Better Than Believing

Faith: Another Word Hijacked

It was bad enough when the extreme conservatives gave Christianity a bad name (see my first blog), but now they threaten to discredit all religious persuasions. According to a report in The New York Times, the Family Research Council has put out a flier advertising a meeting to be held at a Kentucky megachurch that reads, "The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias, and it is now being used against people of faith."

Any person who already holds a dim view of organized religion could read that statement and conclude that all, or maybe most, people of faith want the Democrats in the United States Senate to be deprived of the historic power of the minority to protect the country from the tyranny of the temporary majority. People of faith appear to be those who have been duped into demanding a judiciary that would add to the wealth of the corporate elite, the Texas billionaires, and the Wall Street insiders.

The thoughtful citizens of the United States are perfectly aware that the big money people care little or northing about abortion, gay rights, or end of life issues. The big money people give lip service to such issues because there will never be enough of them to control the democratic process. They figured out a long time ago that they needed to forge an alliance with some other sector of society to gain and keep power. They chose the extreme conservatives among the Christians. The federal judges the big money people want to put on the bench are ideologically disposed to supporting the agenda of the extreme conservative Christians, but they would also support the big money agenda.

To enhance their political clout, the big money people have decided to claim that the only faith that matters is fundamentalist or evangelical Christianity. Anyone who does not agree with their social agenda is by definition not a person of faith. Like most other adherents to a religious tradition, I object. First, they hijacked the word "Christian" and made it unusable without a qualifying adjective, and now they seem bent on seizing and twisting the term "faith" in a similar fashion. I wonder, will faith become a term that liberals and progressives will have to abandon in fear of being misunderstood? Or can we add a modifier to separate ourselves from the ranks of Christians with whom we have serious disagreements and identify ourselves as "people of progressive faith"?

Whatever we do, I think we must object to the use of religious language that in the long run will undermine any hope of institutional religion being a respectable and constructive component of a democratic society.

The Deplorable Legacy of John Paul II

From . . the tyranny of the bishop of Rome and his detestable enormities, Good Lord, deliver us. (The Great Litany, 1544)

Now that John Paul II is safely in his tomb, perhaps we can relax a little from the old standard, "Speak no ill of the dead." The international fuss made over the death of the pope strikes me as truly inappropriate in the light of his behavior, and I think that it is time for progressive Christians to be forthright in their denunciation of his legacy.

He worked consistently against the right of women to control their own bodies and their own destinies. He was rigidly opposed to both birth control and abortion, and he would not even permit an open discussion about the possibility of ordaining women for ministry.

He revived the animosity of his church toward gay and lesbian people, insisting that they have no right to form partnerships let alone to marry.

He worked to deprive all people of the right to end the artificial prolonging of life even when the personality was long dead.

He encouraged an alliance in this country between his church and the protestant fundamentalists in attempting to give their joint religious views the force of law. These age-old antagonists finally realized that they were both cast in the same mold. They differ only on their views about the death penalty, but I have not yet heard of any bishops threatening to excommunicate politicians who advocate executing criminal offenders, a tactic they have employed with the abortion issue.

He attempted to remove from Catholic colleges and universities all teachers who failed to follow the party line or even to raise questions about the doctrine or practices of the church.

He has concentrated authority in the Vatican at the expense of the national and local manifestations of the church. He clearly mistrusted democracy as far as the Catholic church is concerned.

He refused to take seriously the abuse of children by his clergy, preferring to condemn the media for sensationalizing the issue. He promoted known pedophiles and rewarded bishops who tried to cover up the scandal.

Although he is being praised for his openness to other faiths, especially Judaism, he showed his true colors early in the year 2000 when speaking to the cardinals, bishops, and theologians who make up the Congregation of Faith. He warned the group: "In recent years a mentality has emerged in theological and ecclesial circles which tends to relativize Christ’s revelation and his unique and universal mediation in the order of salvation." He declared that the Roman Catholic Church is the "royal road" to salvation, unlike the incomplete religions of other Christians and non-Christians. He did not seem to understand that it is this exclusive and arrogant attitude that makes anti-Semitism possible.

In the light of John Paul’s destructive legacy, I think it is fair to ask if anything good might be the result of his reign. To that question, I think we can say that the good he produced was the unintended consequence of his attempt to return his church to its pre-Vatican II ways of doing things. The primary good I see is the mobilization of the Catholic laity. In Africa, Catholics are finding ways to worship that are not authorized or are even forbidden by the hierarchy. In Massachusetts, Catholics have taken over some of the parishes that their archbishop attempted to close. In Latin America, Catholics are continuing the tradition of liberation theology in spite opposition by their bishops. Catholics nearly everywhere are practicing birth control and resorting to abortion. Many Catholics have exercised their newly-found self confidence by choosing to worship in other traditions. On this last point, I must say that I consider the migration of Roman Catholics to main line churches to be a fine thing.

Perhaps another unintended positive legacy of John Paul II is the proof he offered that to build loyalty and enthusiasm, the church must use all the public relations techniques employed by those who market anything from pills to politicians. His appearances on television were as good as Ronald Reagan, often seen as the undisputed master of that medium. Like Reagan, on the small screen John Paul came across as the stern father with the kindly demeanor. It will be interesting to see if the cardinals pick another telegenic personalty to lead the church. Other churches to be successful will have to learn John Paul’s techniques.

As I look at the evidence, I think it is a great mistake for Christians of other persuasions to talk about John Paul II as if he were a saint in the universal church. I think that the early Protestants in England were wise to keep reminding themselves to keep aloof from the tyranny of the bishop of Rome and all his destructive tendencies.

Fundamentalism and the Decline of Christianity

The cover story in The New York Times Magazine for March 27, 2005, featured an Assembly of God megachurch in Surprise, Arizona, about 45 minutes northwest of downtown Phoenix. The pastor, Lee McFarland, founded Radiant Church in 1996, and now weekend attendance has now reached 5,000 people. Impressive? Yes, until you stop to think what the impact of this kind of Christianity has been on the Christian enterprise as a whole. Many people have failed to realize that the success of fundamentalism in this country has been gained at a terrible price, the loss of respect for Christianity among people who want to think for themselves.

The story of Surprise, Arizona, is a good example of what has been happening around the country. The author of the Times story, Jonathan Mahler, notes that Surprise, a town of 80,000 people, has 27 other churches, but he dismisses them with the observation that "none of them are growing at anything that approaches the pace of Radiant." He does not supply statistics – maybe they are not available – but we can make some guesses based on national averages. Half of the churches in the United States have fewer than 100 members, and only 10% have more than 400 members, which puts them in the class of "large churches". Let us give those 27 churches the benefit of the doubt and assume that on the average they are large churches with a membership of 500, for a total of 13,500. If you add in Radiant’s 5,000 members, you will see that 18,500 church members are the most you are likely to find in Surprise. On the basis of my informed guesses, at least 73% of the Surprise citizens have no church connection at all.

Would other churches in town have better luck if Radiant were not giving Christianity a reputation for being anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, anti-gay, and anti-choice in medical decisions such as the end of life and the termination of pregnancy? No one can say for sure, but the statistics collected by the National Council of Churches and various polling agencies suggest that while groups such as the Assemblies of God and the Southern Baptists grew rapidly in the latter half of the 20th century, church membership as a whole declined. The so-called main line churches suffered serious losses, but the most significant trend may have been among those who claim no religious affiliation. In 1952, only 2% of the people polled claimed no connection with organized religion. By 1990, the figure had climbed to 10%. According to a survey conducted by the City University of New York, by 2001, 19% of the people in this county did not identify themselves with any particular religion. According to this survey, during the same period, 1990 to 2001, the percentage of Americans identifying themselves as Christians declined from 86% to 77%.

From my college course in logic, I am aware of the weakness in any argument based on post hoc ergo propter hoc, after this therefore because of this, so I will admit that I cannot prove the decline in American Christianity as a whole is entirely the result of fundamentalism’s success in winning converts. I do think, however, that in the minds of most people who read newspapers and magazines the word "Christian" has become identified with extreme conservatism. Only a generation ago, according to most dictionaries, you could call someone a Christian and mean a decent, respectable human being. Today, if you identify someone as a Christian, most of the people I know will assume that you mean a narrow-minded, self-righteous bigot.

The negative connotation has made considering Christianity as an option unlikely for many well-informed people. To get their attention, churches reaching out to them can never use the word "Christian" without a qualifying adjective, such as progressive. Even when we do, we have a hard time convincing the skeptical that we are different from the politically influential right-wing Christians they read about in the news. Is it any wonder that a shrinking number of people in America are willing to call themselves Christians?