Saturday, July 21, 2012

From Oxymoron to Failed Experiment: the "Moderate Religion" Saga

General_Convention
By Hos
"I am a scientist, an atheist, a feminist, a liberal, and a lesbian. I am also married (pre-PropH8) to another woman who is a devout episcopalian, active in her church and guess what? We do together just fine. In fact I enjoy going to church with her, for cultural reasons".
This was (an excerpt from) a comment in response to the harsh and in my opinion, misguided attack against PZ Myers a few months ago. Bottom line: PZ is wrong, some religion is good.
Or is it? While many Lutherans, Episcopalians and the like do not share the homophobia and animosity against science that fill the fundamentalists, they do open the door to the latter, by claiming that "faith", that is, belief without evidence, is positive attribute. That is precisely the excuse the fundamentalists use to shield their dogma from critical scrutiny. 
Obviously, the commentator above didn't see it like that. But she also didn't seem to know, or care, that the Episcopal church is dying, either.
If moderate religion is so attractive, as she suggests, why is it constantly shrinking? 



Intellectually, moderate religion makes even less sense than radical religion. Jesus died for the original sin, but that was just a metaphor? The Koran is the literal word of Allah but you can ignore any of it you don't like?
Still, I don't think intellectual cowardice and lack of consistency is why people leave moderate churches. Human beings are good at explaining such shortcomings away to themselves. As far as I know there is no sociological study looking at this phenomenon in depth. In the meantime we are free to speculate.
One possibility is that the commentator doesn't understand the very nature of religion. Most people, unlike her, do not go to church for social/cultural reasons but out of fear about afterlife (why would the faithful be called "god fearing" otherwise?) and for being able to get away with showing their hateful side. Barring that, there is little reason to go to church. All the other social/cultural needs can be met in other settings.
Here is an example. Fred Jackson, director of the homophobic American Family Association, lays the blame for the recent Colorado shooting (among others) at the doorstep of-ready for this? Liberal churches. Was the violence inspired by a Lutheran equivalent of Anwar Al Awlaki? Nope. Jackson gives us this gem, to justify his hate:
"...churches who are leaving the authority of the scripture and losing their fear if God...are coming together to give us these kinds of incidents".
He has a point, not concerning any link between the Colorado tragedy and liberal religion, but about fear and submission to authority being the fault line between fundamentalist and liberal religion. And the fact that liberals are losing may be telling, about the very nature of religion itself: as an institution, it is rooted in guilt, hate and fear.
As for the future, here is what we can expect: religion, in general, getting even more aggressive and radical than it has been so far; at the same time, a rise in the number of religiously unaffiliated people who resent public policy being based on religious doctrine.
Polarization, bad as it is, will only get worse.

14 comments:

Don Wharton said...

Hos, I see a couple of problems with this post. One is that I don't think that Sarah is saying that "some religion is good." I think her position is more that some criticism of religion is not effective.

A second problem is that I have known and talked with people who go to church and are basically secular in their world view. They know that there is no afterlife. They might love the music and the sense of community. In fact polls asking people who go to church if they believe in God do report that for a proportion of the people the answer is no they do not believe in God.

Don Wharton said...

I reread Sarah's post and I can see why you might think she is saying that "some religion is good." That is because, I think, she is saying that some religious people share our values. This is a valid position and we can very much advance the social good by working with reigious people who share goals with us. Preservation of a separation of religion from government is an obvious example. Edd Doerr has been fabulous in this particular area.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Don Wharton's second paragraph of his first comment. Most, perhaps all, the Christians I know (spanning a variety of denominations, upbringings and geographical locations) go for what I would consider cultural/community reasons or reasons of habit rather than a sound belief in a god or afterlife.

Carl said...

I would have to disagree if for example you go to a church for a cultural reason and you say you do not believe it and are there for social reasons lets say at every sermon you hear infidels are bad and homosexuals, feminists are evil or any other bronze age myth that betrays reason and science I would think you would actually start actually believing in some or all parts of it. The reason is do to the human brain is like a sponge and absorbs memes and takes them as facts instead of fiction. So moderate religion is not moderate but the same old fiction made up over 2000 years ago that modern people go and worship with higher IQ's and know science and reason but still hold on to the same old bronze age myth. Hence the reason we still have people against reproductive rights and marriage equality which is all do to the so called moderate religion.

Anonymous said...

Especially in the Episcopalian church, and I would venture in other non-fundamentalist churches, I'd guess that the sermons aren't preaching hatred. From the church services I have been to (including about a half year's worth of born-again non-denominational Christians), and the ministers I have known, the sermons with which I am familiar are about more universal and more benign themes - hope in times of grief, generosity, inward contemplation, etc. I also think people can choose to go to a church service for the singing and community and praying, for example, and not take in or agree with the sermon. I also know it is possible to go to church services and disagree with central themes of Christianity.

Hos said...

It is possible to go to church and not believe in the doctrine. On the other hand, it is not possible to do this and avoid becoming a pawn in the game of numbers. When the Religious Right demand policies bases on doctrine bases on the claim that 90% of the nation are christian, they are in fact counting the congregations of all liberal churches, regardless of what they actually believe. Further, when the liberal churches praise "faith" they are giving the fundamentalist all the excuse they need to preach hate, because their hate is itself based on faith. Liberal churches keep losing ground, and I for one won't miss them.

Hos said...

It is possible to go to church and not believe in the doctrine. On the other hand, it is not possible to do this and avoid becoming a pawn in the game of numbers. When the Religious Right demand policies bases on doctrine bases on the claim that 90% of the nation are christian, they are in fact counting the congregations of all liberal churches, regardless of what they actually believe. Further, when the liberal churches praise "faith" they are giving the fundamentalist all the excuse they need to preach hate, because their hate is itself based on faith. Liberal churches keep losing ground, and I for one won't miss them.

Don Wharton said...

@Anon This is an astonishing comment, "Most, perhaps all, the Christians I know (spanning a variety of denominations, upbringings and geographical locations) go for what I would consider cultural/community reasons or reasons of habit rather than a sound belief in a god or afterlife."

I knew that there were a significant number of upscale churches around univeristies, for example, that had deep respect for science and little or no bronze age nonsense. However, my friends from local upscale churches are unlikely to make it clear in church that they don't have traditional faith. They tend to make their lack of faith clear in only in very private discussion. I do know that it often happens that church goers will be comfortable in finding humor in the craziness of some fundamentalists.

Don Wharton said...

Carl, as noted (below by Anon) upscale churches just avoid the bronze age nonsense. They are laid back about the "infidels" and tend to be supportive of both homosexuals and feminists. They may include some archaic forms in the liturgy but they can have a very metaphorical understanding of what that means.

Don Wharton said...

Hos, this was an excellent post for generating discussion. While I am certain that many churches do a good job of avoiding the hate I do wish they did a better job of pushing back against the fundamentalists.

Anonymous said...

I myself was raised Jewish and am now completely secular. I am also a scientist and many of my colleagues bring their kids to church not for indoctrination or very religious reasons, but for cultural reasons so their kids have a "safe nurturing" environment and a sense of community. Some others who go to church regularly made a project of comparing church architecture, how heavy handed the sermon was, etc among a different church each week. Maybe all the Christians I know are outliers. :)

Anonymous said...

As a secularist and atheist, I'd like to see the liberal churches stick around. I'm not sure what we (the secular community) would gain by their disappearance (other than that fundamentalists couldn't count them in their stats). I would guess that many liberal Christians are for the separation of church and state. And as DW mentions, yes, liberal Christians can and do have bones to pick with the fundamentalists - that to me seems like a pretty good influence that we, as atheists/secularists/etc would want to keep around.

Don Wharton said...

The liberal churches cannot go away because they are a natural migration from more fundamentalist belief. There will always be some people who come to understand the madness of older versions of religions but still want some components of religious life.

Anon, you clearly have a sophisticated view of an aspect of religious life. If you become inspired to blog we would be glad to host your essays or add you to our blogging team.

Anonymous said...

@DW, Thank you! I'll keep in mind the invitation to blog, but for now, I would like to become more familiar with what's going on here and what sort of things people are speaking about (I just started following it recently).