Where are we going?
I lifted this sermon preached at Duke last Sunday from Jerry. I’m always lifting items from Jerry. What can I tell you? He finds interesting stuff. There’s a lot of irritating nonsense in the sermon, so there are leftovers for me to work on.
It’s nice to have an actual sermon, as opposed to something written for a media outlet. It’s nice to get confirmation that clerics really do talk nonsense in their sermons without having to go to church to listen to them do it.
The last six years have witnessed the publication of a series of books, from a variety of authors, attacking religion with a virulence not seen for a long time. This movement has been called “The New Atheism.” It believes religion should no longer be tolerated but should be exposed, challenged and refuted at every opportunity, with a conviction founded on scientific certainty.
That’s not a leftover, but I have a couple of things to say about it. One, it’s offensively obtuse and partial and entitled. This “virulent” “series of books” amounts to about ten on a generous counting; the number of books attacking atheism with “virulence” is much much much greater than ten, yet this Reverend Sam Wells thinks the atheist books are an outrage while the anti-atheist books aren’t even worth noticing. In other words he has a blatant double standard (as do pretty much all the gnu atheist-haters). He simply assumes that a flood of religious and anti-secular books is perfectly routine and acceptable, while a tiny (though popular) blip of atheist books is something he gets to complain about.
Two, he is wrong and stupid and illiberal to claim that tolerance of religion excludes exposing and challenging it. He is wrong and stupid and illiberal to imply that tolerance of religion rules out exposing and challenging it. He is illiberal and rather bad to try to persuade other people of that.
The prophet Jeremiah describes God as a potter, handling and cherishing the clay, and making something beautiful out of clay that has been deformed or damaged. The Christian life begins when we realize that we are that clay.
But we aren’t that clay. We can’t “realize” we are that clay, because we aren’t. We aren’t clay at all, and we have no reason to think we are something that was handled and cherished by someone named “God.” That’s clearly supposed to pass as some kind of quasi-metaphoric claim but also as a quasi-factual one – otherwise the bit about the “Christian life” just makes no sense. We’re always being told that liberal believers don’t believe in the goddy version of “God” – but what else is God as a potter making us? It’s more literal than it sounds to people who have been trained to hear such things with an indulgent ear.
The relationship between science and theology is like clay: it’s moist and full of potential, and if cherished should become something beautiful. But currently this clay is spoiled in our hands.
How could a (much less “the”) relationship between science and theology become something beautiful? What kind of something? They always say things like that, but they never spell out what they mean. What can theology offer to science?
It’s fascinating to ask, “Where do we come from?” – but isn’t it at least as interesting, and perhaps more urgent, to ask, “Where are we going?” Theologians at this point hold no naïve optimism that as a species or as a universe we’re intrinsically heading for candyland. We’re sinners, as much as we’ve ever been, and we’re no better or worse than our forebears or descendants. But Christian theology is committed to the notion of sudden, final intervention of God in history that brings time to an end and inaugurates an era of glory and fulfilment.
And candyland.
So, that’s what theology can offer to science, and that’s why science manages to curb its enthusiasm.
Since you mentioned lifting things from Jerry, did you get my email about scooping Jerry? ;>
Actually, across many dimensions we are better than our forebears. The rate of violent death used to be much higher in centuries past. Rape, racism and religious intolerance were much more tolerated (or even condoned) in the past. Hell, slavery was ubiquitous until a bit under 200 years ago.
I’m an economist and I’ve read a lot of literature on development economics, which is basically the study of making 3rd world countries into 1st world countries. They care very deeply about what makes a country like the US different from a country like Haiti. What is it that makes a country go so wrong, and how could we fix it? So they study the sparse and uncontrolled data they can glean, they think of new approaches and try to get countries and aid agencies to try them. In short, there are plenty of people who are fully aware that candyland isn’t a given, but their response to this fact is to actually work at the problem, not smile condescendingly and utter a stream of mealy-mouthed platitudes. Because oddly enough it is knowledge, not glurge, that is the wellspring of human progress.
Man, that captures something. In considering what it is about the new atheists that riles people up more than atheists have in the past, I wonder if a lot of it is that Bertrand Russell didn’t seem to threaten theology as an academic discipline.
And, just you remember, if Ophelia and her bloodthirsty comrades are allowed to weaken theology, literature and philosophy are next.
Why would anyone think art, literature and philosophy would disappear when religion disappears?
I doubt a positive relationship exists between number of religious believers and number of artists, art museums, concert halls, writers, publishers, etc.
Where are we going? Why the hell is THAT urgent?
Listen, “Rev”, in 5 billion years or so, your question is irrelevant, since the sun will have incinerated our little rocky ball by then. So, let’s put things into perspective, M-kay?
There is nothing “after” your life. When you die, you decompose. Everyone is going to do it; and eventually the entire planet will be nothing but cinders.
Oh, I see. You mean, “where are we going right now because two large religious factions seem intent on killing one another with greater zeal than has been demonstrated in the past.” Yes, I agree, for our short-term prosperity and health of a large percentage of our species, that issue does bear some scrutiny.
Tell you what…both sides should start by standing down from claims of certain knowledge of such a thing as the existence of Yahweh/Allah. And that this Yahweh/Allah thingy has ever communicated to humans. And that men could have ever discovered with certainty what this Yahweh/Allah thingy wants of us. If you do just that — back off from YOUR claims of superior knowledge in the face of no evidence, then everything will turn out fine.
Peter, I got it but temporarily overlooked it; usual mail bottleneck.
Oh, man, this is pretty bad stuff. What is more shocking is that this sermon was preached at a university chapel. I shan’t comment on the things you’ve dealt with above, like the ‘virulent series of books,’ but there are other things that need pulling apart. I commented a bit over at Jerry’s, but then I read the sermon. Oh my!
Read the rest here.
A great (and shattering) comment, Eric. I may have to make it a post.
Ahh, yes. Good ole inescapable guilt. Sure, <u>you</u> may not have done anything bad, but you should feel a guilty regardless because of something your distant (mythical) ancestors did. Of course, this is never enough to maintain the sense of guilt for an entire lifetime, so thought-crimes need to be established on normal human impulses to reinforce it.
Feeling guilty for actual events in human history you had no part in and could not change even if you wanted to is destructive enough. I can’t imagine the harm caused by feeling guilty for the sole ‘crime’ of existing as a living human being.
@ Eric…
Excellent points (as usual). If I may be so bold as to point out that many of us don’t feel as if our lives are like broken pottery.
No one is immune to heartache, me included. But “broken”? I think not. And in need of fixing by some external potter’s hand, and not my own will and grief, mixed with my own joy and courage? I’m quite sure not.
It’s this insistence by Christians of Dr. Wells’ ilk that we are all somehow “broken” without their juju that drives me up the proverbial wall. It’s one of the worst tenets of that particular religion. (The worst is the concept of universal forgiveness merely by mumbling the name of Jesus; Jeffrey Dahmer is in heaven while the men he dismembered and ate are in hell, according to that little bit of dogma…pardon me while I vomit.)
We are not sinners. The state does not exist. Because “sin” is defined as an offense against god. Since there is no god, there can be no “sin”.
Christianity spends most of its time telling its adherents how horribly incomplete, sinful, broken, and unworthy they are. But if they ONLY kneel in the right direction, speak the correct magic words, and give 10% of their income to the preacher every Sunday, then — ABRACADABRA!!!! — Humpty Dumpty is put back together again.
Yes, we have our foibles. Some of us are better than others. Some fit into society better. Some avoid breaking the laws of men. Some not. None of that marks any of us as “broken”. Or in need of an invisible repair job.
(“Sins of the fathers …” runs deep.)
But one should note that even if one accepts that we are flawed creatures it does not thereby follow that the proposed fixed is correct. Moreover, I think what is one of the overlooked unhealthy aspects of many religions is the focus on the negatives. “You’re a sinner.” My friend from an Inuit background tells me that there’s still a residual of that in me, despite the fact that at least on branch of my family there hasn’t been a “calvinist” sort for a few generations … I don’t know whether she’s right about origins, but I think many of us who escaped the worst of religions still have to grapple with their ambience even at a personal level.
Thank you for an excellent post and the many equally good replies (hat-tip to Eric at #7, particularly for the C. S. Lewis quote) – very refreshing and stimulating. I look forward to reading more like this.