Beautiful faith

- faith that looks like Jesus Christ

(The following text is an edition of my final paper in the Interpretation and Argument class at Carnegie Mellon. The topic for the class was religion and power, and this is my simple attempt to contribute to the discussion. Even though it is written for a Christian audience, I hope it can bring some light to the secular discussion as well. Keep in mind that this text is a result of a young man's reasoning, who himself is slightly hesitant towards some of the conclusions he reaches. So please comment in a friendly tone.)


I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians.
Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
- Mahatma Gandhi

Abstract
This blog post argues that Christian faith should be understood as trusting that Jesus is Lord, as opposed to a commitment to believe everything in the Bible. To the extent that believers understand their faith otherwise, their faith quickly becomes something ugly that righteously falls under the critique of modern atheists like Richard Dawkins. The paper examines the difference between the two definitions of faith through examples from modern scholars, personal experience and excerpts from the Bible itself. It concludes that faith understood as trusting that Jesus is Lord is how Christians should understand their faith. It also argues that such faith is not ugly, but as beautiful as Jesus himself.

Introduction
Christians should all be able to answer this important question; what does it mean to be Christian? Now, if you ask this question to an unsorted array of Christians, you quickly discover that there is little unity among the answers. But of the many answers you can get, let me draw your attention to two of the answers in particular. One is that being a Christian is to submit to Jesus in humble service to others; the other answer is that being a Christian at its core is about believing in such and such doctrines. These different definitions of being a Christian may of course be phrased in different ways, and to most believers, they both make up a component of their faith; nevertheless, I will argue that there is one answer that is better than the other answers. That would mostly fall into the first category: Being a Christian is to trust that Jesus is Lord.

I think this answer is crucial in order to have a beautiful faith. And already, I find much beauty in the church. Impressive individuals like Mother Teresa for instance, or the homeless ministry ran by Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community here in Pittsburgh; people devoted to follow Jesus’ example of healing the sick and befriending the poor and rejected. Not to mention Jesus himself, who is the rock on which all this is built. (Matt 7)

But unfortunately, Christians are not always that beautiful. For instance, the church has been supporting numerous which-hunts and wars throughout history, and still there are congregations that loudly support such measures, for instance the war on terror; others are caught up in a judgemental state of mind that makes them shout 'sin' as loudly as possible in the face of sinners, and homosexuals in particular. Neither is beautiful. In fact, it was straight out ugly when televangelist Jerry Falwell proclaimed his support for the Iraq war: “You've got to kill the terrorists before the killing stops. And I'm for the president to chase them all over the world. If it takes 10 years, blow them all away in the name of the Lord.”

Of course, the church is made up of man, and man usually is pure in neither spirit nor action. Thus, I will never expect it to be perfect; but I argue the church can still be beautiful, and that a mistaken perception of faith is an important factor why it sometimes is not. The mistake fundamentalist Christians do (apart from discarding Jesus’ teachings about humility in Matt 7) is to make their faith focused on doctrines.

Instead, what beautiful Christians should be focusing on, is hope and confidence in God himself. We should focus on faith as submission to Jesus and trust in God to provide as we follow him. Believe that God’s kingdom is beautiful, and live in hope that it is coming. If faith is to make Jesus king, then faith is as beautiful as Jesus himself.

Faith is doctrine
One of the most compelling works on the significance of assumptions about faith is in Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God. She describes two different ways to understand faith, namely mythos and logos. The two words did in the old Greek tradition use to represent two different forms of knowledge, she explains, one that concerned itself with practical issues and the improvement and development of those (logos), and one that was more in the psychological sphere of competence (mythos). The distinctive merit of mythos was that “people had to enter the warren of their own minds and fight their personal demons,” and it was not meant to be understood literally. However, she continues, since the early modern period in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, mythos has been reduced to something that is not true at all. She concludes that this disparage of mythos has “resulted in two distinctively modern phenomena: fundamentalism and atheism.”

It seems, then, like religion today has become caught up in a logos understanding of their faith, even though there is little defence for such a position in the academic sphere. But within the religious sphere of Christianity, many argue that the word of the Bible is supposed to be interpreted literally. The most prominent example of this is creationism, which is based on a literal interpretation of Genesis:

We believe in creation, first of all, not because of scientific evidence, but because of our faith in Jesus Christ and in His Word the Bible. The Lord Jesus is revealed in the Bible to be the Creator of all things (John 1:3, Hebrews 1:1-3), and He is for Christians the Lord of all and the Head over all things, including science (Acts 10:36, Ephesians 1:22). Our Head has said something about science in John 5:45-47, namely this: If we believe in Jesus Christ, then we must believe Moses' writings. What did Moses write about first of all? He wrote about the creation of all things by God. So we judge science by the Bible and not the other way around. "We walk by faith, not by sight." (I Corinthians 5:7)
Creation-Science Research Center

Such logos interpretation of the Bible in many Christian communities is also what critics like Richard Dawkins assume, discarding any mythos understanding of religion as a “lonely creek.” In fact, this assumption is at the very core of Dawkins argument: “Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument.” To him, faith is this mental exercise in believing something factual one really has no reason to believe, and it is represented by stubbornness and arrogance, deafness to reason. Dawkins does not recognize anything beautiful about that, and subsequently discards faith as evil altogether.

Faith is life
In response, Christians thinkers like Harvey Cox are developing theologies that hardly have any doctrines at all. Cox describes faith as a hope and trust in God to just work, as opposed to belief, which he describes as certainty of details and factualities. Like the priest Unamuno suggested, “you don’t have to believe in God to pray.” Cox strongly emphasise faith (mythos) over belief (logos), even to the point where he subtly questions the virgin birth and resurrection of Jesus as factual events. And even if that might be reading too much into Cox’ words, at the very least the factual components of those events appears less important to him, as they seemingly deal with belief rather than faith.

We find a similar interpretation by Gene Robinson, a practicing gay bishop of the Episcopal Church in New Hampshire. He does not attribute authority to the Bible as much as he attributes authority to God and Jesus himself. “The Bible is the best and most trustworthy witness to [Jesus' life, death and resurrection], but it neither replaces Jesus as the Word [of God] nor takes precedence over Christ's continuing action in the world through the Holy Spirit.” Of course, Robinson is forced to such an interpretation in order to practice homosexuality with a pure conscience. But also the morally far more conservative bishop N. T. Wright writes along the same lines:

The regular views of scripture and its authority which we find not only outside but also inside evangelicalism fail to do justice to what the Bible actually is – a book, an ancient book, an ancient narrative book. They function by tuning that book into something else, and by implying thereby that God has, after all, given us the wrong sort of book. This is a low doctrine of inspiration, whatever heights are claimed for it and whatever words beginning with ‘in-’ are used to label it.
Wright, Nicholas Thomas

Wright continues to explain how the Bible has the authority of a story – an unfinished play where we are currently in the process of playing out the last act. The authority lies in that we should stay true to the preceding acts of the story. “Appeal could always be made,” he explains, “to the inconsistency of what was being offered with a major theme or characterization in the earlier material.” Clearly, Wright is here not preaching anything close to an ‘unquestionable’ faith. Rather, Wright and Robinson, as well as Cox, Armstrong and many others, are all arguing that faith primarily is about living. And living is all about asking questions, like, ‘what do we do now?’

There are in other words influential scholars that prove Dawkins terribly wrong in his assumption that unquestionable doctrine is the only sizeable form of faith we find in Christianity today.

The role of doctrine
Of course, most Christians have some form of basic doctrine that is important to them, including myself. It is for instance difficult to make Jesus Lord if you think Jesus was just an ordinary man with a good heart. It is easy to make an ordinary man with a good heart an inspiration or a hero, even though you may think he is insane. But it is quite different to make him Lord. So to have such faith, it is very helpful to intellectually believe that Jesus actually is God, in a very objective sense. And if not with an absolute certainty, at least consider it plausible and hope that it is the case.

This doctrine, if you will, is of course important to the believer. But neither this is a question of creed as much as it is a question of living. In its most basic form, this is a part of trusting that Jesus is Lord. This trust, or acknowledgment if you like, does not always come with an absolute historical certainty, but it should always come with confidence in the forgiveness of sins and a subsequent change in behaviour for the advancement of the Kingdom of God.

In fact, the creed of Jesus’ Lordship itself is nothing more than empty words if not a result of trusting that Jesus is Lord. You can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ as much as you want, but if you don’t trust it – that is, with your life – it is all useless. To insist on the creed of Jesus’ Lordship while not living it is actually straight out hypocrisy. It is like proclaiming that everyone should be warm and well fed without giving as much as a penny to those cold and hungry.

What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds."
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder.
James 2:14-19 (TNIV)

The core of faith ought not to be creeds and doctrines but a confidence that Jesus is Lord. The core of faith is not ‘works’ and being nice to other people either; but the core of faith should be to trust that Jesus is Lord. I will examine more closely what this trust looks like.

Faith is trusting that Jesus is Lord
What is trust? Let me explain what I mean by using an example from the infantry. A soldier must trust his fellow soldiers to cover him as he advances to the next pit. He trusts that his brothers in arms are shooting at the enemy – and not at him. He also trusts that they in fact do shoot at the enemy, so he is ‘covered’ when he moves. He is hence giving his life at the mercy and skill of his team. This is trust.

Similarly, to trust in Jesus is to have a sense that Jesus forgives your sins and watches over you. To use the analogy of a soldier, trusting Jesus is to move forward to the next pit with confidence. It is to live with the assurance that he is covering you so that the forces of Hell can’t get you. To further capture the sense of Jesus’ Lordship, you can expand the analogy to make Jesus your squad leader. The squad leader is active in giving cover, while he also gives instructions on where to move forward.

Of course, Jesus’ way of warfare is quite different from that of a worldly war. As Jesus tells his followers to move forward, he only has one command: to love. That is how the Kingdom of God fights, that is how the Kingdom of God is different from this world (John 18:36). Listen to Jesus’ command:

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.
John 15:9-13 (TNIV)

To trust that Jesus is Lord, then, is to have confidence in and live as though Jesus was your squad leader. It is always looking to Jesus when wondering where to move forward next. It is to trust that he protects you. It is to be a follower of Christ, manifesting Christ’s character in the world, laying our lives down in humble service. Like Claiborne and Haw sees it in their Jesus for President, a “Christian came to refer to those disciples who saw themselves as ‘little Christs,’ people who were literally the body of Christ, the hands and feet of Jesus alive in the world.” In short, to make Jesus Lord is to follow his example, and to trust he is Lord is to trust that he is covering us. This is the core of faith.

Faith is beautiful
Now that we have established what is our core of faith, the other aspects of faith, though still valid, becomes more secondary. So even though faith understood as believing everything in the Bible is still present, it is not the core. So also interpreting every little thing in the Bible is neither our primary concern. For instance, there is a discussion on in which situations the Bible condemns abortion, opinions ranging from 'always' to 'never.' And sure, there might be a correct answer to that. But finding that answer is no longer our primary concern, much less insisting on the truth to whatever answer we end up with. Rather, our primary concern is trusting that Jesus is Lord. And Jesus is fully beautiful.

If the primary concern of faith is to believe everything in the Bible, then surely a believer will emphasize the inconsistencies he finds between scripture and the world. If his primary concern is to believe in the Bible, it quickly becomes important for him how Genesis should be interpreted. If his conclusion is creationism, then of course he will emphasise this in his life (or he might reach the same conclusion, but subsequently abandon faith completely because it does not make sense to him). And when a Bible-emphasizing believer reads that homosexuality is a sin, of course he emphasises this in his life, even if he has no such tendencies himself. But what is beautiful about that? Nothing is beautiful about being certain of other people’s sin. Nothing.

A relevant example would be the Manhattan Declaration, published On November 20, 2009. It has of today over 430 000 signatures. These signers are all stating that their faith compels them to fight politically for the sanctity of life, the institution of marriage and religious liberty. It seems that the major concern of the declaration is to impose the moral truths they derive from scripture onto society as a whole. But what is beautiful about that?

In the Manhattan Declaration, the signers even explicitly state that they “set forth this declaration in light of the truth that is grounded in Holy Scripture (...).” Then is not their faith primarily about believing in the Bible? That is not a beautiful faith! That is a faith concerned with the kingdoms of the world; it has little to do with the kingdom in which Jesus is Lord.

I say, we should rather make our primary concern to trust that Jesus is Lord. Then we become as beautiful as Jesus himself. If our faith is primarily concerned with living in the Kingdom of God, then our faith is beautiful. Faith is beautiful if it looks like Jesus Christ, refusing to throw the first stone and turning the other cheek. Faith is beautiful if it looks like Jesus Christ, washing the feet of his disciples. Faith is beautiful if it looks like Jesus Christ, dying for the very people who crucify him... Faith is beautiful indeed if it looks like Jesus Christ. And that is exactly what faith should look like.

Conclusion
Faith can have many different aspects to it, and it is hard to separate one part of faith entirely from another, even though scholars like Cox and Armstrong suggests this is both recommendable and possible. At least I can agree it makes a big difference what we make the core of our faith – the difference between trust in Jesus and belief in the Bible is overwhelming, even as it can be reasonably argued that you cannot have one without the other.

When a trust that Jesus is Lord is the very centre of faith, faith makes people beautiful and gives peace at heart, and it opens the text of the Bible for honest discussion. If, on the other hand, the text in the Bible itself is the most important thing in faith, then being aware of certain “biblical truths” suddenly becomes equally important to making Jesus Lord. That makes it is easy to push Jesus slightly aside in favour of defending the other truths of the Bible. Faith is not all beautiful anymore, and the road to the ugly faith in Dawkins’ analysis is short.

But faith is supposed to be pure and beautiful. Faith is supposed to look like Jesus Christ himself, the one in which we trust as Lord. That is the kind of faith I want to seek for my life, and which I hope everyone will seek with me. If we would all grow in such faith, I cannot believe other than that the church will grow to become the beautiful bride Jesus desires. The church will not be perfect until the day when the Kingdom of God has fully come; but it will still be beautiful.



Your kingdom come, your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Matthew 6:10 (TNIV)



Read more:
Creation-Science Research Center: The Basics Explained
Richard Dawkins: Man vs. God (Wall Street Journal)
Jerry Falwell: Wikiquotes
Mahatma Gandhi: Wikiquotes
The Manhattan Declaration: A call of Christian conscience
N. T. Wright: How can the Bible be authoritative?

Other literature:
Karen Armstrong: The Case for God
Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw: Jesus for President
Harvey Cox: The Future of Faith
Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion
Gene Robinson: In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God
The Bible: Today's New International Version

What has faith got to do with it?

I’ve now submitted my synthesis paper in my class on religion and power. My previous paper in this class was a summary of one of Dawkins’ chapters from The God Delusion, and you can read that in its entirety here on this blog. Sadly, you say, I will not publish my synthesis paper here. Let me explain why.

I am simply not at peace with distributing the synthesis paper as it is right now. It is not so much the style issues I am worried about, nor do I worry about my academic analysis of the positions I am synthesising; it is not the quality of the paper I am concerned with. But frankly, I am not sure if I am being totally honest; I am not sure if I am fair, because I searched for what I wanted to find, I dug, and I found it. I need to feel more solid ground beneath my feet before you can all read it.

Nevertheless, I’ll give you the short version of my thoughts, without all the quotes and different authors and positions and that jazz. It is like the paper without the academic evidence. And only dealing with the Christian case. And more personal. In short, a more sincere heartsong. So, what has faith got to do with it?

But wait! What has faith got to do with what? Well, with religion and power of course. More precisely, what is faith, and how does your answer to that question affect your view on the relationship between the church and political institutions? For instance, a Christian may think it is a good thing for the church to invest much time and money in politics and lobbyism. Another Christian may think that is the worst thing the church could do. What is the difference between the faith of the first one and the second one?

In my personal Christian terminology, the body of all believers is referred to as “the body of Christ,” so in my mind, the church and the body of Christ is equivalent. Therefore, I’ll start off by substituting the word “church” in the hypothetical sentences above:

For instance, a Christian may think it is a good thing for the body of Christ to invest much time and money in politics and lobbyism. Another Christian may think that is the worst thing the body of Christ could do. What is the difference between the faith of the first one and the second one?

I mean, are these two Christians really part of the same body? They may have a somewhat similar vision of the future world, but they are headed in two profoundly different directions to get there. It seems to me as though there are two bodies of Christ, then. (So I’d love to ask, which of these bodies looks the most like Jesus? But I won’t really emphasise that question, it’s slightly off the point.)

This black and white analysis is of course not accurate at all. And neither is my next assumption, namely that faith is either factual doctrines, or hope and confidence. Of course, to most believers, faith is both hope, confidence and doctrines. But for the sake of the argument, bear with me.

Faith is many times depicted as knowing something for certain without really knowing it. For instance, young earth creationists argue that we should teach creationism in schools because that is what Genisis seems to suggest (at least by the literal interpretation these guys pledge to). They are pretty certain this literal interpretation is about what happened back then, so they rule out guided evolution and Big Bang as scientific non-sense. You see, to them, faith is to take the Bible seriously – and by seriously, they mean literally. Faith has become this exercise to believe in something they really have no reason to believe, the Bible aside. The same can be said for moral truths; “If you take the Bible seriously, you understand that homosexuality is sin,” and “If you take the Bible seriously, you understand that abortion is murder” etc. In this version of faith, to take the bible seriously has become to believe in certain historical and moral doctrines.

My guess is that most young Christians today that vote against homosexual marriages do so because it is part of their moral doctrine, not because they are homophobic.

The other version of faith is described as hope and confidence. In this version of faith, doctrines are less important, and having faith is really more about living in the hope and confidence that God will provide. This is the kind of faith we find when people are “taking a step in faith” and do something even when they cannot predict the outcome; sometimes they even have little to fall back on. Such faith can make a believer change his career plans, humble himself to ask for forgiveness in difficult situations, pray for random people on the street or open his house to strangers; this faith is confident that God forgives the past, and is living in hope for a world were God reigns and the lion sleeps with the lamb.

To me, it seems like the two faces of faith have little in common. Can they really be the same thing? Some even argue they are completely distinct. I can only examine myself, and find that I probably have a little of both. But, and this is the main point of the entire blog post, I strive to emphasise hope and confidence, because that is where the beauty in faith is found. What is beautiful about being certain the world was created 6000 years ago? Nothing! What is beautiful about being certain homosexuality is sin? Nothing, nothing, nothing is beautiful about being certain of other people’s sin! Nothing!

Being aware of your own sins, on the other hand, is quite useful. You need to acknowledge your sin if you want to be cleansed and beautified. That is what repentance is all about! But the process of beautification is first and foremost a fight with your own demons. As Jesus so wisely put it, “first take the plank out of your own eye.” This is why I believe there are so many moral guidelines in the Bible; not because being certain of the truth to them is a point in itself, but because we in the process of beautification sometimes need to be remained of what we are up against. And so can we struggle with were we find ourselves.

This focus on hope and confidence - life - of faith, also has another particular merit to it worth of mention: It allows for a much more honest discussion of the Bible, without shaking the foundation of faith. For instance, if someone has difficulties reconciling the creation story of the Bible with their scientific worldview, this can now be discussed without putting their entire faith at stake. If someone struggles with the passages condemning homosexuality, now at least it doesn’t shake their foundation of faith.

Finally, I argue this approach makes one less inclined to fight politically, for two reasons: The first being precisely that moral and historical truths are more ambiguous and open to discussion. To clarify: You may of course still argue this and that politically, but you are more hesitant to attribute these opinions to Jesus and his body of believers. The second reason is this: if faith is to give up life to be fully beautiful in hope and confidence that God provides, then you have all these planks to fight before you would even think of the sawdusts of those other people. You still have a moral and factual platform, sure; but exactly what that looks like is not a question you care too much to answer. “Rather,” you say, “ask what is the most beautiful thing to do right now.”


Read more:
Warrior of Agape: Why Dawkins is so hostile

Why Dawkins is so hostile

This is my summary of Richard Dawkins’ chapter “What is wrong with religion? Why so hostile” from The God Delusion. The summary was my first major assignment in Interp, a writing class which in my case focuses on religion and power. But even before you read the summary, let me tell you what I think of Dawkins' argument: I think some of his reasoning is valid, and worth giving some attention. However, being an insider of faith myself, I completely disagree with his generalized assumptions about the nature of faith, and can not agree with Dawkin's conclusion. I'll limit my critique to that for now.

------------------------

Religious faith makes people dangerous. At least according to Richard Dawkins, a biological theorist most famous for his militant standpoints against religion. His satirical style and unpolished language makes it clear that he has no interest in negotiation; this is war, and the goal is to eliminate. However, Dawkins’ is quick to assure us he is not dangerous, like militant fundamentalists using bombs, beheading, stoning burning or crucifixion. Nonetheless is there reason to be hostile, and armed with a belt of sharp-tipped words, Dawkins explains why.

Religion has consequences. Consequences, as we will see, are important to Dawkins, and it is the consequences that ultimately make religion dangerous. For one thing, religion can suppress bright individuals who are too intelligent not to see the head-on collision between their faith and the real world. But what is worse, religion makes certain people violent and dangerous to others, as their absolutist unquestioning views of moral cause them to take judgement in their own hands and largely ignore laws set forth by society. What happens when such fundamentalists themselves come to political power cause Dawkins even darker nightmares.

One could of course argue that it is these fundamentalists that are dangerous, and not religion itself. However, Dawkins rejects such a notion, and points to the virtue of faith that is so prominent in religious practice. “Faith is an evil,” he upholds, “because it requires no justification and brooks no argument.” (p. 308) Further, faith is what fundamentalism is built upon; as Dawkins defines it, fundamentalism is to know something is true because it is written in a holy book. Unquestionable. Not a product of reasoning. Faith.

As long as faith is at the core of religion, then, religion itself must be evil.

Consequences
A word for the corresponding unreasonable firmness in one’s moral believes is “absolutism.” An absolutist does not discuss whether something is good or bad. As long as his holy book says something is bad, then bad it is. End of discussion. This is the attitude Dawkins finds among pro-life supporters and those who oppose rights for homosexuals. More specifically, absolutists fail to consider consequences when making moral judgements.

In the case of homosexuality, Dawkins points out how it is an “unmistakable trademark of the faith-based moralizer (...) to care passionately about what other people do (or even think) in private.” (p. 289) To Dawkins, what happens in private has no moral component to it. As long as it does not hurt anyone, who cares? Who is there to care? Absolutists, on the other hand, do not care if anyone gets hurt. In fact, what makes moral and immoral to them has no grounds in their own reasoning at all, but is solely based on what their holy book tells them.

This view is even more evident when it comes to abortion. While Dawkins do recognize that there exist arguments against abortion grounded in reasoning, such arguments tend not to be frequently used by the major pro-life groups (all of which are deeply religious). Rather, their argument usually goes like, ‘since the embryo is a human being, we must not under any circumstances kill it. That would be wrong according to the book.’ Seemingly relevant consequences are not considered – such as how much suffering the intervention or non-intervention would cause.

At least the quasi-consequentialism that is breed by such unbalanced views of worth has caused some disturbing acts of ‘moralism’ – such as the murder of Dr Britton, who worked on an abortion clinic. The murderer, Paul Hill, proudly reported his crime to the police, and smiled as he was preparing for his martyrdom and heavenly reward. Now, most people would call Paul Hill and his equals for psychopaths. But Dawkins views them differently: “They are not psychotic; they are religious idealists who, by their own lights, are rational. They perceive their acts to be good (...) because they have been brought up, from the cradle, to have total and unquestioning faith.” (p. 304) Faith, then, is to blame.

Faith
Dawkins emphasize that faith is powerful. When for instance a suicide bomber decides to pull the trigger and blow himself up – then he actually believes that paradise awaits. When Reverend Jerry Falwell proclaims that AIDS is a punishment from God to a society that tolerates homosexuals, he says so because he actually believes it, or when Paul Hill kills doctors, he actually believe he is doing good. “They actually believe what they say they believe” (p. 304) is the simple explanation of dangerous fundamentalism, yet so difficult to grasp for non-believers.

The London bombings is a prime example. Media tries to explain the attack with bad political leadership and social issues within the communities in which these well educated terrorists circulated, but eloquently avoid discussing their religion. To Dawkins, it is absurd not to blame religion – there is no other reason why one would do what they did. No social benefit to be claimed in this life. A pregnant widow and discredit to their community is what inevitably would be the result, which the terrorists in question must have anticipated if they ever made such considerations. What good is that? “Only religious faith is a strong enough force to motivate such utter madness in otherwise sane and decent people,” (p. 303) Dawkins subsequently declares.

Conclusion
Dawkins does not argue that all morals set forth by religions are bad. He neither explicitly claims that anyone who is seriously religious will turn out like the bad cases of fundamentalism that he describes. In fact, unquestioning faith does not seemingly have any damaging consequences if the moral one happens to believe is correct and good. But bad things quickly start to happen when what one has unquestionable faith in is wicked – it is straight out a problem when belief in some screwed up moral becomes a virtue of faith.

The core problem with religion, then, is not its moral doctrines per se (though they can sometimes be frightening enough) but the notion that these moral doctrines are unquestionable. The problem is religious faith. That is what makes the people dangerous. If religion then harms the human process of developing sane ethics, well, Dawkins concludes it should be fought.


Read more:
RichardDawkins.net: The God Delusion

Book of Eli and The Road

I hesitated slightly when some friends invited me to watch this movie called "Book of Eli" in the theater. But when I saw this poster, I understood I was at the right place:


As those of you who read my previous blog post would know, this is almost exactly what my Interp class is about. But even more striking to me as I watched the move, was the similarity to a book I just read: "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.

So, was the movie any good?

Well, Book of Eli was at least very interesting. It was well produced, and the story was both solid and had a nice twist to it. The plot itself was that, after the apocalypse, man blamed what had happened on religion, and burned all religious literature they could find. There is only one copy of the Bible left, as far as we know, and this copy is in the possession of our hero Eli. Eli has this calling to go west, but few people can be trusted on his journey; especially not the character Carnegie, who also is one of the few who survived the apocalypse (which was 30 years ago). Carnegie is seeking for the Bible, because he is convinced that it will give him power (whatever he has in mind by that).

It is a very dark movie. It does not have much faith in humanity, and the few moments that made you smile were humorous, not bright or beautiful. Now, I like tragedies; but the sadness of this movie is more of a resigned form, so it does not make you emotional, nor does it upset you. Oh, and it is still American enough to have a happy ending.

The Road is similar in that both stories take place is this unexplained post-apocalyptic world were most people are evil and survive by exploiting traces of the old world. Also, both heroes have this urge to reach the sea, and they mostly travel by foot through a devastated North American continent. So, apart from the differences in story-line, they are in my opinion identical. This despite that religious references are far more subtile in The Road, and there being far more explosions in Book of Eli.

So then, what am I left with after being subject to these two stories? Truth is, I dunno, and it bothers me.


More:
IMDB: Book of Eli
Watch trailer: Book of Eli
NY Times: The Road (the book)
Watch trailer: The Road (the movie)

Religion and Power

Today I had my fist day of classes in the new semester, and I got my first assignments. In one of my classes, Interpretation and Argument, we focus on the topic “religion and power.” And the first assignment in this class was to reflect on that topic. What does religion mean to me? What does religion have to do with power? So, I figured I might as well use the opportunity to write a blog post.

But before I give my thoughts on that, let me tell you about the class and about me. We are twenty-something students in the class, and we have very different religions and beliefs. There were some Christians, a few Hindus, one Muslim, some atheists, a half-Jew and a bunch of agnostics. Fewer than I expected seemed to have strong feelings about the topic, but I am at least one of them. I write from the perspective of a sincere follower of Jesus Christ who has experienced various Christian fellowships, including a fellowship following the Lutheran tradition, a Pentecostal church, a military church, non-denominational contemporary churches and a Presbyterian church. I have even participated in a few Roman Catholic masses during the international military pilgrimage to Lourdes. This was one of our priests:


Many of those churches I listed are afraid of the word religion. Religion is a word that has so much shit on it that Christians do not want to use it about themselves. Greg Boyd, pastor in the non-denominational Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, wrote the book “Repenting of Religion,” whose title pretty much capture the notion that Christianity and religion are two different things. This does of course not make much sense to an outsider, and it neither does to me. Is not a religion simply a set of beliefs one is holding? And do not Christians hold a certain set of beliefs? So, then, why are Christians so afraid of religion?

One plausible answer is that Christians accept the premise that religion is a significant reason why there is, has been and will be war and conflict. Yet, they do not in any way see how their own faith and life could have such implications, and thus they conclude the two must be different things. Subsequently, they redefine religion not to be the holding of certain beliefs, but to rather to be about confining blindly to the more or less political institutions that sometimes surround these beliefs.

We are left, then, with two questions – does a certain set of beliefs, let us call it a religion, always or in some cases affiliate with power? Power, that is political power, is power granted through means of violence, such as police and military. And if beliefs themselves do not imply use of political power, does the institutions that surround such beliefs, like churches and denominations (let’s call that for religion too), still make this affiliation inevitable?

My intuition is, not necessarily. However, it is always a possibility that someone with intentions of political power can use such institutions for their purposes if they are given prominent positions in the fellowship. These intentions of power can appear to be good in the eyes of churchgoers, such as an intention to pass laws against abortion and gay marriage. However, the intention of law-passing itself may not be a part of the original beliefs. In those cases, it clearly must be the institutions that cause the affiliation to power. That form of religious practice is what Greg Boyd and others are repulsed by so much that they want to escape the term completely.

But, if the church is careful not to let such intentions of power render in their fellowship, then they are still holding a certain set of beliefs, yes of course, but they are not affiliating with political power. In fact, they may even do the opposite, searching to serve people rather than to control them. Or, and this may sound like a way too stereochristian cliché, but it is kind of beautiful: Lifting people up rather than pushing them down.

If that is still religion, then I cannot think religion and power are always affiliated.


More:
Amazon: Repenting of Religion by Greg Boyd
Woodland Hills Church: The Bridge (online community)
My instructor Kari Lundgren's site: Religious Rhetorics