jesuits, though he soon dropped out before making vows.
Part II, the longest, is a fairly detailed exposition of the history of the papacy. Wills makes it clear throughout that the term "papacy" is a misnomer for the institution, a modern concept retrojected into the history of the bishops of Rome to legitimize their rule and position. Wills starts with Peter, the bumbling disciple of Christ, his denier, his misunderstander, but ultimately, the one to whom he entrusted his sheep. Wills follows Peter to his likely execution in Rome, but makes the now-familiar case that Peter was no bishop of that city, even less so a pope. The same can be said of a number of men who followed Peter as leaders of the local Church. Not until the start of the first century can anyone be said to have possessed the self-awareness of being a bishop of Rome. Wills provides a fascinating glimpse into the relationship between the bishop of Rome and the rest of the Church. From its earliest days, Rome was an apostolic church, along with Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch. But it was a weak sister. The Council of Nicaea in 325 was dominated by the intellects of the Eastern Church, with a few stragglers from backwards and intellectually unsophisticated places like Rome.
From this inauspicious beginning, Wills traces the history of the papacy (still a misnomer, but useful shorthand) through its early years, through the glorious fiasco of the Middle Ages and into the modern time. Wills paints the institution as having been sometimes in serious error, even heresy; beholden to some princes (Constantine, Charlemagne and Otto) and imperiously superior to others; land-holding and land-broke; alternately dismissive of and dependent on councils; lashing out at modernity (and democracy and free speech) and embracing those same values. Wills spends much space on the more well-documented recent history of the Church -especially with the landmark Second Vatican Council. He ends with the papacy of John Paul I (still alive as Wills went to print this book in 2003) and with tantalizing glimpses of a certain "bete noir," Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. These latter two men are seen rightly by Wills as attempting to undo the "liberalizing" tendencies of Vatican II. Where V2 stressed the collegiality of bishops, JP2 and BB16 have worked hard to neutralize the autonomy of bishops and impress their own autocratic vision of Church "unity".
Ultimately, Wills ends this section with the idea to which the entire book has been leading. This is the idea that the papacy is part of the carsism of Peter" - the gospel-based leadership that Christ bestowed on Peter. But he innovates by counterbalancing this centralizing tendency with the need for the Church as a whole to correct Peter. Having laid out the history of the popes, it is very easy to see where the Church - through individual bishops like Augustine, to councils and even the tendency of the laity to resist dangerous innovation - have pushed the papacy. Together, both the papacy and the Church have corrected each other, and have ultimately kept each other on the narrow path. Wills see this kind of corrective action in the resistance of the laity to papal edicts attempting to limit discussion of birth control and male priesthood. If the laity only knew the power that it had.
Part II of the book, is a short excursus on the Apostle's Creed. This material is interesting, but not central to Wills's thesis. Garry Wills empbioesb the best in Catholic scholarship. He is devout without being obsequious; a son of the Church not afraid to warn his Mother she is driving the family over a cliff. His gift is to cut through thr cloying and self-serving faced that Church officials construct for themselves, blasting away until he gets to the Rock - not Peter in this case, but Christ, whose spirit continues to enliven the Church.
Why popes need the Church and vice versa
Garry Wills is a paradox. He viciously attacks some of his Church's most public teachings, harshly questions the competence and motives of its leadership and challenges its image of itself. He is also madly in love with it, appreciating it for what it has managed to retain of its mission and calling. He is liberal and old-fashioned - a pre-Vatican-II-born Catholic who wields a pen-sword of truth in one hand, a rosary in the other and knows how to use both.
"Why I Am a Catholic" is Wills's response to the criticism he received from some quarters about his previous book, "Papal Sins." Many (including this reviewer) saw that book as an attack on celibacy, priesthood and the papacy. Not so, says Wills. A more careful reading would have shown it to be an attack was on the "structures of deceit" that the Church has built into itself. These structures defend celibacy, for instance, by knowingly twisting the meaning of scripture to fit pre-conceived conclusions. Wills doesn't seem to care whether the Church teaches celibacy, opposes contraception or reserves the priesthood to men. He detest the Church when it relies on untruths, selective history, outdated philosophy and bad scholarship to do so. Wills argues loudly and persuasively that using lies to sell truth is ultimately a losing proposition. And, I might add, even a diabolical one.
This volume attempts to set the record straight. But as the Church has allowed such an overgrowth of pietism, nonsense and superstition to flourish, Wills is compelled yet again to wield his machete of truth-telling with his characteristic vigor.
This book, which should have been called "Why Popes Matter," is written in three-parts. Part I details Wills's childhood and education. Raised in difficult economic times in the Midwest, he received his education at the hands of the Jesuits. At the time, this order was a fusty version of its old vigorous self, relying more on fleshly mortifications and [...]-retentive rule-mongering than on the innovative spiritual experiments of its founder, Ignatius of Loyola. Wills loved his teachers, though the curriculum was a straightjacket that forbade forays into secular literature, something suffocating to a nimble mind like Wills's. Still, he felt enough of a pull to consider joining the Jesuits, though he soon dropped out before making vows.
Part II, the longest, is a fairly detailed exposition of the history of the papacy. Wills makes it clear throughout that the term "papacy" is a misnomer for the institution, a modern concept retrojected into the history of the bishops of Rome to legitimize their rule and position. Wills starts with Peter, the bumbling disciple of Christ, his denier, his misunderstander, but ultimately, the one to whom he entrusted his sheep. Wills follows Peter to his likely execution in Rome, but makes the now-familiar case that Peter was no bishop of that city, even less so a pope. The same can be said of a number of men who followed Peter as leaders of the local Church. Not until the start of the first century can anyone be said to have possessed the self-awareness of being a bishop of Rome. Wills provides a fascinating glimpse into the relationship between the bishop of Rome and the rest of the Church. From its earliest days, Rome was an apostolic church, along with Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch. But it was a weak sister. The Council of Nicaea in 325 was dominated by the intellects of the Eastern Church, with a few stragglers from backwards and intellectually unsophisticated places like Rome.
From this inauspicious beginning, Wills traces the history of the papacy (still a misnomer, but useful shorthand) through its early years, through the glorious fiasco of the Middle Ages and into the modern time. Wills paints the institution as having been sometimes in serious error, even heresy; beholden to some princes (Constantine, Charlemagne and Otto) and imperiously superior to others; land-holding and land-broke; alternately dismissive of and dependent on councils; lashing out at modernity (and democracy and free speech) and embracing those same values. Wills spends much space on the more well-documented recent history of the Church -especially with the landmark Second Vatican Council. He ends with the papacy of John Paul I (still alive as Wills went to print this book in 2003) and with tantalizing glimpses of a certain "bete noir," Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. These latter two men are seen rightly by Wills as attempting to undo the "liberalizing" tendencies of Vatican II. Where V2 stressed the collegiality of bishops, JP2 and BB16 have worked hard to neutralize the autonomy of bishops and impress their own autocratic vision of Church "unity".
Ultimately, Wills ends this section with the idea to which the entire book has been leading. This is the idea that the papacy is part of the carsism of Peter" - the gospel-based leadership that Christ bestowed on Peter. But he innovates by counterbalancing this centralizing tendency with the need for the Church as a whole to correct Peter. Having laid out the history of the popes, it is very easy to see where the Church - through individual bishops like Augustine, to councils and even the tendency of the laity to resist dangerous innovation - have pushed the papacy. Together, both the papacy and the Church have corrected each other, and have ultimately kept each other on the narrow path. Wills see this kind of corrective action in the resistance of the laity to papal edicts attempting to limit discussion of birth control and male priesthood. If the laity only knew the power that it had.
Part II of the book, is a short excursus on the Apostle's Creed. This material is interesting, but not central to Wills's thesis. Garry Wills empbioesb the best in Catholic scholarship. He is devout without being obsequious; a son of the Church not afraid to warn his Mother she is driving the family over a cliff. His gift is to cut through thr cloying and self-serving faced that Church officials construct for themselves, blasting away until he gets to the Rock - not Peter in this case, but Christ, whose spirit continues to enliven the Church.
Manufacturing belief
I enjoy reading the thoughts of atheists, the most interesting of whom are gentle British scientists. This does not make me an atheist, of course. But it's fun to read the extreme opposing view to one's own beliefs. The article below has some interesting points to make. If at some point a pre-human brain developed an ability to perceive cause-and-effect relationships better than others in its clan, and this ability conferred an advantage, then natural selection would have selected for this trait. Over time, as this person's offspring developed variations on this ability, presumably, cause-and-effect pre-humans would predominate their less-gifted cousins.
But what happens to a person with a cause and effect brain when faced with a situation (disease, death, bad weather) whose cause is unknown? Will that person experience a cognitive dissonance so severe that he/she will have to invent a cause -- say a godlike, invisible reality -- to calm his brains? Developmental biologist (and atheist) Lewis Wolpert takes on this question in an interview, excerpted here from http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/05/15/lewis_wolpert/print.html
What is your theistic reply to this line of reasoning? To call it false? Could a transcendent being work through the natural world to create such a talent? Or would such a being merely exploit it once it developed naturally? In one scenario, God actively "creates" -- by switching on a gene or whatever -- to move evolution in a particular direction. In the other scenario, God is more passive, waiting for changes to happen so that he can communicate with the being thus enabled -- in effect, waiting for the 2-way radio to build itself so he can talk with its owner.
Anyway, food for thought.
TCC
___________________________
Manufacturing belief
The origin of religion is in our heads, explains developmental biologist Lewis Wolpert. First we figured out how to make tools, then created a supernatural being.
By Steve Paulson
May. 15, 2007 In Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass," Alice tells the White Queen that she cannot believe in impossible things. But the Queen says Alice simply hasn't had enough practice. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." That human penchant for belief -- or perhaps gullibility -- is what inspired biologist Lewis Wolpert to write a book about the evolutionary origins of belief called "Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast."
Wolpert is an eminent developmental biologist at University College London. Like fellow British scientist Richard Dawkins, he's an outspoken atheist with a knack for saying outrageous things. Unlike Dawkins, Wolpert has no desire to abolish religion. In fact, he thinks religious belief can provide great comfort and points to medical studies showing that the faithful tend to suffer less stress and anxiety than nonbelievers. In Wolpert's view, religion has given believers an evolutionary advantage, even though it's based on a grand illusion.
He has a theory for why religion first took root. He thinks human brains evolved to become "belief engines." Once our ancient ancestors understood cause and effect, they figured out how to manipulate the natural world. In essence, toolmaking made us human. Similarly, early hominids felt compelled to find causes for life's great mysteries, including illness and death. They came to believe in unseen gods and spirits.
Wolpert sees human credulity all around him -- not just religious faith but all sorts of modern superstitions. His book targets astrology, psychics, homeopathy and acupuncture. Wolpert has participated in public debates with maverick scientist Rupert Sheldrake about telepathy and other paranormal experiences. He dismisses Sheldrake's theory -- that "morphic fields" can transmit thoughts through space and time -- as nonsense.
There's no doubt that Wolpert is a provocateur, but unlike some other prominent atheists, he doesn't come across as a bitter enemy of religion. In conversation, his pronouncements are often punctuated by laughter and mock horror. I spoke with Wolpert by phone about the origins of religion, his doubts about telepathy and acupuncture, and why the debate over religion is so personal for him.
Can you explain the "belief engine" in the human brain?
What makes us different from all other animals is that we have causal beliefs about the physical world. I know that if I throw this glass at the window, it's probably going to break. Children have this understanding at a very early age. Animals, on the other hand, have a very poor understanding of cause and effect in the physical world. My argument is that causal understanding gave rise to toolmaking; that was the evolutionary advantage. It's toolmaking that's really driven human evolution. This is not widely accepted, I'm afraid, but there's no question about it. It's tools that really made us human. They may even have given rise to language.
But there is evidence that some animals have a very primitive form of toolmaking.
There's no question that certain apes are at the edge of causal understanding and they do make some very simple tools. Chimpanzees can break a nut with a stone. They can also take a stick and peel it to get ants out of a tree. But it's still very primitive. Curiously, some crows show remarkable toolmaking, using sticks to get things out of bottles. But on the whole, it's primitive compared to us.
And I suppose the radically new thing our ancestors did was to put two objects together -- for instance, a piece of stone on a wooden handle.
Precisely. You can't do that without having a concept of cause and effect. And once you had that concept, you wanted to understand the causes of other things that mattered in your life, like illness. That's the origin of religion. The most obvious causes were those things caused by humans, so people imagined there was some sort of god with human characteristics. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of different gods in different societies.
So once you have an understanding of cause and effect, then ignorance is no longer tolerable? You want to explain everything.
Exactly. You know, we cannot tolerate not knowing the causes of things that affect our lives. If you go to the doctor when you're ill, the one thing you can't stand is the doctor saying he or she has no idea what's wrong with you. And when they do diagnose you, I'm prepared to bet that on your way home, you'll tell yourself a story as to why you got ill.
But which came first: understanding cause and effect or learning to make tools?
They went together, but you cannot make complex tools without a concept of cause and effect. You must remember that no animal has a basket. If they go away from water, they can't take any water with them. They can't carry things. However, we're driven by interacting with our environment and looking for causes that affect our lives.
Are you saying our brains are hard-wired for belief?
Our brains are absolutely hard-wired for causal belief. And I think they're a bit soft-wired for religious and mystical belief. Those people who had religious beliefs did better than those who did not, and they were selected for.
Why did they do better?
They were less anxious. They also had someone to pray to. In general, religious people are somewhat healthier than people who don't have religious beliefs.
Haven't studies shown that religious believers tend to be more optimistic, and that they're less prone to strokes and high blood pressure?
Yes, exactly. Therefore, evolution will select them.
So religion gives us a sense of purpose and meaning, even though in your view it's totally an illusion.
Yes, many people would find it very hard to live without religion. But there is no meaning, I regret to tell you. [Laughs] We don't understand where the universe came from. But to say God made it, well, you want to say, who made God?
To say there's no meaning is a pretty depressing assessment, isn't it?
No, why should there be a meaning? I mean, we want a cause as to why we're here, but I'm afraid there isn't one. I don't find it depressing at all. I think it's remarkable that evolution has brought us into being. We're only here for one purpose, from an evolutionary point of view, and that's to reproduce.
You write that you were once quite a religious child yourself. When did you turn away from religion?
I came from quite a conventional Jewish family -- not Orthodox, but conventional -- in South Africa. I had to say my prayers every night. And I used to pray to God to help me in various things but found it didn't help. So I stopped being religious.
Your son became a fundamentalist Christian after a difficult late adolescence. Is he still an evangelical Christian?
No, he's not. The church he was in broke up. He's still a believer, but he doesn't go to church.
Does his faith bother you?
No. I found that religion was helping him a great deal. It gave him someone to pray to. He became a member of a church where they could discuss their problems. And I think the idea that he would eventually go to heaven gave him a great deal of encouragement.
Has your son read the chapter on religion in your book? It's rather dismissive of religion.
He knows I'm dismissive of it. In fact, I just spoke to him last night on the telephone and asked him, "Did I ever try to dissuade you from being religious?" He said, "No, you never did." I wouldn't agree with him, but I never tried to dissuade him not to be.
Do you find yourself wondering about ultimate meaning? Does that matter in your life?
Never. Ultimate meaning has no meaning in my life. I sound a bit shallow, but I think it's actually quite deep not to be bothered by that sort of thing.
You call David Hume your "hero philosopher." Why do you like him so much?
First of all, I don't like any other philosopher. I think philosophers are terribly clever but have absolutely nothing useful to say whatsoever. I avoid philosophy like mad. But David Hume does say such interesting and important things. He's very good on religion, for example. I like him for that.
Well, he didn't like religion.
No, it's not that he didn't like religion. If you take miracles, for example, there's a lovely quote from David Hume that you shouldn't believe in any miracle unless the evidence is so strong that it would be miraculous not to believe in it.
There are various competing theories about the origins of religion. One is the idea that religion evolved because it helped bind people together in social groups. Essentially, it acted like social glue. Why don't you think that's right?
I don't think it's wrong. There is some evidence that religion does lead to a community with shared views. But you have to ask, Why does religion deal so much with cause and effect? That comes from causal beliefs.
What about Daniel Dennett's idea that religion is a kind of "meme" -- an idea that has infected human cultures and keeps on spreading?
If you could tell me what a meme is, and how useful it is, I'd be very grateful. [Laughs] Please don't misunderstand, I'm a great admirer of Richard Dawkins [who developed the concept of memes]. But what are memes? How do you decide whether something is a meme or not? And what you really want to understand is, how is it passed on and why does it persist? This is never discussed. So for Daniel Dennett -- who's a philosopher, after all -- to get involved with memes, the moment he does that, I just stop reading him.
Virtually all these theories draw on evolutionary psychology. But I wonder if we're losing the flavor of religious experience, the willingness to live in mystery, embrace imagination and intuition.
Sometimes I've thought it must be quite nice to believe in religion. I'm getting quite old. The idea that I might go to heaven -- of course, there's also the possibility, in my case, that I would go to hell -- is quite an attractive one. Unfortunately, I don't believe that for a single second. I mean, the evidence for God is simply nonexistent.
Isn't there more to religion than belief in supernatural beings?
Certainly not.
But many theologians and scholars, such as historian Karen Armstrong, say religion at its root is not really about a set of beliefs. It's more about how to live your life and being compassionate in the world.
Well, many people who are atheists can behave quite well. That doesn't make us religious. No, it doesn't work like that at all.
I grant that. But do you really think religion comes down to belief in the supernatural?
When I talk about religion, I'm talking about belief in the supernatural. In Western society, we're talking about God. I don't believe you can be religious without having some concept of a god.
What about William James? He talked about religion as experience more than belief.
I think "The Varieties of Religious Experience" is one of the best books written about belief. Nothing has really changed since he wrote it a hundred years ago. He did point out that many people become religious because they had a religious experience. And that fits with my idea that we're partly wired to have religious beliefs. If you take the active component of a magic mushroom and give it to a group of people, quite a few of them will have mystical, almost religious, beliefs. It must mean the circuits are there which are turned on by the drug.
So it all comes down to the chemicals that are firing in the brain?
I'm afraid so. Your neural circuits, yes.
But what happens to a person with a cause and effect brain when faced with a situation (disease, death, bad weather) whose cause is unknown? Will that person experience a cognitive dissonance so severe that he/she will have to invent a cause -- say a godlike, invisible reality -- to calm his brains? Developmental biologist (and atheist) Lewis Wolpert takes on this question in an interview, excerpted here from http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/05/15/lewis_wolpert/print.html
What is your theistic reply to this line of reasoning? To call it false? Could a transcendent being work through the natural world to create such a talent? Or would such a being merely exploit it once it developed naturally? In one scenario, God actively "creates" -- by switching on a gene or whatever -- to move evolution in a particular direction. In the other scenario, God is more passive, waiting for changes to happen so that he can communicate with the being thus enabled -- in effect, waiting for the 2-way radio to build itself so he can talk with its owner.
Anyway, food for thought.
TCC
___________________________
Manufacturing belief
The origin of religion is in our heads, explains developmental biologist Lewis Wolpert. First we figured out how to make tools, then created a supernatural being.
By Steve Paulson
May. 15, 2007 In Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass," Alice tells the White Queen that she cannot believe in impossible things. But the Queen says Alice simply hasn't had enough practice. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." That human penchant for belief -- or perhaps gullibility -- is what inspired biologist Lewis Wolpert to write a book about the evolutionary origins of belief called "Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast."
Wolpert is an eminent developmental biologist at University College London. Like fellow British scientist Richard Dawkins, he's an outspoken atheist with a knack for saying outrageous things. Unlike Dawkins, Wolpert has no desire to abolish religion. In fact, he thinks religious belief can provide great comfort and points to medical studies showing that the faithful tend to suffer less stress and anxiety than nonbelievers. In Wolpert's view, religion has given believers an evolutionary advantage, even though it's based on a grand illusion.
He has a theory for why religion first took root. He thinks human brains evolved to become "belief engines." Once our ancient ancestors understood cause and effect, they figured out how to manipulate the natural world. In essence, toolmaking made us human. Similarly, early hominids felt compelled to find causes for life's great mysteries, including illness and death. They came to believe in unseen gods and spirits.
Wolpert sees human credulity all around him -- not just religious faith but all sorts of modern superstitions. His book targets astrology, psychics, homeopathy and acupuncture. Wolpert has participated in public debates with maverick scientist Rupert Sheldrake about telepathy and other paranormal experiences. He dismisses Sheldrake's theory -- that "morphic fields" can transmit thoughts through space and time -- as nonsense.
There's no doubt that Wolpert is a provocateur, but unlike some other prominent atheists, he doesn't come across as a bitter enemy of religion. In conversation, his pronouncements are often punctuated by laughter and mock horror. I spoke with Wolpert by phone about the origins of religion, his doubts about telepathy and acupuncture, and why the debate over religion is so personal for him.
Can you explain the "belief engine" in the human brain?
What makes us different from all other animals is that we have causal beliefs about the physical world. I know that if I throw this glass at the window, it's probably going to break. Children have this understanding at a very early age. Animals, on the other hand, have a very poor understanding of cause and effect in the physical world. My argument is that causal understanding gave rise to toolmaking; that was the evolutionary advantage. It's toolmaking that's really driven human evolution. This is not widely accepted, I'm afraid, but there's no question about it. It's tools that really made us human. They may even have given rise to language.
But there is evidence that some animals have a very primitive form of toolmaking.
There's no question that certain apes are at the edge of causal understanding and they do make some very simple tools. Chimpanzees can break a nut with a stone. They can also take a stick and peel it to get ants out of a tree. But it's still very primitive. Curiously, some crows show remarkable toolmaking, using sticks to get things out of bottles. But on the whole, it's primitive compared to us.
And I suppose the radically new thing our ancestors did was to put two objects together -- for instance, a piece of stone on a wooden handle.
Precisely. You can't do that without having a concept of cause and effect. And once you had that concept, you wanted to understand the causes of other things that mattered in your life, like illness. That's the origin of religion. The most obvious causes were those things caused by humans, so people imagined there was some sort of god with human characteristics. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of different gods in different societies.
So once you have an understanding of cause and effect, then ignorance is no longer tolerable? You want to explain everything.
Exactly. You know, we cannot tolerate not knowing the causes of things that affect our lives. If you go to the doctor when you're ill, the one thing you can't stand is the doctor saying he or she has no idea what's wrong with you. And when they do diagnose you, I'm prepared to bet that on your way home, you'll tell yourself a story as to why you got ill.
But which came first: understanding cause and effect or learning to make tools?
They went together, but you cannot make complex tools without a concept of cause and effect. You must remember that no animal has a basket. If they go away from water, they can't take any water with them. They can't carry things. However, we're driven by interacting with our environment and looking for causes that affect our lives.
Are you saying our brains are hard-wired for belief?
Our brains are absolutely hard-wired for causal belief. And I think they're a bit soft-wired for religious and mystical belief. Those people who had religious beliefs did better than those who did not, and they were selected for.
Why did they do better?
They were less anxious. They also had someone to pray to. In general, religious people are somewhat healthier than people who don't have religious beliefs.
Haven't studies shown that religious believers tend to be more optimistic, and that they're less prone to strokes and high blood pressure?
Yes, exactly. Therefore, evolution will select them.
So religion gives us a sense of purpose and meaning, even though in your view it's totally an illusion.
Yes, many people would find it very hard to live without religion. But there is no meaning, I regret to tell you. [Laughs] We don't understand where the universe came from. But to say God made it, well, you want to say, who made God?
To say there's no meaning is a pretty depressing assessment, isn't it?
No, why should there be a meaning? I mean, we want a cause as to why we're here, but I'm afraid there isn't one. I don't find it depressing at all. I think it's remarkable that evolution has brought us into being. We're only here for one purpose, from an evolutionary point of view, and that's to reproduce.
You write that you were once quite a religious child yourself. When did you turn away from religion?
I came from quite a conventional Jewish family -- not Orthodox, but conventional -- in South Africa. I had to say my prayers every night. And I used to pray to God to help me in various things but found it didn't help. So I stopped being religious.
Your son became a fundamentalist Christian after a difficult late adolescence. Is he still an evangelical Christian?
No, he's not. The church he was in broke up. He's still a believer, but he doesn't go to church.
Does his faith bother you?
No. I found that religion was helping him a great deal. It gave him someone to pray to. He became a member of a church where they could discuss their problems. And I think the idea that he would eventually go to heaven gave him a great deal of encouragement.
Has your son read the chapter on religion in your book? It's rather dismissive of religion.
He knows I'm dismissive of it. In fact, I just spoke to him last night on the telephone and asked him, "Did I ever try to dissuade you from being religious?" He said, "No, you never did." I wouldn't agree with him, but I never tried to dissuade him not to be.
Do you find yourself wondering about ultimate meaning? Does that matter in your life?
Never. Ultimate meaning has no meaning in my life. I sound a bit shallow, but I think it's actually quite deep not to be bothered by that sort of thing.
You call David Hume your "hero philosopher." Why do you like him so much?
First of all, I don't like any other philosopher. I think philosophers are terribly clever but have absolutely nothing useful to say whatsoever. I avoid philosophy like mad. But David Hume does say such interesting and important things. He's very good on religion, for example. I like him for that.
Well, he didn't like religion.
No, it's not that he didn't like religion. If you take miracles, for example, there's a lovely quote from David Hume that you shouldn't believe in any miracle unless the evidence is so strong that it would be miraculous not to believe in it.
There are various competing theories about the origins of religion. One is the idea that religion evolved because it helped bind people together in social groups. Essentially, it acted like social glue. Why don't you think that's right?
I don't think it's wrong. There is some evidence that religion does lead to a community with shared views. But you have to ask, Why does religion deal so much with cause and effect? That comes from causal beliefs.
What about Daniel Dennett's idea that religion is a kind of "meme" -- an idea that has infected human cultures and keeps on spreading?
If you could tell me what a meme is, and how useful it is, I'd be very grateful. [Laughs] Please don't misunderstand, I'm a great admirer of Richard Dawkins [who developed the concept of memes]. But what are memes? How do you decide whether something is a meme or not? And what you really want to understand is, how is it passed on and why does it persist? This is never discussed. So for Daniel Dennett -- who's a philosopher, after all -- to get involved with memes, the moment he does that, I just stop reading him.
Virtually all these theories draw on evolutionary psychology. But I wonder if we're losing the flavor of religious experience, the willingness to live in mystery, embrace imagination and intuition.
Sometimes I've thought it must be quite nice to believe in religion. I'm getting quite old. The idea that I might go to heaven -- of course, there's also the possibility, in my case, that I would go to hell -- is quite an attractive one. Unfortunately, I don't believe that for a single second. I mean, the evidence for God is simply nonexistent.
Isn't there more to religion than belief in supernatural beings?
Certainly not.
But many theologians and scholars, such as historian Karen Armstrong, say religion at its root is not really about a set of beliefs. It's more about how to live your life and being compassionate in the world.
Well, many people who are atheists can behave quite well. That doesn't make us religious. No, it doesn't work like that at all.
I grant that. But do you really think religion comes down to belief in the supernatural?
When I talk about religion, I'm talking about belief in the supernatural. In Western society, we're talking about God. I don't believe you can be religious without having some concept of a god.
What about William James? He talked about religion as experience more than belief.
I think "The Varieties of Religious Experience" is one of the best books written about belief. Nothing has really changed since he wrote it a hundred years ago. He did point out that many people become religious because they had a religious experience. And that fits with my idea that we're partly wired to have religious beliefs. If you take the active component of a magic mushroom and give it to a group of people, quite a few of them will have mystical, almost religious, beliefs. It must mean the circuits are there which are turned on by the drug.
So it all comes down to the chemicals that are firing in the brain?
I'm afraid so. Your neural circuits, yes.
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