Fundamentalists react

To understand what the Fundamentalists were reacting to, you need to know where liberal Christianity came from. Finding the roots of any philosophy always comes with the danger of not starting early enough in history, but you have to start somewhere. A good place would be the end of the “Dark Ages” because it was then that scholars started to more freely comment on the Bible.

The Italian scholar Petrarch coined the term “Dark Ages” in the 14^th century when he noted the lack of Latin literature over the preceding centuries. The name came to also denote the lack of historians and of any decent architecture. This was primarily a European phenomena as Baghdad in Iraq and Cordoba in Spain were flourishing.

If you look at lists of important writing through European history, you will see a huge gap after the Greeks, then Erasmus. He wrote of free will and religious tolerance, those were radical ideas in his time. He wrote of the need for church reform, as did Martin Luther, but Erasmus wrote in Latin and was less partisan than Luther. He did not gain as many followers. This is unfortunate as Luther was less tolerant of other religions and his Lutheran party became increasingly violent, something the scholar Erasmus wanted to avoid.

Fighting over who should be able to interpret the Bible and how, led to war. Catholics were reading mass in ancient languages and telling the congregation what it meant and Luther and others believed the scripture alone should be one’s guide. This was known as Sola Scriptura. This led to wars. At the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, part of the treaty stipulated that princes within the Holy Roman Empire could select either Lutheranism or Catholicism as their official religion. (Thank you oh wise Prince for selecting for me from so many choices). Later in that century, John Calvin entered the debate with another form of Christianity. Relative peace was maintained until 1618, the beginning of the 30 Years War.

Noteworthy, during this time, were the trials of Giordano Bruno and Galileo. Bruno’s ideas were less scientific than Galileo’s, but they were still considered wrong strictly based on dogma, not on a review of his scientific accuracy. Some consider the trial of Galileo more of a political one rather than anti-scientific, due to the pressure on the Roman Catholic Church from the emerging Christian sects. They may have wanted to demonstrate their resolve to remain dogmatic. Also at this time, one of the largest monarchies of the Holy Roman Empire, the Habsburg family, was allowing their subjects to choose how they practiced Christianity, further upsetting the Vatican. Notably, near the end of this war, Descartes published his famous works, stating, “I think, therefore I am”. He is considered the father of modern philosophy.

Finally, when the 30 Years War ended, The Peace at Westphalia stated that Christians had the right to practice their faith publicly under any denomination (any Christian one of course). Pope Innocent X called the treaty null and void, but his powers were diminished. This was the beginning of modern international law, ending the feudal system.

Soon, critiques of the Bible were openly discussed. Scholars began to notice errors and discrepancies. This became known as Higher Criticism. It is not criticism as in "criticizing", but a search for the true meaning of the text. Also about this time was the earliest written statement that the Bible was inerrant. I don’t think the statement came so late because it was a new idea, so much as it was the first time that anyone felt the need to write it down and make an explicit rule for their denomination. Simply saying the Bible is the word of God had been sufficient up until then, in my opinion.

Eventually, this led to the idea that the Bible is just another document. True spirituality comes from the individual’s soul. 

You might also notice that Isaac Newton was born near the end of The 30 Years War and his scientific breakthroughs were nurtured by the newly formed Royal Society. The society performed experiments, published their results and reviewed the works of their members. They repeated each other’s experiments and compared results. If someone refuted another’s ideas, evidence was required to back up what they said. In other words, modern science was taking off.

This leads us up to Charles Darwin and to where we were in the first of this series. The only question left is how did the Roman Catholic Church come to dominate Europe for 1,000 years? To the point wars had to be fought just for the right to go to the church of your choice. Today, most of the world considers that wrong. So, was the RCC right about their theology? So right that they should demand everyone follow them, lest we all burn in hell? If not, then what is right? Were the Lutherans or Calvinists right to start a war over their ideas? These questions seem almost silly today, but they dominated European history.

In the last of the series, I’ll look at how this idea of dogma, of one true God, took over all other philosophies. 

First in the series

The Pope and the Big Bang

Something caught me ear, so I briefly interrupt the series on fundamentalists:

I heard a Hitchens clip this weekend about the history of the term “Big Bang”. He said, when the theory was first proposed, the Pope liked it and offered to make it dogma, so everyone would have to believe it. Fortunately, the cosmologist who proposed the theory said ‘no thank you’. As Hitchens said, ‘that would be missing the point’. This was told as a joke, but looking into the history, it’s pretty accurate.

Edwin Hubble laid the groundwork for the theory. Georges Lemaitre proposed a more complete theory in 1927. He was a cosmologist and had once been a Roman Catholic priest. This minor factoid is often mentioned as proof that science and religion are compatible. In 1949, Fred Hoyle used the term “Big Bang” as a pejorative, he preferred the steady state theory. In 1951 in a speech before the Pontifical Academy of Sciences Pope Pius XII endorsed the theory, and connected it to the correctness of the Genesis account,

"…it would seem that present-day science, with one sweep back across the centuries, has succeeded in bearing witness to the august instant of the primordial Fiat Lux [Let there be Light], when along with matter, there burst forth from nothing a sea of light and radiation, and the elements split and churned and formed into millions of galaxies."  

And, to make sure no one missed the point,

“Thus, with that concreteness which is characteristic of physical proofs, [science] has confirmed the contingency of the universe and also the well-founded deduction as to the epoch when the world came forth from the hands of the Creator.  Hence, creation took place.  We say: therefore, there is a Creator.  Therefore, God exists!”

After hearing the Pope’s speech, a friend of Hoyle’s commented to him, “I had not dreamed that the Pope would have to fall back on you for proof of the existence of God.”  

Lemaitre and the Vatican’s science advisor saw the problem here. If the Pope were to go beyond a mere mention of this theory, and make any more official statements about its relation to the proof of God or accuracy of the Bible, it could lead to problems in the future if the theory had to be amended. Theories of course are amended all the time. Changing Pontifical proclamations is not so easy. We only know that the two scientists spoke to him in private and he did not make any more comments on the matter.

Publicly, Lemaitre was as delicate and conciliatory as can be,

“As far as I can see, such a theory remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question. It leaves the materialist free to deny any transcendental Being… For the believer, it removes any attempt at familiarity with God… It is consonant with Isaiah speaking of the hidden God, hidden even in the beginning of the universe.”

As we have seen since, despite silence from the Popes, and explanatory notes from the scientists, this idea of “creation took place, therefore God exists”, lives on. It’s as if any science since 1951 never happened. It’s the easy explanation that gets transmitted, not the hard work of collecting real evidence and holding on to what might have happened while experiments try to confirm what did happen.

In “A Brief History of Time”, Stephen Hawking tells of his audience with the Pope. He humorously notes his trepidation with such an audience, given past encounters with scientists and Popes. Although disputed, he claims the Pope told him to stay away from commentary on the moment of creation. Since then Hawking has made statements about the lack of need for a creator.

For me, I’d rather live in the world where scientists can be scientists, and not take orders from Popes or any other religious leader. Pope Pius XII tried to take the latest evidence and make it part of his religion. Popes have been doing that forever and getting away with it because most people are unaware of the evidence of their time and even less aware of earlier evidence and why the one trumped the other. Lemaitre knew all this and knew the difference between science and dogma. That he wanted to be respectful of the Pope doesn’t say anything about the debate between science and religion. 

Fundamentalism today

This entry is a bit clunky, I wanted to connect the previous blog on the origins of modern fundamentalism to where we are today. Many of the sentences in this one could be expanded to full articles. Many lack subtlety. Hopefully I’ve laid out the general idea without any inaccuracies. Next time I’ll return to the roots of liberal Christianity that led to the fundamentalist backlash.

After the Scopes Monkey Trial, Christianity faded from public debate. In presidential campaigns, no one cared about much about the religion of Harding, Coolidge, Hoover or Roosevelt. They did not mention it. The McCarthy era was somewhat of an exception, but the addition of “Under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance was more about anti-Communism than pro-Christianity. Then Eisenhower started inviting Billy Graham to the White House. In 1964, the evangelicals supported the conservative agenda of Barry Goldwater.

In 1962 prayer in school, led by any school employee, was declared unconstitutional. Vatican II also occurred that year, a move toward a more liberal Catholicism. A turning point was Roe v Wade in 1973. Leaders of the various Christian sects realized that as divided denominations, they could not hope to fight these broad secular changes. The use of the term “Christian” in a broader sense came into popular use. Jimmy Carter’s Christianity was an issue in the 1976 campaign and Reagan’s conservative social agenda even more so.

Also during the 1960’s a quieter movement was going on to study the roots of these changes and find ways to show that Christianity was still the answer. Francis Schaeffer started the L’Abri Institute in Switzerland and wrote extensively on the topic. He said;

 “If there is no absolute moral standard, then one cannot say in a final sense that anything is right or wrong. By absolute we mean that which always applies, that which provides a final or ultimate standard. There must be an absolute if there are to be morals, and there must be an absolute if there are to be real values. If there is no absolute beyond man’s ideas, then there is no final appeal to judge between individuals and groups whose moral judgments conflict. We are merely left with conflicting opinions.”

In his documentary series, available on YouTube, How ThenShall We Live, he carried this theme through the history of Western civilization. He applies it first to the Roman’s then other cultures throughout history. He uses oversimplified analysis of those cultures to say how and why they collapsed and intersperses it with the history of Christianity, claiming it carried this absolute moral system with it despite the pressures of those cultures. He never considers how we could question and study any particular proposal for a moral absolute and decide if it is indeed good. He never really even discusses what “good” is. He just says we need a standard, picks the Christian one, and says that is good.

Although he was deeply troubled by the Roe v Wade decision, Schaeffer did not advocate government takeover or any kind of theocracy. On the other hand, the conspiratorial nature of the documentary can’t be missed. In Episode 6, a strange man with a fake moustache is pouring something in the municipal drinking water. Michelle Bachmann watched this while in college and referred to it later in life when she ran for office on a dominionist platform. This is far removed from the open discussions Schaeffer once had at the L’Abri community. He always set himself apart from the wicked world, but he welcomed anyone in to discuss his philosophy.

Bachmann, and others are of course politicians. It is always hard to know what a politician truly believes and what they are saying they believe to gain power. Reagan courted them with his social agenda and George W Bush demonstrated the strength of the evangelical vote in 2000. Many more followed after that.

The Reagan presidency began with a dramatic rescue of American hostages from their embassy in Iran. For many Americans, this was the beginning of awareness of the Muslim world. The term “fundamentalist” was being applied to Islamic leaders with political ties who were advocating for laws derived directly out of the Koran. We sent arms in as Iran and Iraq fought, then we imposed sanctions on Iraq resulting in disease and the deaths of 100’s of thousands of children. The threat of nuclear and chemical attacks were used as official justification, but knowledge of Sharia law was ever present.

Then 9/11 happened.

It heightened the religious tensions and opened a door for Christians. In a 2002 National Security Strategy, George W. Bush stated that America’s “clear responsibility to history” is to “rid the world of evil.” Exactly what he meant by evil is obvious and at the same time obscure. He couldn’t explicitly claim a religious agenda because it would not be constitutional, and for that matter, would not line up with the teachings of a prophet in sandals who never sought political power. With the passing of the Patriot Act, the legal definition of “good” came into serious conflict with what it had meant for hundreds of years.

The other effect of 9/11 was a reaction by non-religious. Many realized they underestimated the potential consequences of religious zealotry. Books and articles discussing the problems and dangers increased. Secular groups have also been on the rise. The Scopes Monkey Trail has been replaced by debates about Intelligent Design. Prayer in government events is being discussed again. Hopefully these discussions have better results this time around.

First in the series
Next

The Fundies are right.

That title is not some double meaning. I’m going to make the case that the Fundamentalist Christians are right about what Christianity is. That is, the Christianity that they practice is what most Christians have practiced throughout history. Those who say they are wrong usually reach back into the first couple centuries A.D. to make claims about what Jesus meant or what the early church fathers did. There are theological arguments for both sides, but I will be focusing more on how the differences are handled because I think that is what defines fundamentalism.

There are so many theological interpretations of Christianity today, I don’t think it is possible to choose one that matches the original. The word “theology” did not even exist then. There were gods (theos) and words (logia) to discuss them. There were many gods and many ideas about how the world worked, and these ideas were competing and changing and would continue to change. An emperor might even declare himself a god, but people knew that other emperors did the same thing. The idea of one true god having influenced all generations and all to come had not taken root.

To make my case, I’ll first need to show where the origins of the term “Fundamentalism” and how it is used today. To understand that, I’ll look at the liberalization of Christianity that was happening before that and how it led to the reaction by the Fundamentalists. We’ll see how that liberalization began with Erasmus and was further promoted by Luther and Calvin and resulted in several wars and the complete restructuring of the political boundaries in Europe. The thread of what could be called liberal or humanist Christian has existed throughout Christian history, but I will be following the Christianity that was in power. That power structure began in the 4^th century, related to the often cited Council of Nicea. I will, hopefully, clear up some of the confusion around that.

I should note that I don’t really care what version of Christianity is right. I won’t be discussing much about the theology, except when pointing out who believed what when. What I do care about is how everyone deals with their differences today. Past fights over theological differences have caused tremendous suffering and we have much more powerful means to create suffering today than we ever have before. So we need a better to search for a resolution.

If there is anything we need to learn from the past, it is the manner in which philosophical differences were discussed by the Greeks before the Fall of Rome. They were developing the methods of discovering what is true then and we have refined those methods since but they barely get taught to most people. We have applied them to democracy, curing disease and exploring space. We can apply them to how we educate the next generation and make a safe world for them to live in, or we can draw lines and claim our righteousness.

Let’s get started.

Dictionary definitions of fundamentalism vary and even groups that many consider fundamentalist don’t use the label themselves, so just what it is can be debated. Here are all of the theological precepts I could find that are claimed by one or another fundamentalist group:

Belief in:

• The Trinity
• The Person of Jesus Christ
• The Second Coming
• Salvation
• The inerrancy of Scripture
• Dispensationalism; The interpretation of the Bible that includes periods of changing relationships with God leading up to some sort of end times.
• Virgin Birth
• Substitutionary atonement
• Resurrection of Christ
• The creation account in Genesis
• Miracles, particularly those of Christ
• Intelligent Design
• Prophecies have been fulfilled and are being fulfilled now
• We are saved by faith, not works
• Literal Satan, hell, demons, heaven and angels
• Do not believe in evolution

The first five appear in the original pamphlets titled “The Fundamentals” which will be discussed more in a minute. The others vary widely and some, like dispensationalism, have many variations. Espousing just a few of these beliefs would not make someone a fundamentalist necessarily. In fact you will probably note that some of them seem like perfectly normal beliefs held by Christians. That is why most definitions of fundamentalism will include not just these “whats” by also some “how” and some applications of the theology, such as:

• Government should have values based on religion
• Unwilling to compromise
• Presuppositional arguments for the theology
• Subordination of the wife, and women in general
• Children should be taught faith beginning early
• Radical up to and (for some) including violence
• The scope of religious life; where it should be displayed, its inclusion in public spaces, part of public school during ceremonies or prayer in the classroom
• Religion test for candidates
• Rejection of modern scholarship (theological or historical)
• Refusal to recognize scientific theories
• Value faith over evidence.

These short versions of the beliefs mask the underlying complexity that result in long theological works going back for centuries. The differences described in those works have resulted in 10’s of thousands of Protestant sects. Some variations find harmony, for instance by saying that salvation is by faith but we must show our faith through our works, or it is meaningless. Others isolate verses and claim they are the only correct ones. This debate begins in the Book of Acts between Peter and Paul and as far as I can tell is not settled by the end of the New Testament.

Some of these are very difficult just to define, like the Trinity. Biblical support for it is difficult to find. Augustine wrote an extensive work on it in the 4^th century and even he concluded in the end that it is a mystery. This made for a bit of a dilemma when teaching the Trinity became Roman law. If you can’t describe what it is, how do you enforce its proper teaching? This led to more councils, more debates and more unclear explanations, like The Chalcedonian Formula of 451. Later when Emperor Leo I asked the Bishop of Melitene if he wanted a council in 457, he responded, “We uphold the Nicene creed but avoid difficult questions beyond human grasp. Clever theologians soon become heretics.” A more concise statement against free thought would be hard to find.

Accepting miracles has always seemed important to Christians I have known, but some are harder to explain than others. Raising from the dead can just be a difference in what “dead” means, as we see with increasing knowledge of medical science. Feeding multitudes could have just been a good leader who encouraged sharing of resources. Bodily resurrection however should be considered an extraordinary event in any time. Any mythical interpretation of it diminishes Christ as a god. I could understand a Christian who refuses to accept any of the other miracles in the Bible, but if you don’t accept this one, I wonder how you define “Christian”.

This question of the definition of Christianity seems to be what some people were worried about in the 19^th century. As more translations of the Bible became available and our ability to translate the original scriptures improved, scholars, Christian scholars, began to pick apart the Bible. Primarily coming out of Germany, this was known as Higher Criticism. It questioned not only the historical accuracy of the Bible, but the very authorship of its books.

This was too much for some Christians. They reacted with a collectionof pamphlets by 90 authors. They were distributed for free between 1910 and 1916. They coincided with the rising evangelical movement. This vocal minority brought their cause to national attention with the Scopes Monkey Trail in 1925. Although they actually won that trail, because the law clearly stated that it was illegal to teach evolution, the fundamentalist movement suffered afterwards. The modernist movement did not portray itself well either, coming across as somewhat of a bully in the proceedings.

It seemed for a while that this would work itself out in academic circles, but as the world began to change rapidly after World War II, people like Billy Graham and Francis Schaeffer were bringing these ideas back into the forefront. I’ll pick up there next time.

Next in the series

The Opposite of Al-Kahzali

Ryan Bell's blog

A pastor, Ryan Bell, started a blog this year, titled “A Year a Without God”. Last year, he lost his job as a pastor due to his questions about the theology of his church. Since then he has been struggling with those questions, leading to this idea of spending a year NOT praying or looking to God for answers. On January 10th his entry was titled “What the…?”, expressing his surprise at the attention he was getting. Other entries express sincere feelings of doubt and an honest effort to deal with them.

1,000 years ago, another theologian Al-Kahzali, had similar doubts, but he took a different path. He was teaching the Muslim faith but he no longer felt he was being honest. He quit his job, abandoned his family and went on a spiritual journey. The details of that journey are scattered because he did it privately. When he returned, he claimed that he had found his god and that his journey was an experiment that proved that god was real. He went on to challenge the philosophers of his day. It destroyed many of the advances of science of reason that had been made.

Ryan’s journey is very different. He is being completely public. He is not challenging philosophers, he is reading them and commenting on them.

No matter what he learns, I don’t expect that it will end with the destruction of either religion or science in the 21st century. Neither of those options would be very good. 1,000 years ago, science and reason did not have strong support so knocking it down was not difficult. That would be a lot more difficult today. What failed then was the attempt to integrate religion INTO science. I don’t think that is possible. Science has made attempts to integrate into religion for as long as it has been around. That is more likely possible but religion will have to make some compromises. Ryan’s work seems to be trying to do just that.

What I mean by that is, if you say there are religious miracles, then you can’t take the scientific stance that everything has a natural explanation. If you rely on scientific evidence, then you can’t explain something only in terms of what God has done. If you require reasons to reach conclusions, then you can’t conclude anything for no reason. Religion relies on the individual experience of God and personal testimony about Him.

However, you can approach the natural world with awe and wonder at its size, its deep time, its immense energy and vast empty spaces. There is so much left to be explained that calling something a miracle is acceptable in the sense that something is as yet unexplained. You can posit any theory you like for the unknown, just don’t stop there, keep searching for the evidence of whatever it is you think is there. Creativity is always encouraged but all statements of fact need a consistent method for how they are established. These aspects of science are the community of science, the shared experiences that we can all participate in.

What Al-Kahzali came back with, he couldn’t share with others. He could only claim it. He could explain what he did and others could do the same and they may or may not achieve the same results. If you didn’t, you would be called an unbeliever. In his time, that could have dire consequences. The only test for a believer is that the believer says they believe. There is no way for certain to know if they believe or not or even know what they believe. If you can demonstrate what it is you believe, point to it, then it is a shared experience for all of us and no longer requires belief.

Science has always relied on a shared experience. If someone cannot repeat what you claim you did, it is not scientific fact. If you can’t explain it using consistent definitions and formulas, it is not scientific fact. If you can’t teach it to others, then test them to determine their understanding, it is not scientific fact.

But the unknown is still part of science. Searching for knowledge is part of science. Being inspired by nature is part of science. Understanding our place in the universe is part of science. Poetry, philosophy and ritual aren’t exactly part of science, but there is no reason that we can’t all share the same view of the mysteries. We are all looking at the same stars. Ryan Bell gets this, and I’m glad he is sharing his experience with the rest of us.

Burying Religion

I’ve been keeping to an accommodationist theme this year, but here’s a pretty intense exchange between two of the biggest minds willing to debate the topic of religion vs science, physicists Lawrence Krauss and Christian apologist William Lane Craig. I include it because I think it gives the best arguments from both sides. It’s pretty long so I’ll provide some points you can skip to.

The topic is actually “Has science buried religion?” The first 20 minutes is introductions. Then you might enjoy just listening to Krauss’ 20 minute opening statement. It’s a great statement of why we need to bury religion to produce a more ethical world. WLC then does his thing, claiming science needs religion, for about the same amount of time, then it gets wild. I find it hard summarize Craig since I disagree with him and I know many practicing do too. I think Krauss said it best that his distortions are disservice to anyone, including people of faith.

The moderator does a fantastic job with some great questions, IMO. Around 1:10 he points out that Krauss is using a “greatest good” argument for ethics and points out that is something that has been discussed (and shown to have weaknesses) in secular philosophy for centuries. I think Krauss loses a few points here as he does not care much for philosophy. It leaves him with no tools to defend himself. He attacks Craig for his statements defending the slaughtering of the Canaanites, but Craig uses his logic that God gives us life so He can use whatever means he wants to take life.

The moderator notes that consequentialism and utilitarianism have been rejected by the major monotheisms and they say we should be judged not on making the most people happy but on how we treat the most vulnerable. They stumble around this for a bit and skip over to art and love, but some minor points are made. Krauss makes an awkward aside to Mother Teresa. This is not something he should try to explain in 30 seconds.

Craig probably wins with his own audience when he talks about how his theory of God is consistent. This is one of the few times I’ve heard a major theologian call his beliefs a theory. I think Krauss wins the debate when he explains how science actually works. It’s not just an explanation of what we see that happens to fit the observations. Science continues to review its own assumptions, check its own work, and check if its predictions turn out. If not, it changes.

Craig is left finding straw man arguments of scientist who don’t accept new data, they instead keep trying to alter the interpretation of the facts to fit their preconceived notions. When they get to how science developed historically, Krauss admits Newton and Darwin were religious, but that’s because it was the only game in town at the time. Today most scientists are atheist. Craig has to rely on a study that says scientists start out as non-believers, they are usually people who hated God when they were young, it’s not science that creates atheists instead atheists become scientists. Krauss is a bit thrown by this, but his point that the study actually proves religious indoctrination is the problem, is a good one.

I doubt he converted many with that though. Krauss tends to go pretty hard for the jugular of “religion is child abuse” and “defending genocide is abhorrent”. I think he could really benefit from a little better understanding of philosophy. Throughout, he points to the values of honesty, full disclosure and transparency and Craig is only left with the mystery of God’s righteousness.

Krauss could connect these values to our survival, that we are here because of these values. For a creature to have survived all of the extinction events on this planet it must have some form of these values. At one point Craig has to ask, “but is it good that humans survive?” This is interrupted for a minute by the moderator, but when it gets back to Craig, he says there has to be an objective standard provided for us to know if we are making moral improvements. For Craig of course that is God.

I think a better grounding in philosophy would have helped Krauss bring together all of his other points. He speaks of a better world for as many people as possible and the ability of evidence based knowledge to overcome superstition, but he doesn’t connect this to why we should do that. This leaves him open to the objective morality debate. He tried to bring in the question of who has the right to judge what is good, or in Craig’s case, who gets to decide which God is right, but he had not establish the philosophical ground work to force Craig into answering that.

With Craig, I can’t get past how obvious it is that genocide is wrong and minimizing pain is right. I don’t need to dig any deeper for a philosophical basis for morality, although I realize that is exactly what philosophers do. Even so, he needs to appeal to our fear of death and our need for salvation to support his argument for God. Any one of his premises depends on one of the others, making each one not really a premise at all. I didn’t speak to his arguments much here in my notes because I find them trite. Unfortunately, as long as he continues to deliver them so well, he will continue to a formidable debate opponent.

Metaphorically Speaking

Alright, this is an old YouTube with not that many views, but Thinking Atheist is actually very popular, Seth Andrews came from Christian radio and produces a great show. AronRa was an early atheist activist. He came out with a great series that of videos years ago that answer many of the standard questions.

The Thinking Atheist podcast

I want to focus on the caller, who says he is an atheist and and an anthropology student. His call comes in at about 22 minutes. He insists the Bible should be read as metaphor. He gives the example of the story of David being a story of revolution and the tyranny that inevitably follows. That may be true, but if he is trying to make this point, he doesn’t support it with much else, but I think he has a point and I think atheists need to get that point.

You can listen yourself, read this summory or skip past it to where I talk about why what he says is worth considering.

Instead of supporting his claim with more information, he says something about the Bible being a metaphor for what is going on in people’s heads. He tries to blame the world’s problems on secularism. AronRa does a good job of correcting that. So he rephrases saying what the Bible is telling us is we should live our lives in a conscientous manner. AronRa agrees and adds that we don’t need to overlay that with speculation as fact or allow presuppositions that may be completely wrong to affect our policies and systems.

The caller gets a bit flustered and says something about “something else out there” which is just a non-sequitor and that he’s not supporting the McChurches. This only tells us what he isn’t. We still don’t know what this guy really believes. He says something about doing some kind of research into this, then says, “you can’t deny that it’s a powerful book.”

Seth steps in and tries to help out asking “how do you speak to that whole ‘Bible as metaphor thing?’.”

AronRa answers, “Let’s find a metaphor worth living by”, then he picks Exodus 31 as an example of something that would be very difficult to find a decent moral in and gives a couple other examples including the story of how the Milky Way galaxy was given it’s name as literally the milk from the breast of the goddess Andromeda. Reality turned out to be much more interesting than this “metaphor”.

This is one of the best respsonses I’ve heard to a caller like this. Rather than believing there is “something out there”, how about looking at what we have found out and marvel at how amazing those things are. Our natural sense of awe and wonder is enough to inspire us. However, I also think it is worth understanding what the caller was trying to say.

I don’t think the caller had in mind a battle of who could find good or bad Bible passages. By this time, the caller is gone. I’m not sure who hung up on whom. Although it’s not clear what the caller had in mind, it’s doubtful that he would have come up with some amazing metaphors that could have altered AronRa’s or Seth’s thinking.

I felt for the guy, because I’ve been there.

I thought I had found these great metaphors and that I would find more. There are a lot of modern theologians who claim they have. What I had found, after reading and listening to these theologians, is a few decent stories that were not all that special compared to others and some stories that taught people lessons that needed to be taught at that time in history.

The Bible also has what the caller mentioned, but I wouldn’t call it metaphor. I would call it history written by ancient historians. History was not written then like it is written today. It was expected that you would make it a story and put words in people’s mouths. The story of David is that type of history.

I would have liked to help this guy out by giving him some more examples. I found these examples helpful when I was considering being a lay speaker and I still like them for defending the value of the Bible and defending it against fundamentalism. These don’t take the Bible literally or gloss over it’s horrible parts. Neither do they transform the Bible into some kind of modern book of enlightening stories that can guide us to a better tomorrow.

I also think AronRa, Matt Dillahunty and others need to acknowledge this other way of looking at the Bible. It is not Christianity 2.0 or a way to save Christianity. It does not require belief or dogma, in fact those get in the way. It is just as strong and sometimes a stronger argument against fundamentalism than pointing out discrepancies in the Bible or passages about slavery.

I’m not suggesting that they become scholars of modern theology only that they acknowledge that it is there. Give them the ground that there is a better way to read the Bible than 13th century Catholicism, then invite them to give an example. Most likely, they will either reference some author or speaker without being able to describe them or their example will be something lame like the one given here about King David. I think exposing this is better than returning to the argument of the problems with the Bible. Not exposing them leaves listeners wondering if there is something to this modern theology.

Questions like these will continue to come up and atheists should be aware that this modern theology may be an improvement over fundamentalists who want to ignore the poor and exploit women. This will help build partnerships against that form of religion. It also helps to be aware that in the end, it’s still theology. It still works back to requiring a level of open mindedness that makes your brains fall out. It's still the circular reference that we should love God or live like Jesus because they are God/Jesus and they're good and we should want to be like them and they'll give us love so then we'll be good and that will show others He is good and they'll join us in following God.

Here are a few examples:

There’s the story of Lazarus being shown a thirsty man in hell while his servant is in heaven. The gospel of Luke 16:19 presents this as a parable, a metaphor. So we can take away the literal meaning that you’ll go to hell if you don’t accept the laws of Moses, but what is the lesson? It has something to say about living a good life and how usually the rich and powerful get their comeuppance in the end. It doesn’t mention that it can take generations for power structures to crumble. It’s a message of hope for a slave in Palestenian Rome.

An oft mentioned passage is “an eye for an eye”. That seems pretty brutal and a rather barbaric justice system, but at the time, something as bad as having your eye put out might be returned with killing the offender and perhaps other members of their family. So it is defended as an improvement. But we’ve continued to improve since and although not perfect, our justice system is no longer this primitive, so it’s really not much of a defense at all.

The Parable of the Talents is well known by liberal preachers as one that has this difficult bit at the end where the slave who hid his talent is thrown into the outer darkness by his master. It can be found at Matthew 25:14. The slaves who are praised by the master are the ones who use their talents to do business and collect interest and make more talents (talents are money, FYI). So this gets used as Jesus praising capitalism, despite capitalism not existing for another 1,500 years.

For anti-theists, this parable is used as an example of Jesus advocating throwing people into the outer darkness because they don’t use what God gave them. There are a few, inlcuding myself, who believe this is a warning from Jesus of how they will be treated by their Roman masters if they don’t play by the rules. Again, a parable the Jews in Palestinian Rome in the 1st century can relate to, but not us.

I hate to admit it, but I actually preached to the story of Abraham going to sacrifice his son in Genesis 22. I did what many do and turned it into a story of commitment. I talked of being committed to my family and community, more conservative preachers might talk of being committed to God. It’s a horrible metaphor, and most likely nothing to do with the author’s intentions. More likely, it is a story that is telling people to stop doing human sacrifice, that God no longer wants that, but He’ll take a lamb. And of course, God is still in charge and don’t you forget it. Great story.

In the history category, much is made of the genocides and the commands from God to go attack other nations. These are especially strange since archeaology has not provided any evidence of these wars actually happening. Not only are they not trying to hide their warring ways, they are making up stories of conquest to show they are good fighters and killers. The only “metaphor” I know of is that they were a small nation, one that had probably overthrown their own corrupt government and they wanted a mythology that showed they should be players on the stage of the Ancient Near East.

There’s a speech out there somewhere on YouTube by a psychologist talking about the Noah story. He points something out that I’ve never heard anyone else point out. The story of Noah immediately follows the story of Cain slaying Abel and God letting him go unpunished. It could be this is a way of saying that if we tolerate intolerable acts the meaning of tolerance will be lost and society will fall apart. That God deals with it by killing everyone doesn’t say much for God.

Then there’s the big one. Christ dying for our sins. One preacher, who eventually got me to join his church, gave a sermon on Easter that turned that bloody story into one of love. When the guards came for him, he told his disciples to put away their swords. He preached that you should love your neighbors and love your enemies and when his time came to live by those words or to fight, he walked the walk. Looked at this way, it’s probably why the story has survived for 2,000 years. It of course ignores some of the other things Jesus said and more importantly what Christianity became in the 4th century and the book of Revelations and a bunch of other stuff, but it’s a great metaphor.

Speaking of Jesus, why do they sing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” at Christmas? It’s because of a metaphor, or more accurately a prophecy. The metaphor was of a son being born of one nation that would be sacrificed or given to another as a way to bring peace. It’s in the Old Testament. It was a prophecy that didn’t come true at the time it was given. Later people looked at it and said it must apply to Jesus. Jesus is the fulfillment of that prophecy.

Brian McClaren, in a well known book about bringing Christianity into the modern world speaks to the passage, “there will always be the poor”, Matthew 26:11, spoken by Jesus himself. It is used and abused by conservatives to claim that Jesus meant there is nothing that can be done to fix that problem. Taken literally it seems like he is saying that. But McClaren points out that he is referring to an earlier passage in the Old Testament that says there will always be poor, AND WE SHOULD HELP THEM, Deuteronomy 15:11. Kinda changes the meaning. Jesus knew his scripture. Or at least the authors of the gospels knew them. Today’s readers don’t.

That one really isn’t a metaphor, it’s just a statement about a value, some advice about how to live and act with justice. It’s a better interpretation of the Bible than the brute capitalist who is just looking for some words from Jesus to justify his actions, but if the only reason you want to help the poor is because Jesus says to, then maybe you need some other sort of ethical education. Jesus did not invent these ideas for living together. He lived in a brutal time and to people born into slavery and treated like dirt, his ideas no doubt seemed radical. For anyone who has access to clean water and fast food, it shouldn’t seem radical at all.

I could keep going, but hopefully I’ve made my point. I wish callers like this would actually tell us what their modern theology is instead of referring to others and making wild claims about new and improved Christianity. Any time I’ve tracked these down, they may be kinder and gentler stories, but they don’t offer anything that couldn’t be taught in other ways. They don’t need to be superimposed with supernatural actions. It’s not even necessary to claim that their characters are somehow better than any other characters in stories with morals. We have lots of great stories, let's use all of them.